Ask HN: How do you handle tech use with your kids?

Mpsprd:

We have two kids who were raised essentially screen-free until 3, then on a 1hr a week diet until 6. We worried all the time about the transition to school, and the cultural norm of allowing a lot more screen time. This was an imagined dragon – this has not been an issue at all. My oldest just got a Switch, she plays less than 1/2hr a day – then she walks away without issue. She has friends with phones and iWatches (she has neither) and her envy level is zero.

My point here is not that we’ve done anything right, or wrong, or to emulate. Instead, I say this point out the I’ve had to learn to worry about, and address, the real issues – when they become real. There are not enough hours in the day to worry about all theoretical mistakes I’m making as a a parent. I choose to focus on the actual, observable, issues we are having.

For what it’s worth – many of our neighbors have kids that play all the time on the Switch, have phones, and watch TV every car ride anywhere, and those kids are LOVELY. They aren’t screen demons – and they aren’t behind in math, reading, eating vegetables… I think it could be it doesn’t really matter as much as it gets focused on.