Stop giving your kids tablets and phones, they don't need them.
Stop giving your kids tablets and phones, most especially stop promoting this.
And yes, I am fully shaming you if you give your young children (especially if you give an infant!!!) technology with no boundaries or limitations.
Honestly, don’t give them a tablet at all if they’re under the age of 3.
Why? Because it’s harmful. Because it isn’t parenting. It numbs their minds and disconnects them from the real world.
I see kids today who are completely unaware of their surroundings. They don’t even look both ways before crossing the street. These are children, 6, 7, 8 years old, already so consumed by technology they shouldn’t even have. Not once do they look up or pay attention to what’s around them.
In stores, kids as young as 3, 4, or 5 sit there blasting videos on tablets or phones at full volume, and everyone else is just expected to tolerate it.
I like kids and I don’t blame them at all for this.
I blame the parents entirely. A child reflects what they’re taught and what they’re allowed to do.
I have kids too, so I understand that it’s difficult. But we managed 15 years before without constant technology and screen time.
Why can’t we manage now? Why don’t we want to?
Have we become so dependent on the convenience of technology that we want our children to be convenient too?
Why are we trying to numb them?
Kids are supposed to be loud, messy, and sometimes difficult. That behavior gives you, as a parent, the opportunity to teach them how to act appropriately in public.
Instead of teaching, too many people avoid the discomfort by handing over a screen.
And it’s completely normal for children to not behave appropriately at all times.
That’s how they learn. That's what gives you a chance as a parent to emulate good behavior and to teach them right and wrong.
But this goes onto my next point. I also think part of the issue comes from how quickly people judge parents when their kids misbehave in public.
People who probably have zero kids will see them throwing normal tantrums in public and judge the parents and make faces and such.
I constantly see others telling parents to just hand their child a tablet so they can sit quietly at a restaurant. "Why don't you just hand them a tablet?" But that doesn’t solve anything. It makes it worse down the line.
It becomes a crutch. A child who relies on a tablet will struggle without it every time.
A tablet doesn’t teach anything in those moments. It just replaces the actual needed lesson.
And over time, it doesn’t help development. It shuts it down.