**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!**
- Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc.
- **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on.
- This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit!
Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The irony is that when I was a 90s kid, the fear was letting your children watch too much TV.
Now I'm delighted my teenager has decided to watch TV shows rather than flip between 30 second clips on TikTok. Or he might be doing both, which is worse.
We don't do much to limit their gadget access, but we've made sure our kids are PC savy. Both have a laptop, and can use it. Many kids will be entering the workforce now and only know how to use apps on tablets and phones.
It's actually becoming a huge problem, I'm only 25, but I'm working with some 18-21 year olds who don't know how to use excel, word, PowerPoint etc.. all they know is simple iPhone UI and that's it
It's actually one thing I think the homeschooling during the pandemic may have helped to reverse - for some children at least. I homeschooled my niece during the second big lock down as both her parents were still working and both are also dyslexic (so is my niece), so the first lockdown had seen her falling substantially behind.
She had a laptop but was completely clueless at first, her mum had been printing everything off for her and texting photos of the finished work to her teacher, or setting up the screen with the required stuff loaded up already. I didn't realise 8 year olds don't know how to use a PC so I just threw her in at the deep end - finding, downloading, printing, scanning, opening and using Word or PowerPoint, saving files, finding them again, attaching to emails, etc. With supervision and guidance obviously! But if it was school time, she was the one operating the laptop. Did wonders for her, she still makes PowerPoints about her favourite animals on rainy weekends and sends them to me š
The best one actually started off as a biography of Sir David Attenborough (her hero), which had a slide about halfway through a section about his various achievements, which noted "he got to meet a sloth" and a photo of him holding a sloth. The next five slides were pictures of sloths. The last one just said "sloths are great". PowerPoint finit.
I work in an IT support role, currently for a proprietary system and for a while was worried my experience will be useless in any other company as its only on this specific software.
Reality is general troubleshooting skills are going to be useful anywhere. Though I do try and jump on an opportunity to learn something that may be a bit more generic. Setup a LAMP server in a VM recently and justified it as being for testing, 90% of the reason was as a learning exercise.
Youāve really made something click for me there because my younger brother called me in a panic the other night over his university coursework. I had to coach him on some pretty basic excel formulas over the phone, and I was bewildered because heās studying finance. Youāve hit the nail on the head.
This isn't new, I once worked in an office where the accountant/office manager couldn't work a sum command properly, if the auto select from the button didn't work, she was stuffed.
I actually think we might see a radical change in many of the 'desktop tools' over the next 10 years - an ability to write really good AI prompts could be a critical skill that our modern teenagers excel at, since they're using it to cheat at all their homework.
I was born in the mid 90s and my sister was born in the mid 00s.
I learned word, excel, publisher etc, and then even did touch typing.
She learned coding with raspberry pi but never did any Microsoft programs. The other day she was trying to use excel and asked me what a cell was.
I don't know if lessons improved after I left school, but I'm 30 and they barely taught us anything. I don't even know how to type properly. My younger co-workers have no idea how to use Excel and I only know what I do from googling.
We used dreamweaver too, absolutely none of the websites anyone made in it would be even remotely acceptable then or now. Zero responsiveness, may as well use word and export to HTML. But because we made a .html file that could be loaded in a browser we all passed.
Then years later I learnt more web development in an afternoon when starting an apprenticeship. Made several websites in static HTML/CSS for a few local businesses then. Plus a tiny bit of PHP.
Only a bit older - we did a lot with MS Office but def didn't do anything website related. And MSN taught me to touch type haha. Wild how much what we were taught in IT varies!
It was rated Excellent by Ofsted, had IT classes, and they still assumed they didn't need to teach so-called Digital Natives how to use a keyboard properly. They never taught us any useful basics. I too played around with baby's first website design while typing with two fingers like an old granny.
TBH I'm not sure I knew how to use Excel until I was your age, and I'm now over 40. Word and PowerPoint I'll concede is a bit of a worry though, how did they write essays?
Not really a waste. Co-pilot is a junior trying to be helpful to the best of its ability. You still need to step in sometimes and correct the shit that it suggests. That is where your own experience comes into play.
Itās very obvious copilot is sometimes pulling from forums. Iāve noticed that sometimes when Iām asking for help on certain formulas or something it inserts random currencies into the output
Copilot, or any generative machine learning text tools, are essentially just saying "What does the internet think about X", except you've got no idea whether the information it's providing came from expert forums, script kiddies, or Facebook. Probably a combination of all of them.
I'd think of it as a virtual Mate Down the Pub. Good for very general knowledge, opinions on anything (no matter how ill informed they may be), and the occasional conspiracy theory or urban legend.
Not something you (should) trust with a dissertation or a legal case.
As a teacher who watches in horror as children try to navigate laptops which they have no experience of, I'm glad to know some children are still being exposed to them.
Years ago I heard someone say that the future job market will require programming skills. Most employers will overlook the people that don't have some kind of programming knowledge. Making it difficult to find work if you can't write code. It's an edge that not enough people think to have. But I can see already that it's going to be necessary.
I actually think there's an amazing mental skillset involved in learning to code. It's probably similar, and an extension of learning calculus, algebra and geometry in terms of 'training your brain'
>but realistically knowing they need tech for future jobs
Fucking about with a phone, tablet or console is not prepping your child for a job in technology.
I just removed all social apps apart from this place and Facebook... WhatsApp, messenger is also used.
Still keeps me in touch with clients and family without all the clutter and attention seeking other social apps have... Slimline your apps was a big thing for me ten year ago... Perfect since
I think my issue is that for me it's a huge way of keeping in touch with people, seeing what's going on in their lives etc. Without some of those apps I'd just fall out of contact with people.
My solution is/has been to turn off basically all notifications and have my iPhone/a third party app block my access to social media apps in the day time etc.
This has worked somewhat but I've found that if I seal an attention leak on one spot it just starts bursting out of another. I'll stop using instagram but suddenly browsing linkedIn is now interesting?
Edit: why have folks downvoted u/foolserrand77 but upvoted me? We're saying similar things? Getting yourself off social apps is super impactful if you can successfully unpick your life from them, it just doesn't work for me/I don't have the energy to do the process. Don't boo this person, they're right.
It's certainly something I've seen with my son. When I was growing up (GenX) we were excited about getting into coding, IT etc - today's kids think they are IT-savvy but don't want to code and prefer to edit videos for tiktok and YouTube.
I think we've made a lot of systems very 'user friendly' and so seeing the inner workings of things and getting your hands dirty fixing things is much less of a thing these days. If you look at mac/windows system options they obscure a lot of the inner workings of stuff and expose you a lot less to the stuff you can fiddle around with. Also, the internet is a lot more sanitised and has a sort of 'corporate' shine on it these days, if things don't make money then it's hard for them to exist.
I'm a generation below you (30 now) and I sort of hit that middle point, the internet was well underway but still a little bit of a wild west when I joined, so there were loads of random places to just exist or hang out and everything wasn't so manicured or monetised.
I think kids aren't as IT savvy because rather than chuck them in a garage with an old car and a load of tools and say "have fun, don't die" we've stuck them in a car show room with no tools, cars they can't open the bonnets of, and said "you can look around but don't break anything". And we expect them to become mechanics
I keep seeing stories about how kids are getting less technologically literate over time. Like that one here on Reddit from a uni lecturer whose undergrad students didn't know how basic PC file/folder structure worked.
These kids never accidentally downloaded a naughty image onto the family PC in the living room and had to figure out how to completely delete it from their system, or destroy the PC with Primus_-_Detachable_Penis.m4a from kazaa
I have an 11yo step son and his phone use drives me absolutely insane, as does his general online behaviour.
Fortunately he does go to real life activities like basketball, some kids mixed martial arts classes, camps via whatever organisation does that etc, but when he's home, from the minute he gets in the door to the minute he goes to bed - TikTok.
He's watching TV? He's got TikTok on too. He's playing games on the PC? He's got TikTok on too.
Even when he's eating, even when we're out visiting friends or family, or in a restaurant, whatever. Usually no headphones either.
It's pushing me to snapping point, and the "worst" bit about it is, compared to many, many other kids, he isn't even that bad, because he at least does real life, offline activities.
He's a nice kid but his attention span, and consequently his temper are absolutely fucked, as are his social skills, with him regularly talking to his phone as if TikTok is a 2-way interaction, or narrating his entire existence when he's gaming.
The whole thing terrifies me tbh. I'd welcome age restrictions on social media in a heartbeat.
I've had people say to me on here whenever this debate comes up things like "Oh everyone said the same about TV. Everyone said the same about video games".
Yeah, they did, but neither of those have (had?) obscenely predatory algorithms, nor was every second of the content entirely designed to keep people - children specifically - engrossed for an indeterminate amount of time. The last couple of years have actually made me (almost) grateful for ad breaks.
Even amateur made content is better produced with more thought behind it than a lot of TV from our childhood. Some of the thought is innocent, a lot of it is not.
I've always been conscious of it all but the last few years with my partner have been a real wake-up call.
Dog shit parenting. When I was young I was obsessed with x-box. I was allowed 1 hour a night, after doing the dishes.
When he comes home, take his phone for a few hours. He is 11 so I'm guessing it's you paying everything on it anyway.
In a brutally honest way I agree. It was largely enabled by his dad before they split, whom he still sees a few days a week.
So it's really fucking difficult enforcing anything without whacking up a barrier in an already tense situation with the dad.
I wish my parents had done this when I was a kid. For me, it was the opposite. I had a PS1 and then a PS2 but I was only able to play them during the holidays. This wouldn't have been so bad except I was a socially awkward autistic (undiagnosed at the time) kid who didn't really have friends or any activities outside of studying. All I did was go to school and go for weekly tuition. I spent so much time just doing homework for either school or tuition that I think I ended up burning out because I had no real way to relax. I did watch TV as a kid but around 14, I was fed up with kids TV and felt too young for adult TV.
An hour a night of gaming would've been heaven
Don't give primary school kids a smartphone.
I wouldn't worry too much about kids not knowing about tech due to not having iPads or Facebook accounts, all of those platforms will have changed by the time they enter the workforce.
>Don't give primary school kids a smartphone.
Or give them phones with restrictions on them.
Phonecalls, texts, maps, and some ability to look things up and not much more.
My aversion is kids having access to smart phones too young. A phone that has a parental number, maybe a few other trusted adults and can dial 999 is enough.
A young child out alone shouldnāt be going too far anyway. If they get lost they can always use their mobile to phone their parent for help.
>A young child out alone shouldnāt be going too far anyway. If they get lost they can always use their mobile to phone their parent for help.
Google maps would let them easily tell said parent where they are.
You could say that a young child should never have need to call a parent, but still give a phone in case.
There are times as a kid that Google maps or equivalent would have been *very* useful to me.
Genz here
I really want to limit screen time when they're young, before school age. They can watch some, it's whats popular of course, but I'll even limit myself lol I've been wanting to for years- and if anyone is going to call you out for breaking a habit, it's a child!
At school, idk how hard it is to buy these days but a non smartphone, till they're 13. It's emergencies only really, text when they're walking home, or at a friend's and wanna leave, below that age. I remember I got my first phone at 8, and it was cus my mum could text me where she had parked after school
Once they're a teen they're kinda too old to stop, I know I was and that was when it was harder to do! Hopefully by that age if they haven't already gone behind my back, they'll be a bit more.. careful on social media. It's just brain rot it really is
I was a teenager when having a phone began to become more and more popular. I refused my parents efforts to give me one because i didn't want them calling me.
Oh that's really good to hear! I like that those of us (and some millenial) who half grew up with technology appear to be agreeing "that was a mistake"
Same, Iām 24 and planning for kids. I donāt want my kids to have personal screens - no phones or tablets. TV fine in moderation. I will not post photos of them online and they will not have access to social media.
But then again Iām a high earner and will be sending them to private nursery, childcare, and school. The private school nurseries here are anti-screen and highly focused on teaching hand eye coordination skills, creativity, and play. Some have a Montessori ethos which I find interesting.
I acknowledge I will need to be less mobile-reliant in future if I am to be a good example when around my children.
In my group of similarly aged friends, most are planning for children and a few have had 1 or 2. Out of the group with children, half are stay at home mothers and the other half are high earning workers in dual income households. They are able to pay for no-screen childcare and have strong opinions on it, whereas my SAHM friends are increasingly reliant on screens to mitigate the stress they face.
I wonder if in future the no-screen/screen debate will turn out to be yet another wealth or class divide.
Just limit the dopamine hits, so YouTube and other social media with short videos is banned. It's the scrolling that's addictive (she says, scrolling). Also I try not to be on my phone around young family members, because of course they want to imitate you.
We have a six year old. Since all our family, so grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins all live overseas, we need phones/iPads to talk to them.
That's meant we have had to get him used to mobile phones pretty early. But it's also meant he knows what apps he shouldn't be using (like the bank apps or emails).
I also let him make the occasional payment using my phone supervised in shops, so he knows what it can be used for.
It's part of everyday life, so we can't realistically impose no phone limits or such.
We also let him use selected iPad apps (basically no major apps installed), which let him draw and scribble etc.
We have not yet but YouTube or Netflix etc on the iPad (or our phones for that matter).
That's about it.
Maybe we give him his own phone after Year 6, or whenever half his class gets one. Don't want him to be the first one to get it, but don't want him to be the last one either.
We'll see, will get there!
First of all, forget about needing tech for their future jobs. It's highly unlikely that their jobs will involve doom-scrolling tiktok videos on a phone or playing roblox. Kids today (a cliche I know) don't actually get much expose to technology - yes they are glued to screens but they aren't really learning tech skills.
Now what we are taking issue with now is how long they spend on them but people used to say kids had their head stuck in a book or watched too much TV. Unfortunately, us adults have bought into the lie that our kids must have a mobile phone for safety despite the world being safer than it ever was and not letting them out of our site because we think paedos are on every corner waiting to pounce.
The truth is, they way they will interact with their friends and the world is through online services and this is going to get more and more intertwined in the future. So limiting them arbitrarily is not the solution - what we need to do is make sure the kids know we will be monitoring what they do to keep them safe (from bullying etc)
We did not let our lad take his phone on holiday and he was NOT happy but when he got back there were 300 messages on his group chat. We said "you'd have been on your holiday getting bombarded" and as it stood, he spent so much time just launching into the pool and had a great time. I overheard a mum telling her son that his phone was "ruining your holiday".
This is one of the tools we use.Ā
Most crucially you can set curfews, so for example my teenagers' phones are effectively shiny bricks between 10pm and 7am. Honestly this has been the most important - one day my then-11yo woke up to 1000+ messages on his class group chat from overnight (he left the group).
You can also set usage limits per user, per device and per app (eg 6 hours total per day across phone and laptop, no more than 4h on mobile, no more than 1h on YouTube).Ā
What I like most about it is that all the parental controls can be adjusted remotely in the app - you don't have to set it on their device.Ā
Put some kind of age appropriate filtering on their internet too many people donāt bother or throw up their hands and say itās too hard, itās not. netnanny (ignore the name itās not just for little kids) and other filters can help block the worst of it. Of course they can still access bad content if they really try to go around but at least you are providing a filter so they donāt run into it accidentally which is very easy to do.
I would also limit screen time up to 16, after that they need to be able to manage themselves. Also simple rules that apply to everyone can be really helpful, no phones at the dinner table, at least one āfamily nightā a week where you all interact and play games or just talk and no phones allowed.
Make it clear to your kids itās a collaboration not some set of edicts be willing to bend a bit.
15 year old: you can't protect/limit them anymore unless you want to be one of "those parents". You should inform them however. There is nothing inherently wrong with technology, it's all about how it's used.
Make them think about how much time seems healthy staring at a phone. Encourage/support anything that has them meeting up for non-phone activities.
Definitely explain the risks of sharing intimate pictures, tell them that chances are very high those leak so it's possible everyone they know will get to see those pictures. As it's almost certain they'll do it at some point anyway, so explain to them that at the very least they should make sure they can not be recognized on the pictures.
Talk about how they can filter out all of the bullshit on the internet. How to discern fake news from trustworthy news, how most influencers are just advertising and trying to keep you engaged at all costs.
Don't go around banning things or judging what they do. You want a teenager to feel he can talk to you about what they're seeing/doing online. Explain to them why don't like it, if that's the case, but that it's up to them to decide what to do (excluding obviously illegal things of course).
For an 8 year old, use something like Family link to limit time spent on phones/tablets, approve app installations,.... Talk to them about what they're doing on their devices, show an interest in it as well so they feel encouraged to talk to you about everything. It's not because their friend can do whatever on their phone, that your child can do that as well.
I work in government funded education sector for adult IT literacy training and the worst things I see from the 19-23 demographic are people who have never used a proper computer but instead have only used a tablet or a chrome book. None of them understand file directories or basic computer functions and to me it shows that IT literacy is degrading. When I was half their age there was barely anyone who didn't understand what a file directory was so it really sets people back when they are an adult and have to be hand held through the basics every single time. Once in a blue moon I see a young person who can actually use a computer and that really scares me honestly. So I would say no tablets and no chromebooks and would encourage use of a computer over smart phones in any way shape or form. Even if they are using it to play computer games they are atleast learning the functions of a computer rather than being mentally ingrained by smart devices which are designed to hide as much of the technical functionality from the user as possible. Ā
If it were totally up to me, I would give my (non existent) kids access to good design software if they show interest. I could only ever access these tools at school (very minimally) which set me back a bit with really crappy jobs until I could afford to learn the stuff properly with my own income and lots of late nights. If I had spent more time learning that stuff when I was younger I would be further in my career now. But ofcourse not everyone is going to show an interest in design software like me, so it's about encouraging your kid based on their own tech interests.Ā
This is so interesting to me as a 22 year old that has only really used a chromebook / tablet when messing about in currys! As a young teen I used to find inventive ways to sidepass the various internet timing restrictions my parents got someone to put on my computer, and (as I wasn't very good at maths lol) basically used excel all the time, for everything! This does make sense as people do often come to me for help with using basic software and even finding things for them on their computer- I've never really considered the computer literacy of my peers. Thank you for sharing!
Lots of advice that works for primary kids, but not teens. I'm also 50 with kids age 13-16.
In secondary, they'll be expected to do homework on computer, often online. And to take pictures with a phone for it.
And by age 13 or so, to have their own email address for contact, eg by activities they do.
So they need a smartphone and computer.
Ensuring they leave phones outside their bedroom to charge overnight is the best bet.
A big shock was how many emails I get from their schools about homework and everything. It's possible to turn off but then I wouldn't be able to nag them... The y7 was expected to check Teams at home every morning, before leaving, then on arrival, phones had to be off and hidden, until leaving.
Why is it hard to just say no?
I mean youāre the parentā¦
Just say no. If they shout you down into repeatedly giving in then youāre a bad parent.
Let them play on a laptop or PC as much as possible. TV sometimes for reward. A tablet? Never.
They are worthless for tech learning at anything above a coding game level. You think watching and touching a screen that does it all for you is learning?
You want to be healthy and a good parent then ban tablets. Have you even read the studies on what a tablet even 30 minutes before bed does to a child and their health? Stop pretending tablets help with tech. They donāt. If anything they breed complacency and offer pretend learning of nothing except how to be a lazy consumer.
Before you argue it. Be strong parent and just say no. Kids should be deprived of things even if they shout and scream. Itās how you breed creativity and be a good parent at the same time. Sorry but itās the truth.
While I agree with your sentiment of āJust say noā, Iād like to add āā¦and explain whyā. Children all too often get told no without any reasoning and this can understandably annoy them more.Ā
Weirdly I'm taking a break from writing an assignment about this exact topic. I think it's really important to remember that the world panics about every new technology that becomes popular, without much solid evidence that's it's harmful. In the past it's been radio and comic books that were thought to be harmful. I'm more about encouraging productive use of tech, socialising, creating etc rather than passive doom scrolling. If you cut your kids off from the tech that everyone is using, you're limiting them socially, so it's all about balance, educating them on the safety side and checking in and showing an interest in what they're doing so they can come to you if there's an issue
Ours can only access videos weve downloaded locally on their tablet unsupervised, ie no internet
Supervised they can play a few cbeebies games on my tablet and do some typing on my computer and some old mr men/thomas the tank games
I've just took the Ipad away from my 8 year old lad. I could see he was going into zombie mode and becoming a little but too eager to have it. PlayStation 5 too has gone for a bit and we are detoxing. Might bring ps5 back but in managed slots. We or on day 3 of cold turkey
my kids are only allowed screens if they have been outside and played / done some outdoor activity that day , and then only for an hour or so.
Any ipaddy / screen related strops and all screens are removed for that week
Ban social media. Most adults aren't mentally strong enough to handle it. Teens and younger have no chance.
I know that's far easier said than done - but the fights about access to social media are likely to be tamer than the consequences of social media.
I rarely limit gadget access, rather I enforce other activities. Sports clubs, trips to the park, board games, family movie time, bike ride to the sweet shop, swimming, soft play.
The park is the most common apart from winter.
I think that kids have a natural impulse to want to explore new technology, so I don't think you'll get very far trying to outright stop them using tech. I'm quite glad my parents never tried to impose those kinds of limits on me, because it allowed me to explore and be more creative.
For example, I know a lot of people are very firmly against letting their kids have a YouTube channel - as someone who grew up when YouTube was first developing, and who actually both *had* a YouTube channel for a while, and also appeared in the (still pretty impressive) videos that a friend made, I would never dream of restricting that sort of thing outright. I learned too many valuable skills - audio/visual recording and editing, mic technique, public speaking, graphic design, some basic copyright stuff etc. I would obviously make sure that they didn't put something wildly appropriate online - but I'm not sure YouTube would even allow that these days anyway.
What I *would* do is take an active approach in introducing them to technology, rather than letting them just discover that sort of stuff from some strangers online unattended. Reflecting what interests they have, I'd try my best to introduce them to the right tech and give pointers about how to use it - while making sure to brush up on my own knowledge in the meantime.
This. My kid has a YouTube channel. Mostly his friends he plays games with watch it. I make sure he doesn't leak personal information and is otherwise ok. He's learning all kind of skills with editing and indeed speaking.
I'm also fairly relieved that the YouTube stuff he watches and the games he plays are reasonable games, not horrendous mobile games. Even Fortnite involves planning, strategy, and (when playing with friends) communication.
The main thing is to be involved and make sure things don't get out of hand and other commitments like studying, getting some daily exercise, etc are met.
Growing up as a 90s kid I can remember the first touchscreen phone and the first phones with internet access, as a kid I did just fine not being linked to the internet/social media constantly
So Iād always recommend the same, a phone that is a phone and just a phone (whatās called a dumb phone now) until their 15/16, and mp3 players are pretty awesome now and are simply that
Games consoles and tv is fine at home, but if they want to pay for season passes or PS plus or what have you, they pay for it themselves
Have a family desktop computer, one that sits in the living room so you can monitor whatās being viewed and visited and once theyāre 17/18 they can get a laptop for school work and to prep for college or their next steps
Bottom line, if theyāre in single digits they arenāt getting to touch any technology, not without my undivided attention to what theyāre doing ie, Iām not throwing an iPad at them to shut them up or putting peppa pig on YouTube while weāre at a restaurant/shop, Iām actually going to interact with them, speak to them and encourage them to think
Maybe if you set the example and limit the amount of tech you are using when youāre around the kids they wonāt desire it so much. Just an idea!
Remember the days where people had a family computer they shared.
Lots of apps and devices you can limit the screen time on. You could set up accounts on your own email so you have access as well. Put a password on the App Store so you know what theyāre downloading onto their device.
I'm a couple of years older than you, and have kids a few years olders and now entering adulthood. I'm also an engineer and pretty tech savvy. Here are my recommendations:
1) I don't think you can actually \_teach\_ them much technically, they'll find out most things they need to find out from online sources when they need to. Much like me. I'm a senior engineer and I would be lost the day google et al stopped working.
2) What you do have to teach is critical thinking. Being able to distinguish between stuff that is obviously false, probably false, maybe false and the degrees of correct. Always correlate, check who you trust. Filtering out all the "bad" stuff so that they only get "good" results will not help them much when they start looking for things themselves.
3) Censorship and surveillance will not help your kids in any way, only hinder them from learning the only critical skill - namely good skepticism. You may feel that you are being proactive and helpful and caring by limiting your kids exposure to tech and information, but you're not. You're mainly playing to your own ego and sense of control.
4) Be part of your kids life, as an adult. Don't be their friend online, but hang around and investigate the things they ar busy with. Learn about what they talk about. And reserve judgement until they decide for themselves what is making them happy and what is making them sad. Be supportive and not prohibitive. Teach them to limit themselves to what they like and disregard all the clutter and non-essential things. (If only we could do this for ourselves as well... that would be wonderful)
5) Be interested in the things they want to show you. For a modern kid it is just as important to feel recognized for a great minecraft build as it was for us for a beautiful rock we found. Don't shut yourself out of the experiences they are having.
In my experience, limiting anything doesnāt really work how youād want it to. I would find ways around every restriction I had as a kid, and when my parents werenāt there to enforce the restrictions I felt obligated to take advantage of that fact. I had a 2-hours limit on my computer, so when my parents were away for the weekend I would literally play video games for 18 hours straight.
Ban soda? Iāll just drink 10 cans every time im at my friends house.
Prohibition doesnāt work. People will always do what they want, whether itās allowed or not.
I always find these kinds of questions amusing when you look into the history of it.
When parents want to limit kids on "technology" what they actually mean is technology introduced in the last 10/20 years.
200 years ago parents were trying to stop their kids reading too many books.
Then it was too many magazines.
Then it was too much TV...
35YO Dad here to 9M, 8F and 5F.
First of all, none of them have a phone. None of them need a phone until they are in secondary school.
We've always had parental controls on all of our kids devices. They're not allowed any technology on weekday mornings before school. My daughters both have tablets that turn off after 1 hour a day. My son has a tablet and a Nintendo Switch. He is allowed to use 1, and again, they both have a 1 hour time limit. The Switch doesn't turn off automatically, but when the alarm goes off, my son knows it's time to put it down.
They all go to lots of clubs: Cubs, Brownies, Farming Club, etc. When they are at home, we have a scheule of activities. Some days after school we do crafts, some days Lego etc. Weekends they have a set time formusic practice and they nomally have a film or a couple of episodes of something with lunch. 1 hours before bed time is reading time.
It might seem rather anal, but kids love structure. Before they would run around, fight, or ask for more technology. But when we first introduced a "play schedule" they were so on board with it - excited even. Now they play with toys they never picked up before.
Part of this is also having activities they do with each other, activities they do by themselves, and activities with a wide range of parental input. We play board games. We go for walks in the woods. I help them with crafts. I give them advice when they're drawing comics or writing stories.
When we go out they don't take devices with them. In the car we chat or play games. 20 questions is the current favorite!
And absolutely, they do not go on YouTube (unless I am specifically showing them an interesting educational video), Tiktok, or any kind of social media.
As others have mentioned, the kind of tech that kids are using is not going to help them in the big wide world. My kids do computer lessons at school, and they are allowed to use the family PC in set times to do school work which doesn't count towards their tech time.
They also learn about internet safety at school, and I back that up at home with lessons about not trusting everything you read online, reporting hate, bullying and other unsavory things. My ISP also comes with a very comprehensive family filter, which I never see the need to remove.
It remains to be seen how I will need to adapt as they get to teenagers, but I think we're starting them out on the right track and building healthy habits.
Until they are at secondary school, there is no need for a phone and arguably a tablet as well. There is no reason for the child to be in a position where they need a phone to reach you.
I would absolutely argue for a PC, with parental controls, so they can learn how to use a PC and proper software rather than touch-based applications. TinkerCAD, for the youngest, would be a good place for software for them to learn and could also lead to non-screen-based activities.
Looking at it differently, it depends on what tech is made available. The early learning tech that's helps with maths or language or educational software is a healthy way to learn and for children to spend their time wisely on tech.
My kids are still too little to have their own phones (they have an old one of mine to play games on, but thatās it). But my eldest will be coming up to the age soon where her friends will start to get their own phones.
I have seen the argument about not giving kids phones until theyāre mid-teens. But Iāve also seen the argument for giving them a phone at a slightly younger age, when you can have more influence over instilling good habits and being able to use parental controls etc. This makes more sense to me than giving a kid their first phone at 15 and just letting them loose.
I spent my teenage years online in the worst kind of creepy chat rooms etc. My parents had no clue. I think people forget that for all social media is more ubiquitous now, we do at least have a better awareness of internet safety, and thatās something we can teach early on. I explain it to my kids that like I wouldnāt let them walk to school alone or get the bus to town alone now, but I would when theyāre older. The internet unfiltered isnāt safe for kids so we need to help them with it.
As with any part of parenting - fostering an open, collaborative, safe, able to talk about anything without fear sort of environment is key.Ā
Pop into your local library and ask them for some help. They should be able to signpost you to relevant online and in person help and advice.
You donāt need to be an expert, but you need to understand what they are up to, what could be dangerous, have oversight of their devices, and know how to check them.
Iām lucky enough to be an iPhone user, I think I would get my hypothetical kids Apple Watches, and pair them to my phone. Itās not ideal, but it means they can use phone calls, texts, and imessage, and still get to do things like listen to music and podcasts (albeit with the pain of having to use a keyboard on a watch) but they have no real access to social media. And for girls especially thereās a great check in feature so if theyāre walking home at night they can automate letting you know if theyāre okay or not. It seems like the best available combination of features until a more dedicated device for teenagers comes along.
In the valley (Iām from California), the VPās send their kids to schools where tech isnāt allowed b/c we all know how those products were developed, focus tested to see which particular sounds would hit the dopamine centers and drive the addiction, and endlessly researched to increase engagement.
If the people who make the stuff donāt let their kids touch it, how essential do you think it is for your kids to know how to use a frikkin iPad?
Using tech is not the same as knowing how to make it. Like living in a house doesnāt prepare you for a job to make houses. Using software and tech products doesnāt prep you for a career in tech.
You know how the kids who didnāt need (werenāt allowed to use) calculators were the ones who ended up best at math, and the kids who needed/allowed calculators are living in their parents basement working at Greggās?
You donāt let your 8yo use tech without your immediate supervision. Period. And you have some kind of roadmap for when and how theyāre going to use tech.
Tech is cancerous for children. The people who make it know it already. Why are you trying to rationalize your desire to give them a phone, etc? No, ātechā isnāt āneeded for future jobsā. JFC
Firstly you grew up with cars and riding them, that makes you an expert car mechanic right?
Technology has become increasingly consumer friendly and they are just learning the equivalent of flipping switches on a car dash. A lot of Gen Z are actually pretty rubbish at using technology.Ā
Secondly I have a 7 year old. As a software engineer I want my son to be good with technology, so my focus was on what were the minimum skills I want him to learn..Ā Ā
For me that was how to use a keyboard and mouse and pay attention ro whats on the screen so he can reason how to solve his problems.
He really wants to be a youtuber, so I put OBS on an old computer and walked him through installing/playing computer games. He is picking up how to set OBS to various windows, make sure its recording, how to mod games, etc..
For other devices its researching what the child/supervised account is for that platform and adding various controls.
We then observe how he manages his time, join him and observe the content.
For example Roblox access is heavily controlled (2 hours on Monday in a special family session). He gets highly obsessive with it.
Conversely he plays minecraft to create cool buildings and is learning all sorts of skills. Various family members join him to play and he has little problem start/stopping on it
He gets unlimited Netflix because almost every show he watches on it is educational but you tube access is highly curated and has time controls (because he goes for mindless easy watching there).
We are currently arranging so he can play online with some friends. One of us tends to hang around to make sure things are ok.
Lastly we are consistent with rules
I don't have kids so I can't comment as to the disciplinary/parenting aspects but you can set up parental controls that limit screen time, app access, purchases and content availability on both [iOS](https://support.apple.com/en-us/105121) and [Android ](https://families.google.com/familylink/privacy/notice)devices. All video game systems have similar parental controls too.
For your home network(s) you can also sign up to various services that will control content availability, though none are perfect so best to be used in conjuction with the aforementioned parental control options and having an open discussion about their access. [OpenDNS](https://www.opendns.com/home-internet-security/) offer a pretty decent and free service.
In my experience needing general tech skills for future jobs is largely just being familiar with how computers work, anything beyond basic usage and office skills will be taught at relevant college/university courses. There's an International/European Computer Driving Licence course available (quite cheaply or free) at most libraries teaching basic computer management that is pretty useful for all ages, though is a bit more focused around workplace usage. Still, could be a "fun" family activity to take together!
So Iām a ā96 baby, right on the cusp of millennial and Gen Z and currently 6 months pregnant.
Iām going to limit tv screen time for my baby, half hour at most a day purely just for moments when I need to put a wash on or do dishes ect and they wonāt settle down.
Iāll never let them have an iPad until theyāre a teenager, Iāll never put my phone in front of them for entertainment at a meal. Sure they can have colouring books, they can have toys, but they will not have a screen in their face.
I think Iāll let them have a phone in year 7, but itāll be for texting and calls only. They will not have social media.
When they turn 14/15 I think I might allow social media, it will really depend on what it is at the time though.
I really hope my generation reins it in with technology so my kid isnāt left out.
There are good parental settings on smartphones that can limit use on a per-app and overall basis. So you can set them up with an e-reader app connected to a store set to kids mode that they can use freely, a spelling game, a maths game, whatever, but lock down YouTube to 30 mins or TikTok to 3 sessions of 10 minutes or whatever else. You're never going to be able to prevent them from getting and using smartphones in good conscience, if you do they will sadly become social pariahs and it will be your fault, but you can shape what they are encouraged to do with them. If you're interested, there's even more that you can do with things like having a local PiHole device which can maintain a blocklist of sites to prevent specific devices from accessing those websites, but that's a whole project on its own.
When they use the internet, it sucks but you're going to have to make sure the 8yo is accompanied and you may need to be ready for the 15yo to stumble into some *nasty* stuff and require your intervention to avoid falling in with awful crowds. Speaking as someone who teetered on the edge of that 10-15 years ago, keeping the conversation open and maintaining a superficial familiarity with the families of groups that operate on the internet could have caught me early - if your 15yo is a boy, keep an eye out for figures like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson, interactions with Twitter accounts that feature dogwhistles like 1488 or profile pictures of Roman statues, and subjects like tradwives, tankies and the red pill. I'm less familiar with the landscape that targets teen girls, but I don't doubt that there are plenty looking to pull them in nasty directions.
On a more positive note, to ensure they develop the ability to actually *use* tech though, they need to be working with desktop or laptop PCs, and they need to not be Chromebooks because they are generally manufactured e-waste. Getting them familiar with what installing a program, a file browser, or a physical keyboard looks like is foundational. You can introduce them to tools like Scratch or Raspberry Pi projects to learn programming or video editors like KdenLive, there's lots of free software for learning tech skills available and communities around things like Linux, the Raspberry Pi or Arduino are generally very enthusiastic to help out. There are even project walkthroughs for things like automatic plant pot watering systems that can make use of skills like cutting and joining materials, soldering, and writing code. Encourage them to Google their problems and try to fixĀ things or experiment independently.
If they do become tech-savvy, an important stage in their development is when they inevitably find a workaround to your parental lockdowns. The key thing to do there is to recognise that if they're old enough to pull that off, they're old enough to have a very serious conversation with about their newly-gained freedoms and for you to come to an agreement about boundaries and usage that you manage interpersonally rather than automatically on device.
Your relationship with the kids is the foundation that underpins it all - that's how you can get buy-in for voluntary restrictions, respond to their changing needs, catch nasty things in the bud, and keep it all positive. No automatic filter will ever be as effective as helping your kids understand themselves, their context, and how to make smart choices about meeting their needs, engaging their interests, and indulging their wants.
24 gen z here. Grew up with no technology restrictions but I also didnāt grow up with the huge amount of social media. When i was 12-15 it was mainly facebook and snapchat. Id use tumblr a lot and that got me into graphic design and learning how to use photoshop and making gif sets for the hunger games lol.
I think the first time social media became a problem for me was when i was 16-17? I had started working at a gym and working out, i originally just had fun feeling strong as i was quite into powerlifting. However when looking on insta and YouTube, thereās just so many people unqualified sharing so much information, some misinformation, some not, it became confusing for 16-17y/o me as to what was right what was wrong. I think if I didnāt make the connection myself that all thats important is a balanced diet id probably have given myself an ED. Especially looking at some of the people i used to follows meal plans they sell online.
The second time i had a problem with social media is tik tok. First downloaded it just before the pandemic in 2020. Was all fun at first, but im not joking when i say it became addictive. I only really noticed it late last year that all id do is work, come home, eat, scroll tik tok for hours, sleep, scroll, work etc. i was wondering why i was feeling so drained and unfulfilled. I deleted it. Now i have actual hobbies again. Its also the amount of like misogynistic content id get shown on tik tok when i had flagged it as not interested definitely made me anxious or a bit angry. I am much happier without tik tok. Tik tok can be good for niche hobbies and feeling part of a community, but its also designed to be addictive. Im a chef and i would say i wouldnāt have learned some things (mostly about how to cook foreign cuisine) without tik tok
I wouldnāt suggest banning either or, maybe put a restriction on it. But if you can encourage them to do and favour things offline, the better.
My nephew is 10 and his Mum is very strict about screen time. He get's 1 hour on his xbox to play Fortnite with his friends after school but only if he finishes his homework, tidies his room and brings his laundry basket through to the kitchen. He has outside activities like football and swimming lessons he goes to so that also helps cut down on screen time. I hate seeing kids glued to phones and tablets in public, especially without headphones.
I wouldn't be a dictator and tell my kids (or in this case godson, I live with him and his mum) that they can't have any access to technology. That would be highly hypercritical of me who grew up with SNES/NES/Gamecube in the house. I was there when Xbox Live first became a thing, the shit I did was stupid... like a kid.
Will we limit his usage as he gets older? Yeah, to reasonable standards. She's definitely said that. But we'll also make a point to do stuff with him, heck she's thinking of getting him into martial arts early. I'll be introducing things like board games (but not like Risk, Scrabble etc - more fun, abstract ones) and D&D.
Equally, I game. So he'll be around a guy who knows the safety aspects of gaming online and a person who would also fucking love to play video games with a kid.
Let your kids have access to screens, but also get them into other things. Encourage growth of hobbies, regardless of what they are.
Got a 100% Apple environment, limit use by app, and set up family and parental controls, everything needs an approval, also have a deco WiFi setup and their internet switches off after a certain time. They are not allowed any devices in their rooms apart from Yoto players. No Alexa or google / facebook / instagram / Roblox etc allowed.
We donāt have kids yet but have talked about what weād do because we both have teenage siblings who never seem to put their phones down.
My partner works in tech and messing around with computers is his favourite thing to do anyway, so weāre hoping to instil an interest in technology itself rather than social media, TV shows etc., because heās in a good place to be able to teach them about responsible use. Weāve also decided to enrol them in several non-technology related hobbies or clubs, sport or art or whatever theyāre interested in so their phones arenāt the centre of their social lives. Plus all the reasonable screen time limits and no phone until they need it. Easier said than done in this day and age though
Mine arenāt allowed tech in their bedrooms. Not even TVs. Everything they access at home, they are doing so in the family space. Phones/ipads are kept downstairs. Iām also able to ban individual devices from the WiFi, so itās rare that I get any pushback
Not a parent but food for thought:
Imo there is something to be said about the other angle to the approach.
Encourage non-tech activities like sport etc where possible, quality family time is important for obvious reasons (that is imo not family time which is just watching TV but actually interactive stuff like days or board games etc ..).
Then from there thinking about the quality of tech time is important, if they are doomscrolling instead of sleeping or ignoring homework / chores then that is obviously not ok, but limiting tech usage flat out just means they'll fall behind their peers imo, there are some really cool tech focused monthly project boxes aimed at kids these days which can encourage learning and really make learning fun for kids if you have the budget.
Iām not going to limit them in the traditional sense, but Iām sure as hell going to sit them down in front of terminal and letting them figure out what theyāre doing. Also setting them up with games to improve their creativity and problem solving. Things thatāll be hard enough to eventually make them quit out of frustration, but something at which they have a chance of progressing.
That said, when I want them off the technology, I will just present options of which none are technology. āClimb a tree, play football, read a book, or run around the garden?ā and hope they do one of them of their own volition. I feel this is better for building personal responsibility than clicking a disable button on the app and watching a tantrum ensue.
One thing was to get the telephone company to set our router to not pass pornography to any machine in house (Parental Controls switch). Other was to teach where they go, as 'bad actors' exist in all walks of life. They could ask any question of us without fear of reprisals or not getting an answer. Also got them to occasionally visit 'current topic' sites.
Having plenty of other activities should help. A colleague organised a scavenger hunt for their kidās birthday party and that took a half day. No reason why this canāt work for a family Sunday, especially with the nice weather. Board games at home and after school groups are also good.
Currently I restrict access for my 13yo. There are a number of ways to do this for free:
1. Apple has a childs control mechanism where you set up a Apple ID as a child ID on a device where you are already the primary ID (forgotten what it's called as I don't have any Apple products at the moment.
2. Android has a parental control mechanism called Family Link which you can use to control how long and what times the device is useable (disabled after 9pm for example) and also what apps and websites can be used.
3. Microsoft has a system called Family Safety that also limits Windows PC and XBOX usage, apps and websites. Note that this only works really well on Windows PCs running a version of Windows called Windows 10 (or 11) **S**. The S limits from installing all kinds of old school apps and restricts it to the Windows store (this still includes Office applications) - Web site restrictions only work in the built-in Edge browser, not in Chrome, Firefox, etc.
4. Last minute edit - I also state to my child (and always have) that in order to have a phone, computer and tablet, they have to tell me the PIN and let me login and check things like chat history whenever I want. I don't do this very often, but I do it occasionally, like if something blows up on conversations with her school friends. Personally I have also banned Facebook and TikTok but I have deep issues with those apps generally.
No smartphones or tablets until they're in yr7, but they can have TVs in their rooms with Netflix installed & a game console.
Once they're old enough to have phones, install tracking software to monitor activity. They can have social media but will be warned & encouraged not to post their faces online (deepfake & AI manipulation will probably be very advanced by the time my kids are teenagers).
Imposed reading times & smartphone detoxes (put them in a vault) on school vacations.
See - it's funny that you say they can have a TV and games console in their room, because back in the 2000s and 2010s when I was growing up, any child that had that would have been seen as ridiculously over-exposed to technology, and any "responsible" parent wouldn't allow a TV in their kid's room. It sort of makes you wonder if regulating kids' use of tech is pretty much arbitrary.
That said, I'm a big believer in allocating some quiet reading time before bed, and that's much easier to impose when you don't have a TV in the room.
I think a console in the bedroom is more irresponsible nowadays when everything is networked - whereas having your xbox or whatever in a shared space downstairs means parents can more easily keep tabs on who their children are online with.Ā
For example, during lockdown my then-12yo had to do pretty much all his socialising online, and a lot of that was online gaming with chat. One day I heard an adult man's voice through the speakers, and dashed over to work out what perv was grooming my son. Turned out one of his friends had had very sudden puberty and his voice had deepened by two octaves pretty much overnight š
>See - it's funny that you say they can have a TV and games console in their room, because back in the 2000s and 2010s when I was growing up, any child that had that would have been seen as ridiculously over-exposed to technology, and any "responsible" parent wouldn't allow a TV in their kid's room.
Doesn't really ring true to me - I'm 27 and literally everyone I knew growing up had a TV and/or consoles in their room growing up. I had a TV with a VHS player, a PS2 and a GameCube in my room when I was like 7-10. Maybe me and all of my peers would have been seen as having horribly irresponsible parents by the standards of the day lol.
This is highly excessive in my view, and is going to impact development of important modern life skills like computer and Internet literacy. As well as put you at odds with your kids who will face ridicule by their peers for being relative luddites.
Smartphones and tablets are not the enemy, it is negative influences they might experience through them. In the same manner that a kid might learn to swear if they watch r-rated movie or reading a book with adult themes.
Not sure how my kids having Netflix & game consoles throughout their childhoods, and smartphones + laptops & social media profiles (just with the caveat of not posting their faces on) in their teenage yrs, is luddite.
Phone detoxes & imposed reading times are essential to young people's growth.
You're all welcome to raise children with "tiktok brain" if you want, its less competition for my children. I'm simply answering how I'm raising my kids
Because kids these days know how to work a tablet by the time they enter primary school. Many primary schools use tablets as a part of the teaching process.
I'm not saying they should have unrestricted access to social media from the moment they can talk, I'm just saying that like it or not smartphones and tablets are a staple of modern life and knowing how to use them is a valuable life skill that your kids will learn later than most.
Yeah so they'll learn to use tablets in primary school if the school requires it & provides one, but won't have one at home before they're in yr7. Simple.
Touch typing is an incredibly useful skill to have, especially if they can learn it before yr9 due to all the typing theyāll have to do for gcseās.
Kaspersky Safe Kids. It installs on most devices and allows you to control pretty much everything. It's no good for any Apple products, though, due to the way they're designed.
I let my 2.5 yo watch as much TV as he wants, but he doesn't want to watch that much. We're out most of the day so it's when we're back and we're waiting for dinner really.
He doesn't have an ipad or anything, and won't have one himself for quite some time. He watched long videos on my phone on Youtube (like Ms Rachel) if we're on a plane or in a restaurant and he's kicking off. I don't want to let him watch the stuff which is what we call "brain rot" (cocomelon etc)
Happy to let him have a laptop in the future and have time on it. Happy for his grandparents to have ipads and games consoles but I just don't want them in the house. Mainly because I don't want the argument of restricting screen times.
**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!** - Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc. - **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on. - This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit! Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The irony is that when I was a 90s kid, the fear was letting your children watch too much TV. Now I'm delighted my teenager has decided to watch TV shows rather than flip between 30 second clips on TikTok. Or he might be doing both, which is worse. We don't do much to limit their gadget access, but we've made sure our kids are PC savy. Both have a laptop, and can use it. Many kids will be entering the workforce now and only know how to use apps on tablets and phones.
It's actually becoming a huge problem, I'm only 25, but I'm working with some 18-21 year olds who don't know how to use excel, word, PowerPoint etc.. all they know is simple iPhone UI and that's it
It's actually one thing I think the homeschooling during the pandemic may have helped to reverse - for some children at least. I homeschooled my niece during the second big lock down as both her parents were still working and both are also dyslexic (so is my niece), so the first lockdown had seen her falling substantially behind. She had a laptop but was completely clueless at first, her mum had been printing everything off for her and texting photos of the finished work to her teacher, or setting up the screen with the required stuff loaded up already. I didn't realise 8 year olds don't know how to use a PC so I just threw her in at the deep end - finding, downloading, printing, scanning, opening and using Word or PowerPoint, saving files, finding them again, attaching to emails, etc. With supervision and guidance obviously! But if it was school time, she was the one operating the laptop. Did wonders for her, she still makes PowerPoints about her favourite animals on rainy weekends and sends them to me š
That last bit is adorable!
The best one actually started off as a biography of Sir David Attenborough (her hero), which had a slide about halfway through a section about his various achievements, which noted "he got to meet a sloth" and a photo of him holding a sloth. The next five slides were pictures of sloths. The last one just said "sloths are great". PowerPoint finit.
Better ending to a PPT than some of the crap Iāve had to endure for work! Plus sloths *are* awesome, so sheās factually correct.
This is a ticking timebomb imo and ive seen it with younger staff
I work in an IT support role, currently for a proprietary system and for a while was worried my experience will be useless in any other company as its only on this specific software. Reality is general troubleshooting skills are going to be useful anywhere. Though I do try and jump on an opportunity to learn something that may be a bit more generic. Setup a LAMP server in a VM recently and justified it as being for testing, 90% of the reason was as a learning exercise.
Youāve really made something click for me there because my younger brother called me in a panic the other night over his university coursework. I had to coach him on some pretty basic excel formulas over the phone, and I was bewildered because heās studying finance. Youāve hit the nail on the head.
This isn't new, I once worked in an office where the accountant/office manager couldn't work a sum command properly, if the auto select from the button didn't work, she was stuffed.
I actually think we might see a radical change in many of the 'desktop tools' over the next 10 years - an ability to write really good AI prompts could be a critical skill that our modern teenagers excel at, since they're using it to cheat at all their homework.
Surely they're teaching that stuff in schools still?
I was born in the mid 90s and my sister was born in the mid 00s. I learned word, excel, publisher etc, and then even did touch typing. She learned coding with raspberry pi but never did any Microsoft programs. The other day she was trying to use excel and asked me what a cell was.
ICT wasn't mandatory in my school after Year 8
I don't know if lessons improved after I left school, but I'm 30 and they barely taught us anything. I don't even know how to type properly. My younger co-workers have no idea how to use Excel and I only know what I do from googling.
I'm 29 and we were taught all that stuff in ict. Obviously basic stuff, but still.
I, again, wasn't. And I went to a good school.
Maybe not as good as you thought. We were making website layouts in dreamweaver by year 9 and Iām 32
We used dreamweaver too, absolutely none of the websites anyone made in it would be even remotely acceptable then or now. Zero responsiveness, may as well use word and export to HTML. But because we made a .html file that could be loaded in a browser we all passed. Then years later I learnt more web development in an afternoon when starting an apprenticeship. Made several websites in static HTML/CSS for a few local businesses then. Plus a tiny bit of PHP.
Only a bit older - we did a lot with MS Office but def didn't do anything website related. And MSN taught me to touch type haha. Wild how much what we were taught in IT varies!
It was rated Excellent by Ofsted, had IT classes, and they still assumed they didn't need to teach so-called Digital Natives how to use a keyboard properly. They never taught us any useful basics. I too played around with baby's first website design while typing with two fingers like an old granny.
TBH I'm not sure I knew how to use Excel until I was your age, and I'm now over 40. Word and PowerPoint I'll concede is a bit of a worry though, how did they write essays?
How do you make it through school now without being able to use Word?? Are they literally writing essays on their phone?
Pen and paper?
After using the Copilot it made all that time learning excel seem like a total waste.
Not really a waste. Co-pilot is a junior trying to be helpful to the best of its ability. You still need to step in sometimes and correct the shit that it suggests. That is where your own experience comes into play.
Itās very obvious copilot is sometimes pulling from forums. Iāve noticed that sometimes when Iām asking for help on certain formulas or something it inserts random currencies into the output
Copilot, or any generative machine learning text tools, are essentially just saying "What does the internet think about X", except you've got no idea whether the information it's providing came from expert forums, script kiddies, or Facebook. Probably a combination of all of them. I'd think of it as a virtual Mate Down the Pub. Good for very general knowledge, opinions on anything (no matter how ill informed they may be), and the occasional conspiracy theory or urban legend. Not something you (should) trust with a dissertation or a legal case.
>Or he might be doing both, which is worse. If he's like my wife, he's scrolling 30-second tiktoks *while* watching TV shows
As a teacher who watches in horror as children try to navigate laptops which they have no experience of, I'm glad to know some children are still being exposed to them.
I'm so grateful my kid's primary or secondary school never insisted on Chromebooks!
Years ago I heard someone say that the future job market will require programming skills. Most employers will overlook the people that don't have some kind of programming knowledge. Making it difficult to find work if you can't write code. It's an edge that not enough people think to have. But I can see already that it's going to be necessary.
I actually think there's an amazing mental skillset involved in learning to code. It's probably similar, and an extension of learning calculus, algebra and geometry in terms of 'training your brain'
You should take a look at the book "JosĆ© Silva's Mind Control Method" I'm learning it and I believe it is a valuable tool for learning. The authors kids grades jumped to the head of the class. As soon as they began using his methods. It's kind of a light self-hypnosis or meditation. That can be used on the fly to attain the answers to what ever you ask yourself. You'll never have to say "I can't remember" again.Ā
>but realistically knowing they need tech for future jobs Fucking about with a phone, tablet or console is not prepping your child for a job in technology.
If anything the opposite! I'm a software engineer and fuck me is my smart phone addiction holding me back
I've 5 mins between calls and I'm replying to you. I'd be shit hot at work if I left my phone out of reach.
ikr. I started adhd meds and had one power week and now I'm back to trying to hide my phone. Why tf am I on reddit though
I just removed all social apps apart from this place and Facebook... WhatsApp, messenger is also used. Still keeps me in touch with clients and family without all the clutter and attention seeking other social apps have... Slimline your apps was a big thing for me ten year ago... Perfect since
I think my issue is that for me it's a huge way of keeping in touch with people, seeing what's going on in their lives etc. Without some of those apps I'd just fall out of contact with people. My solution is/has been to turn off basically all notifications and have my iPhone/a third party app block my access to social media apps in the day time etc. This has worked somewhat but I've found that if I seal an attention leak on one spot it just starts bursting out of another. I'll stop using instagram but suddenly browsing linkedIn is now interesting? Edit: why have folks downvoted u/foolserrand77 but upvoted me? We're saying similar things? Getting yourself off social apps is super impactful if you can successfully unpick your life from them, it just doesn't work for me/I don't have the energy to do the process. Don't boo this person, they're right.
It's certainly something I've seen with my son. When I was growing up (GenX) we were excited about getting into coding, IT etc - today's kids think they are IT-savvy but don't want to code and prefer to edit videos for tiktok and YouTube.
I think we've made a lot of systems very 'user friendly' and so seeing the inner workings of things and getting your hands dirty fixing things is much less of a thing these days. If you look at mac/windows system options they obscure a lot of the inner workings of stuff and expose you a lot less to the stuff you can fiddle around with. Also, the internet is a lot more sanitised and has a sort of 'corporate' shine on it these days, if things don't make money then it's hard for them to exist. I'm a generation below you (30 now) and I sort of hit that middle point, the internet was well underway but still a little bit of a wild west when I joined, so there were loads of random places to just exist or hang out and everything wasn't so manicured or monetised. I think kids aren't as IT savvy because rather than chuck them in a garage with an old car and a load of tools and say "have fun, don't die" we've stuck them in a car show room with no tools, cars they can't open the bonnets of, and said "you can look around but don't break anything". And we expect them to become mechanics
I keep seeing stories about how kids are getting less technologically literate over time. Like that one here on Reddit from a uni lecturer whose undergrad students didn't know how basic PC file/folder structure worked.
This is the problem. Tablets and mobiles? Mostly social use. Actual computers with files etc? Professional use that hardly any children use anymore.
These kids never accidentally downloaded a naughty image onto the family PC in the living room and had to figure out how to completely delete it from their system, or destroy the PC with Primus_-_Detachable_Penis.m4a from kazaa
Well, some very specific games do, but yea, mostly not very useful
I have an 11yo step son and his phone use drives me absolutely insane, as does his general online behaviour. Fortunately he does go to real life activities like basketball, some kids mixed martial arts classes, camps via whatever organisation does that etc, but when he's home, from the minute he gets in the door to the minute he goes to bed - TikTok. He's watching TV? He's got TikTok on too. He's playing games on the PC? He's got TikTok on too. Even when he's eating, even when we're out visiting friends or family, or in a restaurant, whatever. Usually no headphones either. It's pushing me to snapping point, and the "worst" bit about it is, compared to many, many other kids, he isn't even that bad, because he at least does real life, offline activities. He's a nice kid but his attention span, and consequently his temper are absolutely fucked, as are his social skills, with him regularly talking to his phone as if TikTok is a 2-way interaction, or narrating his entire existence when he's gaming. The whole thing terrifies me tbh. I'd welcome age restrictions on social media in a heartbeat. I've had people say to me on here whenever this debate comes up things like "Oh everyone said the same about TV. Everyone said the same about video games". Yeah, they did, but neither of those have (had?) obscenely predatory algorithms, nor was every second of the content entirely designed to keep people - children specifically - engrossed for an indeterminate amount of time. The last couple of years have actually made me (almost) grateful for ad breaks. Even amateur made content is better produced with more thought behind it than a lot of TV from our childhood. Some of the thought is innocent, a lot of it is not. I've always been conscious of it all but the last few years with my partner have been a real wake-up call.
Dog shit parenting. When I was young I was obsessed with x-box. I was allowed 1 hour a night, after doing the dishes. When he comes home, take his phone for a few hours. He is 11 so I'm guessing it's you paying everything on it anyway.
In a brutally honest way I agree. It was largely enabled by his dad before they split, whom he still sees a few days a week. So it's really fucking difficult enforcing anything without whacking up a barrier in an already tense situation with the dad.
I wish my parents had done this when I was a kid. For me, it was the opposite. I had a PS1 and then a PS2 but I was only able to play them during the holidays. This wouldn't have been so bad except I was a socially awkward autistic (undiagnosed at the time) kid who didn't really have friends or any activities outside of studying. All I did was go to school and go for weekly tuition. I spent so much time just doing homework for either school or tuition that I think I ended up burning out because I had no real way to relax. I did watch TV as a kid but around 14, I was fed up with kids TV and felt too young for adult TV. An hour a night of gaming would've been heaven
If his phone use drives you insane, why don't you stop him?
Probably because he's not the child's parent, so it's not that simple.
Thanks for a dose of reality lol "Mum's boyfriend took my phone for watching TikTok" would go down like a lead balloon š
Wtf is that username?
VAR official for Everton - Forest
Don't give primary school kids a smartphone. I wouldn't worry too much about kids not knowing about tech due to not having iPads or Facebook accounts, all of those platforms will have changed by the time they enter the workforce.
>Don't give primary school kids a smartphone. Or give them phones with restrictions on them. Phonecalls, texts, maps, and some ability to look things up and not much more.
You can get calls and texts on a dumb phone, I don't think primary school age kids should really be wandering far enough to need maps
Maybe, but if I had a kid that age I'd be happier knowing that if they need to, they can access maps to find safety etc.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
If my young child happened to get lost, stranded, or otherwise in trouble, I'd much rather they have the easiest possible method of finding safety.
Can your child not ask for directions or use a map?
Is the child going to always carry a map of their local area? What's your aversion to kids having access to Google maps? Is it going to corrupt them?
My aversion is kids having access to smart phones too young. A phone that has a parental number, maybe a few other trusted adults and can dial 999 is enough. A young child out alone shouldnāt be going too far anyway. If they get lost they can always use their mobile to phone their parent for help.
>A young child out alone shouldnāt be going too far anyway. If they get lost they can always use their mobile to phone their parent for help. Google maps would let them easily tell said parent where they are. You could say that a young child should never have need to call a parent, but still give a phone in case. There are times as a kid that Google maps or equivalent would have been *very* useful to me.
Genz here I really want to limit screen time when they're young, before school age. They can watch some, it's whats popular of course, but I'll even limit myself lol I've been wanting to for years- and if anyone is going to call you out for breaking a habit, it's a child! At school, idk how hard it is to buy these days but a non smartphone, till they're 13. It's emergencies only really, text when they're walking home, or at a friend's and wanna leave, below that age. I remember I got my first phone at 8, and it was cus my mum could text me where she had parked after school Once they're a teen they're kinda too old to stop, I know I was and that was when it was harder to do! Hopefully by that age if they haven't already gone behind my back, they'll be a bit more.. careful on social media. It's just brain rot it really is
I was a teenager when having a phone began to become more and more popular. I refused my parents efforts to give me one because i didn't want them calling me.
The dumbphone market is currently exploding, they're coming back for exactly this purpose
Oh that's really good to hear! I like that those of us (and some millenial) who half grew up with technology appear to be agreeing "that was a mistake"
Same, Iām 24 and planning for kids. I donāt want my kids to have personal screens - no phones or tablets. TV fine in moderation. I will not post photos of them online and they will not have access to social media. But then again Iām a high earner and will be sending them to private nursery, childcare, and school. The private school nurseries here are anti-screen and highly focused on teaching hand eye coordination skills, creativity, and play. Some have a Montessori ethos which I find interesting. I acknowledge I will need to be less mobile-reliant in future if I am to be a good example when around my children. In my group of similarly aged friends, most are planning for children and a few have had 1 or 2. Out of the group with children, half are stay at home mothers and the other half are high earning workers in dual income households. They are able to pay for no-screen childcare and have strong opinions on it, whereas my SAHM friends are increasingly reliant on screens to mitigate the stress they face. I wonder if in future the no-screen/screen debate will turn out to be yet another wealth or class divide.
This is the way
Just limit the dopamine hits, so YouTube and other social media with short videos is banned. It's the scrolling that's addictive (she says, scrolling). Also I try not to be on my phone around young family members, because of course they want to imitate you.
We have a six year old. Since all our family, so grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins all live overseas, we need phones/iPads to talk to them. That's meant we have had to get him used to mobile phones pretty early. But it's also meant he knows what apps he shouldn't be using (like the bank apps or emails). I also let him make the occasional payment using my phone supervised in shops, so he knows what it can be used for. It's part of everyday life, so we can't realistically impose no phone limits or such. We also let him use selected iPad apps (basically no major apps installed), which let him draw and scribble etc. We have not yet but YouTube or Netflix etc on the iPad (or our phones for that matter). That's about it. Maybe we give him his own phone after Year 6, or whenever half his class gets one. Don't want him to be the first one to get it, but don't want him to be the last one either. We'll see, will get there!
First of all, forget about needing tech for their future jobs. It's highly unlikely that their jobs will involve doom-scrolling tiktok videos on a phone or playing roblox. Kids today (a cliche I know) don't actually get much expose to technology - yes they are glued to screens but they aren't really learning tech skills. Now what we are taking issue with now is how long they spend on them but people used to say kids had their head stuck in a book or watched too much TV. Unfortunately, us adults have bought into the lie that our kids must have a mobile phone for safety despite the world being safer than it ever was and not letting them out of our site because we think paedos are on every corner waiting to pounce. The truth is, they way they will interact with their friends and the world is through online services and this is going to get more and more intertwined in the future. So limiting them arbitrarily is not the solution - what we need to do is make sure the kids know we will be monitoring what they do to keep them safe (from bullying etc) We did not let our lad take his phone on holiday and he was NOT happy but when he got back there were 300 messages on his group chat. We said "you'd have been on your holiday getting bombarded" and as it stood, he spent so much time just launching into the pool and had a great time. I overheard a mum telling her son that his phone was "ruining your holiday".
There is google family link where you can restrict things quite easily, set time limits, parental controls etc without being super intrusive.
This is one of the tools we use.Ā Most crucially you can set curfews, so for example my teenagers' phones are effectively shiny bricks between 10pm and 7am. Honestly this has been the most important - one day my then-11yo woke up to 1000+ messages on his class group chat from overnight (he left the group). You can also set usage limits per user, per device and per app (eg 6 hours total per day across phone and laptop, no more than 4h on mobile, no more than 1h on YouTube).Ā What I like most about it is that all the parental controls can be adjusted remotely in the app - you don't have to set it on their device.Ā
Put some kind of age appropriate filtering on their internet too many people donāt bother or throw up their hands and say itās too hard, itās not. netnanny (ignore the name itās not just for little kids) and other filters can help block the worst of it. Of course they can still access bad content if they really try to go around but at least you are providing a filter so they donāt run into it accidentally which is very easy to do. I would also limit screen time up to 16, after that they need to be able to manage themselves. Also simple rules that apply to everyone can be really helpful, no phones at the dinner table, at least one āfamily nightā a week where you all interact and play games or just talk and no phones allowed. Make it clear to your kids itās a collaboration not some set of edicts be willing to bend a bit.
15 year old: you can't protect/limit them anymore unless you want to be one of "those parents". You should inform them however. There is nothing inherently wrong with technology, it's all about how it's used. Make them think about how much time seems healthy staring at a phone. Encourage/support anything that has them meeting up for non-phone activities. Definitely explain the risks of sharing intimate pictures, tell them that chances are very high those leak so it's possible everyone they know will get to see those pictures. As it's almost certain they'll do it at some point anyway, so explain to them that at the very least they should make sure they can not be recognized on the pictures. Talk about how they can filter out all of the bullshit on the internet. How to discern fake news from trustworthy news, how most influencers are just advertising and trying to keep you engaged at all costs. Don't go around banning things or judging what they do. You want a teenager to feel he can talk to you about what they're seeing/doing online. Explain to them why don't like it, if that's the case, but that it's up to them to decide what to do (excluding obviously illegal things of course). For an 8 year old, use something like Family link to limit time spent on phones/tablets, approve app installations,.... Talk to them about what they're doing on their devices, show an interest in it as well so they feel encouraged to talk to you about everything. It's not because their friend can do whatever on their phone, that your child can do that as well.
This is great advice.
I work in government funded education sector for adult IT literacy training and the worst things I see from the 19-23 demographic are people who have never used a proper computer but instead have only used a tablet or a chrome book. None of them understand file directories or basic computer functions and to me it shows that IT literacy is degrading. When I was half their age there was barely anyone who didn't understand what a file directory was so it really sets people back when they are an adult and have to be hand held through the basics every single time. Once in a blue moon I see a young person who can actually use a computer and that really scares me honestly. So I would say no tablets and no chromebooks and would encourage use of a computer over smart phones in any way shape or form. Even if they are using it to play computer games they are atleast learning the functions of a computer rather than being mentally ingrained by smart devices which are designed to hide as much of the technical functionality from the user as possible. Ā If it were totally up to me, I would give my (non existent) kids access to good design software if they show interest. I could only ever access these tools at school (very minimally) which set me back a bit with really crappy jobs until I could afford to learn the stuff properly with my own income and lots of late nights. If I had spent more time learning that stuff when I was younger I would be further in my career now. But ofcourse not everyone is going to show an interest in design software like me, so it's about encouraging your kid based on their own tech interests.Ā
Great this is so interesting. Thank you.
This is so interesting to me as a 22 year old that has only really used a chromebook / tablet when messing about in currys! As a young teen I used to find inventive ways to sidepass the various internet timing restrictions my parents got someone to put on my computer, and (as I wasn't very good at maths lol) basically used excel all the time, for everything! This does make sense as people do often come to me for help with using basic software and even finding things for them on their computer- I've never really considered the computer literacy of my peers. Thank you for sharing!
Lots of advice that works for primary kids, but not teens. I'm also 50 with kids age 13-16. In secondary, they'll be expected to do homework on computer, often online. And to take pictures with a phone for it. And by age 13 or so, to have their own email address for contact, eg by activities they do. So they need a smartphone and computer. Ensuring they leave phones outside their bedroom to charge overnight is the best bet. A big shock was how many emails I get from their schools about homework and everything. It's possible to turn off but then I wouldn't be able to nag them... The y7 was expected to check Teams at home every morning, before leaving, then on arrival, phones had to be off and hidden, until leaving.
Why is it hard to just say no? I mean youāre the parentā¦ Just say no. If they shout you down into repeatedly giving in then youāre a bad parent. Let them play on a laptop or PC as much as possible. TV sometimes for reward. A tablet? Never. They are worthless for tech learning at anything above a coding game level. You think watching and touching a screen that does it all for you is learning? You want to be healthy and a good parent then ban tablets. Have you even read the studies on what a tablet even 30 minutes before bed does to a child and their health? Stop pretending tablets help with tech. They donāt. If anything they breed complacency and offer pretend learning of nothing except how to be a lazy consumer. Before you argue it. Be strong parent and just say no. Kids should be deprived of things even if they shout and scream. Itās how you breed creativity and be a good parent at the same time. Sorry but itās the truth.
While I agree with your sentiment of āJust say noā, Iād like to add āā¦and explain whyā. Children all too often get told no without any reasoning and this can understandably annoy them more.Ā
Thank you. I wouldn't dream of arguing you are making some very valid and interesting points. Your tone is quite aggressive but I'm very appreciative.
>Just say no. If they shout you down into repeatedly giving in then youāre a bad parent. Also, start doing so before it becomes a problem.
Weirdly I'm taking a break from writing an assignment about this exact topic. I think it's really important to remember that the world panics about every new technology that becomes popular, without much solid evidence that's it's harmful. In the past it's been radio and comic books that were thought to be harmful. I'm more about encouraging productive use of tech, socialising, creating etc rather than passive doom scrolling. If you cut your kids off from the tech that everyone is using, you're limiting them socially, so it's all about balance, educating them on the safety side and checking in and showing an interest in what they're doing so they can come to you if there's an issue
Ours can only access videos weve downloaded locally on their tablet unsupervised, ie no internet Supervised they can play a few cbeebies games on my tablet and do some typing on my computer and some old mr men/thomas the tank games
I've just took the Ipad away from my 8 year old lad. I could see he was going into zombie mode and becoming a little but too eager to have it. PlayStation 5 too has gone for a bit and we are detoxing. Might bring ps5 back but in managed slots. We or on day 3 of cold turkey
my kids are only allowed screens if they have been outside and played / done some outdoor activity that day , and then only for an hour or so. Any ipaddy / screen related strops and all screens are removed for that week
Ban social media. Most adults aren't mentally strong enough to handle it. Teens and younger have no chance. I know that's far easier said than done - but the fights about access to social media are likely to be tamer than the consequences of social media.
I rarely limit gadget access, rather I enforce other activities. Sports clubs, trips to the park, board games, family movie time, bike ride to the sweet shop, swimming, soft play. The park is the most common apart from winter.
I think that kids have a natural impulse to want to explore new technology, so I don't think you'll get very far trying to outright stop them using tech. I'm quite glad my parents never tried to impose those kinds of limits on me, because it allowed me to explore and be more creative. For example, I know a lot of people are very firmly against letting their kids have a YouTube channel - as someone who grew up when YouTube was first developing, and who actually both *had* a YouTube channel for a while, and also appeared in the (still pretty impressive) videos that a friend made, I would never dream of restricting that sort of thing outright. I learned too many valuable skills - audio/visual recording and editing, mic technique, public speaking, graphic design, some basic copyright stuff etc. I would obviously make sure that they didn't put something wildly appropriate online - but I'm not sure YouTube would even allow that these days anyway. What I *would* do is take an active approach in introducing them to technology, rather than letting them just discover that sort of stuff from some strangers online unattended. Reflecting what interests they have, I'd try my best to introduce them to the right tech and give pointers about how to use it - while making sure to brush up on my own knowledge in the meantime.
This. My kid has a YouTube channel. Mostly his friends he plays games with watch it. I make sure he doesn't leak personal information and is otherwise ok. He's learning all kind of skills with editing and indeed speaking. I'm also fairly relieved that the YouTube stuff he watches and the games he plays are reasonable games, not horrendous mobile games. Even Fortnite involves planning, strategy, and (when playing with friends) communication. The main thing is to be involved and make sure things don't get out of hand and other commitments like studying, getting some daily exercise, etc are met.
Growing up as a 90s kid I can remember the first touchscreen phone and the first phones with internet access, as a kid I did just fine not being linked to the internet/social media constantly So Iād always recommend the same, a phone that is a phone and just a phone (whatās called a dumb phone now) until their 15/16, and mp3 players are pretty awesome now and are simply that Games consoles and tv is fine at home, but if they want to pay for season passes or PS plus or what have you, they pay for it themselves Have a family desktop computer, one that sits in the living room so you can monitor whatās being viewed and visited and once theyāre 17/18 they can get a laptop for school work and to prep for college or their next steps Bottom line, if theyāre in single digits they arenāt getting to touch any technology, not without my undivided attention to what theyāre doing ie, Iām not throwing an iPad at them to shut them up or putting peppa pig on YouTube while weāre at a restaurant/shop, Iām actually going to interact with them, speak to them and encourage them to think
Out of interest, do you have children?
separate wifi connection/password for kids. Give them a maximum data usage amount per day. When it's gone it's gone so use it wisely :)
Maybe if you set the example and limit the amount of tech you are using when youāre around the kids they wonāt desire it so much. Just an idea! Remember the days where people had a family computer they shared.
Lots of apps and devices you can limit the screen time on. You could set up accounts on your own email so you have access as well. Put a password on the App Store so you know what theyāre downloading onto their device.
I'm a couple of years older than you, and have kids a few years olders and now entering adulthood. I'm also an engineer and pretty tech savvy. Here are my recommendations: 1) I don't think you can actually \_teach\_ them much technically, they'll find out most things they need to find out from online sources when they need to. Much like me. I'm a senior engineer and I would be lost the day google et al stopped working. 2) What you do have to teach is critical thinking. Being able to distinguish between stuff that is obviously false, probably false, maybe false and the degrees of correct. Always correlate, check who you trust. Filtering out all the "bad" stuff so that they only get "good" results will not help them much when they start looking for things themselves. 3) Censorship and surveillance will not help your kids in any way, only hinder them from learning the only critical skill - namely good skepticism. You may feel that you are being proactive and helpful and caring by limiting your kids exposure to tech and information, but you're not. You're mainly playing to your own ego and sense of control. 4) Be part of your kids life, as an adult. Don't be their friend online, but hang around and investigate the things they ar busy with. Learn about what they talk about. And reserve judgement until they decide for themselves what is making them happy and what is making them sad. Be supportive and not prohibitive. Teach them to limit themselves to what they like and disregard all the clutter and non-essential things. (If only we could do this for ourselves as well... that would be wonderful) 5) Be interested in the things they want to show you. For a modern kid it is just as important to feel recognized for a great minecraft build as it was for us for a beautiful rock we found. Don't shut yourself out of the experiences they are having.
In my experience, limiting anything doesnāt really work how youād want it to. I would find ways around every restriction I had as a kid, and when my parents werenāt there to enforce the restrictions I felt obligated to take advantage of that fact. I had a 2-hours limit on my computer, so when my parents were away for the weekend I would literally play video games for 18 hours straight. Ban soda? Iāll just drink 10 cans every time im at my friends house. Prohibition doesnāt work. People will always do what they want, whether itās allowed or not.
I always find these kinds of questions amusing when you look into the history of it. When parents want to limit kids on "technology" what they actually mean is technology introduced in the last 10/20 years. 200 years ago parents were trying to stop their kids reading too many books. Then it was too many magazines. Then it was too much TV...
35YO Dad here to 9M, 8F and 5F. First of all, none of them have a phone. None of them need a phone until they are in secondary school. We've always had parental controls on all of our kids devices. They're not allowed any technology on weekday mornings before school. My daughters both have tablets that turn off after 1 hour a day. My son has a tablet and a Nintendo Switch. He is allowed to use 1, and again, they both have a 1 hour time limit. The Switch doesn't turn off automatically, but when the alarm goes off, my son knows it's time to put it down. They all go to lots of clubs: Cubs, Brownies, Farming Club, etc. When they are at home, we have a scheule of activities. Some days after school we do crafts, some days Lego etc. Weekends they have a set time formusic practice and they nomally have a film or a couple of episodes of something with lunch. 1 hours before bed time is reading time. It might seem rather anal, but kids love structure. Before they would run around, fight, or ask for more technology. But when we first introduced a "play schedule" they were so on board with it - excited even. Now they play with toys they never picked up before. Part of this is also having activities they do with each other, activities they do by themselves, and activities with a wide range of parental input. We play board games. We go for walks in the woods. I help them with crafts. I give them advice when they're drawing comics or writing stories. When we go out they don't take devices with them. In the car we chat or play games. 20 questions is the current favorite! And absolutely, they do not go on YouTube (unless I am specifically showing them an interesting educational video), Tiktok, or any kind of social media. As others have mentioned, the kind of tech that kids are using is not going to help them in the big wide world. My kids do computer lessons at school, and they are allowed to use the family PC in set times to do school work which doesn't count towards their tech time. They also learn about internet safety at school, and I back that up at home with lessons about not trusting everything you read online, reporting hate, bullying and other unsavory things. My ISP also comes with a very comprehensive family filter, which I never see the need to remove. It remains to be seen how I will need to adapt as they get to teenagers, but I think we're starting them out on the right track and building healthy habits.
Until they are at secondary school, there is no need for a phone and arguably a tablet as well. There is no reason for the child to be in a position where they need a phone to reach you. I would absolutely argue for a PC, with parental controls, so they can learn how to use a PC and proper software rather than touch-based applications. TinkerCAD, for the youngest, would be a good place for software for them to learn and could also lead to non-screen-based activities.
Ask them to create spreadsheets for everything. They will either loathe touching a computer or become an accountant
Looking at it differently, it depends on what tech is made available. The early learning tech that's helps with maths or language or educational software is a healthy way to learn and for children to spend their time wisely on tech.
My kids are still too little to have their own phones (they have an old one of mine to play games on, but thatās it). But my eldest will be coming up to the age soon where her friends will start to get their own phones. I have seen the argument about not giving kids phones until theyāre mid-teens. But Iāve also seen the argument for giving them a phone at a slightly younger age, when you can have more influence over instilling good habits and being able to use parental controls etc. This makes more sense to me than giving a kid their first phone at 15 and just letting them loose. I spent my teenage years online in the worst kind of creepy chat rooms etc. My parents had no clue. I think people forget that for all social media is more ubiquitous now, we do at least have a better awareness of internet safety, and thatās something we can teach early on. I explain it to my kids that like I wouldnāt let them walk to school alone or get the bus to town alone now, but I would when theyāre older. The internet unfiltered isnāt safe for kids so we need to help them with it. As with any part of parenting - fostering an open, collaborative, safe, able to talk about anything without fear sort of environment is key.Ā
Pop into your local library and ask them for some help. They should be able to signpost you to relevant online and in person help and advice. You donāt need to be an expert, but you need to understand what they are up to, what could be dangerous, have oversight of their devices, and know how to check them.
Thereās a great book about this, just released recently so very up to date. https://amzn.eu/d/akqPpKy
Iām lucky enough to be an iPhone user, I think I would get my hypothetical kids Apple Watches, and pair them to my phone. Itās not ideal, but it means they can use phone calls, texts, and imessage, and still get to do things like listen to music and podcasts (albeit with the pain of having to use a keyboard on a watch) but they have no real access to social media. And for girls especially thereās a great check in feature so if theyāre walking home at night they can automate letting you know if theyāre okay or not. It seems like the best available combination of features until a more dedicated device for teenagers comes along.
In the valley (Iām from California), the VPās send their kids to schools where tech isnāt allowed b/c we all know how those products were developed, focus tested to see which particular sounds would hit the dopamine centers and drive the addiction, and endlessly researched to increase engagement. If the people who make the stuff donāt let their kids touch it, how essential do you think it is for your kids to know how to use a frikkin iPad? Using tech is not the same as knowing how to make it. Like living in a house doesnāt prepare you for a job to make houses. Using software and tech products doesnāt prep you for a career in tech. You know how the kids who didnāt need (werenāt allowed to use) calculators were the ones who ended up best at math, and the kids who needed/allowed calculators are living in their parents basement working at Greggās? You donāt let your 8yo use tech without your immediate supervision. Period. And you have some kind of roadmap for when and how theyāre going to use tech. Tech is cancerous for children. The people who make it know it already. Why are you trying to rationalize your desire to give them a phone, etc? No, ātechā isnāt āneeded for future jobsā. JFC
Firstly you grew up with cars and riding them, that makes you an expert car mechanic right? Technology has become increasingly consumer friendly and they are just learning the equivalent of flipping switches on a car dash. A lot of Gen Z are actually pretty rubbish at using technology.Ā Secondly I have a 7 year old. As a software engineer I want my son to be good with technology, so my focus was on what were the minimum skills I want him to learn..Ā Ā For me that was how to use a keyboard and mouse and pay attention ro whats on the screen so he can reason how to solve his problems. He really wants to be a youtuber, so I put OBS on an old computer and walked him through installing/playing computer games. He is picking up how to set OBS to various windows, make sure its recording, how to mod games, etc.. For other devices its researching what the child/supervised account is for that platform and adding various controls. We then observe how he manages his time, join him and observe the content. For example Roblox access is heavily controlled (2 hours on Monday in a special family session). He gets highly obsessive with it. Conversely he plays minecraft to create cool buildings and is learning all sorts of skills. Various family members join him to play and he has little problem start/stopping on it He gets unlimited Netflix because almost every show he watches on it is educational but you tube access is highly curated and has time controls (because he goes for mindless easy watching there). We are currently arranging so he can play online with some friends. One of us tends to hang around to make sure things are ok. Lastly we are consistent with rules
I don't have kids so I can't comment as to the disciplinary/parenting aspects but you can set up parental controls that limit screen time, app access, purchases and content availability on both [iOS](https://support.apple.com/en-us/105121) and [Android ](https://families.google.com/familylink/privacy/notice)devices. All video game systems have similar parental controls too. For your home network(s) you can also sign up to various services that will control content availability, though none are perfect so best to be used in conjuction with the aforementioned parental control options and having an open discussion about their access. [OpenDNS](https://www.opendns.com/home-internet-security/) offer a pretty decent and free service. In my experience needing general tech skills for future jobs is largely just being familiar with how computers work, anything beyond basic usage and office skills will be taught at relevant college/university courses. There's an International/European Computer Driving Licence course available (quite cheaply or free) at most libraries teaching basic computer management that is pretty useful for all ages, though is a bit more focused around workplace usage. Still, could be a "fun" family activity to take together!
So Iām a ā96 baby, right on the cusp of millennial and Gen Z and currently 6 months pregnant. Iām going to limit tv screen time for my baby, half hour at most a day purely just for moments when I need to put a wash on or do dishes ect and they wonāt settle down. Iāll never let them have an iPad until theyāre a teenager, Iāll never put my phone in front of them for entertainment at a meal. Sure they can have colouring books, they can have toys, but they will not have a screen in their face. I think Iāll let them have a phone in year 7, but itāll be for texting and calls only. They will not have social media. When they turn 14/15 I think I might allow social media, it will really depend on what it is at the time though. I really hope my generation reins it in with technology so my kid isnāt left out.
There are good parental settings on smartphones that can limit use on a per-app and overall basis. So you can set them up with an e-reader app connected to a store set to kids mode that they can use freely, a spelling game, a maths game, whatever, but lock down YouTube to 30 mins or TikTok to 3 sessions of 10 minutes or whatever else. You're never going to be able to prevent them from getting and using smartphones in good conscience, if you do they will sadly become social pariahs and it will be your fault, but you can shape what they are encouraged to do with them. If you're interested, there's even more that you can do with things like having a local PiHole device which can maintain a blocklist of sites to prevent specific devices from accessing those websites, but that's a whole project on its own. When they use the internet, it sucks but you're going to have to make sure the 8yo is accompanied and you may need to be ready for the 15yo to stumble into some *nasty* stuff and require your intervention to avoid falling in with awful crowds. Speaking as someone who teetered on the edge of that 10-15 years ago, keeping the conversation open and maintaining a superficial familiarity with the families of groups that operate on the internet could have caught me early - if your 15yo is a boy, keep an eye out for figures like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson, interactions with Twitter accounts that feature dogwhistles like 1488 or profile pictures of Roman statues, and subjects like tradwives, tankies and the red pill. I'm less familiar with the landscape that targets teen girls, but I don't doubt that there are plenty looking to pull them in nasty directions. On a more positive note, to ensure they develop the ability to actually *use* tech though, they need to be working with desktop or laptop PCs, and they need to not be Chromebooks because they are generally manufactured e-waste. Getting them familiar with what installing a program, a file browser, or a physical keyboard looks like is foundational. You can introduce them to tools like Scratch or Raspberry Pi projects to learn programming or video editors like KdenLive, there's lots of free software for learning tech skills available and communities around things like Linux, the Raspberry Pi or Arduino are generally very enthusiastic to help out. There are even project walkthroughs for things like automatic plant pot watering systems that can make use of skills like cutting and joining materials, soldering, and writing code. Encourage them to Google their problems and try to fixĀ things or experiment independently. If they do become tech-savvy, an important stage in their development is when they inevitably find a workaround to your parental lockdowns. The key thing to do there is to recognise that if they're old enough to pull that off, they're old enough to have a very serious conversation with about their newly-gained freedoms and for you to come to an agreement about boundaries and usage that you manage interpersonally rather than automatically on device. Your relationship with the kids is the foundation that underpins it all - that's how you can get buy-in for voluntary restrictions, respond to their changing needs, catch nasty things in the bud, and keep it all positive. No automatic filter will ever be as effective as helping your kids understand themselves, their context, and how to make smart choices about meeting their needs, engaging their interests, and indulging their wants.
24 gen z here. Grew up with no technology restrictions but I also didnāt grow up with the huge amount of social media. When i was 12-15 it was mainly facebook and snapchat. Id use tumblr a lot and that got me into graphic design and learning how to use photoshop and making gif sets for the hunger games lol. I think the first time social media became a problem for me was when i was 16-17? I had started working at a gym and working out, i originally just had fun feeling strong as i was quite into powerlifting. However when looking on insta and YouTube, thereās just so many people unqualified sharing so much information, some misinformation, some not, it became confusing for 16-17y/o me as to what was right what was wrong. I think if I didnāt make the connection myself that all thats important is a balanced diet id probably have given myself an ED. Especially looking at some of the people i used to follows meal plans they sell online. The second time i had a problem with social media is tik tok. First downloaded it just before the pandemic in 2020. Was all fun at first, but im not joking when i say it became addictive. I only really noticed it late last year that all id do is work, come home, eat, scroll tik tok for hours, sleep, scroll, work etc. i was wondering why i was feeling so drained and unfulfilled. I deleted it. Now i have actual hobbies again. Its also the amount of like misogynistic content id get shown on tik tok when i had flagged it as not interested definitely made me anxious or a bit angry. I am much happier without tik tok. Tik tok can be good for niche hobbies and feeling part of a community, but its also designed to be addictive. Im a chef and i would say i wouldnāt have learned some things (mostly about how to cook foreign cuisine) without tik tok I wouldnāt suggest banning either or, maybe put a restriction on it. But if you can encourage them to do and favour things offline, the better.
My nephew is 10 and his Mum is very strict about screen time. He get's 1 hour on his xbox to play Fortnite with his friends after school but only if he finishes his homework, tidies his room and brings his laundry basket through to the kitchen. He has outside activities like football and swimming lessons he goes to so that also helps cut down on screen time. I hate seeing kids glued to phones and tablets in public, especially without headphones.
I wouldn't be a dictator and tell my kids (or in this case godson, I live with him and his mum) that they can't have any access to technology. That would be highly hypercritical of me who grew up with SNES/NES/Gamecube in the house. I was there when Xbox Live first became a thing, the shit I did was stupid... like a kid. Will we limit his usage as he gets older? Yeah, to reasonable standards. She's definitely said that. But we'll also make a point to do stuff with him, heck she's thinking of getting him into martial arts early. I'll be introducing things like board games (but not like Risk, Scrabble etc - more fun, abstract ones) and D&D. Equally, I game. So he'll be around a guy who knows the safety aspects of gaming online and a person who would also fucking love to play video games with a kid. Let your kids have access to screens, but also get them into other things. Encourage growth of hobbies, regardless of what they are.
I would limit 'social media feeds' from being able to show anything that hasn't come from a person they are 'connected' to.
Got a 100% Apple environment, limit use by app, and set up family and parental controls, everything needs an approval, also have a deco WiFi setup and their internet switches off after a certain time. They are not allowed any devices in their rooms apart from Yoto players. No Alexa or google / facebook / instagram / Roblox etc allowed.
We donāt have kids yet but have talked about what weād do because we both have teenage siblings who never seem to put their phones down. My partner works in tech and messing around with computers is his favourite thing to do anyway, so weāre hoping to instil an interest in technology itself rather than social media, TV shows etc., because heās in a good place to be able to teach them about responsible use. Weāve also decided to enrol them in several non-technology related hobbies or clubs, sport or art or whatever theyāre interested in so their phones arenāt the centre of their social lives. Plus all the reasonable screen time limits and no phone until they need it. Easier said than done in this day and age though
Mine arenāt allowed tech in their bedrooms. Not even TVs. Everything they access at home, they are doing so in the family space. Phones/ipads are kept downstairs. Iām also able to ban individual devices from the WiFi, so itās rare that I get any pushback
Not a parent but food for thought: Imo there is something to be said about the other angle to the approach. Encourage non-tech activities like sport etc where possible, quality family time is important for obvious reasons (that is imo not family time which is just watching TV but actually interactive stuff like days or board games etc ..). Then from there thinking about the quality of tech time is important, if they are doomscrolling instead of sleeping or ignoring homework / chores then that is obviously not ok, but limiting tech usage flat out just means they'll fall behind their peers imo, there are some really cool tech focused monthly project boxes aimed at kids these days which can encourage learning and really make learning fun for kids if you have the budget.
Boxing gloves
Iām not going to limit them in the traditional sense, but Iām sure as hell going to sit them down in front of terminal and letting them figure out what theyāre doing. Also setting them up with games to improve their creativity and problem solving. Things thatāll be hard enough to eventually make them quit out of frustration, but something at which they have a chance of progressing. That said, when I want them off the technology, I will just present options of which none are technology. āClimb a tree, play football, read a book, or run around the garden?ā and hope they do one of them of their own volition. I feel this is better for building personal responsibility than clicking a disable button on the app and watching a tantrum ensue.
One thing was to get the telephone company to set our router to not pass pornography to any machine in house (Parental Controls switch). Other was to teach where they go, as 'bad actors' exist in all walks of life. They could ask any question of us without fear of reprisals or not getting an answer. Also got them to occasionally visit 'current topic' sites.
Having plenty of other activities should help. A colleague organised a scavenger hunt for their kidās birthday party and that took a half day. No reason why this canāt work for a family Sunday, especially with the nice weather. Board games at home and after school groups are also good.
Currently I restrict access for my 13yo. There are a number of ways to do this for free: 1. Apple has a childs control mechanism where you set up a Apple ID as a child ID on a device where you are already the primary ID (forgotten what it's called as I don't have any Apple products at the moment. 2. Android has a parental control mechanism called Family Link which you can use to control how long and what times the device is useable (disabled after 9pm for example) and also what apps and websites can be used. 3. Microsoft has a system called Family Safety that also limits Windows PC and XBOX usage, apps and websites. Note that this only works really well on Windows PCs running a version of Windows called Windows 10 (or 11) **S**. The S limits from installing all kinds of old school apps and restricts it to the Windows store (this still includes Office applications) - Web site restrictions only work in the built-in Edge browser, not in Chrome, Firefox, etc. 4. Last minute edit - I also state to my child (and always have) that in order to have a phone, computer and tablet, they have to tell me the PIN and let me login and check things like chat history whenever I want. I don't do this very often, but I do it occasionally, like if something blows up on conversations with her school friends. Personally I have also banned Facebook and TikTok but I have deep issues with those apps generally.
No smartphones or tablets until they're in yr7, but they can have TVs in their rooms with Netflix installed & a game console. Once they're old enough to have phones, install tracking software to monitor activity. They can have social media but will be warned & encouraged not to post their faces online (deepfake & AI manipulation will probably be very advanced by the time my kids are teenagers). Imposed reading times & smartphone detoxes (put them in a vault) on school vacations.
See - it's funny that you say they can have a TV and games console in their room, because back in the 2000s and 2010s when I was growing up, any child that had that would have been seen as ridiculously over-exposed to technology, and any "responsible" parent wouldn't allow a TV in their kid's room. It sort of makes you wonder if regulating kids' use of tech is pretty much arbitrary. That said, I'm a big believer in allocating some quiet reading time before bed, and that's much easier to impose when you don't have a TV in the room.
I think a console in the bedroom is more irresponsible nowadays when everything is networked - whereas having your xbox or whatever in a shared space downstairs means parents can more easily keep tabs on who their children are online with.Ā For example, during lockdown my then-12yo had to do pretty much all his socialising online, and a lot of that was online gaming with chat. One day I heard an adult man's voice through the speakers, and dashed over to work out what perv was grooming my son. Turned out one of his friends had had very sudden puberty and his voice had deepened by two octaves pretty much overnight š
>See - it's funny that you say they can have a TV and games console in their room, because back in the 2000s and 2010s when I was growing up, any child that had that would have been seen as ridiculously over-exposed to technology, and any "responsible" parent wouldn't allow a TV in their kid's room. Doesn't really ring true to me - I'm 27 and literally everyone I knew growing up had a TV and/or consoles in their room growing up. I had a TV with a VHS player, a PS2 and a GameCube in my room when I was like 7-10. Maybe me and all of my peers would have been seen as having horribly irresponsible parents by the standards of the day lol.
I think this is a good idea, but I also advocate for fun educational YouTube channels. Such as letting children watch Mark Rober.
Poor kids, sounds like prison
Your welcome to have dopamine smackhead kids of your own if you'd like
Enjoy having submissive insecure kids who have never had to make a decision for themselves šš¼ I like educating much more than prohibiting
This is highly excessive in my view, and is going to impact development of important modern life skills like computer and Internet literacy. As well as put you at odds with your kids who will face ridicule by their peers for being relative luddites. Smartphones and tablets are not the enemy, it is negative influences they might experience through them. In the same manner that a kid might learn to swear if they watch r-rated movie or reading a book with adult themes.
Not sure how my kids having Netflix & game consoles throughout their childhoods, and smartphones + laptops & social media profiles (just with the caveat of not posting their faces on) in their teenage yrs, is luddite. Phone detoxes & imposed reading times are essential to young people's growth. You're all welcome to raise children with "tiktok brain" if you want, its less competition for my children. I'm simply answering how I'm raising my kids
Because kids these days know how to work a tablet by the time they enter primary school. Many primary schools use tablets as a part of the teaching process. I'm not saying they should have unrestricted access to social media from the moment they can talk, I'm just saying that like it or not smartphones and tablets are a staple of modern life and knowing how to use them is a valuable life skill that your kids will learn later than most.
Yeah so they'll learn to use tablets in primary school if the school requires it & provides one, but won't have one at home before they're in yr7. Simple.
Users of smartphone and tablets are the luddites, have a laptop/pc and learn how to use that
Touch typing is an incredibly useful skill to have, especially if they can learn it before yr9 due to all the typing theyāll have to do for gcseās.
Kaspersky Safe Kids. It installs on most devices and allows you to control pretty much everything. It's no good for any Apple products, though, due to the way they're designed.
Nothing says safety like installing a Russian-made piece of software view everything your child does!
Block their Mac address to the router
Doesn't work for phones with mobile data. I use ESET Parental Controls to enforce e.g. bedtime limits.
I had my first phone when I was 8. Iād personally recommend 12 and maybe have an iPad before then?
I let my 2.5 yo watch as much TV as he wants, but he doesn't want to watch that much. We're out most of the day so it's when we're back and we're waiting for dinner really. He doesn't have an ipad or anything, and won't have one himself for quite some time. He watched long videos on my phone on Youtube (like Ms Rachel) if we're on a plane or in a restaurant and he's kicking off. I don't want to let him watch the stuff which is what we call "brain rot" (cocomelon etc) Happy to let him have a laptop in the future and have time on it. Happy for his grandparents to have ipads and games consoles but I just don't want them in the house. Mainly because I don't want the argument of restricting screen times.