Steve Jobs wouldn't let his kids use an ipad, many other top tech CEOs agree, what say you LetsRun parents?

Ole Timer wrote:

It's getting harder, as society feels there's something "wrong' with me for not wanting one.

Nobody cares what kind of phone you have, you raging narcissist.

My kids are allowed computer games on friday, saturday and sunday. Just 30 minutes each of those three days. Most times we are too busy and they don't even remember to play.

What do my boys (7 & 9 years old) fill their time with? We run several miles per week, they're on soccer teams, play basketball in yard and at park, swim in our pool, play board games, talk with adults, play with kids in the neighborhood, etc.

We are the weird parents. I say this cause without exception, all of our friends are different. This week at soccer practice a parent told me his son has played 8 hours straight of video games in a day.

Our friends tell us they still dress their kids and do everything for them. Our boys set their alarms and get ready alone in the morning. We prepare their lunch each morning and that is it. They are preparing for life. It seems most parents we meet are simply being a crutch for their kids, we shall see how these kids turn out.

Very similar to our approach. Twin 5-year-old boys and an 8-year-old girl. Kids are very active, do projects of various types, and have social skills. They all get themselves ready, even the 5-year-olds. They love playing soccer, basketball and running with me. They're all advanced readers and do well with math.

Occasionally we regress into letting them binge watch garbage TV and my wife recently made the mistake of downloading game apps on her phone as a reward. The 5-year-olds instantly started misbehaving generally and obsessing on the phone. Zombified video game kids are pretty unenjoyable to parent.

I just wanted to comment about something...

I work for a tech company and deal with the online world all day long. My family does not own a computer or a tablet. My wife uses her phone for everything and in a tight situation we would just use my work computer/tablet.

Even in my weird-ass house where the kids do not have access to much technology, we still got a comment from a childless friend at lunch the other day. We met some friends at a restaurant and our 3-year-old was using my wife's phone to play some fisher price game where you match colors or some shit. The friend asked whether we were worried that our kid was getting too dependent on a device.

So to Rojo and other childless people, you might just encounter people during the one time that their kid is using the device. Keep that in mind. if you're at a restaurant and you see a kid on an ipad, it may just be so that the kid doesn't get up and run around the restaurant.

I am an Engineer (software/electronic, not the train driving one) and have pre-school kids. They have never watched TV regularly. Our computer is a way for them to watch educational videos (PBS, BBC type stuff) and skype with the grandparents. They never watch TV or the computer on her own.

We do not have a Tablet or Smart Phone. Everything that can be done with those devices is done with a laptop and being a little less portable keeps it in its place in my life. When we go on vacation, we do not answer work phone calls or emails and often stay places with no internet. It is not a location selection criteria either way.

Far too many people cannot detach themselves from their devices IMHO. They never relax, they always have to fiddle with their phone. Often I see this when we go to our kids gymnastics or other activities and other parents spend the whole time texting, calling, surfing. I get to enjoy watching. I see plenty of kids who have no idea how to entertain themselves without a tablet and have an attention span of about 10sec. My kids can sit listening to chapter books, recite poems and tell stories with colorful prose.

I don't know if I am right. But I do believe that learning computers will be a pretty quick process when the time comes and I am capable of teaching well. In the mean time, my kids ask for books and demand to go to the park and run for the car when it is gymnastics time. Yesterday at the beach, I went to do a quick stride down the beach and my kid tore off down the beach after me laughing screaming "I'm gonna catch you!". No EyePad required.

I applaud him. Tell the little ba$tards to go outside and play. Eat a salad. run around. Don't worry about letting an ipad do all the thinking and work for you like so many obese kids already do.

I have kids. Outright bans on ipads, phones, video games, etc. are not a good idea. These devises are everywhere. Your kids are going to get them at some point in their lives. It is much better to let them use them for an appropriate amount of time and in an appropriate way so you can teach them to be aware of how much they are using the device and steer them towards productive uses. When you are sitting in a waiting room with your kids and there is nothing to do, iphones are a great way to kill time. Same for things like planes, restaurants (for when they are too young to sit still for long dinners), car trips, etc. But when it is sunny out, devices off--go out and play.

Muslim culture is different than White culture. Jobs is Syrian and grew up in a heavily Muslim part of Silicon Velley.

how often was Steve Jobs actually around his kids?

It doesn't matter since Jobs and Apple are such a minor part of the vast Silicon Valley technological universe.

These "I don't let my kids watch TV or play video games" arguments are a nice sentiment but are not terribly meaningful. My wife's friend never let either of her twin girls have ANY screen time from birth through kindergarten. She constantly bragged about this. My four year old twins watch moderate amounts of TV (Sesame Street, Caillou, and Thomas the Train) and play apps on the phone, ipad, etc. My kids started reading at four while her kindergartners still can't read. Why??? Because my kids played tons of phonics games and other reading apps on the iphone and picked up other readings skills from Sesame Street. Her kids have done a ton more crafts and are great with scissors but can't read at all.

If you structure the screen time, its not a bad thing. I agree that the zombified teenager playing first person shooter games all day is not a good thing.

I usually agree with you but not here. The logic escapes me in the argument that it is better for them to let them use them so that they can learn to control the use. Why isn't it better for them not to use them at all? As for planes, restaurants, and so on, they don't need to "kill time"; instead, they should use time by talking to each other or reading or playing physical games. The few times our daughter is allowed by her mother to play a game online, she gets obsessive, never wants to get off the computer and then constantly bothers us about getting on again. Now that might be exactly your point, but it is much better not to have it be an issue at all, because she would not be a voracious reader, or really any kind of reader, with free access to entertainment options that superficially seem better at the time. My nephew's mother always gave him all those entertainment options, the big screen tv, the video games, etc., so he doesn't like to read and can't read very well, despite well-educated parents.

The phonics does get them to read early, but not better. In fact, the long-term #'s are worse for early and phonics readers--after all, word recognition is the way we read 99% of our words and sounding them out is a lengthy and annoying process, while the rules for pronunciation work so rarely and admit of so many exceptions that they are not a good guide for reading.

http://www.sdkrashen.com/content/articles/defending_whole_language.pdf

I have 4 kids, 28 yo son, 26 yo daughter, 20 yo son, and 16 yo son. I've tried it both ways, being restrictive and being totally open. My oldest two had ZERO restrictions and have developed into well adjusted adults with many friends, different interests, and both are big on the outdoors, actually MORE than me. They are married and have their own children. My 20 yo son, however, I was more restrictive with due to his poor grades and performance. I'd have to peg him as a little more socially awkward. The youngest seems well rounded.

After all these “kid years” of experience I'd have to say technology has nothing to do with it: its all in the kid's personality and how you raise them as parents. No one thing will make or break them, its a very big, complicated process that takes years. And just like in running, genetics plays a disturbingly larger role than most would want to admit.

Agreed! I used phonics to help them "break the code" of reading and we then switched to "sight words" apps to build their vocabularies.

But to the main point of the thread, my kids would have been early readers with or without the apps, as long as I was spending time reading with them. Like an earlier poster said, I doubt Steve Jobs and other billionaire CEOS spend much time with their kids, which makes the premise of the article ridiculous.

Two kids, aged 9 and 13. Screen time is limited to 5 - 7 hours per week for all screens. Homework excluded.

TV in particular fits all the criteria of an addictive drug.

The wife and I have fairly radical ideas about what's good for kids. Schools are mostly garbage, beating down critical thinking and teaching kids to show up on time and obey.

We look for the teachable moments in daily life and let the incredible curiosity of the kids lead the way.

A friend of mine taught one of Jobs' kinds in elementary school. While Jobs lived in a "normal" neighborhood and not in a gated etc. enclave up in the redwoods, he also saw to it that his kids had every educational support / advantage.

As for technology and what parents call "screen time,"it's all about limits.

One thing we know, kids who grow up in houses without TV and with "portion control" on technology, and plenty of books etc., certainly seem to be just fine adults.

I cannot stand people who are addicted to TV...you know the type, if there is a TV on anywhere near them, they are transfixed by it.

I turn the TV on on Sat/Sunday only, during football season -- and during track season when there are events on.

I'd rather read foreign newspapers online than watch anything on TV with commercials.

--I will stream top reviewed (read: not top rated) dramatic series, with the commercials stripped out, at any give time the number of episodic series I will watch in a week, is like 2. I'd rather be working, creating, exercising.

"Anything in real life is better than anything on TV."

Balance, limits.

As for Steve Jobs, well, he sure had his jerkwad side, he also had great vision and quality control...

Takes all kinds to make up the world.

I bet the Apple Watch would have been more interesting had he been alive...

My kids (14, 12) have their own iPhones, several gaming consoles and watch whatever they want (within reason) on tv or netflix. My wife and I loosely monitor these things and the main rule is for homework to be finished before tv or games.

They both play sports, read books and have various other interests. Between these activities and the rule about homework their time with iDevices/video games/tv is limited. As long as they are doing well in school I don't see a need for more restrictions.

My best friend is a high school teacher. In his ~12 year career now he's seen kids go from having no device to constantly wanting to be texting and using the phone. Some teachers allow minimal use of these devices during class (for example, as a calculator). Others ban them outright. Kids can barely function for a 60 minute class without these devices, passing periods are spent head down madly texting as they run to class. It's like a drug, an addiction, if not told they can't use them they would be glancing at them every 30-60 seconds. Concentration levels are shot, cannot pay attention, can't do a task that takes 15 minutes without multiple phone breaks (if allowed), etc, etc, etc.

I have no idea if there's a solution or if people even consider this a problem.