Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

What are your parenting hot takes?

156 replies

LimeAnt · 16/12/2024 15:24

No arguments, please, just genuine interest.

Mine? You are not, and you shouldn't want to be, your child's best friend.

OP posts:
Sofasogreat · 17/12/2024 14:26

AshCrapp · 16/12/2024 22:12

Children shouldn't have any screen time before the age of 2, and no handheld device screen time until the age of 5. They shouldn't own their own device (phone, tablet, iPad) until they're 14.

I'd go even further than this. No handheld device until 8 or 9 (if that, why is it good for them?), brick phone for secondary if totally necessary (long/unreliable commute), smartphone at 14 at the very youngest.

There's so much research that screen time is bad for us as adults, and absolutely terrible for children. Talk to any teacher and see how concentration has completely and utterly evaporated as a reliable presence, for every single lesson and every teacher. Emotional regulation, confidence and resilience, communication skills, self-entertainment and creativity, all of them have decreased massively and measurably since tablets and smartphones became the norm for developing young plastic brains. The more we drill into them that they are in TERRIBLE DANGER by talking to people and going to places IRL, and we need to watch over them and GPS-tag them at every possible moment, the more they'll be afraid and feel they need someone to watch them, supervise them, and tell them what to do. How can they develop independence and confidence when every action from their parents gives the opposite lesson?

Ours don't have smartphones and have busy, active, outdoor social lives and hobbies, organised face to face (younger ones) or over email on the house computer (the older ones, where time is limited and they don't just doomscroll or lose hours to SM sites).

In twenty years time, I'd be amazed if we're not scandalised at how common it was for adults to give children these devices. The greatest thing you can do as a parent now is to be the responsible adult and say no.

Mumdadbingo · 17/12/2024 14:27

Orangeandgold · 17/12/2024 13:42

Sounds basic but children are humans. Too many people treat children like they are nobodies.

Children are the young version of their adult selves.

I parent from the lense of thinking about who or what I needed at that age. Sometimes it’s a stern telling off and a life lesson, other times it’s a hug and empathy.

Parents are human too. Too many people assume you don’t have a life because you are a parent.

Your children are always watching - and taking note…

100% this - children are humans and deserve the same respect and dignity that we would treat everyone else.

Having recently had to dually care for an elderly relative and and a 4 year old with quite similar level of needs, we would be up in arms if society treated the extreme elderly or adults with severe extra needs the same way we treat young children.

Newsenmum · 17/12/2024 14:43

Cattenberg · 17/12/2024 10:07

I don’t understand why we haven’t learned from Scandinavia and extended the EYFS until the age of seven or eight. Our children would be happier and more active, and in the long-term their academic results would be better. What’s not to like?

A few comments have already said it - parents need to work. Better childcare would help.

Ivymedication · 17/12/2024 16:57

Cattenberg · 17/12/2024 10:07

I don’t understand why we haven’t learned from Scandinavia and extended the EYFS until the age of seven or eight. Our children would be happier and more active, and in the long-term their academic results would be better. What’s not to like?

Can you imagine the threads on here if people were having to pay 3 or 4 sets of nursery fees at a time before the eldest started school at 7?

I think that will never happen.

Mine is never involve yourself in children's arguments. Sally might hit Suzie, but tomorrow Suzie will slap Sally and your going to look a fool for having demanded an apology from Sally's Mum. (This is early years and primary school)

If they are still acting like that in senior school you'd need to be taking Suzie in hand and helping her work out some issues.

Gowlett · 17/12/2024 17:00

Take no notice of these opinions.
Just do it the way you feel best…

Cattenberg · 17/12/2024 22:30

Ivymedication · 17/12/2024 16:57

Can you imagine the threads on here if people were having to pay 3 or 4 sets of nursery fees at a time before the eldest started school at 7?

I think that will never happen.

Mine is never involve yourself in children's arguments. Sally might hit Suzie, but tomorrow Suzie will slap Sally and your going to look a fool for having demanded an apology from Sally's Mum. (This is early years and primary school)

If they are still acting like that in senior school you'd need to be taking Suzie in hand and helping her work out some issues.

How about a system where the children still start school aged 4, but the emphasis would be on learning through play for the first 2-3 years, instead of for just one year? It feels counterintuitive that this approach would improve academic outcomes, but apparently it does.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page