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What's your experience with your kid's friends? If they hang out or sleep over at their house, they will play video games.

I also question the need to always be productive. Do your kids ever get downtime? Some of my favorite childhood memories are watching movies with my family or playing games with my friends or brother.

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We're lucky enough to have friends that pretty much have a similar parenting style, so it's not an issue, but yes, some kids that come to our house are "bored" because we don't have a screen or video games or any of that. They (the other kids) don't know how to be a kid anymore (in terms of playing outside, playing board games, etc.), which stresses them out. It's quite sad actually.

And yes, they get plenty of downtime. We don't force any activity on them or force them to be "productive". Anything really that they do is more productive than playing a video game - even sitting in the backyard staring at the sky.

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