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

Yep this. ^ How rude and smug some people are. Who gives a shit if someone is handing a screen to a small child whilst they have some time to themselves?!

Many years ago, (pre 1980s) many parents had 'a village,' and sisters, cousins, mother, mother-in-law, uncles, grandparents etc, within striking distance to help look after the children, and many more women were stay-at-home mums...

Now many communities are fractured, or tiny, or just non existent, as many women now have to work. And very few people live close to family - indeed many are miles away, and getting childcare from family is untenable because of the distance.

Many parents - mums especially - rarely get a break. So sometimes, popping a screen in front of your DC, or letting them watch TV for an hour or two, is a way to keep them occupied whilst you have a break.

How fucking judgy and smug some people are, clutching their pearls, and gasping in shock, at other people letting their child have a 'screen' to keep them occupied.

FFS, give your head a wobble!

I can't even imagine my adult DC giving their small child an ipad to watch something, and me snatching it off their child. Who the fuck does that?! 😂 I don't know who some people think they are.

'FGS do better!' and 'the most depressing thing to see!' ??? Get over yourself @Havesomecommonsense !!! Who on earth do you think you are?!

!

Probably because the men spend so much less time with the children! It's much easier to be engaged and chatting on one outing a week instead of every day. So often women desperately need a break from the monotony.

the amount of mothers that drag children into coffee shops cafes etc and hand them a tablet n ignore them is shocking also

’Oracy’ (😳) even needing to be a school subject confirms me in my belief that it’s far too late for me ever to catch up and think along 21st century lines.

You don't know if any particular man spends less time with the children than the mother of them does! Daft, presumptuous comment! FFS! 🙄

It’s utterly pathetic to be honest. You can sit and converse with your child for 30 minutes. Model good behaviour, show them how to behave. No wonder we are seeing increasingly poor concentration, conversational skills and behaviour in general.

But I thought in the good olden days kids were just meant to be silent and not interrupt adults?

So is it ok to give them cartoons at home? We don't have tv, so all our screen time is on iPad or laptops etc. Is that OK? Is cinema ok? That's just a big screen but it does include an outing to get there. Our local pub has a kids screening (i haven't been but persumably so that adults can talk longer and kids don't run amok). Not sure if that's ok. My dc also enjoys playing NYT spelling bee on my phone but that's educational i guess (or maybe performative?) Or is it just exclusively portable screens in cafes or supermarkets?

As far as I see, it's not ideal in cafes but as long as the screen time is limited to a reasonable daily amount, the method or location of delivery doesn't matter.

You’d make an excellent police witness. You missed nothing!
(How did you avoid spilling your coffee all down your front, as you stared fixedly at this other table?)

It does matter though. Children need to learn to be bored, to entertain themselves. They need to learn how to sit, listen and talk to others or take in their surroundings. We are teaching children that they can’t simply be without having a screen in front of them.

As you say, limited screen time is fine. Your statement that the location doesn’t matter, I disagree. It very much matters.

I expect she probably means out and about as her post said out

It isn't parenting. It's absenting.

We are all fucked TBH, raising generations that have no concentration and shit personal and neurological development. Hope there's enough of us left to pay tax for everyone else.

But I thought in the good olden days kids were just meant to be silent and not interrupt adults?

Who said kids were meant to be silent? I was born in the 70's and was never brought up to be silent. We were taught not to be rude, not silent. I also taught my kids not to interrupt adults 10 years ago when they were young. My younger family members are also teaching their children now not to interrupt adults. I thought it was the norm, it used to be anyway.

I forgot to ask the relevant question: how old are YOUR children OP?

This appears to have turned into a screen time debate.
My general rule is my dc can watch tele how I’d watch tele. Which is at home in order to chill for a bit after a busy day of activities / work / nursery.
It wouldn’t enter my head go give my dc a screen in her pram or at a coffee shop as I personally wouldn’t watch a screen in either of those situations and I’d like my dc to follow suit growing up. I don’t understand why the people who are saying screens in public places like a coffee shop aren’t ideal are getting such a blasting.
Yes my dc watches tele while I make dinner as it makes my life far easier, but that’s at home and to me feels a normal place to watch it especially if we’ve been busy in the day.

@Havesomecommonsense if that is genuinely "the most depressing thing" you've seen, then I think you need to reassess your priorities. However, I do agree that it is sad when I see families zoned out on screens, though I do think it a shame that you seem to be emphasising the fact that in this case it is a dad with his DC. I see a lot more mums doing this.

My DS (11) doesn't have a phone yet and is two years away from getting one, and I confess that exciting conversation can be difficult after the first hour, but we manage and he comes up with some fiendishly inventive "I spy" challenges. 😂

The pp earlier who had a mum and an 8-yo old visit them and the child was silently sitting through the visit. Pp said:
it's rude for kids to interrupt adults... a silent child seemed to be the gold standard, e.i. let the adults talk. It sounded lathe child wasn't welcomed to the conversation as the adults had "serious" matters to discuss

Edited as sent too fast

Nothing to do with you.

That's sad and inexcusable frankly. I saw a similar thing a few years ago at a restaurant with a guy on the table next to us on his phone, never uttered a single word to his young companion who was about 5.

Do you know for sure this children wasn't ND? Because my DC would look at images/videos on my phone at that age in that sort of situation, they were hardly going to sit and converse with me as they didn't have first (sporadic) words till almost three and are only approaching fluent speech in the last year at age 11-12. A lot of ND kids with limited verbal ability can appear NT to someone just sitting and observing for a few minutes from across a room.
Or maybe they had just had a really busy morning!

Hear me out, I have a theory that the ultra smug "clutching pearls at a whiff of screentime" parents are the most performative ones who do things solely based on how they are perceived by others. Similar to how narcissists are only motivated by how they appear to the outside world and they will go to extreme lengths to appear perfect or more superior to others.

These parents love the fact they can sit on their high horse and judge other people because they are doing things "right" by all objective parenting standards, however they end up producing the most miserable, rebellious and angry children. These are children who felt oppressed and controlled during childhood despite always being told how much better their family is compared to others. They were never allowed to consume pop culture or things that were incredibly important for achieving a sense of belonging with their peer group. Smug parents are often also very religious, conservative or follow other beliefs that appeal to their sense of rigidness in right or wrong.

Parents who are more chilled with screentime are the permissive parents who allow their children to engage in fun but not necessarily "good" things once in a while. They tend to be more hedonistic and impulsive themselves, possibly ADHD coded and like chasing a quick dopamine rush. Children grow up with experiences that aren't 100% wholesome but they also feel loved, seen and know their parents are fine with the occasional "bad" behaviour. (Obviously, there's a line between casual parenting and total neglect).

I remember that thread. So many posters seemed to feel that the pram pusher was probably taking an emergency call about her dying grandmother or similar crap. Yeah right.

@User364431 I don't think anyone at all has clutched their pearls at a whiff of screen time have they? They've said its a shame if for an entire visit to a cafe a parent does not interact once with their child. I think its absolute shite that people who do do other things are dismissed as narcissistic performers doing it for effect instead of just enjoying their child and bollocks that their kids are uptight.

It would be really helpful to move the discussion away from the OP's exact scenario and the possibility of SEN in that particular case which we can't know and ask in more general terms, is it ok to HABITUALLY use screens as a way of occupying your child in lieu of interacting with them or giving them something that is more likely to stimulate learning, motor skills, discussion etc. We all know the screenshot argument but that always distracts from the overall point - we all know that there are plenty of parents who DO do this most of the time and we can see evidence of it in the behaviour of kids when they get to school age. Are we really so desperate to be "unjudgy" that we are actually letting down a generation of kids who would really benefit from having less screentime at an early age?

She didn't say he was silent though.

A few times in that period one of us would say something to him, he was offered a drink but the point t is he was capable of dealing with a very short period of unstimulated inactivity

No not sad just normally chatting on a forum designed to chat

I think I'm a person with an opinion and what I saw was far beyond acceptable