Hey, I might be in the wrong here because I am not a parent and won't have kids.
My nephew turned 6 and I wanted to buy him the new switch whenever it comes out. Brother told me he doesn't want that and thinks it's too dangerous and overall screen time is very bad for children. I understand what he means but can't that be regulated with lets say 1-2 hours per day limits?
What I also don't understand and this is a personal arguement between my brother and me is following: When I turned 5 years old in 1996 my father bought us a N64 and we were playing golden eye, donkey kong etc. on splitscreen all day and night and had a blast. All our friends were at our place and most people had a N64 or Sega or whatever console.
And yes we went outside and had fun and were creative. We copied a few games like golden eye with our water guns or other games like Super Mario 64. At home when our parents went to bed we sneaked out of our beds to the living room and started playing golden eye and other games all night long.
But I understand him and respect him, I won't buy it and I will save my money. I just don't understand why most parents nowadays are so extreme. I am 100% on limiting time and nowdays it's got to be easier than back then to just set a 1-2 hour limit on consoles. I am no friend of buying phones for kids at age 3 or 4 or sitting them in front of a screen so they are quiet. I understand all that. But I don't understand all the harsh choices most people make with being strikt and going complete against stuff.
If I had a kid I think I'd give it a Nintendo to because I think it can be good for fine motor skills and in the future we will be in front of screens even more than now. It's not great and not ideal but it is what it is and I think kids should learn early how to use consoles, phones, etc. in a positive way (limited time, under supervision)
As of now my nephew never touched a phone. This isn't anything bad but compared to his class mates I think this is weird. Imagine when he is in school and his friends tell him to scroll and he has no idea how to even scroll? Isn't that weird?
I don't know what they are doing with my nephew it's hilarious cause he can't even hold scissors and he is 6 years old. If he can't use screens, phones etc. I was expecting atleast him to be able to cut a straight line??
It can. But, why create the conditions for the problem in the first place? They may see it as just another thing to manage which provides no benefit. Realize that what you are effectively asking here is, "why can't they take on another responsibility to manage that they have said they don't want to manage?" Yes, parental controls exist (and almost universally suck); but, it's yet another demand on the parents time.
Ya, this is a complete non-starter of an argument. There is a lot about how I was raised which I have zero intention of replicating with my own children. Just because you "turned out fine" does not mean that the way you were raised was necessarily the right way. Your brother and his partner are making decisions they think are best for raising their children today. The past will inform those decisions; but, they may have also concluded that some of the choices made by your parents weren't the right ones and they want to provide their version of a better environment for their children. They will almost certainly get some stuff wildly wrong, but this is part of being a parent.
Is this their first kid? Unfortunately, the after-birth for a child does not include a manual. While parents do get a lot of advice from the people around them, a lot of that advice is just outright bad and much of it contradictory. There's also loads of "conventional wisdom" which ends up being nothing more than societal programming which can be very wrong or outright dangerous. Parents get to navigate all of that, usually with a lack of sleep, and heightened stress levels all while adjusting to a new and very vocal demand on their time. Taking a few shortcuts is to be expected. It is often easier to give an outright "no" to something than to try and figure out how to integrate a new demand on your or your child's time.
Different kids learn different skills as different rates. For some, the fine motor skills may come later, scissors being a good example of that.
Not really, no. While he will almost certainly grow up surrounded by technology, he's not going to suffer because he didn't get a phone until he was a bit older. People adapt to the technology around them all the time. And there is no guarantee that the user experience on devices in 10 years will be anything like it is today.
Hoo boy, this is just a fun statement to see from the other side. I know this will come off as condescending, and I apologize for that; but, it's really hard to really understand how much your thinking changes when that first kid comes screaming into the world. This isn't to say that you would completely change your mind. But, sometimes you can find yourself in the moment of making a decision and realize that you just don't agree with what you used to. Maybe you will; but, having kids running around changes how you think. It's a good exercise to think through how you might react. But, it's tough to be completely sure until you're actually having to do it live.
Good on you for respecting those boundaries and for being a loving enough uncle that you wanted to do that for your nephew. Seriously, one of the best gifts you can give both the kid and the parents is being a supporting family member. Maybe in a year or two they will have changed their minds on the console and you can get the kid started on gaming. Until then, just go for something electronic, "learning focused" and loud. Might as well still have some fun at the expense of the parent's sanity.