Hi, I dont plan to have a child for at least a few years, but sometimes I think about how I would raise them. I think about how parents today let their kids use the internet pretty much unmonitored, and let them watch and bring them to movies that are by most accounts, just flashing colors. Theres a few good ones Ive heard about such as Bluey, or movies like Luca, but I really dont think I’d want my kid to be watching Cocomelon, Pinkfong (baby shark), or any movie put out by Illumination. I especially dont want to allow them to use any kid of social media during their developmental years. However, I know for a lot of kids this is the norm, and I really dont want my kid to get bullied or to hate me for not letting them have what their friends have. What do current parents about the environment their kids are growing up in, and what would be good things to consider as I start to get closer to the age where I feel comfortable taking care of a little fella?
My oldest is 10 and we’re just now starting to hear from him about the things his peers have/see/do. Up till now it’s been a non-issue. Also I don’t think most parents let their kids have free rein of the internet, especially not very little kids. Sure there are some, but I don’t think it’s the majority. A lot of parents now are millennials and we saw how fucked up Facebook made some of us and we hear all the time about how messed up teens are from social media so we’re pretty wary about what the internet is going to do to our kids.
Hi, thanks for the reply!! I base my experience off of my own and what I see in public so I may have bias. When I notice children in public theyre on an iPad watching whatever slop YouTube kids has to offer. I usually see one every time I go to eat out with my SO and I just feel bad for the kid because instead of being involved in a family dinner, theyre being desocialized and taught to not speak and share during family time. I’m glad to hear that there is a large group of people that aren’t like that, its reassuring.
You’re not wrong. I actually made a comment a long time ago about this kind of thing… can I link it? It’s relevant!
https://lemmy.world/comment/8349243
I don’t know the best way to paste comments but hopefully that works.
I feel it’s not fair to not give children an opportunity to express themselves with and to the adults. I know its a cultural thing to be “seen and not heard” but honestly I feel like I’d prefer my kid to be loud and obnoxious at a restaurant over stuck on an iPad. I want them to be able to see that being loud and obnoxious isn’t a proper social norm and teach them how to be polite. I know thats easier said than done but I want kids to be imaginative again, and have more purpose than to watch “Baby shark teaches alphabet with zoo animals LIVE🔴” where the whole stream is basically AI generated. I know I’m probably preaching to the choir, but thats just what’s on my mind lol
Absolutely! It’s a little tough when the “being loud and obnoxious” takes the form of whining, though… I have a hard time with that. Because I remember what it’s like to be a kid and be bored in a world tailored by and for grown-ups. But I’m also willing to adjust my behavior and expectations, like taking kids to kid-friendly restaurants that provide crayons or whatnot. Some parents do seem to be selfish and expect kids to just deal with it if they take them somewhere less suitable.
A father to a 2-year-old here. We have a very strict “no screen” policy. If she watches something, it is with her mother, and it is generally a short clip of a kid doing some kind of activity with a caregiver. It is less than a few minutes a day tops and never every day.
I am super anxious about the smartphones and similar as well. I am not sure how my child is going to handle the peer pressure to get one, and how will we (as parents) be able to manage her wanting of a smartphone. I think I will follow a similar pattern to my childhood and will allow access to the internet only through a computer for a while, and there will have several restrictions to what she can access, maybe except for group-based online games, which we will screen who she is playing with and what is going on.
Jonathan Haidt is proposing a return to a "play-based childhood"1, and I am very positive about that approach. However, I am not sure if we will be able to get a buy-in for “no screens, no phones” policy with her school(s) and the parents of her schoolmates. That is to be seen. But these policies would probably affect the schools we will be choosing.
1 - If interested, check After Babel.
Its interesting you bring up schooling because its something Ive been thinking about as well. Ive heard great things about private schools and home schooling co-ops (not necessarily the super christian ones that basically only teach gospel), but I’m not sure where I’ll end up moving when me and my SO will want to commit to a child so I haven’t looked into it much. I would definitely prefer my kid is playing pretend over playing Roblox Cart Ride into Skibidi Toilet though. I wouldnt mind letting my kid on a screen for a couple hours a day, but only for video game consoles that have never had or no longer have internet access, unless Im playing with them. Unrelated but Ive always had a silly idea about raising my kid “through the decades”, just like giving them pieces of tech from each decade once a year starting from like 1930, like giving them only furniture, and then maybe a radio, a crt tv, a pong machine once a year. By the time theyre about 10 they can experience the magic of the N64 and PS1s huge graphical jump for the first time like millions of kids who were born before my time lol, but this is only a silly idea that I dont think I’ll actually enact on. I’ll have to look more into After Babel, it looks like some of their content is free but others are paid? I may be interpreting it wrong though, I mostly read the front page and about page.
For what it is worth, I’m middle aged and in my youth we played Mario Brothers and, later, Super Mario Brothers on televisions. But then we went outside and played a neighborhood game we made up called Koopa, loosely based around the Mario Brother’s lore. We spent far more time outside and interacting with one another than inside in front of a screen. I don’t think our outdoor play was worse for it being based on a screen-delivered universe than if we’d made up a game based on a book-delivered universe.
I don’t think screens, themselves, are the problem. I think forcing children to be solo-, inside-cats is the problem. And screens are often times a tool of that force. By the time children are of a certain age, they start to prefer what they know, which is why parents will say that their children don’t want to go outside and play with whomever. For whatever reason, parents around me are entirely too obsessively worried about dangers to allow their children to have chance encounters and a good, directionless wander. When kids play only with playdates they have to be driven to but don’t know their neighboring children, we have a problem. A big problem. Because it means spontaneous door-knocking “Can Johnny come out and play” play cannot occur. So of course they’ll pick a screen over acknowledging their loneliness.
I’m not a parent yet either, but I’ve always planned on watching the shows for those stages.
As for the other content, consider social cultural viewing. They aren’t the predominant content your child will be watching, especially if you are giving them more engaging content initially.
For example, you may not go out of your way to show them Illumination movies, but your child’s friend will have friends who go to the movies for a birthday. IMO, that experience is more important than keeping them from viewing it to mitigate the risk of brain-rot. While the intentions may be good, I think it ultimately can do more harm in a lot of ways.
To supplement this, it’s important to remember that conversation is key. Checking in with them before they go, having there be a difference of purpose between different types of movies. Some movies are fun and not much more than that. Some movies are fun because they can be talked about for a long time. Also, kids check out sometimes, don’t want to have conversations, so it’s a long term game, not really a checklist. If you forgot up to the day of the movie w/ friends and didn’t get to have the conversation before they go, preventing them from going won’t help anything.
A better way to go about it, and this goes for content you don’t want them watching all of the time, is going through different sets of questions that let you get a sense of what your child is getting out of what they just watched. I can’t list a bunch of questions, so my guideline is when they detail events, ask them why they thought the character was doing that, or what they think other meanings could be.
A lot of the time there are just no check ins about the content at all. Not necessarily appropriateness, but literally just “hey kid so what did you think?” and a few more questions. The issue is that parents are letting the kids watch the show endlessly on repeat without any check ins. And I get it, it can be hard when it’s day 2948 and you’re on day 948 of your rewatch of {insert show} and any questions you could possibly have had have long been asked 2 years ago… It’s literally a symptom of a kid loving something and watching it on repeat.
So that’s my rough course of action and what I do for the children I’ve worked with.
Hello and thank you for the detailed reply. I think your idea is fantastic. I wasn’t thinking about having discussions about the media that has less of a bias because obviously I was approaching from a “I dont want them to see this at all” POV. I think theres a lot here for me to keep in Mine and I appreciate the input c:
Of course! It’s a good thing to try and get information on this and it’s a fun way to bond with your child! Plus it really helps bridge the gap, cause I agree that kids content is not all that great. I personally like media hosting, so I have a personal server for TV and movies that I like, but I’ve planned on having some of the better kids TV shows from my childhood, like PBS ones, and a mix of some of the better, newer ones so my kid stays somewhat relevant lol. But for most other stuff, the way I see it is just I didn’t have cable growing up and didn’t get to see everything except at friends houses and on JetBlu.
YouTube is a bit of a different story though. Just don’t give them kids content at all there, curate that a lot :(
I actually host a Jellyfin Server myself with a bunch of my childhood VHSs and DVDs on it, hopefully the project will stay around that long and continue to get better by then lol. I dont think I’d want to allow my child on YouTube until they age out of the YouTube kids app, I know that thing is a dumpster fire.
The way I see it, you have the hard drives ;) even if the server goes, you can always spin them back up
This is true! I suppose I mean I hope the project is still around or there is a similar enough alternative. Using FTP to stream video is a real pain ;P
Oh yeah, Jellyfin shouldn’t be going anywhere and even then there’s still Plex, emby, and a number of others. Heck, even VLC will do the job!
There are a few shows that are a yes for me:
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Bluey
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Daniel Tiger
etc
And we can always watch the movies that our children’s department at our local library does showings of. Last one we went to was Migration. Which is an Illumination film. But the librarians approved it and did a whole program surrounding it, and it was really funny for the adults in the audience, though that humor went right over the heads of the children.
As for social media – Raising him on using Line to connect with his far away grandmother and so far he views phones as … well … phones. Not game machines. Not weird asynchronous conversations via text and reposts. Just the ability to get a live person on the other end for voice chats and/or video. We’ll see how long we can ride this wave. But I’m pretty sure I’m going to insist on parental controls if ever there are social media accounts made. I read somewhere that families where the parents use parental controls have more open and educational dialogue about online dangers and comportment than families where that is not in place. And I want that dialogue!
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It is insanity that most parents let their kids have social media and smart phones. I have kids, and it was an expectation that they would not have either of these things until they were adults (if they chose). Most of the parents I am around and spend time with also dont let their kids have these things. There are phones for when they get older that allow them to have something like a smart phone but its restricted and parents have total oversight. I really dont think its a big deal if that is the expectation you give to your kids, and the kids can even see how unhealthy the phone habits of their peers are.
Thats fair, based on the other couple responses I’m feeling a little less uneasy about it. Im thinking maybe the kids with internet access like what I was saying in the OP may be a “vocal majority” so to speak, something I might notice more because I might be subconsciously looking out for. Its good to hear that there are still a good amount of responsible parents, at least when it comes to the digital side of things
Its just going to be a daily struggle like anything having to do with parenting. We had one 10ish year old kid find a way around the locks we put on it and they went directly for video games and porn in the middle of the night, but we caught it because we were paying attention. Its hard but if you actually care about your kids development and protection you can do it. Also its good to find other parents that are actively doing the same things so your kid doesnt just get to access porn via a friend.
Thats fair. Ideally my kid wouldnt be able to figure out a way around all the networking techniques I know how to use like DNS blocking and blocking IPs directly on the router BUT if they do well, maybe they’ll grow up and make even MORE money than I will lol. I feel like the finding parents with similar parenting styles would be the difficult part for me because I’m not sure where I’d find other parents. Although it may become clearer to me as I age?