And as a parent I just feel powerless to stop it. A battle just to get modest parental controls on my teen's phone. Serious mental health issues that blow up into full blown crisis explosion when we try to put our foot down about doing homework or some other task. And they're nearing the age at which it starts to be downright creepy to have controls on their personal devices, but they need it more than ever.
And in school kids "using their phones" for work in class, but really, just using their phones. So I can't even lock it down during class time. Sigh.
Luckily the second child (pre-teen boy) shows no interest in phones or social media. Just video games. All. Day. Long.
My kids are younger but I'm having issues with them and YouTube. I have YouTube completely blocked on their personal device, but I can't do anything about their school issued Chromebook. In the end I have to completely block the school laptops from the internet at home, otherwise they go from a video about reptiles quickly into toy unboxing, fail video reactions, etc. In the end I have to continuously block and unblock websites and devices so they can do their homework. It's maddening, especially since there is so much educational material on YouTube. It's a losing battle.
My son is still young, so enforcing boundaries is much easier (easier as in successful, the emotional disregulation is still there of course).
Itβs not easy. Do your best. Try to actively support broadening their experiences with (hopefully) the outcome that they expand their interests. I think the needed thing here is not necessarily teetotaling, but finding something better to do than consuming media all the time.
Well, yes, this is the fundamental problem and why so many of us are really screwed in the post-COVID era: because something better to do was really hard to find, and one of the survival mechanisms for parents was to just let screentime run rampant.
And in school kids "using their phones" for work in class, but really, just using their phones. So I can't even lock it down during class time. Sigh.
Luckily the second child (pre-teen boy) shows no interest in phones or social media. Just video games. All. Day. Long.