I've just seen the most depressing thing

[Havesomecommonsense]

In a coffee shop, in comes a Dad and his daughter (roughly 3 years old)
He made a comment to the daughter about this being a weekly visit before he dropped her back to the mum
He then sat her on his lap, gave her a phone and she watched instagram videos and he watched his own phone holding it over her head..
He gave her some food, which she kept choking on intermittently. He barely said 2 words to her
Yes I'm judging, but fgs do better

My son has had screens since he was about 18 months. Maybe an hour a day then, working up to more like two or even three hours now he's eight. He's also a prolific reader (reading age 12), and very confident socially with peers and adults. Sceeens are not necessarily a terrible thing if a kid is getting plenty of high quality parental interaction most of the time. Those hours when he was quietly watching Bluey or Peppa saved my sanity, which is a vital thing when you're gathering your energy to deal with small children.

That’s not controlling at all!

Yep. 100%.

I used to get really bored as a child (1970s) and I would actually sob sometimes but my parents didn’t pander to it. Eventually I would have to find something - drawing, painting, writing, skipping, biking, playing kerby, going to the park, reading, making out shapes in clouds etc. absolutely anything to while away the time. I was fine. I was learning and exploring the world and learning to be self reliant and resilient.

This parental panic that children shouldn’t ever get bored is totally wrong. No wonder they’re all anxious and depressed by the time they’re teenagers.

And not all parents are as shit as the ones on here defending this utterly awful parenting.

I was massively impressed with a little boy aged about 8 a few months back. His mum called round to see me about something and he sat on my sofa and just sat ..quietly, not distracted, fidgeting, bugging his mum, on a device, just sat, for about twenty minutes. Didn't interrupt or whinge. The family are pretty "strict" by modern standards. Good on them.

For all those going on about a snapshot are you really honestly suggesting that EVERY time this comes up on MN it's a one off, rare event after a day of delightful and worthy activity and / or involving SEN? what if we did an AIBU with a hypothetical, general principle that it is not good to habitually be on your phone / ignoring your kids / using devices as pacifiers? Why do I feel like even then it would simply fill up with whataboutery? Anyone who thinks the snapshot argument somehow defeats the general point that this DOES happen, far too frequently is being disingenuous.

I think you have just described how kids are/should be bored. There's an odd expectation now that adults do everything around their kids. Drop everything to constantly entertain and educate your child. I always say to my kid that boredom means a big idea is coming. And lo and behold, next time I see them they are making a leaf diary by collecting all the different leaves from the garden. Not even toys needed - just an idea. But sometimes we also need downtime and watching a cartoon in a coffee shop is totally fine. Kids in the 80s watched cartoons for hours. It's just the location that's changed.

I do find this focus on being on screens ‘in public’ so interesting and slightly off the mark in my opinion. I used to take my daughter to a music class, then the playground, then the library and fully be engaging with her the whole time. Then on the bus home when she was getting fussy I’d put blippi on my phone sometimes to keep the peace- and also because I was frankly done with the constant chatter by that point!

The idea that it would somehow be better to just stay at home with the tv on for 3-4 hours just because no one else would see us is a bit strange! I don’t personally have an issue with people occasionally using screens for any reason - their own low mental health day, changes or delays to routines/plans etc. Why begrudge anyone making their life slightly easier? I agree that you really can’t tell enough about the wider context from such a tiny snapshot of someone’s parenting.

OP this isn’t all directed at your original comment, just more of a general musing on the subject! ❤️

You've just went on to describe how a bored child works out how to entertain themself...but you don't understand it?

I’m not
defending screens in excess, calm down!

im saying you’ve no right to remove something, offer advice and help, yes.

But what is really shit parenting is being controlling and dictating to your adult children and removing their parenting choices.

Not once in my childhood have I ever spent a day "sorting clothes" and I hate art and craft 😂.

Watching a film at home? and that requires staying home doing nothing the entire day because? You can't watch a movie after a day out, can you?

Life isn't just fun. Life is boring. Kids need to learn this.
Your life maybe, mine wasn't as a child, and it's not now. Why should I punish my children by giving them a different childhood than mine exactly?

I don't seem to have done too badly so far.

No wonder children do not have good attention spans these days if this is how parents 'parent' Maybe you are very old and totally out of the look with that comment, but we're doing fine. Our kids survive lockdown, which is not something you ever experienced in your own childhood.

It sounds like you had a very bitter and boring life and you resent people who don't. Odd, most parents want to give their kids a BETTER life than their own.

Any PPs making excuses for this dad are part of the problem. Lazy parenting - sorry not sorry.
Making massive issues for their DC in the future, but will never accept responsibility, it’ll always be someone else’s fault and they’ll always expect someone else to try and fix it.

I’ve not used a screen in public before but I do agree with this! I don’t think it applies in the case of this dad but I know someone who never goes ANYWHERE with their child and has the TV on in the background all day (and I mean all day) but is horrifically judgy about children having screens in prams. Surely a day filled with interaction and experience followed by 15 mins of screens on the bus home is better than zero interaction at home?

Eurgh

Obviously not literally 🙄
Then again, I was blessed with having a lovely mum who would have never dreamt of undermining any parenting decision I made. She might have offered advice but she wouldn’t go ‘above’ me and take a phone from my child, like the poster that I was reacting to said she would.
For what it’s worth, I can’t stand seeing young children with a screen shoved in front of them. Screens weren’t a thing when my children were little and so not an issue but I can’t fathom why people can’t talk to their children, or take some paper and colouring pencils to a restaurant.
So I agree with you that it’s sad to see.

Stop telling women to 'calm down' when they don't agree with you.

I don't have adult children but if an older relative offered me advice I would at least hear them out. If I didn't agree with them I wouldn't be calling them controlling ffs and I certainly wouldn't be telling them to fuck off as a pp stated upthread, I'd just tell them I don't agree with them. Some people are just so defensive, it must cause real problems in life.

But in private is fine?

I don't think it's normal or wise to have an 8 yo sitting still doing absolutely NOTHING for 20mn, lazy parenting at best if the poor kid is so used to.

I don't spend 20mn on a sofa doing absolutely nothing! What's the point of that?

Normal parents would at least give the poor kid a book. You can have very well mannered children, polite and well behaved, expecting them to sit perfectly still, not move a muscle for 20mn is very very weird.

Come back again when he's 12/13 and stops reading. It's an epidemic. I teach this age group, boys especially.

Completely agree lovely! It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. My child and I loved big, busy days out that relied on public transport and they’d sometimes need downtime during them. They got so much out of the play dates and classes but they were made so much more manageable for me by ten min phone breaks now and again. I think it’s because it’s only recently that screens and media have become portable so people are a bit suspicious of it!

It wasn’t offering advice, the PP dictated she would remove it!

FFS, can you not comprehend the difference!

Ive said repeatedly, offering advice is one thing, dictating and controlling is another.

Sone people just have no comprehension ability.

If an adult remove something from my hand or my children's hand against my own parenting, I would have words with them.

It's not advice, it's controlling. "I don't think you should.." is different, you just say "ok" and ignore.

Exactly! Hopefully @redjeans28 may learn the difference between advice and control!

And stop accusing people of being “defensive”!

I was never ever "bored" as a child, I had a book with me at all times and if there was any lull, however short, in things going on I would read/do puzzles etc. I had and still do have a horror of doing nothing. As a child I could never stand it for a moment (and I was useless and completely uninterested in things like "art and crafts"). How is that different to wanting to get out your phone and read or watch something? If being "bored" as a child was important then I must be missing something vital I suppose.

I also have boys a bit older, typical "boys" in that group of friends if you want (they're not that interested by school or anything, more addicted to video game, phones and sport...)

and they STILL exchange book ideas and read A LOT. They do a lot of other things to, it's not true teenagers don't read. They read the same things I did at that age, not really classic, more Stephen King and other horror, but who cares? We survived, they will too.

I love it when one of mine often say: can you buy xyz, my friend said it was a good book.