Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
Don't have to deal with this anymore, because mine are all at least tweenage.
It's a balancing act, and sometimes running around a little is fine this day in this space, but not another day in a similar space.
I'm not going to act like I've never given my kids an iPad to keep them quiet for a while, but it would be refreshing to see MORE kids playing trains and Hot Wheels instead of sitting in front of a screen.
It's much harder for the kids to create their own fun when a device just spews nonstop entertainment at then. Why use your own imagination, when there's always someone else's available to watch, play, listen to?
There's a HUGE gray area between "children should be silent and invisible" and "HOW DID YOU GET ON THE ROOF OF WALMART?!?". Neither of those extremes are good, and sometimes, as parents we learn during or afterwards that maybe this wasn't the best place to play Hot Wheels. But a lot of the time, it's not hurting anyone.
I worked for a while at a summer camp that didn't allow phones, and kids loved it ... if they could make it through the first two days.
Like you said, kids love being able to make their own fun, but it's hard to compete with an iPad, and not always appropriate given the context (like if you are in a library you have to be quiet).
I definitely think kids should get more opportunities to play and make their own fun in unstructured but supervised settings -- where the adults are there for safety but not telling the kids how to play.