To think current concerns over screen time is bordering hysteria

[Tiredboymum22]

I think it’s over the top.

If my kids didnt have screens, nothing would get done. I’m mostly solo parenting. Family can’t babysit, husband works late 6 days a week. Childcare costs are through the roof.

I have a 6-year-old with ASD and a very hyperactive toddler. Eldest is obsessed with numbers and Minecraft, uninterested in his little brother a lot of the time. Up at 4.30 am most mornings too. I give my toddler the tablet when I’m trying to cook or tidy up (once he’s done playing with his toys).

I am criticised by older members of my family and told I should let him “help me” cook. Sorry but no.

Now I’m seeing countless articles and comments about the harm of too much screen time, but I think people are missing a lot of nuance.

aibu?

It's backed up by research of the numerous harms.

How do you think people coped before they could give their kid a screen? Yet they did and society didn't collapse.

We have 3 adult dc. 3 spent ages online gaming. All in great jobs, lovely wives, girlfriends, children.

It’s like Luddism. I totally agree with you.

I think there are two issues.
One is that spending loads of time on screens is bad for your eyes and kills your concentration span.
The other is that young people are often horrible to each other through devices so limiting screen time should limit young people's exposure to that/opportunity to bully others.
Moderation is the key. If your DCs are doing other things like reading and playing with 'dumb/analog' toys then a little bit of screen time is probably ok.

I so agree with you. If I didn’t give my 6 and 2 year olds screen time as a single mother, I couldn’t cook dinner at all because there’s zero chance they would play nicely with toys together alone or help me cook.

Obviously there are limits but an hour of screen time so dinner can get cooked is so much better, in my opinion, than an easy oven cooked UPF dinner of pizza/nuggets etc because I am trying to mediate arguments or let my 2 year old “help”

he wouldn't be obsessed with minecraft if he hadn't been introduced to it on a screen.....

But societal pressures were different before screens. Fewer single parent families, fewer households with two full time working parents, no peer pressure to use screens from knowing they exist and what friends are doing….

They’re a useful tool to make realistic modern day family life more manageable

I believe it to a certain extent. I think TV on while kids are playing is fine. CBBD/Cebeebies etc. Or a Disney movie. Even some low stimulation games.

But hours of intense gaming? Definitely not good.

Sometimes it's a life saver. If they wake up super early for example and you don't want them roaming the house unsupervised. But once an adult is up, screens should be off.

Although most kids have some screen time, so yes he would be….!

All the research suggests that screen time has a detrimental effect on children. If you decide to give your children screens then that’s up to you, but those parents who choose to follow the advice and not give their young children screens are not “hysterical” as you say. Just choosing to parent differently to you.

This is one of the arguments I have an issue with .
I grew up in the nineties and it was quite common to see my friend’s 3-year-old brother playing in the street with my friend and other older kids (around 9 or 10) while their mum cooked tea or sat in the house smoking a cigarette. Nowadays people would call social services.

Other kids who weren’t allowed out were glued to the telly.

No they weren’t! Every parent l knew worked and there were tonnes of single parent families.

So it’s not society. It’s just that people have taken against screens.

And this is why we have a generation of unsociable kids obsessed with tech.

Think kids would probably be more chilled if they had less screen time and less hyperactive

And maybe much better mental health also.

Multiple things can be true.

You can be truly having a hard time with difficult kids and a lack of meaningful support

AND

Screens can be detrimental to children's development, eyesight, concentration, language skills, sleep and behaviour.

I don’t think all screen time is equal.

Half an hour of CBeebies while you make dinner or do some cleaning? No problem.

A toddler on a tablet in their buggy? Sad

But you don’t have to go back that far! 20 years ago when my children were young we didn’t have screens (or they certainly weren’t in common use), and there were plenty of families working full-time (myself included) and single parents. At the time there was a peer pressure not to let under-2s even watch TV. We all managed. I think the difficulty is, once they are used to screen time, toys and puzzles no longer deliver the same dopamine hit.

Of course some of it is hysterical.

My db is ND and he was obsessed with his computer in the 90s. Gaming, coding, watching sports on TV til late at night.

He got really good at it. Did a degree in maths then an MSc in computing.

He now lives a fabulous life overseas and works in IT earning more than me and dh combined. He has two kids, has no major problems, just a normal guy.

So it isn’t always harmful.

My DC do not have screens, they watch TV, build Lego, do puzzles (physical ones and puzzle books), read books, play board games, ride bikes, play in the garden etc.

You are using screens as a lazy means of child care and babysitting, you could easily find them other things to do especially the toddler.

That's a ridiculous argument because that is and has been for decades, shit parenting.

It's not like suddenly shit parents have got better because of screens.

And I grew up in the 80s and it was still a sign of shit parenting then and would result in a call to social services.

So you're either misremembering or making stuff up saying 3 year olds were routinely playing in the streets in the 90s while Mum is smoking a fag and no-one batted an eyelid.

There's this weird social media driven thing going on particularly about the 90s with people claiming all sorts of stuff that didn't happen.

I think it depends on what they’re watching. Screens in themselves aren’t intrinsically bad, though like everything they should be used in moderation.

The people who make millions from the chimps watching screens 24 /7 do not allow their children screen time until much older. That says a lot.

Agree OP, I was a 90s kid and so was DH. People act like 'screens' were invented in 2015 and have destroyed society. I also find the gaming talk on here very old fashioned, DH works in video games and his mum was always moaning that he didn't stop gaming. An interest in gaming can lead to a career! Programming, 3D modelling, animation. I think that was more useful to him than the hours of TV I watched

Really? I was a single parent in the 90s. No ipads etc then. Had a " family" computer before the end of the decade Can't remember how but did cope
No tv either

Isn’t it more about the content rather than time?

Kids killing themselves doing tik tok challenges, kids bullying each other leading to suicides, porn, predators chatting to school girls online etc