Should kids have smartphones?

[Dildo Argentino]

Well, another reason, is that it is another form of recreational screen time.  It's the same reason my daughter doesn't, and won't, have a TV in her room.  Developmentally speaking, it is best for kids to limit their recreational screen time to two hours or less per day.  Kids aren't super good at managing that on their own.

As far as I am concerned, you are an irredeemable moron. I'm through talking to you.

[Dildo Argentino]

Preferably something I actually have a fair chance of explaining to them. Because I don't want my kids to come to think of me as a mean old fuck.

The problem with that sort of thing is that there may be a perfectly good justificat¡on for not giving them what they want, but the reason may not be pleasant to explain, or have it explained to you.

For example, a real reason not to give them smartphones is that they are too much fun. That will move their inner hedonic threshold to a point where they find the usual bullshit kids have to do (endless arithmetic problems, boring reading of terrible books) are now intolerable.

But you can't tell them that. We can't even tell ourselves that, sometimes, which is why this argument is often expressed in a more nuanced, positive-sounding way. For example, by romanticizing boredom.

I am not entirely sure if you are being earnest here or not. If not, then ha-ha, this is indeed an astute parody of one particular way of avoiding taking responsibility for yourself and your kids.

If you are serious, though, I put it to you that you are just plain wrong. "Inner hedonic threshold" indeed! It's not just a few little levers in there with labels on, you know. Teach kids to see reality - actually, they are instantiated with a pretty good angle on it and tremendous potential for development, so even better advice would be: don't actively dissuade your kids from learning to see reality - this will lead to correct assessment of self-interest and appropriate action. I see this in my own kids: once they discovered the dreaded internets (happens around the age of 12, with variations from chatting to friends and strangers to a great deal of collaborative online gaming in teams), school may suffer for a while (largely due to sleep-deprivation) - then they see the shit that gets them into and they adjust.

And nothing is ever too much fun. The addictive personality is formed, not born. A non-addictive personality generally does not slide into self-harming vortices of mal-adaptive self-regulation, whatever the stimulation. So there.

[Dildo Argentino]

To a certain point, maybe. Parental restrictions are actually pretty good these days, which I'm pretty sure was expressed earlier in the thread, and if your kid is tech savvy enough to get around them, that's a whole different set of issues.

I further doubt many parents are capable of completely monitoring the internet usage of their children. Giving your children the skills to navigate the dangers themselves - which is what Holist is saying above - is far more useful. The internet is currently ubiquitous. Sooner or later, your kid IS going to run into nasty and negative elements of it. Preparing them to deal with that is tough, but when you're talking young teen, almost certainly necessary.

Kind of reminds me of this:

I like what you say. And the cartoon has a precious tone of melancholy

[Dildo Argentino]

The only good argument against is that smartphones are fkn expensive.

At least over here, not any more. Admittedly, they are not the smartest of smartphones, but run android reliably, with navigation, web, email, various chats - not the killer games, obviously, but that's what computers are for. Data plans are expensive. But there's a lot of wifi about.

[Lord Cataplanga]

Preferably something I actually have a fair chance of explaining to them. Because I don't want my kids to come to think of me as a mean old fuck.

The problem with that sort of thing is that there may be a perfectly good justificat¡on for not giving them what they want, but the reason may not be pleasant to explain, or have it explained to you.

For example, a real reason not to give them smartphones is that they are too much fun. That will move their inner hedonic threshold to a point where they find the usual bullshit kids have to do (endless arithmetic problems, boring reading of terrible books) are now intolerable.

But you can't tell them that. We can't even tell ourselves that, sometimes, which is why this argument is often expressed in a more nuanced, positive-sounding way. For example, by romanticizing boredom.

I am not entirely sure if you are being earnest here or not. If not, then ha-ha, this is indeed an astute parody of one particular way of avoiding taking responsibility for yourself and your kids.

If you are serious, though, I put it to you that you are just plain wrong. "Inner hedonic threshold" indeed! It's not just a few little levers in there with labels on, you know. Teach kids to see reality - actually, they are instantiated with a pretty good angle on it and tremendous potential for development, so even better advice would be: don't actively dissuade your kids from learning to see reality - this will lead to correct assessment of self-interest and appropriate action. I see this in my own kids: once they discovered the dreaded internets (happens around the age of 12, with variations from chatting to friends and strangers to a great deal of collaborative online gaming in teams), school may suffer for a while (largely due to sleep-deprivation) - then they see the shit that gets them into and they adjust.

And nothing is ever too much fun. The addictive personality is formed, not born. A non-addictive personality generally does not slide into self-harming vortices of mal-adaptive self-regulation, whatever the stimulation. So there.

I wanted to see where that romantization of boredom I see in some people comes from.

If it's some kind of euphemism for time management problems, as described by RWHN, then I understand it better. Obviously, if your kid really wants a smartphone and you can provide one you should at least think about other ways of dealing with time management that don't involve depriving your kids of something that is very useful.

[Cain]

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[Reginald Ret]

Combined with the decreasing number of parents that know how to say NO this leads to a generation that is incapable of tolerating frustration. You think the number of man-children around is bad now? hah! just you wait!

Actually, and it's a big actually, I think the problem cuts both ways.

In the 1st world, vanishingly small is the number parents who mostly (discounting occasional mistakes) say no to their children at the appropriate times, in the appropriate manner. This rather rare "best practice" has the following distinguishing characteristics:

1. The parent finds themselves in a position of having to say no on surprisingly infrequent occasions.

2. On most of those occasions, it is appropriate to provide an explanation of the 'no'. Sometimes the explanation is self-evident and doesn't need to be repeated. On even rarer occasions, it is not appropriate to provide an explanation. But in the case of kids trust in our judgement, wear resulting from overuse is quite severe.

3. The 'no' is practically always accepted without much hassle, except for a brief period around the age of three, which is best handled with humour.

On the other hand, a large percentage of parents say 'no' to their kids to often, and for no good reason. This, unsurprisingly, leads to protracted conflict and often ends in trench warfare. This is termed the "generation gap", although it is mostly just bad parenting.

And, especially among those who are so stressed to keep body and soul together that they have little time for their kids (but also quite frequently among those who could do better, which is by far more sinful, although it is usually just passing on the abuse they got when they were kids), a large number of parents never say no to their kids, which is deeply destructive.

Good point and i agree completely.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Congratulations, RWHN.

You have come up with a system that is even more restrictive than most boarding schools could offer.

Watch for explosions in late teens or so.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

But I would monitor their usage of the smartphone, especially if I am paying for it.

I think the message will be received, when that day comes.

[Cain]

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[Cain]

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[LMNO]

Reminds me of my cousins. My aunt raised them extremely strictly, homeschooled them, hounded them about their behavior, and literally said that raising kids was no different than training dogs, and pretty much had them on house arrest for the first 15 years of their life.

One cousin has already run away from home several times, and has been to rehab twice, and the other self-harms and has attempted suicide at least once that we know of.

Anectdotal? Sure. But everyone saw it coming. Not that extremely at the time, but we knew something was going to blow.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Our responsibility as the older generation to teach them to be able to use this technology unsupervised. If they don't it's our failure, as parents. It's basically the same as the time I got a bus pass from school and was given free rein, and didn't get into any trouble. My parents may have screwed up in some areas (whose doesn't?), but they at least taught me to not get myself in a bad spot if they weren't looking.

You are prefectly right. I guess my question is how to do that right with smartphones. It's quite clear that you wouldn't start teaching power-tools before good hand-to-eye coordination and concentration skills are in place, probably around 5-6, with constant supervision. Learning to drive a powered vehicle, also probably not before then. Smartphones (ubiquitous data and networking in any form) seems harmless by comparison. I am not sure it is. The effect may be more subtle than lost fingers and major injuries, but I think there is an effect, and I'd like to see more clearly what it is. By the way, this is coming from a guy whose three-year-old daughter is quite capable of navigating an iPhone and does so quite a lot, and whose older kids all have networked computers and two have smartphones and the rest could have them if they asked for them.

Holist, kudos. I understand your ambivalence, but this is a good thread.

Thanks for that!

Little story:

My youngest is 17.  She and her friends all have smartphones, and they're constantly in touch.  At night, they watch bad movies together...Each at their own house, laughing over a team chat channel.  Then they all come up with things to do, and then I - or one of the other kids' parents - are overrun with teenagers for a while, then they're off to do whatever they had planned.  In large groups, every member of which has communication capability.

In short, they're never alone, no matter what, unless they want to be.

Results?  They're civilized as hell, can't be bothered with booze and drugs, and they DON'T spend all day buried in their phones.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/adolescenthealth/monitoring.htm

When they say "monitoring" there, they mean "talking to and staying involved with", not "use tracking devices to spy on your kids". A certain element of trust and respect is also necessary in effective childrearing.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/adolescenthealth/monitoring.htm

When they say "monitoring" there, they mean "talking to and staying involved with", not "use tracking devices to spy on your kids". A certain element of trust and respect is also necessary in effective childrearing.

Well, his approach is good training for CCA time.