Screen free children

[screenfreemum]

Are there children who are screen-free? Ours mostly are (DD nearly 7 and DS 3) we don't have an ipad or a telly, which makes it a bit easier, I reckon. We do go to the cinema once every couple of months with 7 yo and she is allowed to watch films on my laptop on sick days, on a longhaul flight, and occasionally a programme if she's had a long day after school. She does get some screentime at school under the guise of education but that is also limited. 3 yo hasn't had any appreciable screentime, except for a glimpse here and there if his older sister is watching a film whilst ill. DH's sister lives abroad so we Facetime with her once a month. And of course if we're at a pub dinner or something they might see a football match on the telly, but otherwise don't have any screentime.

But it feels increasingly like we are outliers, I reckon everyone we know has much more screentime for their children. Friends sometimes talk about wanting to have less screen time for their children and I keep quiet as I don't want to seem precious about it.

Obviously this has been a conscious decision as I do worry about the impacts of screentime on DC (and later social media) but also I don't feel we've had to be too extreme to avoid it. Are there others who have kept their children (mostly) screen free? What happened as they grow older?

It’s not unreasonable, it’s probably good for them. But you are extremely unusual. I work with around 150 primary aged children and personally don’t know any who don’t have a TV at home or an alternative screens.
The evidence is that moderate screen time only causes issues if the content is very poor or it prevents other positives like playing outdoors, socialising or doing sports.

No we don’t restrict screens.

But we are fairly outdoorsy people so our Ds by default doenst actually have that much time to watch tv anyway. On rainy days in the holidays or when unwell I have no problem with his watching as much as he likes. As he then might not watch any the next 5 days. He mainly watches films now at 5, but will often start one and finish another day if in evening and getting late.

As I child we had the tv 24/7 pretty much. It was always on in the background or a video on. This was before we even had internet at home or on demand shows.
As an adult I very rarely watch any tv. Ds didn’t watch tv until he was about 2.5 years as I guess I never have it on daytime so didn’t think to, and then it broke and we didn’t have one for about a year.

Using a computer and being tech savvy is very important for their generation. At 5 he doesn’t use much yet but he knows how to use a laptop, how to search, how to use a word document and print something, etc.. as this will all be needed soon at school. By 7 years they use laptops and iPads here at school for work and various homework’s.

Sounds great, op.

it will get both harder and more complex when they reach secondary school and screens become the main way of organising a social life. Not saying that at that point you just give up but you might want to think about how to handle it, perhaps gradually allowing more.

Im convinced that later generations will look back in horror at how slack we were allowing small children to use phones and iPads so much.

As a secondary teacher, I do not agree with some of these comments regarding tech and school. The children who are clearly screen addicts are the most difficult to teach and find it the most difficult to cope at school. They struggle to maintain focus for long periods of time. They struggle to read and comprehend long passages as they are used to the instant gratification. I’ve also taught many pupils who have told me they’re ’screen free’ and tbh I probably could’ve picked them out on my own. Read a lot more books, calmer, could manage the demands of sitting and learning for an hour. I think there is a middle ground but it’s extremely difficult to get right so screen free it’s best in my opinion.

Some of the smartest minds of this generation are designing these apps to be as addictive as possible. Study after study has shown how negatively screen time affects the growing brain. I think it’s naive to say that children can be trusted to manage their own screen time especially on apps like Tik tok. Many adults are addicted how do we expect children to manage it?

Also, lots of edtech apps and programs aren’t supported by great evidence and much of the research is commissioned by the companies themselves so can be biased. I know of schools pulling these to return to more ‘traditional’ methods.

DSD10 is mostly screen free at our house (50:50) but she has a phone and an Xbox at her Mums and a fair bit of TV time. We do a family movie night occasionally and she enjoys being here because, in her words, “no one sits on their phone all the time.”

We are doing IVF at the moment and the plan should we conceive is screen free until 3 (let the brain development that’s crucial in the first thousand days happen) then TV only throughout primary.

This! I have heavily addicted friends in their thirties and forties and we are expecting children’s brains to manage it? I genuinely believe that heavy screen time and children on smart phones and social media will be looked at by future generations the way teens smoking is looking at by us.

I’m a primary teacher and you can spot the screen heavy children from day 1 of P1 and it goes downhill from there.

We have a TV but never really watch it - I did put some tennis on the other day while DD was napping. DP and I just don’t watch any TV really - I wouldn’t know what’s on 😂 We have an ancient iPad in a drawer somewhere which I never really got the use for.

Your approach sounds great OP. I’m a bit taken aback how much screen time is required by schools as PPs are saying - DD is a long way off school age yet but I don’t love the sound of that. Done no research on it, just feels a bit weird to me (a person who grew up with photocopied homework sheets 😂).

Not every school is the same - the primary I teach in has 4 iPads per class, it’s probably a total of about 10-15 mins a day.

To add, I’ve seen some horrendous cases of bullying and insane explicit content that staff have found on students devices. We’ve had the police in many times due to nude photos being sent from pupil to pupil. We’ve uncovered WhatsApp groups with pretty much whole year groups as members where they’ve bullied and harassed, threatened and ganged up on one or two other students. I don’t think some people realise the dangers phones pose. They’re physically safe but they’re opened up to so much more. This isn’t just my school either it’s in all schools. And I work in an ofsted “outstanding” school in an affluent area.

My kids are (mostly) screen free. I say mostly because we do have some started off unintentionally and just stuck. They’re older than yours but so far it’s worked great.

We don’t have a telly as we took it out mid renovation and I noticed how much better the kids were, less bickering and general attitude, so it’s never gone back.
I don’t regret this in the slightest and the kids aren’t fussed about missing out on the love island gossip, I do get some random questions about programs but honestly it’s barely a thought.

We have a laptop between us and an iPad both used for school apps and the odd film rather than games. They get a lot of iPad time at school as they get older which would only really bother me if that’s what they were doing in the evening too.

We do have phones for secondary school for on the commute/bus being cancelled etc but at the school they get handed in when they get there and given back out after. Phones are used for homework too and after about an hour when it’s all done it gets put away to charge. I’ve never had to enforce this or anything it’s just automatic.

I’ve personally not had any negative experience from having limited screens (without any actual limits, I wonder if actual limits would make it more desirable) Our kids are all pretty sporty, sociable and fairly academic, they’ve all got a nice bunch of friends and mostly get on well. Obviously we all have off days but on the whole it’s working for us personally.

I don't think there is anything wrong with watching TV. My grandchildren have been allowed to watch since they were tiny and they have learned a lot from it. They know far more about the body, from watching Ouch and history from horrible histories than I do! They also use it to relax and the older ones play switch.
They also read a lot, socialise and are very active.
It's all about balance. And screens are not the same as smart phones which I agree young children shouldn't have.
Banning all screens seems overkill and I don't see the point given we live in a world full of screens.
When I was at school many, years ago some people didn't allow their children to watch TV. Those children were usually the ones who felt left out.and even now I have some friends who are in their 60s now and not allowed TV as a child. When we get together as a group we sometimes chat about our childhoods and TV programmes we watched there is a lot where they have no idea what we are talking about.

Read it again - OP said mostly screen free.

OP, I think it's great what you're trying to do, keep them away from them as long as you can, they will definitely become more rounded and sociable human beings.

Read the title of the thread again and don't you dare speak to me like that

Do they also know their parents phone numbers? Numbers are usually stored in phones these days. It's not just as it was and all we had to remember was a house phone.
I wouldn't know my families phone numbers if I lost my phone

I think this is commonly what happens. Keep something away and then they'll binge when they have the freedom😄
When I held a party at my home you could tell the screen-free apart from the others. They were glued to the screen I had on open-mouthed (it was just Disney music videos playing from YouTube on my TV). The rest were playing and dancing.
Mine isn't screen free. of course we also go out a lot, he gets a lot of social interaction, he goes to nursery some days, we spend a lot of time with family, he's well behaved (for the most part! It shows when he's around his peers), he's very talkative (sometimes too much😆), people always comment how clever he is and how much he knows about different things. He's 3.

We allow TV only at weekends and then it will be limited to one movie watched as a family then maybe an hour of cartoons at some other point. My 3 year old is obsessed with Peppa and begs for it but I think she probably gets to watch about an hour of Peppa a month in total. If she had her way, she'd jsut watch TV but I prefer her to play, bake, read, go to the park etc.

They went out/ go out and managed not to get lost. Like every previous generation of children until the last 15 years.

I am baffled that some people associate screen free kids with awkwardness and poor social skills. Really really baffles me.

my kids were the same @screenfreemum they are now 17 and 15.
got first ipod at 9 (thank you godfather!) then phone at 10 because walking home alone, now ipad needed for school. Since last year the eldest can keep her phone in her bedroom. She smashed her glass ceiling in the GCSE equivalent so we re good.

my youngest plugs her phone downstairs at 9 we will see next year. She followed the same as her sister wxcept she got her phone a yr later because of a big lie she told us.

we bought a TV when eldest was 9.

we have super sociable kids, very resilient and quite confident. Eldest is walking towards living the nest, still needs an anchor at port, but will be ready to go.

keep going OP. You re doing the right thing. Just make sure they dont fall behind what others are doing ie. They need to watched all new blockbusters that their friends will be talking about, you might want to introduce roblox to the 7 yrs old so she can play with her friends, programs that others are watching (my youngest was watching dr who) etc. At 7 they are quickly moving towards the pre teens yrs where it s all about the tribe not the parents.

My kids weren’t screen free but screen were only used purposefully and we didn’t do the mindless ‘let’s turn the tv on and see what’s on’. They also played video games but I was very strict about timings. My kids were really good at playing with each other and not needing screens for entertainment. The four of them are close in age which I think helped as they had someone to play with.
I wouldn’t have wanted to be screen free as I like watching the tv too much myself and I like doing things like Mumsnet. My kids are adults now and still play video games together. My sons are in their 30’s but have several gaming sessions a week with each other and my daughters join in from time to time. Also when they come home to visit we will all play some Nintendo classics together just as we have always done. It’s so much fun and such a big part of our family. I don’t see any negatives with it at all. We all love to play board games and three of my kids are big readers. I think you can do screens in a perfectly sensible way. It’s just about parenting your kids properly and parenting the kids you have. None of my kids were the super addictive type so some screens wasn’t ever an issue.

It’s lazy parenting that’s the issue not screens.

Oh and they have always been allowed unlimited screentime if they being productive so for instance we had a lot of imovies, procreates, garage band, tuning app for her violin, story telling, sfx productions with a green screen, powerpoint presentations, etc

for us, if you are using the tech productively there is no limit. If you are just thumb scrolling them no.

My DC (2.5 and 4.5) have about 20 mins on weekend days, none during the week and I feel like we're on the low end amongst our friends. The older one had none until he was about 3 aside from the odd educational/nature video, e.g. if he asked a question about bees or something. I have found that now he's older, his friends talk about programmes they watch and he wants to see them because he's curious, so I think there's a significant peer element that will grow in importance as they get older and I don't want them to be ostracised by friends for not knowing what they're talking about. He has one friend who has zero screen time and I do notice he's less able to get into the superhero role play etc because he doesn't understand the references. I've got to admit I also enjoy watching an episode of something with them - it's bonding time for us, I don't use it to keep them occupied while I do something else. We also don't have a TV so it's not the focal point of our living space and we're not modelling screens as the default activity (I leave my phone in the kitchen and only use it when necessary while they're around).

I hear the argument a lot that screen free kids won’t be able to get into character role play etc but the vast majority of super hero characters began as comic book or graphic novel characters and even things like Paw Patrol have book equivalents. If people read to their children they will still be able to relate to popular characters.

I think most parents try to limit screen time but there is a middle ground and I don't think some Tv does harm. My DC are in school and afterschool club from 8-5:30 and if they want to watch TV for an hour when they get home I'm fine with that because they're probably tired and need to recharge.

I don't see the benefit in zero screen time personally but we try to limit it so they're playing creatively and imaginatively as well.

We are the same as you OP. We have a near four year old and a six month old. No screens except for the odd fact finding mission/show and tell and to look at nursery photos/video calls to relatives. You aren't alone but you are right, there aren't many of us and we've never met another family doing it in real life. I honestly believe it has such a big impact on children. Have you read the book 'the big turn off'? Really good one, and goes into a personal account of navigating a totally screen free childhood.

I think it more comes to a head around age 10 up op, keep doing what you’re doing and hopefully you’ll have kids in the ‘take them or leave them’ camp that some of my children’s friends are (as opposed to my hooked kids!)