AIBU that reducing under 5s screen time is way more complicated than just issuing guidelines?

[Lovelygreenpen]

This guidance is welcome. We need to know facts and risks to make informed choices. But choices often aren’t made entirely freely. Think about healthy eating and exercise guidance and how complicated these can be to follow due to costs and time.

How would following this under 1 hour rule change your daily routine?
Most parents need to work all the hours with COLC and decades of rising housing costs. working life also often expands to expect parents to be in contact from home outside of paid work hours.
How are busy parents supposed to manage? How are solo working parents specifically supposed to manage? Any family with more than one child?
And what about the screens used in childcare settings?
What are the responsibilities of the makers of the crazy overstimulating content for babies and kids?

We know women often have to do more domestic labour than men, even where they live with a male partner. Also, that the makers of the content aimed at kids specifically employ addictive techniques.

So how is this pressured wider environment going to change to make this recommendation more realistic?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1d936n7445o

Not a boomer, thanks.

DS2 and DDIL do parent DGS(2) and guess what? They don’t give him screen time!

@CleverCyanSnake most of the people responding to you aren't boomers. Do you know what a boomer is? And if they are a boomer they would be alive in 90s/00s. And someone who bought a house in 00s could have a 5 year old

My kids were born throughout the 1990s, and never had screens before age 5 (and possibly a lot longer).

First of all, parents need to get off their own screens when they are looking after children. They are telling children that their doom scrolling is more important than their child, and are modelling really bad behaviour.

They should also re-evaluate what is taking up so much of their time that their children are neglected.

An infant will happily sit in their bouncy chair watching mum do her chores, which she makes eye-contact and talks to the child.

One a bit older, they can sit in their high chair in the kitchen as mum prepares the food, engaging with their child at the same time.

How long does hoovering take that the child can't just wait for attention (or have a nap)? Children need to learn to be patient.

It's a cop-out to say that screens are essential or a treatment for SEND. They are the cause of many SEMH and behavioural issues, IMO.

Or their teachers can.

Congratulations. 🥳 I’m sure the king will be ringing your shortly to give you an award for being ‘World’s Best Mum’!

Even televisions ? They were the "baby sitter" before phones etc

Average house price was around £55k in the 1990s.

Haven’t RTFT but it’s a choice to give your kids access to screens.

I chose not to. I work full time, and I was on mat leave with DC2 during covid while shielding so had no childcare whatsoever for DC1, who was 2.5, not even any visits from family until DC2 was 6 months old. It was very difficult juggling a newborn and toddler alone with no support and nowhere to go (DH working full time). Even then, we limited DC1 to 20 mins per day on tv and that was it.

Now the kids are 7 and 5 and they watch tv at weekends; DC1 gets 10 mins of times tables rockstars per day if he asks for it. Neither own a tablet or have ever watched anything on a phone. We listen to audiobooks and music on long drives.

I know that my own screen use is problematic - I have to make major efforts to stay away from my phone - so no way am I exposing my kids to that while their brains are still developing.

If you want to let your kids have iPads etc from toddler age, that’s fine. These are just guidelines. You can ignore them. Why do you think you are getting defensive and childish and being insulting?

The new guidance is basically useless as far as I can tell, right or wrong. If children are to spend less time on screens, massive structural changes in society are needed.

I think that’s what worries me. If I as a much older adult find screens addictive, what’s the effect on the youngest generation? The consequences for a 50y old are much less significant than for a 3y old with their own tablet and a developing brain 😔

I actually went cold turkey when DS was reception, I told thr DC thr TV was broken and got a whole year out of that white lie! Once it's not an option they find other stuff to do (at least one of my kids has AuDHD). Audio books work well, but they play(ed) with their little toys and looked at books.

I let them have TV now but find today's stuff so overstimulating, I prefer to have them put an old film on a couple of times a week that isnt all flashing/noise and requires proper following of storyline (this is why my kids had a massive Dick van Dyke/Judy Garland phase 🤣🤣) even 90s films and TV are so much less stimulating .

My kids also like music so I would put a "kids party" playlist on spotify

Depends what era, where tvs were babysitters before phones. When I was little there wasn't much choice on tv and certainly limited for children. Saturday children's tv did start when I was a bit older but my parents didn't let me watch it. Only allowed to watch tv during the day when I was ill. remember going to my neighbours house one Saturday morning and the tv was on and I asked who was ill!

Like I said ‘I’m not saying it’s the same for everyone’ I grew up in the 90s, I have had conversations with plenty of people who were parents in the 90s including my own. They did not live in shit areas, house prices were a lot cheaper back then. I did not say all houses were £15,000 in the 90s ffs.

by your logic… why are you here? You don’t have a child under 5, your opinion on screen time doesn’t matter.

You’re deliberately trying to miss the point of what I’ve been trying to say by latching onto exact numbers. 🫠

parenting was different in the 90s and 00s

🤣🤣🤣🤣 Because what does saying ‘none of my children watch screens’ add to the conversation, other than to make yourself feel superior. Wow mumsnet is a strange environment

My child definitely never got the memo about sitting in her bouncy chair, high chair or any chair. She never sat at all. She toppled the high chair. I had to get a low chair to prevent accidents. I could barely go to the toilet, let alone hoover. Jesus. Not all kids are the same or even similar I don't think. That's the issue with advice. Different kids and different lives make it useless.

Telling posters that their opinion doesn’t matter doesn’t add to the conversation either. It’s just rude.

What structural changes? I think it's more societal expectations, so realising kids can play alone from almost birth and gradually learn that skill, that parents don't always need to hover and entertain.

There is likely something needed to ensure disadvantaged kids have access to enough toys

Stating that you don’t let your child watch screens isn’t an opinion. It’s literally just a statement. The two are not the same.

I couldn’t care less if you think I’m rude tbh random stranger on the internet. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

You are being absolutely ridiculous. Young children do not need screens and you should stop making excuses for people who don’t want to look after their own kids. Young children need attention, a few toys and books. They can play with a saucepan and wooden spoon and dry pasta if you play with them! They need to be a part of your life while you talk to them! This is all incredibly simple and it’s just an absolute cop out to make out you need loads of money to raise a child without screens, what do you think people have been doing up until they were invented!

It should be a parental decision, not a government one. We're edging closer to parental authority and responsibilities being handed over to the government and I am not comfortable with that. Especially with their over-reliance on AI.

I agree with every word of this. Not least because most people can afford a bit of dry pasta as a toy and has access to a saucepan while tablets are quite expensive. The idea, so often displayed on here, that not fobbing young children and babies on screens is some sort of privilege or a parenting brag is such twaddle.

I wanted to say:

Children (babies) haven't changed over the generations. The adults who care for them have.

It's not the child that's the problem - it's the parenting.

And don't say that mums have to work now. There were plenty of mums who worked back in the day, even if it was for pin money, such as cleaning, taking in ironing, sewing...

Oh, and the TV we watched was 10 minutes called, "Watch with Mother".

Why are you so defensive? People who are happy with their choices don’t get this chippy when faced with different opinions.

Oh my life, I didn’t state that £15,000 was the average house price or that it everyone had a house that cost this amount. In my experience you could buy decent sized houses in areas that weren’t shit holes for this amount.

You’ve also missed the point of me even saying this in the first place.

whether £15,000 or £50,000 for a house, the average house price in the UK at the moment is around £300,000…. Does that make it easier for you all to comprehend why it’s so much more difficult for families now?!