Casual Conversation

I'm shocked by the level of anti tech/screen time in this thread.

'6 is too young' - you think this (or any 6yo) child doesn't watch TV? All the arguments provided go double for TV, expect for portability.

My take, as a parent, is that full restriction is almost as unhelpful as no restriction. Kids need to learn, and a big thing they need to learn is self regulation. Teach them by teaching them how to play within limits and how to watch between limits. Some of my friends did zero screens till 5, and now they're kid now basically worships screen time - it's this huge reward for him. H'll be fine, but the difference to my kids is staggering.

A key point about screens, games or shows, is that they should be used to replace emotional self regulation. There is research coming out now that does how this stunts emotional development.

But ultimately it's your brother's choice.

Well I get where you are coming from, but the world has changed since you were a kid.

Imagine when he is in school and his friends tell him to scroll and he has no idea how to even scroll?

They won't. At least here in the US. More and more schools don't allow kids to even take phones to school and if they do, they have to stay in backpacks. In my state, all schools are like that.

The last school I worked at last year, if a could was caught with a phone, they would take the kids phone and keep it in the office and would only hand it over to a parent

Now the kid does need to be tech-oriented for the modern world. But WAY too many people are addicted to phones. So teaching the kid that life is more than tech is a good thing.

Heck, I've even seen posts in this community where people are saying they couldn't go an entire week with out Youtube and are frustrated with themselves over it.

Have you seen iPad kids? They’re literal zombies. Zero thoughts in their heads.

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?

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.

When I turned 5 years old...

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.

I just don’t understand why most parents nowadays are so extreme.

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.

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.

Different kids learn different skills as different rates. For some, the fine motor skills may come later, scissors being a good example of that.

As of now my nephew never touched a phone...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?

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.

If I had a kid I think I’d...

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.

But I understand him and respect him, I won’t buy it and I will save my money

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.

The other thing to understand is, this may be something his wife wants more than he does.

Unfortunately in relationships, after both parents have made a decision (and sometimes one parent might not have wanted it, but agreed to it because it wasn’t their highest priority and they wanted to avoid a fight), it’s still that parents job to communicate that decision to their side of the family.

But I had a similar situation to you and you brother, and similarly my dad made us play outside basically whenever it was nice outside, so your correct that regardless of what tech a kid has, ultimately parents decide how to use it.

But it may also be that they know their kid well enough that they know the restricting of that tech will cause more tantrums/problems then giving it in the first place.

Parents have lots of strange rules not rooted in logic or reason unfortunately, it’s part of the insane crazy love we feel for our children. All you can do is what you’ve done, say your piece and move on.

Save it for later years maybe? It might be better to let the kid leave their toddler years first

One solution might be to have gaming systems at your house that your nephew is allowed to play when he's there. Not the nephew's system at your place, your system that you and him and your brother all play together whenever they visit.

Bonus points if it's a system you and your brother used to play back in the day.

It’s even more confusing because the modern consoles and devices all have very usable parental controls, extremely easy to setup and controllable remotely from the parents’ smartphones. Perhaps there’s something else going on with your brother.

The problem is he then needs to have the argument every single day, or even several times a day about the screen time, you just walk away. It takes so much energy to fight this fight and it's a never ending story.

Nowadays you also play online instead of split screen, so that argument goes down the drain.

The argument that kids should learn consoles, ipads, etc. early, I don't get it, why? We didn't learn it early, it's so intuitive to use there is nothing to learn.

Anyway, there are only very limited positives but so many negatives with it, it's just not worth the hassle.

Get him an N64 and GoldenEye?

maybe he’d be more apt to agree if you suggested buying an older console, like an n64 even?

Games and consoles are made to be as grabbing as possible, nowadays. To my understanding, it's the way the industry works.

I had a SEGA Game Gear and a Mega Drive, with a few games, and played on it as much as I could but back then I remember I would out of the blue get bored and turn off the game. Either because there was a save point or the entire game up to that point was easy to memorize.

Nowadays, on modern games, I don't see that. It's just another level, another enemy, another boss, another whatever. The games are engineered to lock the player in. And children are especially vulnerable to this.

I gifted my kids one of those retro emulation consoles and sometimes play with them. There are 20.000 ROMs in that thing and they get bored at some point and drop it. The usual "complaints" are that the games are too hard or that they had enough.

I'm not saying your take is wrong but your brother is neither.

Six is definitely too young. Not hard to understand at all. iPad kids are a thing.

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.

He just turned six. What do you need a phone for at six? Call your kindergarten sweetheart?

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?

No. I would consider weird to think kids need to be using a phone as soon as they get out of their diapers in order to be considered 'normal' ;)

As a side-note, maybe you could offer that kid books, instead. He will learn a lot more reading them. A lot. And have a lot of fun too.

Plus, there is no in-app purchase in books, no tracking, no spying, no ads. And they won't require updates either ;)

A lot of people here say that your bother’s son is too young for a Switch.

I’d like to take a different approach and point out that you do a comparison between childhood when you were young and childhood for your brother’s son. You show (rightly) that you and your brother grew up well-adjusted even though you had video games in your life.

I would rebut that “growing up well-adjusted” probably isn’t the biggest concern of you brother. It’s probably more about how much harder it’ll be to get his son to engage with other things that are important to the family if the boy has the Switch as an ever-present alternative.

I actually think you should buy your brother a beer and ask him more about it (out of curiosity, rather than looking for an argument). The beer will probably help your brother limber up and you’ll get to hear him complain about what a pain in the ass it is to try and wrangle a kid.

But all of that doesn’t nullify that you’re trying to be a good and fun uncle, so thank you for that.

Kids, especially at 5, just don't need it. It isn't helpful or social for a 5 year old.

IMO, you shouldn't give any gifts to kids under 10, that you don't intend to allow them to use unrestricted. If it's meant to be restricted, don't call it theirs.

Also, every kid is brought up different. I don't think they'll be embarrassed not knowing how to scroll a touchscreen... Stop hating on your brother's parenting styles unless it's harming their kids. Buy him some kids scissors and glue if he needs the practice.

You are forgetting the biggest piece to your puzzle. Your brother has a wife and wants to enjoy his marriage. Even if he agrees with you he has to make a case with the relationship and on a point like this it’s not worth it.

My daughter is 6 and allowed to, with limits. She used to make a whole thing of it when it was time to do other things, but doesn't anymore, it's fine. On the other hand, my nephews will scream about it, and they're older than her. Every kid is different, so maybe they expect their kid to be on the worse end, or maybe they wanna focus on those motor skills before they get to use a console.

The scissor thing might be explained by them only recently being allowed to use scissors. My daughter had a pair of plastic safety scissors for a good while, but not every kid is gonna do that.

Him not knowing how to scroll isn't weird without having used a screen, and he's definitely not past some minimum screen time age.

When we were kids we had goldeneye or whatever and that was it barring a weekend rental from Blockbuster. Blockbuster is dead now. Netflix and online gaming killed it. Online gaming and Netflix/Youtube/etc. are like unlimited candy to a little kid. Yeah dad can limit them, or try to anyhow, but try limiting a alcoholic, see how that pans out. Even if they aren't drinking they're still gonna be in withdrawal and a pain to deal with. You won't have to deal with him. Kiddos dad will.

If you want to do something for your nephew, get them an experience. Take them camping, or to a book store, gokarts, the science museum, something he can tell his buddies about later. Dad will appreciate time without them, kiddo experiences a non-teacher non-parent adult, which is rare for them.

My nephew gets books from me on xmas and birthdays, stuff I either read at his age, or that is just age appropriate. Later I'll take him to a bookstore to let him pick what he wants, then we go get food. Sometimes what he wants, sometimes we go do stuff like get dumplings so he can try something new.

I mean 1-2 hours a day is a lot to begin with. At 6 kids are doing homework and learning to read.

I'm definitely pro gaming and my son and daughter today maybe an hour or two a week and usually it's Animal Crossing. We spend much of the time reading what is written (they are French first so this is English exposure). I rather they game than watch nonsense TV.

For Christmas my brother bought them an Android handheld with retro ROMs. That is much more difficult to control and my kids do get warped into bingeing.

Maybe recommend Omh it's a great iOS game that's educational.

Yeah, I gotta echo the hassle of it.

I dunno if you had time limits or not, but if you did, and you weren't throwing a hissy fit when the limit was up, you'd be a rare duck indeed.

It doesn't help that gaming does turn into a form of addiction for some people, adult or not. They'll chase that dopamine hit, well beyond what is reasonable. Hell, I know that, and I still catch myself feeling it, despite not being a dedicated gamer.

The sooner our brains start that process, the worse it can get.

Mind you, I do personally know kids that do okay with screen limits. They'll definitely look for any opportunity to extend it, but don't go crazy with it. The problem is that they had to learn self control to get there. And that ain't happening at 5 for sure.

Remember, you just said "when our parents went to bed, we sneaked out of our beds" and "started playing... all night long". C'mon, you know that's not a healthy and well adjusted response to a reasonable parental limit. You were chasing that stimulation against your parents' express wishes, in a way that was harmful because sleep is a vital part of brain development and overall health.

You're relating a memory that demonstrates exactly why your brother wants to delay the bullshit. Since some kind of screen time has become essentially mandatory in some schools, he's not even going to be able to delay it for long, but every year he does is another year that addiction to stimulation gets delayed too. Those arguments and tantrums get delayed.

Six is definitely too young. iPad kids are a thing. What do I as a parent need to add?

I'd agree. At that age it might to be more appropriate to learn how to ride a bike, explore the real world, practice social skills, dexterity, balance, learn to read and write... And kids have lots of energy and sitting on their butt in front of a screen kind of takes away from other things. It might be better to wait until they're 10 or 12 or something. But yeah, I think at 6 you should be able to hold scissors. Or cut the meal on your plate with a fork and a knife.