I have a PC hooked up via HDMI to our TV, so my kid and I share our media. We can use the monitor, but we generally don’t.
We watch videos together, as we generally have the same interests. His video-watching preferences include science, robotics, and video games. I’m okay with anything educational and/or thought-provoking.
He doesn’t have any personal devices, so no phone or iPad or anything like that. I feel that anything portable that can be used privately is not great for a kid (for my kid, anyhow), but he doesn’t mind.
He plays games on the Switch & Steam, but usually I’ll require chores to be done & a certain amount of reading to be done for equivalent screen time (unless there’s a limited-time in-game event or something). He’s a very smart and lovely boy, and he rarely ever gripes over it.
It’s in any parent’s best interest to not only know what their kid likes, but also for them to participate. I’ve learned to play Splatoon, Minecraft, Enter the Gungeon, watched youTube channels, and learned all kinds of things about the content & mechanics in order to determine if it’s okay for him to be playing/watching those particular things.
Seriously: get to truly know what your kid likes.
It greatly depends on the age.
For under 10’s. I highly recommend the small tablets with educational games and videos. I had the homepage on the webbrowser set to PBS kids. Any other website was locked by parental controls. I also had Netflix with a kids account back when they had everything. For the games they wanted to play, I had to preview before they were installed.
The hardest age is 9-12. This is when they act all grown up but absolutely should not be online unsupervised. This is when they need room to explore what they are interested in. I open up the restrictions and allow them more of the world but routinely check to see what they are up too (an make sure they see what I am doing).
After 13, it’s all about education, not control. There is no fucking way to stop a determined teenager from accessing places they shouldn’t. The totally “locked down” school chromebooks are a great example. I am constantly impressed with the ingenuity to circumvent the controls. At this point, open discussions on all the issues online are key. They need to know about what criminals and perverts are up too. It’s no longer blocking them, it’s learning how to identify, avoid, and report them.
I also spend a few hours hanging out while they are gaming with my teenagers. It’s let’s me know what they are playing and showcase my incredible skill to their mocking.
My kids are 7 and 9. We do unlimited screen time. There is some reasoning behind it: (1) they are both autistic and it helps them form language and some limited reading; (2) we need parenting breaks; (3) video games help with fine motor (an issue with one of the kids); and (4) we keep them focused on educational content. Probably not the best parenting out there but we are just trying to survive. 🙂
1 hour each of TV time and game time, per day, 3 hours on non-school days.
TV consists of YouTube Kids, Disney Kids, Hulu Kids, or our own Plex library.
Game time consists of pretty much just the Nintendo Switch. Occasionally, he’ll play Steam games, but together with me or my wife.
He gets unlimited time with his Kindle.
Really tough question since it’s been a while and I don’t have kids today (man that would suck in the age of TikTok and handing the kid an iPad for a reprieve) but what my parents did was limit computer time to 1 hour in a day until middle school ish so I had to make decisions.
Handhelds had to be downstairs and off at night, and (ideally) one hour before bedtime so no late night shenanigans.
I guess there’s also starting lower tech like flip phones, PDA’s but that’s because I’m more of a nerd and it’ll be my “uphill both ways” equivalent esp. since i’m not ready for unlimited web access and all that entails
No YouTube except for how-to videos. They’ve never had it so it’s not an issue.
90 minutes of screen time they can otherwise use how they wish. They have to get their jobs done first (chores, piano practice, school stuff) and spend at least 20 minutes outside before they can get screen time.
They typically choose to watch shows or movies on Disney+, watch The Simpsons, or play video games together.
Edit: they don’t have any social media (FB, x, tiktok) except messenger kids.
My oldest is 12 and is very anti social media. I assume we will have to deal with it eventually.
When my kids were younger I monitored their usage and restricted their access. As they earned trust this eased up. Now that they are teens they are mostly free to do what they want. I will still ask what they use their phones for and we have frank conversations about it, but I will not invade their privacy unless there is a good reason.
It’s not perfect but what we have now is unlimited time on the Switch for Minecraft, 1 hour YouTube kids. He has to read a book to earn more YouTube. No current limit on movies since YouTube is the main problem with screen time.
I mostly automate it: Their phone won’t function after bedtime (except for emergency use like calling 911), their devices cannot connect to the network until morning, and physical access is restricted unless it’s the appropriate time.
How are you automating the wifi shutting of during specific hours? This is something I’d like to implement
The wifi itself isn’t shutting off, it’s just blocking certain computers and if they are smart enough to manually change their MAC address, you would need to revert to controls local to their machines, but on my home router, it’s a standard feature: I just logged into the local DNS web app for managing the router and added the MAC addresses.
For local device management, it varies depending on the device but broadly speaking there are usually built in parental controls for most Microsoft/Android/Apple devices: It’s just a matter of configuring them.
That said, a low-tech solution to this if you didn’t care if your network went down would be to either manually turn it off or attach it to a timer to automatically shut it off. I don’t go this route because I still want Internet after bedtime and sometimes do overnight downloads/updates.
Gotcha, yeah that makes sense. I have a google wifi mesh and I’m sure it has some features like that I can set up. Thanks!
I don’t have kids of my own, but whenever I let other people’s kids use my phone I block access to all apps except the ones I pick and have a screen time limit if they’re young, if they’re above 10/ mature enough, I don’t limit their usage at all and just trust them to not abuse my trust.
I’ve no kids of my own. This is mostly about my experience. I grew up with tv, internet, and video games. I used to have a portable screen that played dvds and a music cd player. I grew up watching cartoons on satellite then cable TV. I played on the ps1, ps2, PS3, and psp. I surfed the web on desktop computers, my folks used to have an old Compaq then later an HP Pavillion. I didn’t have an actual smartphone till mid way through middle school. My folks limited my screen time.
My little brother on the other hand has been glued to his tablet since age 3. My folks limit his time, but his tablet is all he’s ever known and he’s inseparable from it. I didn’t really start getting sucked into tech and screens till age 10 when I got my first PS3 and even then I was pretty well rounded.
They don’t have tablets. My oldest has my old phone with everything blocked except a GBA emulator, music, and some educational games recommended by their teachers. They have a couple switch lites and we have one TV with Disney+, Netflix, and Youtube. I set up Youtube Kids profiles for them with whitelists so they can only watch channels I have specifically chosen for them. I don’t limit screen time, though. They don’t actually spend that much time watching TV or playing video games, and I’m pretty much always there with them when they do so I can talk with them about what they are watching or playing. I know it’s not the same for every kid but mine really don’t get sucked into screens. I’ve never been strict about it, even when they were babies. They usually can’t even finish a movie without getting bored and going to play outside or with actual toys.
We all have adhd so I thought screens would be a bigger challenge. I guess I got lucky.
deleted by creator
