While research on children’s screen use is growing, most of it has focused on how a child’s behavior and temperament influence how much time they spend on screens.
Yet far less attention has gone to parents’ role in children’s media use.
In 2024, the U.S. surgeon general identified parenting stress as a public health concern.
Researchers, clinicians and policymakers were called to action to better understand parents’ needs, with the goal of supporting them in raising children and maintaining a healthy family.
My partner’s older sister is Rasing 3 kids with a husband. the Husband works his ass off fixing trucks so the mom can afford to stay home. The trouble: they have a little one who is on the spectrum for sure and is displaying phychotic tendacies. (clinical not the arm chair/ gennralization) docs are not legally able to diagnose him with it because science has shown the brain has to develop. What sin did these parents do? Not a thing, no drugs, no booze, no crimes, just trying to make it work as a family. And the universe still said: here is a kid who has zero empathy. Sometimes the iPad is the only way to prevent him from tearing apart live bugs, hitting his sister (1.5 yrs) and hitting his younger brother (4mths). They go to therapy, they talk to professionals, they don’t get anything nice for themselves, everything they do is for them… And it’s still not enough.
They do limit what he sees, so they are aware of the content, thankfully it’s just floating carrots and instruments, but heven help us when that kid figures out how to get to regular YouTube.
“Parents putting screens in front of their kids is more about their own stress than other factors”
Nah. Really? You don’t say. And here we all thought it was because the parents really believed that watching random shit on youtube for 15 hours each day was educational and healthy for 2 year olds.
I mean these people exist too. I worked for that lady who was probably around 40, but she really tried hard to be 25 or so. She had like 5 girls at home, not all hers. All the pictures on their walls had a super weird filter on. If you like that, more power to you. But tge way she talked about social media and screens in general was just downright weird as fuck. She was really proud that all her girls already had an instagram account, because when they are old enough, the good handles would be already gone. They practiced posing for the camera at home, and she was weirdly proud to not have books at home, because they all had tablets and you don’t need books when youtube exists. I didn’t even want to know ANY of this, ahe told me that like ahe was mother of the century. When she eventually asked me for my Instagram, to get her kids some followers i told her i don’t do social media, i find it dumb and creepy.
It doesn’t feel righteous to judge the parents about it now when you frame it like that though!
Yes, it does. What is the alternative? Judge the kids? They did not choose to be born. Their parents chose to create them despite having no clue how to care for them.I could’ve used a /s.
Woosh. Imagine a /s on the comment you responded to
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Anti-intellectual? I’ve seen plenty of articles over the years about parents giving young kids screens to keep them busy, and they all knew the reason for that was the parents being stressed and using the screen as a way to lighten their load.
What did you think the reason behind it was? Someone hiding in the parents bedroom who threatened to murder everyone if they didn’t give little Timmy an iPad? The genuine belief in the educational value of random youtube videos?
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In 2024, the U.S. surgeon general identified parenting stress as a public health concern.
Yeah, no shit. We’re raising kids with zero future prospects while our own future keeps getting rugpulled over and over. It’s stressful being a parent as it is, and the dismal outlook isn’t helping.
It doesn’t feel satisfying to judge parents from that lens, why would I take that perspective?
/s
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Yes I have a yet to see a baby go to the Apple store and buy an iPad and hook up that sweet YT colorful squiddly doo
I like the saying that “it takes a whole village to raise a child”. The problem is our way of life, in nuclear families, with weak social network. We are just no able to do everything, work, raise kids, mantian home. It’s too much for a nuclear family.
The atomization of society feels like it is responsible for so many problems, this one included
My cat just got up, walked to the edge of the beds, looked around, and then walked back to where he was, and laid back down in the exact same spot.
And you noticed.
So… like ADD in the 90s, then?
I was going to say: so many parents in the 90s let tv raise their kids, too. It’s a time honor tradition to have a square or rectangle keep your kids calm. Acting like this is a new concept entirely is laughable.
Pre-tech you just popped a “soother” in their mouths and it worked way better than a “screen”. We weren’t connected to all of the world back then but I’m certain there must have been an “anti-soother” faction.
Selfish idiot people continue having children they cannot care for, sustaining the cycle of abuse.
Thanks, mom and dad. We will spend the rest of our lives cleaning up after your wretched, monstrous asses.
You had a shitty childhood, but instead of trying to do better for your kids, you gave up, and didn’t have kids at all. Obviously its OK to not want kids, but to me this seems like you are extrapolating your childhood trauma to everyone else. My childhood wasn’t perfect, but it makes me want to strive to do better, not to avoid kids ans shane people who have them.
Look around.
We live in slave world.
What kind of life will any child born today be forced to live?
We will spend the rest of our lives cleaning our parents messes, and we might all be doomed to burn alive due to climate change even if we do our best to stop it.
I’m not your scapegoat. Things are worse than you think.
How old is your kid?
Life was so miserable when I was young, I decided I probably shouldn’t have kids. I didn’t want them to suffer like I had.
My abusive mother denies that I had this thought.
I think abuse is more common than people realize. I wish more parents would recognize that they are bringing sentient life into the world.
So… no kid?
Correct. I wish more people chose not to have kids they can’t care for. What is your point?
He’s confused.
Downvoters support child abuse.
Do you know what my father said when I called him out on failing to care for my brothers and I?
“Well, that was my right.”
Think for two goddamn seconds.
This is intolerable behavior.
God these kinds of comments are dumb. Here let me explain why:
If you downvote this you support drowning puppies.
Hey. Not everyone had/has the same experience as you. I get that you’re angry but stop purity testing the entire planet because you had a bad time.
“Every person who doesn’t agree with me supports child abuse” sounds a lot like, “every black person is a criminal” or “every gay person has AIDS”. Don’t let your trauma turn you into the people who hurt you.
Hey. Not everyone had/has the same experience as you.
More than you think.
I get that you’re angry but stop purity testing the entire planet because you had a bad time.
Stop normalizing child abuse, selfish dipshit.
“Every person who doesn’t agree with me supports child abuse”
Not what I said. Every person who abuses children is a child abuser. It is more common than you think.
sounds a lot like, “every black person is a criminal”
Not at all. Parents choose to have children. No one chooses to be black. What a disgusting false equivalence.
or “every gay person has AIDS”.
Wow, you one-upped yourself. When any person, gay or not, contracts AIDS, they have to deal with that themselves. They are suffering for their choices.
When parents choose to have children they can’t care for, the children suffer for choices they did not make and cannot correct.
Don’t let your trauma turn you into the people who hurt you.
Don’t let your selfish idiocy blind you to real problems.
Abuse has been normalized.
Oppose it or die, thanks.
go
touch
grass.
