(Happy Throwback Thursday! This piece originally ran on Sept. 9, 2018. Given how much time we’ve all spent on screens in the past year-plus, and given that the Delta variant might send us all back into lockdown, I thought the points in this post bore repeating.)
Nature Valley Canada recently asked three generations of families about how kids have fun. Grandparents and parents were asked what they liked to do when they were young. The third generation was asked, “What do you, a kid, like to do for fun?”
The grandparents and parents cited fishing, fort-building, gardening, berry-picking and other pastimes, smiling fondly as they recalled these simple pleasures. Their expressions changed as they listened to the answers from today’s crop of children.
Texting and e-mail. Video games. Binge-watching TV shows. A couple of girls, who looked no older than 10, noted they spend three to four hours a day texting and sending e-mails.
“I would die if I didn’t have my tablet,” one of them said.
A boy said that his video games are so engrossing that the real world disappears. He forgets his parents, his sibling, even his dog.
One child said that whenever he gets upset, he starts playing video games until he feels “normal.” Another boy said he can play for five hours in a row. Another mentioned having watched 23 episodes of a TV series in less than four days
A saddened parent responded in this way: “I actually feel a little sad, because I feel like he’s missing out on what’s out there in the beautiful world.”
Ditto.
Yet I also agree with one of the commenters. This person, who “grew up with video games” but also spent time outdoors, questioned the habits of the parents in the video. How many are always on the phone or tablet, or streaming TV programs?
“We need to stop blaming others, video games, technology and the like and take the responsibility that is ours. Model the behavior you want to see in your children.”
Missing out on attention
Will this be easy? Probably not. Peer pressure, the ubiquitous nature of screens (especially phones), the admitted ease of giving your kids a tablet in the car or on a plane to keep them quiet.
There’s also the feeling that this is “educational,” and indeed it can be. But is it really a good idea to get them used to screens so early? I recently talked with a woman who mentioned her infant grandchild using a screen – we’re talking well under a year old – and what a good thing it is because the kid, now a toddler, knows colors and letters.
Those things can be taught in other ways, too. Specifically, being taught by a parent (or grandparent, or caregiver), with board books or blocks or some other real-life rather than virtual tool.
The American Academy of Pediatrics actively discourages media other than video chatting for children younger than 18 to 24 months, and suggests no more than one hour per day for children ages 2 to 5. Unstructured playtime is much better for the developing brain than e-stimulation.
When DF’s 2-year-old granddaughter spent a day with us earlier this summer, she powered around the yard looking at everything. When I pointed out a honeybee in the clover, she stopped, squatted down and stared intently at the insect.
The child spent a good 10 minutes observing that bee as it wandered from blossom to blossom. A few times she reached out to touch it; each time I pulled it gently back. “Let’s let the bee do its job. Besides, it bites.”
On another visit, DF took her for a walk in a nearby bog. Several times along the way she squatted down to stare at rocks. It began to rain, but they had jackets so they didn’t much care. She came back wet to the knees (yay for splashing in puddles!) but happy.
Missing out on childhood
Could we have pulled up kiddie videos about our friend the bee, or one on how rocks are formed? Sure.
Would that have been as enriching? Debatable.
Again, I’m not anti-technology as such. It’s a great resource, especially when you want to gross out your great-nephews with a photo of the dust mites that live everywhere we do. (For extra credit, explain to them that it’s not the mites we’re allergic to, but rather the excrement produced by those mites. You’re welcome.)
Kids will be kids for such a short time. They’ve got the rest of their lives to look at screens. Why not expose them to what’s out there in the beautiful world?
Balance is essential, obviously. But I vote in favor of very limited (or no) screens, and lots more time spent staring at bees IRL.
Readers: Do your kids or grandchildren have screen time? If so, are there limits?
Related reading:
- Screen time for kids: How much is too much?
- Malachi and mud
- When screen time = lifetime
- 15 things I like to do
My grandson’s first word was not mama or dada, it was ipad 🙁
Oh good heavens….!
TThat is so sad
When I was a child, we had the radio used at specific times and controlled by my mother. When we listened to soap operas, my mother was in charge. We had no say in “one more.” Maybe this is not the focus of your post, but I see children demanding the phone as their mother push them in the grocery cart. The mothers always give in.
Just like DF and you guided his grandchild, mothers do not seem to guide children. It is easier to let the child guide, the child who has learned to scream for the screen.
It really is sad. My niece and nephew came to visit last month, and they were constantly on their devices… I live in some of the most beautiful countryside imaginable; we have woods, berry picking, hiking, river tubing and rafting, etc. etc., but ou could not get these children out of the house!
Missing out on the world, indeed.
Thanks for reading, and for leaving a comment.
You are so right, Donna. My grandkids rarely get ANY screen time. Even at my house… I’m not kidding either. My daughter has taught them how to entertain themselves, she exposes them to the flora and fauna outdoors, talks to them about how things are made, how they work and is immune to the urge to have a tv or ipad be a babysitter. It can be done but it does take some effort. They’re little for such a short time. Don’t play a video game – ride a bike, explore the woods, skip rocks in the creek. So much better.
Ugh, my nephews are addicted to their phones. They are really unpleasant to be around if their phones are removed…
Sad, really. And troublesome… this is the generation that will be running our nursing homes when we are using them.
Well, I used the TV as a babysitter when my kids were young, especially when I’d just come in from work and needed to get dinner on the table. We read and played board games, perhaps not as much as I should have. (They weren’t much on the outdoors.) I was adamant about the dinner table as a tech-free zone. No TV, no phones. My kids are now young adults and they live with DH and I, and I still won’t let them use their phones or hand-held games at the table.
My children (ages 6 and 9) get 2 hours of screen time each day IF they get their chores and homework done first. In the summer they can earn more screen time if they do extra chores- which usually takes the same amount of time as the screen time rewarded, so I didn’t have too many takers this summer!
My 8 year old grandson’s other grandparents bought him an iPad for his birthday. I was horrified, he takes that thing EVERYWHERE. He is a very happy boy with a sunny disposition and used to love coming over here and spend his time “inventing” things with odds and ends. I babysat him and his 5 year old sister and had to demand he put the darn iPad away and insisted he play with something else, Legos, coloring books, anything. I told my daughter and her husband he can’t bring that inside our home when I’m caring for him. I think it’s totally sucking any creativity out of him. His other grandparents on the other hand, think it’s great because it keeps him quiet and occupied. Aaaaaarrrghhh !
Hold that line, Teri. As noted, we don’t even have a TV in our house and although DF’s older granddaughter sometimes complains, they always have fun making bread or picking cucumbers or running old documents through the shredder. Or watching bees.
I see this in a couple of my grandkids. One pair of parents is more insistent on outside time and sports and it helps. I know when I was a kid I spent all my time reading, playing inside or outside; we didn’t have a TV.
I still prefer reading to TV and have to get outside daily at least a little bit. My oldest granddaughter is better about technology since she has kids of her own; when she was a teenager she was attached to the phone all the time. I’m hoping adulthood will help the others.
Awhile back I heard that Silicon Valley tech guys like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, limited how much screen time their kids had. Some Silicon Valley tech CEO’s even send their kids to low-tech schools. Joanna and Chip Gaines said their kids won’t get cell phones until college.
I think they got something there! I want to do that with my future kids (don’t have kids now, but you know in the very future).
It’s so funny to read this post because two weeks ago, my daughter and I had a conversation about how her childhood activities were quite similiar to mine, but her children’s childhoods were going to be very different from ours. We do try to do things like board games, outside play and as they get older (they are 1, 2, and 3 now) we will incorporate cooking, crafts, and art but I can see that it will be a battle to push the electronic entertainment to reasonable levels. When I was child, you got up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons because that was the only time you could watch them and by 11am you were kicked off the TV and told to “do something else before your brain rots”.Kids nowadays have such unlimited choices for electronic entertainment (which is designed to suck you in) that walking away from the TV, iPad, games, etc. is going to be on going battle.
Hi Donna,
My kids who are almost grown now had no TV at home for 10 years when they were growing up. They have both done very well at school. My older daughter still talks about my rule of: “If you want something, make it. ” I tried to restrict packaged snacks as well. One of my fondest memories is of my daughter hosting her own imaginary radio show where she tells her listeners how to make a snack. The younger girl and her cousin once put her teddy bear on trial for a crime I can’t remember now. But I can still see the stuffed jury and judge, and I can still hear the defense and prosecution arguing their cases. Memories like that don’t come from staring at a screen.
Wonderful! Thanks for sharing these memories. You done good.
JB is 3 and is allowed limited screen time – weekends only, movies with the family at dinner or 10-30 minute movie or Mr Rogers sessions on Saturday or Sunday if I’m having a high pain day. Ze is allowed to use our phones to listen to 2-3 minute selected YouTube clips of music (pre-approved) on request ONLY on a case by case basis. We do NOT always say yes, telling zir no is character building IMO. If ze had a tantrum recently, that’s a solid Do Not Even Ask.
We’re not even as strict as some parent acquaintances, though stricter than many.
Ze might ask incessantly during the week but unless I’m exhausted, we find lots of other things to do together: reading, coloring, crafting (gluing bits of paper to other bits of paper, scooting up and down the sidewalk while the dogs watch, draw on the driveway with sidewalk chalk, pull weeds and sit in the dirt, walk to the park nearby and play on the jungle gym while Seamus scolds zir for going too high, loading up the washer and dryer, sweeping, vacuuming, washing dishes, cooking.
Life isn’t just play, after all! But cleaning together can be fun.
I will say that I was surprised to see zir imagination ignited by the limited screen time as much as anything else. I had expected that to be brain melt time that I just needed to survive. Instead ze grabs tv characters ze doesn’t know anything about or Moana or Trolls characters and goes off on 20 minute adventures alone while my hands are full. Just chatters on pretending to be one character and then another, going on the bus! The train! The plane! Hurry up everybody, it’s going to leave! We’re going to Hawaii bye mom! (Bye!)
It’s really fun to see that develop. It’s amazing to see that ze doesn’t have to stay glued to the screen to absorb the lessons or the imaginary characters and take it away for zir own fun. It’s also a relief that ze doesn’t feel addicted when the tv is off like it is most of the time.
When my daughter was really young I didn’t have a television. After I was given a small black-and-white set (my stepfather’s mom was horrified that I was living a screenless life) Abby wasn’t allowed to turn it on; only adults could. It was mostly “Sesame Street” (the local PBS affiliate ran the entire week’s worth of programs back-to-back on Saturdays), with occasional visits to a channel called Pinwheel (now Nickelodeon).
Wow, that was a long time ago.
One thing that engrossed her was listening to a few record albums passed down by a relative: two from “Sesame Street” and one a collection of children’s songs. I can still see her going through the motions of “We’re Going on a Tiger Hunt,” narrated by Ernie (and laughing delightedly as she and Ernie ran away from the tiger). Those albums were a godsend because at that time I was doing some freelance writing for the newspaper where I worked as a newsroom clerk. Every weekend I’d attend at least one and sometimes two events, and then have to write them up at home. Putting on the records got her to sing and listen to the stories, so I could write as fast as possible and feel a little less guilty (but not much less, sigh) about having put her in child care all week and then having the additional assignments over the weekend.
You’re doing a great job with JB and zie will grow up not just an imaginative child, but a capable one.
I look back on those times I spent as a kid outside in the 60s and early 70s as some of my very best memories. We had a neighborhood full of girls so group games and pretend play were an every day occurrence. To think a lot of kids won’t experience that is truly sad. Maybe the kids of today will look back on their time with a phone or tablet in their hand as fun but I don’t believe it will be the same.
Ditto. We would disappear for the entire day sometimes, or our friends would disappear and come over to us. Spending an hour following a butterfly from flower to flower filled me with a sense of wonder.
Not dissing screens entirely; I would have loved to have had access to documentaries on butterflies (or horses, dogs and just about any animal). But I think the world should be glimpsed not just from screens, but also from personal experience.
Christine, I’m just a bit older, and I’ve told my BFF from those days (we were born within a fortnight of each other and were next-door neighbors from birth to age 12) that we were the last generation of free-range kids. And, Donna, we two (with our brothers, who were likewise almost twins) used to run free in the summer from dawn till dark, except when a few parentally imposed activities like Vacation Bible School or swim lessons intervened. I too am sad for the rising generation–except for the 7-year-old grandson of neighbors down the street, whose grandparents seem to be making an effort to help him see there’s a world out there.
Vacation Bible School! I remember that. We just called it “Bible School,” and it was a week of — let’s be honest — mostly boredom. But we did get to make a craft or two, and there was always a snack of Kool-Aid and cookies, which we greatly appreciated.
Neighbors let their kids wander on the cul-de-sac, and it’s fun to hear their screechy little voices out there.
Oh…Vacation Bible School! Wonderful intervention during the long summer vacation. Somehow it always seemed more fun than Sunday School. Maybe it was the snack time that you speak of Donna or the slightly more intricate crafts. Anyway, always a fun time in my neck of the woods.
I do believe you are right A.Marie. I love the description too…free-range kids! It’s better for chickens and it was better for us as kids too.
Our kiddo is 3 now. She doesn’t have a tablet or phone or handheld screen. Our routine is getting up and dressed, play and breakfast and more play, fitting in some phonics practice somewhere, lunch, 30-45 minutes of TV (Blue’s Clues, Jack Hartmann ABCs, Cocomelon, and Morphle are her favorites right now), nap time and then repeat in the afternoon up until 45 minutes of TV before shower, teeth, books, and sleep. There’s at least 30-60 minutes minimum of outdoor time twice a day unless it’s storming.
Our kid is fun, can self play alot, loves showing others how to play though is just developing sharing skills, loves telling you about her imaginary world and the TV one… she’s awesome. Unconditional love and a ton of one on one time with people is what we think works.
But I’m not testing my theory and trying again. This is perfect for us but hard, hahaha.
Wait…How is Cadence three already?!?
You guys are doing a great job with her. She’s a lucky girl. And she’ll have all the screens she can stand later on.
3 years FLEW by… though 2020 seemed like 2 years stuck together.
My dad just got her a kid computer that she is supposed to assemble herself (like 3-4 sections that snap together with the working parts inside of them), it’s see through so you can see all the parts all the time, and it has a program to teach kids some beginner coding. I think it’s for 1st graders, not 3 year olds, but next time they visit, they’ll put it together and we’ll see.
If she learns how to code before kindergarten, more power to her. I’m cool with learning screens. It also has a basic paint program.
Our kids (now 25&27) had tokens to pay for screen time. They are very imaginative. I remember them in the “climbing bush” with a sheet shouting orders and raising the sail. I treasure that day. We painted wrapping paper strung along the clothesline and played with homemade play dough scented with essential oils. I’m not big on board games, but we did play cards; including Old Bachelor. They are both talented artists.
They fussed then about the tokens, and my son still resents us for limiting his screen time. LOL
We had acquaintances who allowed their toddlers to view “R” movies!
It takes all kinds.
The most horrifying ad I have seen recently is for a device you hang over the changing table or bed, which holds your cell phone up at an angle that the baby can watch it while you are changing him or her. Are you telling me that for the few minutes you change a diaper, you cannot interact with your infant. For shame to those who invent such devices and to those who use them.
I saw that ad recently. I thought it was a joke, until I realized it was an actual product. So sad.
Wait…what?! Truly horrifying.