iPad Kids, “Gentle” Parenting, Teachers Quitting: A Millennial Parent’s Take
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- Опубліковано 27 січ 2024
- Are Gen Alpha doomed because of millennial parenting? A deep dive. Check out my sponsor betterhelp.com/murphy for 10% off your first month of therapy with BetterHelp, you'll get matched with a therapist who will listen and will help you!
All of us out here trying to parent well in 2024 could benefit from a bit of therapy. I know I do. It takes a village, but many of us are operating with villages with one, two, three or four people...and it's simply OVERWHELMING xx
The internet/Gen Z/teachers say Gen Alpha can't read and are terribly behaved. Is it because us millennials are raising ‘iPad children’? Are millennial parents allowing their kids too much screen time (and too much control of it) because of gentle parenting, or are people misunderstanding what gentle parenting actually IS? Is permissive parenting to blame? ARE millennials just lazy parents? The omnipresence of technology in Gen Alpha's formative years is apparently causing shorter attention spans, impaired social formation along with so many other negative effects...and I don’t think permissive parenting is helping. Let's deep dive, and PLEASE get involved in the conversation down in the comments! I'll read EVERY SINGLE COMMENT and will reply to as many as I can xx
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What really stood out to me is the guy complaining about giving kids an iPad in a restaurant. In my opinion this is a situation where it makes the most sense.
Most toddlers are not able to sit quietly for long, that's normal. So if parents want to enjoy an occasional restaurant outing, the best way to keep everyone happy is to give the kid a screen so you can sit and eat your meal. Oh except Mr. TikTokker still won't be happy.
You can't win! If your kid starts shouting and crying, then you're a bad parent. If you give them an iPad to stay quiet, you're also a bad parent. 🤦🏼 And no there's no magic wand parenting style that will enable a two year old to sit quietly for an entire restaurant outing.
There are other solutions like hiring a babysitter, great now your date costs an extra $80. Or one parent takes the kid outside to walk around, meaning you can't hang out together.
Like you mentioned there are a lot of totally unrealistic expectations for small children. Smug childless 21-year-olds in particular do not have a good idea of what's developmentally appropriate. Like they want you to be strict, but have no clue that being strict leads to tantrums. You can either let kids do what they want, or hear them cry. Those are basically the two options.
And yeah crying is fine and normal but people hate it when kids cry in public so you can't win. Our society is not very accommodating of children especially the US.
This is such an excellent video and nuanced take. There’s no way TikTok dialogues can capture the complexity of parenting, and no disrespect to gen z expressing their opinions but if they’re not backed by research evidence then they’re just opinions based on anecdotes and personal experience really…
I’m also a millennial prepping myself for having children (I hope!) in the next few years. So grateful to have people like you online who do their research and present information in such an engaging way. 💚
I love this conversation. Being a parent we put such pressure on ourselves to "not mess up" out kids 😂but I'm starting to think it's the simple basics... Firm but fair, warmth but also highlighting unacceptable behaviour so they are aware and they hopefully turn out happy and well rounded humans 😊
@rosiethered5677
V good point! Like Melanie said, unless they’re unicorn children they will not be happily silent and restrained for an hour at a fancy restaurant.
21 year old guy can choose between a UA-cam watching child and a screaming child. He’s choosing the latter here tho
As an elementary teacher I can tell you that it is not gentle parenting that is the problem. Being respectful and kind to your child and teaching them how to deal with their emotions is never a bad thing. The problem is parents who are entirely uninvolved in their children's lives. My students who struggle the most don't have parents who are gentle with them. They have parents who do not care about their children's behavior or are permissive of their behavior.
I work inside of homes directly with families in their day to day lives, parents being gentle kind and respectful sadly does not mean the parent is also teaching the child emotional skills/regulation or even basic boundaries/ decency.
Too many people practicing”gentle” parenting are just practicing permissive parenting without understanding.
I think general parenting is great but I think a lot of parents misunderstand what it is. They think gentle parenting is letting their kid do whatever they want because to tell them otherwise would be too controlling and harsh. But gentle parenting is actually about teaching your kid right and wrong and acknowledging their feelings while not being dismissive of their child or screaming at them. I wish more parents understood the difference
@@rayanneflorence1830 I don’t think gentle parenting is even a thing, if done “right” you’re doing authoritative parenting which is the most balanced way to parent and an already established parenting method.
I have a question about my friend's three year old. He used to be a baby that was a little more advanced than babies his age. His mom started working to survive, she's a married single mom, his 80yo great gradma was babysitting him and by the time he started going to daycare until now he is completely asocial, can't talk and still wears diapers. He is completely disinterested in adults and children. Does that seem like a child if uninvolved parents?
These parents aren't gentle parenting, they're not parenting at all 💀💀
A lot of "gentle" parents missed the point of the assignment. It should have stayed being called authoritative parenting, distinguishing itself from authoritarian and passive.
Honestly, I think these parents are using gentle parenting as a gaslighting technique, and it's working.
@@robinfox4440whatever you say
@@xxkankala1671 My brother in Christ did you even watch the video?
@@robinfox4440yes. Gentle parenting is actually authoritative parenting.
Every young generation that hasn’t started having kids thinks they’ll do better than the prior ones. Then they start having kids, notice how hard it is and make a set of different mistakes. Circle of life.
This was my first thoughts listening to all those babies judge us a beginning of the video. I was like sit down and come back when you a parent, I do however take on board what the teachers say, they are the ones seeing the kids every day and having to manage them. My goal is to do better than my parents but I still mess up and shout because of how I was raised, I'm in therapy I'm very self aware I'm trying so hard but I still mess up. We're all trying are best but no ones perfect
It's the cost of childcare that's killing millennial parents, I think. Everyone works, childcare is crazy pricey, so if you have a few moments at home to clean/cook/gather your thoughts, you might need to park your kids in front of a screen to do it.
I was going to say it's like people who are not parents themselves or parents to little kids themselves seem to think kids are just out of control just in general it's just people have never been able to express it so publicly and less and less young adults are having kids.
My friend is 40. She and her husband have a 5-year-old son. They told him "no", no yelling or screaming and grounded him to his room. He threw a tantrum so bad he accidentally tossed himself out the window because he was slamming himself onto the window screen and fell out, tumbling down two stories and luckily survived. They still hold strong with telling him "no" and the tantrums have died down since the accident.
They don't even have an iPad. They specially picked their home within walking distance to the park. Every day they walk their son to the park. I was on the phone with my friend when their son had an accident on himself, little guy was about to cry and I heard both of them saying, "It's OK. It happens sometimes. There's no need to cry over it." and my friend got off the phone with me to tend to her son.
So some people still parent the old-fashioned way.
She and her husband however DO NOT yell, raise their voice or hands to their son because they were both traumatized by their parents. Her Mom died two weeks after Christmas, leaving her with her drunk Dad, would make her sit next to him while he was n*ked and made her uncomfortable, he removed all the doors in the house because he had a paranoia his children would k*ll him, told his teen son he was too stupid for school and should quit.
Worst part was when her Dad stuck his tongue down my throat. My friend never let me stay at house and one day she finally did. I couldn't figure out why she slept under the bed as it was higher off the ground, so I'm thinking bunk beds. It was to hide from her dad. I was 12, her dad came in the room to tell us goodnight and stuck his tongue down my throat.
Her mattress is on the floor because there will never be any abuse in her house where children have to hide.
I don't think you have to have kids to know that raising a screen addicted kid with no concept of consequences to their acttions is a bad idea.
I don't think a young kid watching a film is what's causing them harm, but the ability to scroll and just see snippets of random stuff that isn't helping them in any way is. I have lovely memories from when I was a kid, watching films, listening to the soundtracks, and just being completely immersed in the experience without getting distracted. But I don't think kids nowadays are getting that with the media that is presented to them and it's sadly no wonder that we see the effects and hear teachers speaking out :/ I don't think it feels special to them, just a flurry of sounds and visuals to take their mind off things without any 'gained' skill or appreciation
I've also noticed a lack of curiosity / ability to find information. For example that whole thing that went around a while with "don't gatekeep! Link it" for every single item in a post/video when it would be so easy to Google and find the answer yourself. I don't get it, it's like if it isn't instantly available it's too much effort. I might be an "old soul" at 25 but I fear for people just 5 years younger than me
Yes!!! Esp the “snippets of random shit” part I swear to god the amount of times I’ve taken a device from a kid (Not mine) bevause all they’re doing is skipping and watching the same 5 second bullshit over and over, and that is so fucking unnecessary! They learn and gain NOTHING from it
I have this thought to. My husba l husband was home with our 2.5 yo while I was out shopping. He asked where the tablet was. I told him he our daughter didn't need it. He asked why is TV okay but not the tablet. She will usually get tired of the TV and start playing with her toys (usually, this is when I'm cooking/cleaning. He wanted to just watch TV without being disturbed...) while she can continue to scroll with the tablet and have constant stimulation which isn't good. I'm not perfect, I do use screen time but it's usually when I'm working (work from home) cleaning, or cooking.
@hollid90 I have no issues putting a movie or cartoon on either on the TV. Especially if I'm trying to clean or something. And ya she gets bored and plays with toys or will come and help me lol 😂
Definitely! I still love to watch things with my dad and I’m very much an adult. I think part of it is the discussion, talking about what you liked about it or not. When I was a kid my dad got excited WITH me about barbie movies and stuff even though he was a 40+ year old man. He knew that me getting excited about the ballet I saw for example meant I might want to try ballet and supported me (now I’m working in theatre professionally). Media can be such a positive and formative experience, especially when it’s not alone :)
I teach Gen Alpha and I can understand both sides. This generation has the best emotional awareness I have ever seen. They know and clearly communicate their boundaries and their needs. In my opinion, that is due to millennial parenting. However, most of them have problems respecting OTHER people’s boundaries. They are also not able to code switch: they do not understand the difference between their living room and the classroom. One major issue is also that the school system simply doesn't work with a generation like this. The system is built on suppressing your needs, otherwise having 25 kids in a small room with one teacher simply doesn’t work. In some groups I don’t get to teach because there are so many needs to tend to... As teachers we do our best to compensate for the system, but we’re at the end of the rope.
This is a really interesting thing to hear from a teacher. I'd love to home educate already and know school class sizes are too big, but reading 'the school system is designed to suppress individual needs' is another lightbulb moment for me! It's good to see a teacher recognise this rather than say 'surely not THAT many kids can be neurodiverse', or 'kids just need to learn to adapt to cope in the real world' - us adapting to kids sounds much better to me, and more respectful of kids as human beings. Obviously you can take it too far, but a smaller class size where all needs can be managed, and kids can be taught how to compromise where necessary for their classmates... the dream!
School is about being part of a group. We all have those same needs but we schedule time for them collectively & expect everyone to handle their business during those hours. This is bare minimum
@5tarfl0wer the school system was created by a Prussian military expert that wanted to make all citizens of a country "war draftable", that is why it has been adopted by all countries of different culture. It's not about being in a group, it's about being in a troop. There was a time when children weren't educated this way, it's not "deconstructing a tradition" to break this down.
@@2okaycola It may be possible in a setting like high school, with older students. But it's not possible with younger children. They're not at the maturity level to even think of stuff like self-discipline or to be able to regulate their emotions properly. We also have to account that there are a lot of students in one classroom, from various backgrounds. Not everyone is raised the same way, not everyone is at the same maturity level, and not everyone has a stable, supporting home environment to encourage learning. And teachers can only help so much with the time they have. So if one student struggles, and parents won't help them, they're basically left to fend for their own. Often with no clue what to do.
As I’ve watched a lot of the commentary on this, I started to suspect that gentle (or authoritative) parenting is simply not compatible with our public schools, and likely many other activities for children - like sports teams or music lessons.
I'm a Millennial parent, and I don't like the screens in public thing. I think that it robs you and your child(ren) of a learning experience of how they're meant to act in a public space. If you pop your kid onto a phone at a restaurant, they don't learn anything about the social contract in a restaurant setting. I got my son used to restaurants by taking him to Subway and dining in. Hardly anyone dines-in at Subway, so it's a good spot to have them get accustomed to dining out. Same with phones being given to kids in stores - how are they supposed to learn NOT to go wild and touch everything if you don't give them the opportunity to know what's expected of them in a store?
I do say we leave the screens for super long trips. I want my son to see the sky, the trees, how beautiful it is. But he doesn’t need to do that for a whole hour.
Yes, I have many friends who still refuse to take their children grocery shopping at 2 and 3 years because they don't know how to behave. I do all of my shopping with my son and always have. We have had meltdowns in the store and worked through some crazy phases, but now he says hi to people and can even walk around the store. They need the exposure and for us to work on things woth them.
Same here, never had screens at the table at home or out and it always surprises people when we’re out how well behaved she is
I completely agree; it's all about exposure. My stepson is ten and we've been taking him out to eat his whole life (granted though I met him at four and luckily past the toddler meltdown phase haha). Like everything else it's about practice. We've never given him our phones and he's never had a tablet. We draw and he tells us about his ideas and we listen and we chat about our days. Meanwhile I see other families at restaurants where both the adults and the kids are zeroed into their phones and they don't talk to each other at all!
My kid loves grocery shopping. She loves seeing all the fun things down the isles. Eating out is a little different. Especially since at home I let her wander away then come back to her food. She's also super loud 😂 she's happy but Loud so sometimes she just gets overly excited. So I don't bring my kids to nice restaurants just the family ones lol
I wonder how much of the backlash has more to do with the impact of the pandemic. Many parents were expected to work full-time and take care of their children during lockdowns. Of course a child who lost a year or two of socializing and education is going to be behind by a year or two, plus impacted emotionally and psychologically by the experience.
This is such an important point when it comes to what the teachers are saying about where they’re at with literacy skills etc! Kids suffered the most from lockdowns. If you were six, that was like…a third of your life at the time. Absolutely mind blowing. No idea how parents dealt with juggling child rearing, working from home, and homeschooling. Because fucken hell 🤯
Absolutely this, my son was three when the pandemic hit up until that point he had been screen free, he was always out in the community doing activities, playgroups, library etc then lockdown. it was three of us in a tiny unit me working full time in a stressful job and slowly slowly the screen time started adding up. trying to cut it back is like wrestling crack away from a junky
Right! Of course it is easier to blame a generation of parents. Maybe because it gives the person (the generation, the group of people) placing the blame more control.... "I will do better than millennials by parenting differently," when in reality a pandemic, inflation and the dissolution of the middle class (maybe why parents are exhausted and turning to screens), etc have more to do with systems that are deeply embedded in our society and hard to change. Thanks for making this video... really got me thinking!
This exactly. I had twins who were nearly 5 when the pandemic hit. Before that they were in a play based preschool and doing really well. Then suddenly we were forced to work from home with them with zero childcare. We did give them tablets out of sheer survival. We were lucky enough to be able to get them in a private in person Kindergarten in the fall of 2020 that was also very good with COVID protocols, but most kids their age had to do Kindergarten virtually. I heard many stories about how well that worked out. It's no wonder many of them are now behind socially and academically.
@@desertrose0027 I tutor ESL in Asia and I had some zoom class requests for kids as young as 3. I turned them all down. It would have been pointless and way too much stress with their parents criticizing everything. I feel bad for kids having to do virtual kindergarten, no way did they have the attention span for that
START READING WITH YOUR KIDS!! My daughter loves when I read to her, and then she’ll take a turn reading to me!
Yesss it’s the best! Today our 3 year old listened to us read to him for 2 whole hours spread across the day 🤯 His attention span has really improved since we cut down on screens!
@@melaniemurphyofficial love to hear it!
Yes, my children always loved to read Books, now they are grown up and they still like books.
@@myriamcarcas2379 yep! Same. Mine and I were taking turns reading thru Walkie-Talkies lastnight! You gotta get your kids into and used to reading, no matter how you do it. They’ll always have a need to read things in life, and it’s sooooo much better than just handling them a device
The problem with reading is that so many adults don’t want to read now, and it doesn’t seem to be confined to one generation. The studies of adults who have not read since they left school is sad. I blame the media. You have to actively search for new books coming out and book reviews, but movie previews and ads for tv shows pop up on your feed. I read a lot of amateur short stories but I had to join groups for that. So adults associate reading with the books they had to read in school but didn’t choose, so they may not even know there are books out there that are worth their $20. I had my parents read with me… mom and dad. Both loved reading, and I started reading early because I wanted to do it. I was starting before preschool. I was reading chapters in goosebumps books with my parents by around 6 or 7. I read alone sometimes too, if I wanted. I was never required. It was just fun but back then I could find articles and book recommendations without hunting back when I was a kid. The 90s was way more pro-book, without being obvious about it. Someone always brought up ‘oh my daughter and I started reading this series together. Have you read it?’ Then you would check it out. We had field trips to the library and everyone had a library card. Now all of this is so hidden.
I’ve been noticing parents on their phones at walks or sitting with their children for years. Sometimes the kid in a pram is trying to talk to the parent and they get completely ignored. It’s no wonder kids grow up to crave comfort and entertainment from a screen when all their parents are doing is staring at a screen.
😭😭😭 yeah we have had to introduce rules around when we go on our phones! If one kid is asleep and the other is playing and we are having coffee at the table, can check it…any time they are asleep or occupied with someone else, but never if it’s just us and them and they aren’t immersed in something/never if they can see us on the phone! Besides a phone call or something urgent. I’d hate their childhood memories to be of us looking down
I caught my 3 year old son about to bite me yesterday. It's become an issue since his brother is teething.:
Me-"Are you about to make a bad choice or good choice?"
Son-"Bad choice"😄(he was smiling...)
Me-"You haven't made it yet. You still have time to make a good choice instead."
Son-"okay Mommy" Went back to playing with his cars.
28:22 yes! As a mom of a 2.5 it’s incredible to compare my son in his stroller or in the cart at the supermarket with his peers. He spends the whole time pointing at stuff, asking for the name of things, talking about the trees, what he ate for lunch and what he wants for dinner, pointing at garbage cans and saying how the trash truck will empty them and take the trash away…while other kids are just looking at the screen, losing such a wonderful opportunity to talk, to explore the world, just think how much vocabulary can be practiced at the supermarket! obviously it means I do not wind down while we walk and sometimes I come back home realizing I didn’t buy bread. My family is going to survive until tomorrow I swear 😂
it was always so funny to me how kids are so fascinated with garbage trucks 😂😂😂😂 amazing
gotta go empty my trash
Please don't judge these parents because at the end of the day we all do our best and you don't really know how much time on screen these kids spend, it might have been only that moment at the supermarket in the whole day, we don't know!
👏🏻👏🏻
@@valentinamelethiel353 Not sure it was a particularly judgmental comment, just an observation. And I'd take into account the volume of how many kids this person is seeing at the supermarket - I'd wager it's a significant proportion of kids on screens, so it's a valid observation to make, whether it speaks to bad parenting (which in some cases it simply will do), or society and levels of support for parents needing to change - most likely the latter. If we don't observe these things then we can't identify problems or do anything to help. Even if the parent is doing it for understandable reasons given their circumstances, or in whatever way it's not the parent's fault, it IS still a problem, and the blame lies somewhere.
My son is 2 and I've noticed this in supermarkets or at the mall etc. He talks to me about all the things he can see and he loves people watching. I see many toddlers in their pushchairs on ipads or phones already. It's such a wasted opportunity to learn about the world around them!
I worked at a children’s museum doing field trips for years and in a school as well. Kids are like horses; they can basically smell what you’re coming at them with and reflect your emotions, fears, etc. right back on you. If you come in calm, confident, and CONSISTENT, you will get a better response. Kids thrive on rhythm and boundaries. Another thing I used constantly was foreshadowing and expectations. Don’t tell a kid what you don’t want them to do, tell them what you want them to do. “Alright we are going into this room and there are going to be a bunch of cookies on the table. They are all exactly the same. You are going to take one cookie and sit down on the reading rug. How many cookies are you going to take?” Kids will answer “one.” “When do we sit after we get our cookie?” “The reading rug.” Now everyone knows what’s expected and they’re much more likely to do it. It keeps them from even imagining the outcome you don’t want because if you say “don’t take more than one cookie!” then they will imagine themselves taking more than one cookie and now you’ve planted the seed. I am also VERY honest about dangerous behavior. I am not afraid to tell kids that they could die if they do certain things like run into the street. A little fear of very real dangers is helpful. They should be afraid of getting hit by a car. But I will say in every generation you get some kids who just act up. Sometimes it’s entitlement but a lot of time it’s parental emotional neglect. They only get attention at home if they do something bad, so when they feel neglected they misbehave. I’ve seen extreme cases where I had a 4 year old student who would pee on herself to get attention because that’s the only time she got attention at home. She was completely potty trained and would look straight at you while she did it. She wasn’t a bad kid, she was just horrifically neglected. We actually got her parents into parenting classes and counseling and it helped them a ton. They were very young and just didn’t really know how to parent. But honestly at the museum we saw all types of bad parenting: the distracted parent, the dismissive parent, the authoritarian parent, and one of my least favorites, the stage/pageant/Instagram parent. Honestly those were the worst. They would pull their kids out of activities to take poses pictures and their kids missed out on a lot of the fun. They would also get really upset if their kid got messy. At a children’s museum. Play is messy.
It feels a tad dehumanising but I always relate raising kids to training horses. It's all about boundaries and consistency. You can love them but you need to be a leader first, someone they look to to keep them safe, and not expecting or requiring them to give you love definitely helps. I have never had to yell at my nieces or nephews because I am consistent and crossing boundaries has consequences when they are with me. My brother is currently struggling with his youngest son because he is at times permissive then authoritarian when the kid invariably doesn't listen and does whatever he wants. It's infuriating. The kid is a brat but it's not his fault. Doesn't help that his mum and dad are separated so he has to go from one home to the other. Extra difficult to be consistent in a broken home.
I think the problem is that us millennials confuse gentle parenting with Permissive/passive parenting. The difficult children teachers are having to deal with I guarantee don't have parents correctly implementing gentle parenting and instead are using permissive or passive parenting. AMAZING video though. such a good take on everything
Yes! I follow Tori Phantom and Gwena (Pleasant Peasant Media or Mamma cusses) and they teach how gentle/responsive parenting when done right can help raise mentally healthy children!!! It infuriates me when gentle parenting is equated to allowing a child to do whatever they want without consequences when it's so not the case!
@@sofyaa2943 Exactly! Parents aren't doing proper research and are just winging it and not implementing real parenting skills.
Exactly. What they’re doing isn’t authoritative. And the irony is a lot of these videos are bragging about how much better parents they are than previous generations WHEN THEIR KIDS ARENT EVEN GROWN YET! That’s just insane to me. We won’t know the consequences of this parenting trend until these kids are grown and start complaining about how gentle parenting screwed them up.
One thing I have found helpful as a medium screen option when we’re both having a hard day with boundaries is playing Spotify from the tv. I will play songs from his favourite shows and films and put out a fun toy or activity for him to do while he listens.
He can see Bluey or Winnie the Pooh or Bob the Builder on the cover art on the screen which is exciting for him but because it isn’t a real show he gets bored quickly and will move on to drawing or building towers while listening to the music.
On a good day it’s an alternative to tv time when you’re trying to get stuff done as it helps him be occupied with his toys a bit longer, on a bad day it gives you a half hour where no one is actively watching tv or crying about not watching tv 😂
Loveee this! Nursery rhymes on Spotify are fantastic too 🥰 Baby is currently asleep and my son is building a tower in her playpen with blocks listening to ‘the animals went in two by two’ it’s so much less overstimulating (for me too!)
iPads are like crack. How many times have you doom scrolled as an ADULT who didn’t grow up learning that. It’s a true addiction and parents are starting it in infancy with thier children. 😭
I'm a psychologist and am currently doing a Master's in Child and Developmental Psychology and honestly what my professors and us come to time and time again is the fact that *no one* both the parents and the children has any toleration to frustration whatsoever, and being exposed to *optimal* frustration is ESSENTIAL because that's what life is, similar to what you've said about boredom
and I hope I don't need to put a huge disclaimer here that I don't think about ANYONE being constantly in distress
and also of course I understand that this is a huge societal and systematic issue, it really IS, but this is something I see more and more and it's really scary to not be able to tolerate any frustration at all, and it's unrealistic which is exactly why it's evident from the teacher stories you put up it doesn't work in the real world
again, I don't think people should just supress their feelings and stuff like that, on the contrary, we should *sit* with them even when they are uncomfortable - the fact that we feel the need to put so many disclaimers all the time illustrates that amazingly - and we also need to be okay with not only our uncomfortable feelings, but other people's too, because as you've said no one really is an island
sorry for this essay of a comment but I just feel a lot about this hahaha
This this this thisss! ❤️❤️❤️
and the frustrations of the teachers! my partners family has multi-generational teachers and principals although they talk about “kids these days” they also joke how it’s always been “kids these days”
it could very from country to country but I think a lot of millennials right now are realizing how broken the system is, especially post pandemic, and so if you’re already stretched so thin as a teacher it doesn’t take a lot for your class to push you to your limits.
it’s a big battle and lots of growing pains but parents need to work with their kids and ALL generations of voting age should be involved in trying to improve their local educational system.
This is totally spot on! I do not have a masters but I studied child and developmental psychology in undergrad and I currently work as an art teacher ages pre k-12. Frustration tolerance is the biggest issue I have with my students, they have little tolerance when classroom activities are challenging or when instructions may need more clarification. I will often finish explaining our project outline (generally showing a completed example and walking through 1-3 steps depending on complexity and age) before I can even address or ask if there is any questions, I will have at LEAST two or three students (often times more) in class sizes of about 10-15 immediately start to panic, because they don't know how to do the project or simply state that they don't understand and can't do the project, or think that they can't do the project, and at this point we aren't even sitting down with materials or supplies. They are completely unregulated by the idea of trying something new or learning a new skill. I expect this with my kinders and pre-schoolers, but I am seeing it in similar incidence rates with my middle schoolers, late elementary, and occasionally my high school kids. So unfortunately instead of working through the projects and on the necessary and appropriate art skills for my older students (they really shouldn't need the same emotional support as my pre-schoolers), I have to spend the first three classes teaching them how to ask questions, work on emotional regulation when things feel hard, and teach them when to recognize when they need help, if they need to wait for clarification, or try to problem solve independently. My classes are voluntary extracurricular courses and they are suppose to be fun, and we eventually get there, it's just disheartening when I see my students come in completely overwhelmed and bamboozled by very normal (and might I add relatively fun) classroom challenges and expectations, like drawing a character based on a short story.
@@artisticallyalexis I'm a zellenial and oh my, I recognize this in myself, as well as recalling this happening in high school as my peers and I pushed back against what we thought were unreasonable expectations. I think it is worse now-a-days because there is absolutely no tolerance for imperfection online. Why even bother honing this skill when all those other people do it not only perfectly but effortlessly? Why even bother when nobody will like what you made, ignore it at best make fun of it at worst? (Of course, do it for yourself, but exercising that skill can be hard!)
Is the low frustration tolerance coming from perfectionism? From defeatism?
@@artisticallyalexisI really wonder where this comes from..as in what parents are doing wrong/could be doing better to improve this.
I truly believe there's a difference between popping on the TV for your child and handing them an iPad. Needing screens to babysit for a while is totally understandable, but there is just more parental control on a TV and them watching is more passive.
Honestly just bring back the leapfrog learning laptop 😂
The game console, I had so much fun playing it 😂
Ehh iPads have great restrictions and if you choose the apps and supervise use, they can be great tools. My kids don't use them every day and they have a 45min time limit, but the games are active, not passive.
You WANT active. You WANT doing/learning/challenging.
You don't actually want passive.
i grew up with the leappad ultra from 2013
Yoo remember the v smile 🤯
Uhm... 'Guided Access'. Its a useful little feature on iPads and iPhones that locks your kid into an app they can't get out of, unless they enter the correct passcode. So, if parents want their kids only watching movies or using educational apps (like Khan Academy etc)... they can activate Guided Access when they load the app up, and their kid can't leave it.
i'm 22, I'm not a parent and I don't know if I ever will have kids but I love your videos about parenting. They're just so thoughtful and compassionate and interesting
Gen Z (24) raising Gen Alpha (6 mo) and I can already say I have way more sympathy for the parents of the iPad kids than I did when I was just babysitting them😅 I’m really intentional about following AAP recommendations, but I’ll also admit that Ms. Rachel has made an appearance when all I need is to just get a few dishes done when I’m home by myself with 0 help as a stay at home mom. This shit is hard and we have to stop judging other parents and try to help each other!
first time i ever heard of a gen z parent
@@kojismiles another gen z parent here, im 24 and had my kids 3 and 1 year ago 🫡
Wait til you have a kid Gabe
I’ve definitely seen gen alpha have a much lower attention span and reading/writing ability at the same age as previous generations. It’s very concerning. Experiencing boredom is essential for children to develop imagination and just handing them an iPad or phone is extremely detrimental and overstimulating to a developing brain. Let your kids be bored at home and encourage imaginative play!! I used to spend hours playing with my toys and making up games with friends. My own kids also do the same and do not have phones or ipads. They can watch a few movies a week and that is their screen time. I’m sorry but giving your young kids access to the internet IS bad parenting and we need to call it like it is. Give them books and toys and let them be.
We won’t be giving ours iPads or phones for as long as possible! Agree that it’s SO important to learn to get comfortable being bored! ❤️
I have a toddler who is extremely active, but I also find it important to sometimes have time with her where we just sit next to each other, or she sits on my lap, and there is silence. I don't force her to be by herself or ignore her, I just don't say anything. She understands that sometimes silence is good. She just sits there, looks out of the window and thinks about something 😊 She loves to do that in the morning - no lights, a cup of tea, and just to sit and think in silence, and watch what color the sky is that day 😄
@@lollsazz that sounds beautiful and peaceful. Your child sounds like she's doing very well.
@@tweedlebug123 Thank you ❤️ Yes, she's an absolutely lovely child 🥰
I got my tot a cheap-o tablet that has limited internet and has ABC mouse on it. She can "play" that on her tablet. Fun education for screen time! She loves decorating her room after she gets enough stars!
As an elder Gen Z and mom of a toddler, I like a lot of what you said, ESPECIALLY about not having to endure Cocomelon. I distinctly remember despising kids' shows as a child (Dora, Sesame Street, etc.), and honestly I'm no different now. I tried to play my son Ms. Rachel because someone said it helped their child's speech development, but good God that character's voice is like nails on a chalkboard. Plus I hated how my son would just stare at the screen with his mouth agape and not participate in any of the interactive aspects of those episodes, so now I just play music that the whole family can enjoy and let him dance around.
The thing is. All the Millennial parents i know are trying So hard. And are So aware of limiting screen time, learning emotion regulation etc. So so aware. And trying their Very best. Listening to podcasts and reading books etc.
I guess the challenge is that before, kids of parents who didnt care so much, were left to their own devices to explore etc. But now these kids get given ipads. Which is much worse for their development
If they're trying that hard and the gentle parenting still isn't working maybe it's that gentle parenting just doesn't work.
I think the reason why my generation (Gen Z) have emphasised the detrimental effects of constant internet connectivity on Gen Alpha is because we know the harm it caused on our development even though social media wasnt as pervasive until our late childhood/adolescence. We worry a lot about the effects on self esteem, emotional control, even critical thinking and lack of protection from predators gen Alpha will have to face because millennials who didnt grow up with technology dont know how easy it is for kids to be vulnerable to this stuff
Exactly
As a fellow Gen Z the points you have brought up are totally valid. But there is one thing that stands out to me in most of the Gen Z videos I have seen on the topic and that really bothers me. The complete lack of empathy. As much as screen time reduction and authoritative parenting are crucial, the way it is spoken about is just so hurtful. Even that dude in the viral video. Not an ounce of empathy and understanding, just extreme judgement and a whole lot of "Wow, I am so much better than yall." And, when put in that way, it doesn't feel like it comes from a place of concern. Just from a superiority complex.
In what world did millennials not grow up with technology?
@@katie8325 millennials literally grew up along and with the mobile/smartphone and with pc we were growing up as they were "growing up" :D I consider this our advantage as we had assimilation to it, but we also suffer the screen time addiction side effect even tho we are many times not aware of it, if you scroll reels, you are for sure addicted, sorry to say. However the younger gen Z was thrown into screens, and it was standard to have a phone as a kid for them, without moch of a fuss about it, it was like yeah I need to eb able to contact my child and the smartphone is the norm now(we had nokia 3310 with snake, they had youtube and all the games), what will gen alpha have? AI and algorithms that are set up to make you addicted, its scary as F and only screen that I would allow is a TV, not a smart one tho :D
I'm sorry but this is not true. Us millennials did grow up with technology and we do know how it can influence kids and teenagers. For example, I'm a 90s kid and my first ever social media profile was created by my mum at a children platform when I was 6 years old. Of course it was revealed later there were many predators in those chatting rooms, but nobody even thought about that back then. I have been online since and so have most of my peers. We were there when countless online chatting webpages and forums were made. Many of us made friends that way. We were there when small cameras became accessible and uploaded our pictures online without any knowlege of identity theft (I was personally a victim of that). We chatted online for years with strangers, not knowing the dangers and how many predators there are online. We were there for Facebook, OG UA-cam, Twitter, Instagram. We used to film our drunk parties, while underage, and put in up on our Facebook wall for everyone to see, all while adding complete strangers to our Friends list. We didn't know about digital footprint. Cyberbullying and blackmailing suddendly became a thing and nobody knew what to do with that. Even these days we are still influenced by the same things as you are..
Trust me, we have a ton of experience when it comes to growing up with technology. We are not really that different.
If what you say is true and all these videos come from a good place, the delivery in these videos is truly not the best. A little bit of empathy comes a long way.
This was such a relief. I'm studying developmental psychology at university, I'm writing my dissertation on this, and I'm also gentle/authoritative parenting my 19mo. People confusing gentle and permissive is infuriating! I'm going to direct anyone who gets confused on that to this video.
🥹❤️ thank you! Really glad you enjoyed the video, and what an interesting subject to go deep on with your study…loved psychology at uni, I’d bloody love to read it (IF you ever feel comfortable sharing it one day, email it to melaniiebusiness@gmail.com - reading about this topic is absolutely FASCINATING to me) ❤️
Millenial here. I think people get gentle parenting confused with "people pleasing" parenting, and parents wanting to be more of their kids friend/have their kids approval. I also think it has to be factored in that these kids are growing up in a world that seems hopeless and they can feel that.
100% this. I think the permissive parenting comes from parents desperate for love who want to be friends with their kids. They are desperate for their kids to like them, they look to their kids for love and validation and as a result they are incapable of setting and maintaining consistent healthy boundaries. I had a boomer single dad like this who raised another in his own image. I think a lot of it is generational trauma.
something I noticed that kids do not do anymore, play outside. I live in the US where most people have backyards and growing up, my sister and I would literally play outside afterschool all day until sunset. We had 4 neighbors with children around our age and no fences between the houses so we just ran around and played. This is how my parents had peace of mind to do chores and self care without needing to care for us, because all the parents had windows to thier backyards so they could always check on us if they needed, and the age range among the kids was 11-4, so there were older kids to watch the younger ones and there was so much trust among the neighbors. And this was not some rare thing, allll my school friends played with their neighbors, that was how everyone grew up!
The video where the mum rings the granny gets me right in the feels! Back then streets were safer, the kids were sent out to play all day, the big kids would look after the little ones, front doors were always open, mums would chat to the neighbours. When mine are a little older I will definitely be sending them out to the garden more often, it gives the mum the same peace that screen time would while the children are actually benefiting from being outdoors and making their own fun.
I’m a millennial but I’m not a parent but when I was in high school and babysitting some Gen Z kids, the eldest, who was born in 2000 I believe and she was having issues at school cause her friends all talked about TV shows and things she wasn’t watching and she preferred to read but none of her friends did and she didn’t have as much in common with them and it was such a struggle for her. I can’t imagine the social aspects of it. She was so smart and sensitive and creative. I can’t imagine “iPad” kid world of that now and the enhanced challenges of that.
28:33 "learn to tolerate boredom"
That I learned during mass😂. To this day I have no idea how 4-5 year old me managed to sit still for up to 90 minutes. There was Sunday school/crèche but that didn't run for the entire service.
Along with all the bible trivia, that is what I learnt at church. How to sit still for extended periods of time.
I think I would just daydream for most of mass. Quickly noticed that when people start walking down the aisle to collect bread and wine = time to go home.
I notice lots of stuff I sort of got from church is being repackaged into a secular form - mindfulness is one example.
I'm still not sold on the moral panic around screen time - it's possible to have more screen time than the guidelines say but still be doing lots of fun/creative/boring etc things with your kid. I also don't think that more screen time = bad kids (I know you werent being that black and white). Also just to add a perspective of neurodivergent kids...my son is 5 and autistic and in the early days before screens he just wouldnt interact in the way that other kids did, he didnt want to be read to, he didnt want to copy or sing songs or even play typical kid things, his development was very delayed. Over time he got more screen time and actually it helped him in a lot of ways - he was able to tolerate interaction with screens much more readily (ie he would copy words and songs that he was watching, whereas he would almost be in a panic if we tried to do it with him) He learnt a lot about different ways to play from watching things on screens, I think maybe his social difficulties made it hard for him to process in real life interactions. He also over time honed his interests and learnt all the names of dinosaurs etc. We initially put limits on times for screens but (and I dont know if this is just an autistic thing) but that restriction caused him a lot of anxiety. In the end we went unrestricted screen time (except never allowed it in bed) - and actually once the limit was taken away, he actually didnt watch it all the time, over time he actually started to want to do different things because he didnt have to worry about squeezing it in while he had the opportunity. Over time he has got so much better at social interactions and always wants to play imaginative games with us now, and yes some of those games have been inspired by things he has watched. I think the main thing is that you are engaged with your kid and aware of their interests and keep that connection, and yeah ensure that they get lots of different types of interaction and experiences too. Also that tiktok guy, im sorry, he can just feck off xx
Fantastic. I find it so frustrating and upsetting when people (often deliberately) misrepresent "gentle parenting" and I'm really glad you've spoken up about it. I hadn't thought much about the impact of socialisation at nursery and school and how it might be an uphill battle trying to set and enforce these boundaries, especially around things like portable screens and algorithm-driven content, and I'm inclined to agree we need to be more community-minded and take more collective action. I'm pretty invested in cutting my own screen time down as much as possible because you're so right, if we can't even manage our own addiction what hope do our kids have?
Another perspective as a teacher that I have tended to see, is many parents think it is our job to completely socialize. And teach manners to their children. It starts at home and if there's not a strong foundation at home. It's very difficult for us to reinforce those good manners or proper social skills at school.
They barely give teachers time to teach the designated subjects. . .
@@bl2610 Exactly. We should be able to focus on education, not raising people's children for them.
Appreciate the distinctions you made between permissive parenting and authoritative parenting
RE not bringing kids to restaurants - I’ve spent years working in hospitality and I frequently go out to eat now, and the amount of parents I’ve seen who behave like a cafe or restaurant is their own personal daycare is absurd. Yes there’s the ipad kids but then there’s the kids screaming and begging their parents for attention while the parents sit there scrolling on their phones. I’ve been carrying plates of hot food or trays full of drinks and had step and swerve around toddlers playing in the walkways or running around unsupervised. It’s the parents who are so completely entitled that they think restaurant staff are also supposed to clean up after their rowdy kids. I’ve seen tables covered with food, baby bottles left behind, piles and piles of food wrappers and half eaten bits strewn everywhere and parents will just walk away as if paying for a coffee gives them the right to leave a cafe/restaurant in disarray. It’s out of control and I’m genuinely afraid of what our society will be like when these kids grow up.
Oh my goodness 😩💔
I applaud you for researching about these things and constantly questioning what you’re doing etc because I think that’s what makes a great parent! It makes me so sad and worried that kids can’t choose which parent they end up with and there is no one really checking whether people are treating their kids well or not. So it’s really left to the individual to try and be the best parent they can be - it’s their responsibility. So the way you take this responsibility seriously and try to treat your kids the best way possible makes me really happy!
I'm a younger millennial and definitely struggle with phone addiction! My average screentime for my phone last week was almost 4 hours which is horrific 😬
Yup I am I turning 36 in like 3 days and I fully admit I can't go 24 hours without screen time. I mean I could try but by the end I would just be miserable and forget about me trying to leave my home without my phone.However I do think screen time has an almost interesting side effect for me and that is I think screen time is helping me to not become addicted to substances where I think screen time is for me is for the most part a subituite for substance abuse.
Over the past year and a half my average daily is 3hrs and 40mins and I'm 25 so also work full-time. I know full well that I waste so much time on my phone but I am totally addicted!
A shocking thing with technology I saw that stuck with me was a kid (maybe about 2yrs) sat in a swing at a park playing games on a phone, with his dad pushing him whilst on another phone 🤯
😭😭😭
But is it like this all the time? There are so many contextual factors, yes, hearing your comment made me really sad, but at the same time, I don't stalk these kids to see if they actually play otherwise or how they interact, what if the dad was a single dad and had to do something extremely important on his phone, idk man, we just don't know do we?
I agree, I think it's really easy to judge people from a snapshot in time, but you dont see the full picture of their life or their day. Same for parents shouting at their kids or doing anything "sub-optimal" , the parent may have responded to the child in the ideal way all day long but you have caught them in a moment of struggle@@RalucaSerban
I'm not a parent but I have studied developmental psychology at university. I'm sure your children are going to grow up to be lovely adults. Like you said - I think gentle parenting with boundaries is the way to go!
I just quit my high school teaching job earlier this month because of the things mentioned in this video. The motivation, attention span, respect, etc. is just not there. I'm only 26 so the kids felt like they could talk to me any sort of way and like we're friends. It was hard to establish boundaries since I looked young and I'm not a very confrontational person to begin with.
As for screens at home, I'm a mother of a 4, 2 and 2 month old and I've just broken my ankle so I'm pretty confined to the couch in the living room. This makes for lots more screen time than I'd like while I'm recovering but I try to limit it as much I can because I don't want these next few weeks to ruin our hard work of limited screen time prior to his injury. It's hard out here lol
As if boomers didn’t put their kids in front of tvs. I agree with a lot of what you say and it’s making me want to do better with my 1 year old. She’s always been a stage 5 clinger and ms Rachel is the only reason I can get things done sometimes.
I’m just so sick of gen z. Like do they ever stfu about us? They’re so obsessed lol
lol they sure love to pick fights 🤣 But yeah I included a whole section about why I have stopped using ‘the tv was on all the time when I was a kid’ as justification as it truly is sooo different these days! Xxx
I’m a millennial and I think gen z have a point. From what I’ve seen millennials are some of the laziest parents I’ve observed. Tv is not as detrimental as handing a child unrestricted internet or phone access. Sometimes it good to take constructive criticism.
@@AnnaC-lh5vb Really? My mom was always working, and my dad was an addict and dealer. My babysitter was the family dog who they would always look for when they needed to know where I was.
@@stefyroxanne7567 I’m sorry you had to go through that, I can imagine that was very difficult. But that’s an exceptional case, not the rule. There will be examples of bad parenting in every generation sadly.
Here's the thing. I'm a millennial, born 1987, and I still remember how fun it was to play outside with other kids, with sticks and butterflies and balls, and just looking at the world and interacting with it. Unfortunately once the tech appeared, I got hooked, especially to the laptop. I was in my teens, and I had limited time on the computer however, not so much on the TV. Basically, I have grown with these things but AFTER my formative years. Meaning that right now, if I want to be off social media or not to use my phone, I can do it. But I still use the laptop too much and youtube, because I lack connection in other ways. So basically, tech at some point replaces what you should have organically out in the world. That's just my experience.
It's the unfortunate circumstances of modernity and current living standards being less than what could have been. For all I want to go back to socializing and kicking a ball to my many classmates during elementary school, people have no time to do that anymore. You must go home straight after work and eat, have your responsibilities and do enough so you can get up the next day to go to work again. At least 6 hours of our day is for sleep because nobody operates their businesses at that hour. We just focus on survival, but survival relies on other people to begin with..... 😢
I'm coming at this as a GenZ with a toddler (I'm 24) so I feel like I'm caught somewhere in the middle of a lot of things. I feel like I do try my best with gentle parenting and when you actually get it right you can see the positive impact in your child. My daughter is 3 and has so much emotional intelligence and empathy for others. And those moments when I'm struggling with my own emotions it reflects in how she the behaves (so that's something for me to work on). In terms of iPads, yes she has screen time, especially when I have so much housework to do. But when we go out for food or anything I tend to bring colouring and that keeps her entertained instead of a screen. Definitely some form of entertainment is needed because they have such a short attention span at that age but I have found other methods and have been trying to use them before I default to screen time. I do wish that as a whole we all used technology a little less, because I do worry what life will be like when our kids are adults
This is a very interesting conversation.. gentle parenting is often misunderstood and misrepresented, however this idea that one source of parenting is going to fit every child is absolutely ridiculous. Some kids need stronger boundaries and consequences than others. I have a 3 year old boy, and a 15 month old daughter and they are not the same. Even in my own house I have to parent to each childs individual needs. That being said, I do believe being respectful to your child in whatever parenting style you choose is essential to everyone involved.
It's also worth pointing out that most gen Z have no parental experience. If you don't have kids, you really can't understand; even if you have experience with other people's children, they aren't yours, the investment level is not the same. You probably think you know how you might parent, (I know I did), but until you have your own kids, and meet their unique little personalities, any previous ideas of parenting just don't hold up. I've read enough parenting books with conflicting information that I've learned, the "experts" don't even have this figured out.
Gentle parenting does include setting boundaries and cosequences
Gentle parenting isn't a specific set of rules though, it's an overall philosophy - some kids will of course need different boundaries, but that doesn't mean you're not gentle parenting both of them.
I'd also slightly disagree about needing to be a parent to understand, and I say that as a parent. I think you can understand enough if, for example, you've been a nanny for 20 years. But I do agree having your own child is still different to that, just I think someone who's been nannying for 20 years knows enough to be able to give reliable advice, and in some ways knows more compared to a parent of a 1yo with no/little previous childcare experience.
My screen time is pretty bad because I'm chronically ill and my energy is usually quite low. It's easy to lean on, but I know I should try to reduce my screen time. Everything else that I'd like to do is higher energy. I definitely don't want my children to think this much screen time is okay.
I recommend the Wait till 8th pledge! Basically means you refuse to buy a smartphone for your kids until at least 8th grade (approx age 14 for non-Americans!). I think peer pressure is a huge motivation for using screens. But if fewer people use it, there will be less motivation to use it if that makes sense.
Sure, that works if everyone does it and it becomes the norm. Otherwise you are setting your kids up to be ostracised, left out and teased. I think for it to work there needs to be government regulation on devices for children.
@@rhythmandblues_alibi As someone who didn’t get a phone until I was 14, of course I was ostracized. And thank god I was!!! It is CRUCIAL social development for children to be bullied and feel ‘othered.’ I’m not saying it’s comfortable, and I’m not defending outright harassment to the point that a child can’t function, but a bit of teasing is GOOD. You as a parent do not have to conform to societal norms-and you certainly don’t have to raise kids who think you’re their friend-that will all come later. All you have to do is what best serves your child. For the record, I am Gen Z and it was heavily the norm to have a cell phone by middle school at the latest. I’m nearly 18 now and so grateful for the limits my parents set; I fully intend to do something similar with my own children down the line.
I’d argue that there’s no need for phones until your child is old enough that they’re going out and doing their own thing without supervision. If they’re riding bikes around town with friends at 10 or 11, that’s great. Give them a cheap flip phone so they can reach you in case of an emergency. But actual, modern cell phones are insanely addictive and there’s no reason a child needs that before high school. (In fact, I can’t see a need for one before the child is driving a car, so maybe 15 or 16. GPS can be a good tool for new drivers!)
Really loved and appreciated this video Melanie and your thoughts! We are expecting our first in a couple of weeks and definitely this about a lot of this. Appreciated you highlighted the difficulty of controlling screen time and setting limits when your child is surrounded by a peer group that isn't. Also found the tips at the end very helpful of how to reduce screen time practically in your own home. So often the conversation is: "screen time is bad, don't give it to your child" but very few actionable steps. Thank you again for making this! x
I’m torn on all of this. I’m indeed a younger millennial raising Gen alpha children. One thing I find interesting in this conversation is Gen Z. They went from being the immature, lazy, entitled ones to now the experts now that they’re dumping on Alpha. Is there possibly a bias coming from Z when they are making all these videos Alpha.
My husband and I are low tech parents - no phones, no iPads, the children are not allowed on our computers to play. We also homeschool and have a pretty large supportive family and “village”. With that said, I’m not a fan of gentle parenting, even when done right. Sometimes yes must yes and no must be no - not everything can be a conversation or process. I also think Millennials and Z are way too focused on feelings (mainly their own), and gentle parenting is a product of that.
Where I feel most burnt out is feeling that there are always eyes on me and my children because I am a Millenial raising Alpha. I feel the public pressure of that, yet it seems like thanks to social media, no matter what we do as parents, it’s perceived as wrong by someone. Thankfully where I live, there’s a lot of grace for children, but I still feel like people are always watching.
I often find this conversation missing the systemic issues at play: the stress put on parents today, the crumbling of public education, the lack of community, the hostility towards children in society, peer pressure for kids to have access to tech/the alienation of not having a smart phone as a pre-teen or teen, and so on. Just the general antagonism of capitalism. I am glad you touched on that a bit. And let's not forget that even thinking about parenting this conscientiously is a new concept. Child development is still being understood.
There has always been bad parents and shitty kids in every generation. I was lucky that in the earlier years of parenting my gen z kid we were part of a waldorf community so almost no one was allowing their kids screen time. Unfortunately my kid's father was not on the same page as me, but having a like-minded community helped SO much.
Yes, I am a millennial. I think it is lazy thinking to blame this on a single generation, to generalize at that level. Many millennials I know parent gen z, not alpha. But I would be curious if anyone is collecting actual statistic on this? What do the numbers say? This convo sometimes seems very american-centric. Is this actually happening globally; are there any regional differences? Are there differences that only generation and/or parenting style explain?
A lot of hostility towards children is due to their poor behavior, tantrums, and lack of respect towards authority. Parents are responsible for teaching them these things, setting boundaries, and then doing the hardest part, the follow-through with consequences.
When I was 4/5 years old I knew how to behave at the following places: church, grocery stores, other people's homes, funerals, weddings, restaurants, etc. My parents didn't ignore me while I screamed my head off or just shrugged their shoulders like they had no idea how to handle things and I KNEW that if I didn't act respectfully I would be going straight home and that there would be consequences.
That is the issue. Parents do not want to actually parent, they want kids to show off on social media and then ignore while they play on their phone.
@Tamara-ju3lh Not necessarily. People will give you the dirtiest looks just for having a baby or toddler in a public space. The hostility is palpable.
When my daughter was a pretty small baby, I brought her to a movie matinee, hoping she'd sleep and/or eat through the thing. When she woke up and fussed, I took her to the lobby and walked her in a carrier until she fell asleep. But the looks people gave me, you would have thought I was committing a huge crime. I have never felt so publicly shamed in my entire life. It didn't matter that I took her out of the theater when she cried so as not to disturb the movie. She was unwelcome just by being a baby. I didn't take her back to the theater again until she was 7.
I'm a millennial parent, and yes, I'm that mom that lets her child have a tablet - but I regulate her use of it. But my child also reads 3 grades above her age group. She excels at school. I do the "gentle" parenting (not permissive, just treating them like human beings). I can tell you these kids are not acting this way because of gentle parenting or even because of the screen time. I can promise you. The problem is that school is still set up as if we beat the crap out of our kids. Kids that get knocked around every time they step out of line are going to behave well in the authoritanian school environment. Kids that DON'T get beaten at home are going to see the traditional school vibe and go "Hm. This isn't right." AND IT ISN'T. These teachers are still trying to operate in a "children should be little robots" method. These kids are getting raised in more freedom and respect than we EVER knew as children. Are there lots of people who are bad at parenting? Of course. There always will be. But mostly, these kids experience autonomy and respect at home, then they go to school and it's still "sit down, be quiet, stand up, walk in line, don't make waves, don't talk, do these 12 assignments, do this homework once you're done, you have a test tomorrow, etc etc. The school system is what needs to change.
My uncle has been a teacher for many many years now, he teaches 2nd grade I think, he lives in a small town so knows what’s going on with the families better than in a big city, anyway he mentioned to my dad that he noticed that the kids that behaved better in school were the kids he knew were being spanked and/or beaten at home and it was just the craziest thing to me. They were so afraid of acting out because of the potential of being physically punished for it.
Nearing the end of your video and just want to say im so proud and impressed that you've found ways to change your family screen time, reading, and making DISCUSSION such a key part. While im not a parent yet, just wanted to say i think you and Thomas are doing a fantastic job! 💚💚💚
🥹🥹🥹💚💚💚
I’m 32 and do you remember when we were teens we’d go to our room put on like pinks cd in our portable cd player and sit and look out the window at the rain pretend to run away from home 😂 deep songs like family portrait we would process so many of our emotions through music or a film that’s all we had like if I was having a hard day, it’s sad to me now teens won’t have that because they will be distracted by their phones! There was a study about music and teens saying it’s just like background to them!! When I think of all my cds and how meaningful them songs are to my childhood that was like a moment of we really are in a different world now! ❤
Omg FAMILY PORTRAIT 🥹😭😭😭😭 Stay Together for the Kids by Blink 182…Beautiful by Christina Aguilara…
We got our kids (8 and 5) an old school mp3 player and loaded up music albums and stories on it so they can listen. It's wonderful. They can pick their own music themselves without being tied to a device connected to the internet. It's a pain to get the stuff loaded on, but it's brought so much life to our house. Physical media or non-internet connected devices need to have a place in our future. They're so important.
My mom works in a elementary and she says kids are very very behind. They really only know iPads
Thanks so much for a nuanced, vulnerable chat. I really enjoyed it. Early last year my preschooler was having a hard time and I had no limits on screen time. I think it was what was needed at that stage. We slowly pulled things back and now it is at a level we are much more comfortable with.
The thing I think is important to notice is what the child is like when they are not on a screen. And my child is always playing and being creative and engaged, even when he was watching hours of tv a day.
I love taking a gentle approach with ourselves and each other like you have done ❤️
Pre-K teacher here---love that you shared about authoritative parenting. It's scientifically proven to be the best style as far as outcomes! I will say, there are so many content creators out there promoting permissive parenting and calling it gentle parenting. Also as someone who is teaching gen Alpha, I have seen the good and the bad of gentle parenting. I have kids who have absolutely no demands from their parents and who give me blank stares when I try to introduce boundaries such as not hitting, not running out of the room, not throwing toys. I have had kids just shut their eyes when I am trying to talk to them. I also have sweet, smart, well behaved kids. So many parents say that they "gentle parent" when really they are just letting them do whatever they want. And please everyone--screen time is only good when it is supervised and in moderation! Children are sponges and some of the content out there that is supposed to be for children is absolutely inappropriate. Please limit limit limit monitor and limit!!!
Also, please take the time to teach children about computers. It's often assumed that "iPad kids" will just magically know things we take for granted - how to use a browser, word program, find files in actual folders, typing. Everything being on an app really doesn't help them actually understand this stuff.
We just realized that our 8-year-old isn't being taught how to type on a keyboard. The school handed her a laptop at age 5 but everything is touch screen or voice command. They forgot that typing on an actual keyboard is something that needs to be learned, an entirely different skill from using a touch screen, necessary for the writing she will be expected to do in her later schooling.
@@lydia1634 I think my class started learning how to type in second or third grade, so I guess that's as good an age as any to start.
@@afairmaiden7843 She's in a combined 2nd/3rd grade classroom and it isn't anywhere in the curriculum. We're going to try and track a program down for her to practice this summer.
We decided not to have a TV in our living room. Such a good decision!
I am a millennial with a 10 month old. I myself had a lot of screen time as a child because i loved films, i would go to my parents bed at 3am (yes i did the creepy stand and stare in the dark 👀) but my parents were very clear about boundaries on how to behave and socialise with other people and that has made me a functioning and respectful adult. Limits set the difference and these are in a respectful but firm manner. I am not ashamed to say ms rachel has helped when i need to clean the house or if i need a 5 minute break. Because they accuse us of bad parenting without context… they havent seen me play with my child all day, read to her, spending quality time with her but i need to apologise for needing a break but i should be super mom and have the perfect child, the perfect house and the perfect body… thank you for clarifying what gentle parenting actually is and i agree that social media and internet are the actual danger because theres some creepy stuff out there and a lot of useless content that really does nothing for kids. Sorry about the rant but as a 90’s kid it annoyed me because we’re not easily offended we are the suck it up generation but im not sucking up that someone wants to judge our parenting without knowing what were actually doing! 😂
Honestly the Harry Potter family examples of different parenting was so helpful. Being permissive with no boundaries (ie spoiling your kid like Dudley) is soooo different front compassionate parenting (ie Wesley’s who know the limits and consequence but also feel valued and loved). Massive difference and how the two have been getting conflated is beyond me!!
My husband and I watched this ❤thank you for explaining things .
My daughter turned 2 so I’m really trying to hone in on my parenting techniques
This week I saw five kids at a local cafe sitting together all playing on their own individual iPads. It made me sad, but I'm not a parent. I hope the best for this next generation. ❤
This video was soo spot on and helpful. I'm a Montessori elementary teacher and plan to have children soon! Your tips on limiting screen time at the end were so helpful and practical, thank you! :)
P.S. keep rocking the side part!
It's interesting because 20-25 years ago the moral panic was around TV. It was considered a very passive activity that would make children less creative etc. I don't know if you remember but some super worrying studies were published at the time, one of which was comparing the drawings of children who were watching several hours of TV per day and others who didn't, and it was really scary to see the difference (i wouldn't be surprised if these studies end up being debunked at some point btw!) Anyway, when the iPad came out i thought it would be a great opportunity for children, because it's so much more interactive and allows to do different activities like drawing etc. Well it's not really what happened in the end ! And I really think that phone addiction is a huge issue and we cannot expect kids to act different if we are glued to our phones all day. I guess I was just trying to say that I find the "in our time we just had TV" argument a bit funny (+ we also had game consoles, some games on computers etc)
if i remember correctly from my childhood psychology classes, there have been studies more or less debunking the scary/moral panic-esque studies about tv and ipads.
basically, it’s the substance of the show that makes the difference (i can’t recall the exact study but i know one compared educational ipad apps, sesame street, spongebob and drawing)
i wouldn’t be surprised if the original studies have been completely debunked (ie unable to be replicated) as psychology has a bit of an issue with that with many of our “landmark” studies lol
With TV, you have down time.
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I also notice, too many are typing foul language, since social media isn't policed by FCC
I'm sorry but I can't stop laughing at the Gen Z videos and how these people think they have it all figured out. Remember how their parents were criticized for raising a generation of people who have their smart phones attached to their arm every second of the day? The hypocrisy is just funny to me, sorry.... I know Gen Z has been criticized a lot for that. Maybe people like Gabe need to vent that frustration this way.
I think this every time they’re on their high horse. It truly is rich coming from a generation that’s chronically online, ate tide pods because of an internet trend, & have terrible social skills 🥴 they think they know best and are immune to critique…that is, until Gen Alpha grows up and ruthlessly drags them lolol
Yup. Child friendly cafes/restaurants and child friendly times.
Really good to hear a different perspective on this! Especially one that isn't so antagonistic, as most of the content about this seems to be. My friends and I started having this conversation actually a few months ago as my friend has a 2.5 year old and a 14-week old and is trying to balance screen time. We are actually working on a plug-in for their smart TV that would allow them to turn it back into a 'dumb' TV- 3 channels, no content that she doesn't upload on it, no ads and no internet access. The goal is something her toddler can turn on herself if the parents are trying to cook/clean/or are busy with the baby, but which would be more similar to our own childhood boxes- between autoplay, ads, and even places like Disney+ having horror movies, we decided it would be easier just to remove the internet rather than trying to fight it :P
Wow that was actually such an amazing video clarifying the different parenting styles and how to moderate screen time in a healthy way - I don’t have kids yet but I find it super useful to engage in these types of conversations now, before the craziness that parenting is here! Thank you Melanie! (Also really appreciated the Harry Potter references 😂)
I’m a mom to a toddler and currently expecting my second. Morning sickness is absolutely horrible. I feel so guilty, but my son has a lot of tv time because I’m so sick I cannot play much with him. I don’t ever give him a phone or iPad, but we still watch cartoons quite a bit. I’m also so freaking addicted to my phone. Absolutely need to put it down and be more present
I could have written this 18 months ago, you are NOT alone ❤️ Before society changed so dramatically a mother experiencing morning sickness could rest and a literal village would take over temporarily for pockets of the day…it’s tough going! Xx
We’ve all taken it in turns to have a sickness bug this week and my son has never watched more TV than he has this week. Its so easy to feel guilty about it but now we’re all feeling better we were back to our normal amount of tv time over the weekend.
It’s all a phase and it won’t be like this forever. Do what playing or scheduling of help you can while your head is in the toilet but you really can’t do much more, you are creating a life you deserve to give yourself a bit of grace! X
Right there with you!
I'm Gen-Z but I work as an English tutor and to be honest, the children who struggle the most with self-regulation, attention, and general reading and writing skills are the ones who have had free-range access to iPads or phones since day dot. This is pre and post pandemic. I think a lot of parents struggle with gentle parenting because it can be really uncomfortable for the parents! You have to let your kid sit with uncomfortable or sometimes distressing feelings - so to compensate for that, they are perhaps more inclined to give them technology to regulate them.
I grew up understanding technology more than my parents - just like I'm sure Millennials grew up understanding technology more than their parents. However, I think a lot of Millennials fail to recognise that their Gen Alpha kids will be able to get past any of the 'safe guarding' they place on technology - because THEY will know more than their Millennial parents.
There's been a massive shift in parenting style and Millennials are at the forefront of that - which means that it's going to need a tonne of fine-tuning regardless. It's amazing that they are teaching their children to feel, to be heard, to set boundaries etc. but it has to be followed with the ability to truly self-regulate. And that often means being bored for a bit!
I think all generations are very quick to generalize eachother - but the 'iPad kid generation' is a genuine concern! Some of the kids I work with are so genuinely entitled, which - when coupled with their short attention spans and inability to be told what to do - is really setting them back in terms of their social and academic development.
Something that’s cool about cutting down screen time is that it makes movies and tv shows special again. Like I remember getting Van Helsing from Blockbuster and it was the coolest thing! To see that movie over the weekend and we’d eat popcorn with it was such a fun family memory for me. I feel bad for kiddos that don’t get to experience those special and exciting moments.
Omg this! Like…I can feel it already! It feels special again to be choosing which movie to watch! 🥹😭
Too much screen time is definitely something I struggle with, even though I too started out my parenting journey vowing to keep it to a minimum and silently judging the parenting of other “tablet kids”. My firstborn son who just turned four has a rare genetic disorder and is extremely delayed to the point he’s still learning to sit up on his own. I have a 6 month old who has already surpassed him developmentally. Having to physically do everything for him is exhausting and I already struggle with fatigue from my own chronic illness. I’ve never given him a tablet myself, but ironically his therapists have introduced one to him to try and teach him to communicate since he’s currently nonverbal. I wish he could go run off and play with friends but that’s not an option in our current reality. So for now, I’ll watch his favorite show (Junior Bake Off) for the millionth time with him and eat my metaphorical humble pie.
In your position I would be fucking aaaaall guidelines out the window! That must be so hard. You are doing an incredible job ❤️
Ugh i have so much to say about all this. I'm a therapist who is currently taking a few years off to raise my 2 toddlers to school age. I have no "villiage", we moved away from family just before i had children, i haven't even had a babysitter in the 4 years I've been a parent. We have 1 car so we are at home all day every day. My kids have Amazon fire kids tablets.... we play games together on it as well as some 'unsupervised' time (i know what's available and control it through the parent app) we play games, read books, play pretend most of the day, but realistically i can't avoid screens all day. I don't have enough energy or any help to fill the 15 hours a day. My daughter is learning her sight words on her tablet..... she just turned 4. My 18 month old son knows all his colors and shapes and is learning his letter sounds with me on a tablet. I could go on, but speaking as a therapist, the reality is kids are growing up in a tech world..... they should learn to use it responsiby and that requires exposure AND boundaries. Gentle parenting is just the latest way of describing effective parenting techniques. I was raised by authoritative parents. They expected a lot of of me and set boundaries and never put me down or hit me. The problems with this generation in schools are not due to lazy parents and iPads. It's due to lack of resources- lack of investment in schools and teachers, parents struggling to make ends meet and loss of social support. Online socialization doesn't make up for in person socialization for children and parents. Tablets don't replace books and reading. Video games aren't a replacement for playing pretend, family board games or playing outside. You can do these things, but they aren't sufficient. Most parents are busy trying to keep their shelter and feed their family to read to the kids and most teachers arent allowed to hold kids misbehaving accountable and have no resources to help them. It's easy to fall in to the trap of blame the parents, blame the teachers, blame the kids, or blame technology...... The reality it's you need to blame the legislators who have refused to invest in helping families and schools, and are choosing corporate interests rather than looking out for children.
I love this comment so much. The lack of social support is huge! I consider us VERY lucky to have two highly involved grandparents but they have their own lives, jobs, responsibilities…my daughter is 1 and has never been minded once, we have nobody else to ask, nobody else is close enough to them that we’d feel comfortable leaving kids with them. Our friends have their own kids, jobs, renovations, stresses I wouldn’t want to put it on them (though we do offer to mind one another’s kids, myself and two of my closer mam friends, we usually just do play dates I think we all just know how much juggling is involved with modern life that we don’t want to put more stress on eachother) my siblings live far away, Thomas’s older sister lives in Cork his other sister is in college … so while we have loads of extended family around who of course we could rely on in an emergency the way life is set up, there’s no real true support system in place as again, our parents are in their 60s, my dad has many health issues, sure I can accept his help playing with my son for a couple of hours on a Saturday but the level of help most parents need…that help would need to be someone’s full time job (we give Thomas’s ma a few pound to take our son just for a few hours a week), but how can a parent be expected to pay someone a full time salary to simply be around so they can truly give their all to multiple kids all day AND get everything else done AND not go crazy? Especially a stay at home parent or a part time working parent…I long for a time when people were close to all their neighbours. When I was a kid, us and our next door neighbour regularly shared tea bags, milk, sugar…we would be in and out of eachother’s houses, the doors were always open to the local children in any estates I lived in! I would be in and out of so many houses all day. And I mean…that was only thirty years ago! A century ago people had far more help as they had SO many siblings, families could survive on one income which immediately meant there was way more time for one on one parenting minus all the extra stress of modern life. One thing more of us should do is play audiobooks of children’s stories! ❤️❤️❤️
@melaniemurphyofficial aw thanks for the response. I totally understand. My mother(and all of our close family and friends) lives about 2 and a half hours away. We visit my mom once a month, but she also is a full time caregiver for my grandma who is 102 and my aunt with dementia. All our friends here are child free so we hardly see them anymore. I keep saying once the kids start school, i will find some new parent friends, but I really wish there were more options for meeting people with young kids. I'm in Oklahoma, so if you don't go to church, there are very few resources for childcare or meeting people. Also I'm questioning even sending my kids to public school with all the crazy book bans and awful curriculum changes... it's very anti-lgbt around here 😔. Most moms I see on the Facebook mom groups have those views too, so it's hard to find friends, much less ones I trust to help with my kids. As far as the audio books, we do that with my daughter all the time and it's so great. We bought her a tonie box as a reward for giving up her pacifier and moving to her own big bed. The figures are expensive, but theres one your can5 put your own content on. I put kids bedtime story podcasts, audiobooks, and sometimes recordings of me reading her favorite books. She listens to it every night after we turn her lights out. It's great since there's no screen but she has something to listen to (and keep her in bed) when she has trouble sleeping. Also my son loves dancing to the music tonies during playtime. ❤️
People don’t know wtf gentle parenting actually is… like I have 0 kids but I’ve read up on it due to curiosity and you still have to be firm and authoritative
I'm a Psychologist and a mom of a 2.5yo child. I only worry about my child's screen time (exclusively TV) if I feel like it's taking away from unstructured play time or if it's used as the only tool for emotional regulation that day, which is rare even though they might spend up to 2 hours watching some days, for various reasons. As a generation I think us millenials have very high demands for ourselves, which can be great, but we also need to learn to chill the f out.
Also, Authoritative/gentle parenting is where it's at! So hard but so rewarding!
One last thing: maybe it's my particular algorithm on Instagram, but I'm growing increasingly annoyed by the parents who film their children or themselves probably for a long stretch of time just to catch the moment that exemplifies just how great they are at trying gentle parenting, it makes my skin crawl because that is an intimate family moment. A very different thing is when they do a retelling, I don't mind that, but filming the actual moment and putting it out on the public internet feels like a disturbed thing to me.
I know some people who share recorded moments like that (parenting influencers) and their intentions are always positive but I certainly struggle when shown a child in a very vulnerable moment like a tantrum! I have caught tantrums on camera while recording snippets of the day (I love capturing bits of their childhood and have folders of videos that I want to turn into little movies for them to watch when they are older!) and I couldn’t can share those with family or friends as I would feel too bad for my kids…it would be like someone filming me having a panic attack, it’s just so personal. I mean I could at least consent to sharing my own panic attack online but a child cannot consent xx
I appreciate your open and honest conversation on this. I think its important to not shame our generation of parents, it wont help us grow & navigate our flaws n the current landscape of society, so thank you xxx
FYI: I’ve never seen any of these kinds of videos in my feed.
I’m not a parent and I only follow some gentle parenting creators.
I think we often think what’s going on in our feed is universal but it’s an algorithm, it’s based on what you clicked on before and what “people like you” tend to watch.
So my feed is bound to be very different from yours.
All this to say: The more posts of sth you see in your feed, the more you’ll think it’s relevant or everybody’s thinks that way - but it’s not true.
Gen Z parent (of Gen Alpha ofc) here who is mostly annoyed at other gen z-ers (and some of the millenial comments) acting like we don't already have kids 🤨 I'm 24, a very normal age to have kids in most parts of the world.
I do think our generation knows the harm of social media even more than millenials, because my cousins started using social media by their own free will as teens whereas I was on it much earlier. I've mentioned it in your comments before, but pictures of me as a child was everywhere online, and so it never felt like a choice. I was exposed to hardcore pornography and gore and so much worse than my cousins were, at a much younger age. I also ended up way more screen addicted. Which did result in a very different attitude to screentime for our kids than my cousins. Obviously my children aren't that old yet, but I also think I'll introduce a phone way later than the millenials I know.
I also had a school ipad issued by my state/school. So I am very much against iPad in schools, as it greatly impacted my learning in the negative.
Feel so wholesome seeing you upload informal videos. Just love feeling broody and learning all about gentle parenting 😂😭💚
I was a high school para for the part 5 years. This was my last year. All students are below level. Some were violent. They are extremely disrespectful. They don’t care that they are not prepared for university or a job.
I had to get out for my own mental and physical well being.
That kid acts like tv and screens never existed before millennials. People put their kids in front of and ate dinner in front of tv since the 50s.
literally what I was gonna say! And theyre addicted to their own phones as well, I doubt they would do a better job.
Obsessed with your point of view, how sober and well structured, facts and studies based they are. Also obsessed with how calmly you put Gen z annoying asses in their places. I vote Melanie Murphy for Millennials President.
Brilliant topic and video Melanie, clear consist pov love these style of videos
Also not to mention Gen Z is a HUGE contributor to the TIK TOK problem we are experiencing in this lifetime. 10 step skincare routine, Botox, fillers. Nice way to show younger generations how to feel about themselves.
You're the mom I aspire to be one day! Love you lots. You seem to have it all together and being the best mom you can be to your kids! Honestly would love a big "HOW-TO" guide to your day to day, from when the babies were born and until now, how to navigate all these new responsibilities, HOW to raise just normal non-traumatized kids etc etc 😅 All of this seems so overwhelming that I end up frozen by fear and not wanting to try at all 🙁
I second this! I'd love a book years down the line on something like "what I learned about parenting" that describes your experiences, advice you were given, why you did or didnt follow certain social norms, and some funny or challenging stories.
I have been asked about this a LOT! If I get through to both kids being in primary school and things are still going really well, I might combine everything I have learned (mistakes and triumphs) with theory/statistics, might also do a course in child psychology to ensure my references are up to date - something I want to do anyway before I’m 40! (Info a book, or an e-book, maybe an online course!) ❤️ My kids are such legends. I have learned SO much that has helped me because I love to self-educate it’s the best gift that my degree gave me! And I have connected with hundreds of other mothers through online groups and my own community who have given me incredible advice on big transitions xxx
I would love to hear you talk more about this in future videos. Also just about your trials and tribulations as a parent, what you’ve learnt and so on. I’m not planning on having children any time soon but hearing you talk about this topic kind of makes me feel at ease. As though there is a way to raise children in a way where they won’t be tyrants. I feel hopeful
Thank you for creating this video, you have no idea how powerful it is 💚 as someone who grew up in an authoritarian style household, I want to do better for my kids and I’m grateful that I’m learning this now before I even have any. The authoritarian style destroys any sense of autonomy and self worth. It creates codependency or narcissism. The child isn’t “bad” for not conforming to what we want, we need to be open to their emotions and opinions too. All relationships go both ways and I’m so glad these children are here to teach us this now 😊
Thanks for speaking up about gentle parenting. I see some extremely helpful videos relating to it/similar practices, probably more often than anyone bashing it, but when one bashing it does come up, it either doesn't reflect the practice properly, or if it does, it's frankly just incredibly concerning lol.
I find it hardest in other settings to keep to a boundary, say if we're with other family with young kids, because I feel like deliberately moving mine from a screen is just giving such a statement of 'I DISAGREE WITH THIS' and I don't want to cause confusion or guilt for other parents! I still do it, but it's so awkward! Same with gentle parenting practices, if my son is playing with someone else's kid and I treat a disagreement between them differently, it's so hard!
So many thoughts! Parent of 2, and my baby already knows how 'important' my phone is. That tiktok rant about restaurants got me so bad, but it does remind me that children aren't really accepted in public spaces - only quiet mini-adults. Even if use colouring in or toys or other screen free activity - I never get to eat my meal warm.
I feel really proud of our 'low' screen time in our house, and I like the time we have invested in transitioning from screens to the next activity.
So much to say about parenting styles and, working with teachers and kids I am genuinely really surprised at the behaviours they talk about. I guess I am lucky enough to be in spaces where that isn't happening.
I wish I had more time to invest in my child's imagination, I do find the role-play tedious and we don't live in a place where I could send them off to explore unsupervised. Sitting in boredom is tricky and I need practise at that for sure, and giving my kids opportunity to practise it too.
Thanks for the video!
As a millennial I can say our generation is the generation that is shamed the most for everything what we do. Even though we are the most mindful and least judgmental with other generations. Yet we are insulted the most, we are just trying to do our best in life just like everyone else. I do however agree that some parents should put more effort in less screen time and other things they said. But the way they brought it, stop the drama and let see how you will do it. Every parent has a different way of raising kids regardless of generation they should know that. My parents were exactly like the Weasleys so funny 😂
So, something that i personally cant stand tho, is ppl playing those videos on the phone/ipad Out loud. We had kids doing this for pretty much our whole 8 h plane ride recently. Use Headphones
Adults do this too. I hate it. I have a medical condition that I have to go get treatment for at the doctors regularly and every time I'm in the waiting room, there's multiple phones just blasting different sounds. Sounds just obnoxiously overlapping over each other in this cacophony of sensory overload.
Screentime always baffles me, my average for last week was 2 hours and 18 minutes, with 80 pick-ups (this includes pick-ups for work emails, not just social media). I feel like I use my phone so much, but I see others with literal 8 hours of screentime and I don't understand how
Mine is a bit over 3 hours on my phone which includes podcasts on UA-cam playing which I don’t actually look at, AND I work on my phone so every time one or both kids are napping, and at night, I am replying to DMs and comments etc etc! Then there’s time I spend editing at my laptop which boosts it but yeah I can’t fathom the 7-8 hours so many get! That is a full work day 🤯
I agree with everything and me and my husband has had similar discussions and we don't really show any screens to our 1 year old yet unless it's phone calls with my family or Ms Rachel a few times in total when we're with her and talking about it. I really enjoy these talks about parenting etc since I don't have that type of surrounding in my day to day, it's nice to hear similar and well thought through arguments for these topics. One thing about the viral stuff from gen Z, I believe like others were mentioning below, people have an easy time telling other parents when they have no kids themselves. It's like an ideal scenario but reality is usually far from it (and we're not even showing screens, but I do understand that some feel the pressure and give in). Some kids are just not as easy to handle either, and we don't normally have the village around... Great video! Would love to hear more on parenting topics, time mgmt etc.
Please more videos about this! As a millennial who’s not sure I want kids because of various worries, this eases one worry holding me back ❤
I’m glad I found your channel, started with the labor & delivery vlogs. We both had a baby during the pandemic and now I am pregnant again (hoping to go natural and really resonated your 2nd labor video on that!!)
Then I started watching your other videos.. I’m confident we’d be friends in real life! I appreciate your input on this subject. It’s nice to reflect , and I had a talk with my 3 year old about screen time and she DID understand. It’s amazing how capable they are. Parenting is definitely trial and error, every single day. As long as we’re always working to be better I don’t think we can go wrong. Love your channel!
Editing to add - what’s up with those YT videos with all those random words shouting out? 😂 I hate them!
I rarely comment on here, but I just wanted to say that I think you are such a beautiful and thoughtful Mum, Melanie! I don’t have children yet, but when I do, I will be taking these tips on board! 💚🙏🏼🥰
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Ooooh Melanie!!!
A+ on this video! Been waitin on this one! Love this topic, love everything you spoke about.
I found myself nodding my head and replying out loud right along with you all through this video. I could write a whole book in response.
We have the TV on much of the day at our place, and have since birth. The difference though from most is this- we have no cable television. We get about a dozen channels that sort of come in clearly. We exclusively keep it on a channel called OPB kids. It’s a public broadcasting channel for littles. It cycles through about a dozen cartoons. She watches some of them, other times it’s just friendly sounds in the background of our life. As for your screen time. I don’t have the screen time setting set up in my phone. I’m not a big user. I’d guess I average 3 possibly 4 hours a day? Like you, I find it incredibly important to watch with her. Watch what she’s watching and use it later for play. She then tries to incorporate her own toys in ways she saw on a show. Our toy garden shed becomes a car wash, our toy minivan becomes a school room etc.
I had the same struggle you described with eating in front of the screen. I used it as a tool to make her eat more. Lately I’ve been making sitting down versus standing a rule for eating. We live in a trailer. We don’t have a dining table. We eat on the floor, or use trays on the bed. So traditional dining practices have always been a struggle. She used to often play and eat at the same time, but like I said, I’ve been trying to stop that.
To wrap it up, my take on it all is this-
Everything in moderation. Hold your ground and remember your the adult and you know best. Cater to your own kids personality. You know them best. It’s never too late to change habits and kids adapt so fast! It’s just brutal in the beginning.
I try to keep potty training in mind.
My girl resisted potty training like a car stuck in the mud. Finally one day I said, this is our last diaper and I’m not buying anymore so from here on out we’re using the potty. She cried and cried sobbing ‘I just want my diaper’
But after day one, the tears were gone, after day two, she finally poo’ed, and by day 3 she had it down.
I love your idea about planning the screen time versus it being a spur of the moment desire to be granted. I will give it a go.
Thank you for this video and all you shared. I love your channel and your content. We were pregnant at the same time (you with your son) and you have been an online ‘feel good’ for me ever since.
Sending much love from US ❤
I apparently haven’t had screen time on since I got my new phone BUT I know it’s gone down since I started reading again. Now I reach for my kindle over my phone and I separate my phone for work or necessity more. A fact I’m very glad of
This was so informative and helpful. Thank you for this!!
I think its all just about moderation, an ipad is not bad on its own, but without proper parental controls and boundaries it becomes a problem. My kid has an ipad, but she also just left it at her grandparents and couldnt care less, Im not wasting my time to go and get it, either. We have art supplies and everything constantly accessible, no screens in her bedroom, etc. It can be done both ways, we use her tablet for ABC mouse and things like that, but im not going to let her have unrestricted access to youtube videos or her tablet. Shes currently doing a science experiment with water and chalk and freezing it. Its just about balance
Love this! ❤️
It was a really helpful video! And so many good advices for parents! I love it, thank you ❤