Thank you. Good read!
I lived on a cul-de-sac in every home as a kid or adult. Played in the street quite a bit, kick-ball, volleyball on holidays. Age mix here currently is only a few young neighbor kids. They do ride bikes on occasion, but young adult drivers abound as well.
We lived on a through street, but not busy at all.
Not like we were in the street all day. But we’re waiting for the school bus and we’d play a game of tag in which each curb is a base.
Memo to gen alpha: if you don’t want your parent to know who you have a crush on, don’t use her picture for your lock screen.
Just got back from vaca. Everyone sick with COVID. But, I had an awesome time. I let the kids sleep in, every morning I got up with the granddaughter, got her ready for the day,.made her breakfast, read a book, and watched some annoying kids TV. An hour or two every morning with just her and I, nice and quiet, quite a special time.
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Sounds like a win for all involved!
Whenever I see posts bragging about how great their kids are due to their parenting I think it’s probably as much luck as anything they did.
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My kids vary a lot and I’d like to think have been parented pretty consistently…
In fact they vary both between kids but even an individual kid’s behavior varies a lot depending on lots of factors (with sleep being a key one)
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I agree. Both my kids are better people than I’ll ever be. Part of that is a framework of consistency we had in place. And the rest, I dunno but not anything I did.
E.g. one of them is excellent with money. The other? Not a penny to their name. Same environment.
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I just had the conversation with my kids that there would be no more YouTube on personal devices in our home. They’ve been watching it more and more and getting more garbage fed to them, and they don’t use it for any redeeming qualities.
So I’m very popular in my home right now.
ETA my husband fully agreed with this decision and we came up with it together, but since I was the one who brought it up with the kids and because I’m generally bad cop, I’m getting all the fallout.
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Hold fast and stand tall. The algorithm is tough to beat.
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Ugh… Mini Me has one ok show she watches on YouTube (formerly on Netflix IIRC) and then tons of crap.
The rule in my house is “no YouTube except ‘Mia And Me’.”
And it’s not like Mia And Me is some masterpiece, but it’s a perfectly acceptable way for an elementary schooler to burn 20 minutes of screen time that I have no particular objection to.
The amount of “kids” programming that is absolute crap on YouTube is tremendous and the ratio of crap to ok or better quality is also tremendous.
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Oh yeah, reminds me of when my kid was a baby, given youtube privileges she would instantly zero in on on these bright, loud, bouncing, incomprehensible bat-shit-crazy shorts, and become completely dead to the world.
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We don’t usually let our kid watch TV solo.
She has a million video games to play (which I’ve “curated”). We also watch a bunch everyday together, negotiating between her (lame) taste and our (good) taste.
She has too much screen time in general.
The “oh hell no” moment for us was when my son parroted some comments he heard from a YouTuber that were not quite alt right garbage, but definitely starting to lean that way. The YouTuber is a guy who plays Roblox games, which my kids enjoy watching. But they just fill all the dead air with stupid commentary, including some real trash.
He’s also started making jokes that take cracks AT us, because he’s figured out it’s an easy way to get a laugh. I don’t blame YouTube for that, but it doesn’t help.
We have been on the lookout for our kids being indoctrinated by white nationalist, incel, misogynistic garbage for a while, but I thought it was going to be easier for us to catch. I was wrong. And I’m the only one allowed to indoctrinate my kids!!
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Ohhhh. I just thought you meant stupid stuff. Yeah that’s upsetting.
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Same… the stuff I’m objecting to is closer to a kids version of the show “Impractical Jokers” which I find not even slightly funny.
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This thread is reassuring af.
Mine liked to watch videos of other people playing with toys, I’m guessing so she doesn’t have to make the effor to play with anything herself. We’ve put a hard nix on that.
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I am thrilled my grandkids (6 & 4) get very little screen time