Strongly agree, all my friends give their kids phones just because they think they deserve some time off from them, I think that's wrong.
Never gave my baby a phone, ever and I think it's a good decision, she's not even two yet so how is that affecting her brain?
How is a child supposed to learn how to interact with people if you leave them with a device that might in fact teach them something, like counting and stuff, but that's not the case.
Until the age of 4-5 your focus should be primarily to make your kid socially acceptable so they can participate in as many activities and get a chance to join as many conversations in the future as possible, you want to help them be social. Giving them a tablet will not help them become socialized at all, in fact it will just turn this around. You don't want that for your child. You want your kid to be liked, otherwise it will end up being miserable, think about it.
Spend every minute of your spare time with your baby, that's the way to do it, help them enter the society, by showing them how to interact with people.
I have a young child. I love hanging out with her, but it’s very repetitive. She’s literally entertained by me holding a rubber giraffe in front of her for hours on end. I don’t blame people for getting bored after days / months. But sure, pass judgement all you want. I really don’t care.
Every single parent I've known will, in honest private conversations, admit to the same thing. Loving your child doesn't mean that the repetitive mentally unstimulating parts of raising them magically become non-tedious. It means you do it anyway, because you care for them.
I think this is a consequence for our generally nonsensical arrangements for raising children.
The 2 parents (or maybe 1 single parent) are supposed to do it mostly by themselves in what is called a nuclear family. That is a quite recent development. Earlier it was common to live in larger groups (like extended families) so the work of raising kids was spread out over more people.
The other thing is that is is no longer culturally acceptable to let kids roam by themselves. You always have to have them at arms length when they’re out. If you like to criticize parents for too much screen time, well, what are those kids supposed to do instead?
It takes generations to build up the sort of tightly-knit social capital that makes it generally feasible to cohabit as an "extended family" or to leave kids lightly supervised. Our arrangements for such things follow on from a general way of life that discounts long-persisting social ties as quite unimportant.
I think tedious may be wrong use of word to describe it.
My daughter who is almost 3 is definitely exhausting.
Non stop, hyperactive at night goes to bed at midnight lately.
We play/do activities for like 12 hours a day.
Plus work full-time.
She has a tablet with learning activities, very smart for her age and helped her advance (reads at "3rd grade" level).
We let her play 30-60 minutes a day if she wants to, or we need a quick distraction while I make dinner or something.
Everyone I know, including my grandmother whose tended to 30+ kids agrees she is simply exhausting.
She's very interested in alot of things. Technology one of them.
Many of the most valuable, precious, and important things in life are tedious, boring, difficult, and painful. The unpleasant costs should underline the immense value we place in the things we're willing to suffer for. Very little is withheld when parents suffer for their kids, and it's ok to be honest about it.
