To think some children are just wired to need / want screen time

[Gagamama2]

All my children’s childhood we have limited screen time. They are generally not allowed any on school weekdays (my partner put this in place years ago and gets angry if I relent). They are allowed it on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and holiday mornings, although partner is always unhappy about this and would like to restrict furthur.

Kids are 10, 8 and 6.

It often causes a lot of grief / anger / upset for 10 and 6 who are both boys undergoing assessment for adhd. They often get upset after school that they aren’t allowed any, and when they are allowed they find it hard to come off. This means they regularly have much too much screen time at the weekend as the fall out of them having to come off the screens is big.

My daughter who is 8 is different. She will happily choose other things to do, even if it is a screen time “time”. What prompted my post is that she has spent this morning reading a graphic novel about dragons, and is now singing along at top volume to the greatest showman soundtrack on Alexa, all of her own accord while her brothers are on screens. She just isn’t that bothered. I was the same compared to my brother who spent most of his childhood playing on either our Amiga or his best friends Amiga 😂.

my brother is now a functional adult - much more functional than me, in fact. He has a very good job, although I do look at him sometimes and wonder if he is ND. My point is the screen time didn’t hold him back.

are we unreasonable limiting children’s screen times (as long as it’s not impacting on school work and friendships etc)? Maybe it’s not actually helpful for some children

Of course they aren't wired that way.

They may be craving what they aren't allowed. Its forbidden fruit. If they didn't exist they wouldn't crave them, but they do, they know they are there and know they aren't allowed them.

But screens are very addictive. But also allow some to self regulate...

There's no easy answer here. Welcome to Modern Parenting.

There is some learned behaviour in situations like this, but psychological differences in the brain absolutely contribute.

Some people’s brains are ‘wired’ to seek external stimulus for gratification and others to seek internal stimulus. The seeking behaviour is not learned, it’s physiological.

Always always is the argument ‘but screens didn’t always exist’ – no, but that doesn’t mean that other undesirable behaviours also didn’t exist – addiction, gambling, engaging in high-octane or risky behaviours, essentially anything that seems a heightened level of external stimulus to a problematic degree.

There are three things happening here in the brain chemistry: lower baseline dopamine activity leads to stronger drive to seek stimulation to ‘feel normal’. Higher dopamine reactivity rewards feel more intense and reinforcing. Slower dopamine clearance rewards linger longer, increasing habit formation.

This is partly genetics and partly developmental.

I studied this in psychology and psychiatry at university.

It’s not accurate to say that environment doesn’t matter or that it’s someone’s ’fate no matter what’, but it is accurate to say there is a spectrum of vulnerability.

So is your husband taking them to swimming/football etc? My DD (ADHD) needed swimming and trampolining. She could play out (90's). She found reading painful. My youngest would have been very miserable without screens. A aandheld DS was the thing. It still gives her downtime and she had online communities. It depends on how the child's additional needs affects them, but I don't agree that one rule fits all and I also believe in needs led parenting.

I limited my kids screentime when they were little and they are glad of it now they are older as it 'forced' them to develop.wider interests and develop a love of the outdoors. They all love hiking now, are all avid readers and while they all have a gaming console its just one of their things to do, not the main thing. I think none at all in the week is extreme though, especially for boys as i found this is a way they talk to their friends, through online gaming together. Mine had a 6 hour limit a week, was up to them when they used it but restricted to 1 hour max after school.

As others have said, with adhd its likely to be craving dopamine so be sure to include activities that give that - for mine a good compromise was lasertag which they all loved but also geocaching, climbing wall and using the local outdoor gym

No, I don't see how that can be true as it is only really emerged in the last 10/15 years. If your boys had never had screen time in the first place, they wouldn't be begging for it would they? Pre screens less energetic children would be reading, drawing etc. even watching TV is better than tablets imo.

Agree with PP that those with ADHD are dopamine seeking and screens is an easy way to get a dopamine hit.

I've brought up my 3 kids exactly the same with screen time and the one with suspected ADHD is hard to get off a screen but the other two will happily initiate other activities. DH who I suspect also has ADHD has the TV on from the moment he gets up until the moment he goes to bed and often his laptop with him as well.

Your subject title: unreasonable
Your question: not unreasonable

It’s a super hard balance I think the most important part is being aware of what they’re doing on the device. We have limits and restrictions and our son has accepted these and deals with it. But he didn’t have a phone until he was 10 and before then no handheld device just his PC we game together on.

No child needs screen time, nature is not aware that ipads and tvs have been invented.

Pretty sure both my DC have adhd, only one diagnosed. DC1 loves skateboarding, parkour and risky sports, it's good because if he didn't he would want to do screens and not much more.

Dc2 would happily do screens till the cows come home.

I wouldn't compare current general screen time behaviour to your brother's childhood. Games were less dopamine - hitty, less available (on a pc not in your pocket), less peer pressure involved eg no online group gaming and social media.

It’s a learned behaviour. It’s addictive basically and some people are more prone to react to its effects than others. You are right to limit it but potentially distinguish between screen time which is social eg all watching a movie or programme together and individual screen time especially gaming, plus social gaming is different to personal gaming (all playing Mario kart is different for example)

Why is watching TV better? You are only learning what is shown. My youngest got into Manga and Studio Ghibli because of being online. It was then driven into popular culture. Apart from Attenborough's wildlife documentaries, TV would have taught her nothing. Being online opened her up to different cultures and non mainstream media. I read world news on my phone for the same reason. I thought that it was charming that thanks to an online presence, "Pretty little baby" (1962) hit the charts just before Connie Fancis's death. Likewise Kate Bush being played everywhere.

When do you think TV was invented?!

Thanks for all the responses. I guess it’s just hard work parenting the boys and it would be nice to think that screen time was benefiting them as something that was calming / fun for them to do as opposed to the fear it is addling their brains 😂.

despite them having more that we would like at weekends, their overall weekly screen time hours are well below average and both do lots of interesting things away from screens, one in particular is v sporty and plays football at a high level (for his age), does district athletics etc. So he gets his dopamine hits through competitiveness. The younger one hates competition and I’m not sure has a dopamine replacement as such (I’m sure that’s why they both crave screens so much) but we are working on it. It’s very hard work on me when he is off a screen as he finds it hard to know how to entertain himself but he is getting there slowly.

what makes me sad is that they are both extremely sociable and would choose playing out with friends over screens every time. but most kids after school are either at clubs or having a quiet night to recover from school / clubs so there isn’t this option very often, at least not where we live. When I was a kid everyone played out after tea, playing with toys in our house seems boring by comparison so it’s no wonder all the kids ask for screens all the time imo

Its not the learning. There is a lot around phones and tablets and neck and eye issues v a TV. Then the content is different. There is something different about quick scroll type content in terms of dopamine hits and addiction, v 'slow tv' and gaming again can vary but a lot are designed to be addictive. (Although you could use a TV to do similar things like game or watch youtube so the screen isnt an issue its the use and posture)

That's true. However we are starting to see eye and skeleton issues because of high wall mounted televisions.

I'm similar, one is take it or leave it, the other two obsessed. We only allow consoles and gaming at the weekend and it's "unlimited post 9am and breakfast until 7pm" except between activities and parties and general family stuff, it is actually massively limited- but doesn't feel that way to them. I also think sometimes it's better not to let them then let them when you know they have to be off in an hour and you'll have a row. I need a plan to get them off. I agree that the type of game matters. Same as watching a movie is different from 2 hours of YouTube.

absolutely.

Well it only became common in homes in the 1950s. There was limited hours and only 2/3 channels until the 80s. Screen time nowadays doesn’t mean tv. It means iPads, games consoles and phones. As you well know.

That's in my age bracket.

The only difference is that you became completely absorbed in something else at the expense of everything. This could be anything from handheld consoles to model railways to drawing to reading 3 books a day to watching TV to playing a guitar until your fingers bled to falling off bikes and out of trees to taking their bike apart and reassembling it before moving on to dissassembling electrical items to LEGO to Meccano to everywhere to hitting a tennis ball against the back wall of the house for hours on end from 7am.

The only way to put a stop to one completely absorbing activity was to find a new one to be completely absorbed in. It didn't change the hunt for dopamine and adrenaline, it just gave you the motivation to find alternative ways to annoy others or injure yourself more spectacularly to the exclusion of all else.

The absorption in an activity - in this case, screen time - isn't the cause as much as it is a symptom of the condition. It depends upon the parent whether it makes their life easier to have the kid quiet or whether they actually want the kid bouncing off the walls and on first name terms with all of the staff at the local A&E.

@Gagamama2 i raised time on the PlayStation during my son's adhd assessment - I was hoping/expecting they would say he should cut back but they said it was good for giving him the stimulation he was craving.
As they get into secondary school a lot of after school socialising will be done on games consoles.

I think there is some truth in that, my teen DC would prefer late 90s/ early 00s lifestyle with no smart phones, they are always going out and my eldest had a PlayStations a WII when younger but he preferred to play with Lego and my DD preferred to play with Sylvanians and Lego and have storylines.

It isn’t imperative for any child to have a phone/ipad. It’s a consequence of the modern world.

How do you think kids in poor countries get on? Probably they’re outside playing and getting into mischief like in my day!

Some children will get addicted more easily to the screens - they are not hardwired for screens but they are not learning to live without constant high levels of stimulation which could be to their disadvantage in the long term

I have two boys, now adults but we're children in the early 2000s when screens were very much a thing. I limited them to an hour a day, none before school and one screen free day a week. I relaxed the rules in school holidays but not completely.
I can say they absolutely hated the limits. None of their friends were restricted, not that that affected my decision. It was a constant source of conflict.
They were good kids, well behaved, doing well at school and we live in a village so their friends were miles away, hence online communication.

When they reached 13 (I think) I agreed to scrap the timers as long as they demonstrated that they were responsible and not gaming all day long. It worked reasonably well. One DC gave up all screens off his own back for the summer holidays. He was like a different child, I was shocked. He admitted he had felt addicted and compelled to game and was relieved at going cold turkey. He went back to gaming until he left uni. I feel like he had an addictive nature.

In the long term both did well at school, top grades etc and uni. One still games occasionally the other never does. So I don't think long term harm came of it but that might be because of them not my limits.

Just to add that none of their female friends or cousins ever had any interest in gaming but this was pre-smart phones and I am talking about computer games such as RuneScape, Age of Empires, and consoles.