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Comment by smeeth | Hacker News Reader

I'm not a parent, but I was somewhat recently parented.

Consider holding yourself to the same standard you set for your kid. My parents are mental health professionals and did this with me. I think it was incredibly valuable and I respect them a lot for it now that I'm older.

I don't think its wise to restrict usage, watch over their shoulder, or block websites if you aren't willing to submit to the same restrictions or naturally limit your usage.

You risk sending your kids some messages I'm not sure parents realize they are sending. Worst of all: "do as I say not as I do" and "I don't trust or expect you to act as responsibly as I do."

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Even if the adults are not able to restrict themselves, they are still responsible for the well being of the children who don't know better, at least until they are past the point of reducing cognitive, critical thinking and reading comprehension. A four year old doesn't know better.

Effects of Excessive Screen Time on Neurodevelopment, Learning, Memory, Mental Health, and Neurodegeneration: a Scoping Review https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11469-019-00182-2 Evidence suggests that chronic sensory stimulation via excessive exposure to screen time may affect brain development in negative ways. Excessive smartphone use may increase the risk of cognitive, behavioral, and emotional disorders in adolescents and young adults that also has the potential to increase the risk of early onset dementia in late adulthood.

https://healthmatters.nyp.org/what-does-too-much-screen-time... Early data from a landmark National Institutes of Health (NIH) study that began in 2018 indicates that children who spent more than two hours a day on screen-time activities scored lower on language and thinking tests, and some children with more than seven hours a day of screen time experienced thinning of the brain’s cortex, the area of the brain related to critical thinking and reasoning.

Sure, they won't call it 'brain damage' - just reduced cognitive reasoning and critical thinking.

One thing that I think would be hard to tease out, but would be important to do so, is do these kids have more screen time than usual, because they are harder to handle as children and thus are more likely to have excessive screen time given to them by their parents? Or the parents have less capacity limit this and is overall part of a theme of less parental resources?

I fully agree with this. In our household FB, Instagram, TikTok... are bad mouthed and blocked for everyone. Kids understand this and are on board with it.

If I was using FB and blocking for them, it would have been a hard sell.

I'm paranoid about passwords and sharing info online, and they've also started adopting those practices. Yesterday a kid had to login onto a public terminal at school, and once done the kid immediately changed password because I've been doing this. I was very proud. :)

Younger kid also makes sure passwords are hidden and so on...

At what point do you see this starting? I certainly don’t expect or trust a 3 year old to act as responsibly as I do

And I’m already a fairly irresponsible person.

Probably when they're capable of realizing you're a hypocrite?

Well said

There a difference between children having different limits to parents and to hypocrisy. There also a difference in responsibility, yes it's wrong for me to get drunk; letting a child get drunk, well that's immoral, criminal and a lot further down the 'unhealthy' road.

Treating children as small adults is wrong in so many ways.

I kind of agree but I think you make another point there, as a parent there is a big difference between getting drunk in-front of your kids and having a beer with food.

And it's the same thing with screen time and internet usage I don't think it's practically possible to have the same rules for adults and children in a home, bed time is an excellent example.

However you can still have clear and communicated rules for both the adults and the children that way holding yourself to the same standards.

In the bedtime example our 5yo goes to bed by ~1800 and the entire family gets up at ~0500 with the adults having a set bedtime at ~2100-2200. Of course these times can be altered by external circumstances but then we try to make the reasoning clear.

For screens and devices we use the same logic, yeah I work on the computer thus I will be using the screen more than a 5yo but outside of work I limit my own screen time as well as my kids, not the same level but a distinct limit to both of us.

That sounds tempting honestly, because I respect my kids. But OTOH I know for a fact that their prefrontal cortex has not yet developed fully, and I know how well paid the people are whose day jobs are dedicated to keeping users glued to the screen.

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