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Dad shares what happens when you give your child books instead of a smartphone

The key to fostering healthy habits in children is to be wholly present and reject the “pressures of convenience”

via Armando Hart (used with permission)

Armando Hart and his son, Raya.

One of the most pressing dilemmas for parents these days is how much screen time they should allow their children. Research published by the Mayo Clinic shows that excessive screen time can lead to obesity, disrupted sleep, behavioral issues, poor academic performance, exposure to violence and a significant reduction in playtime.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends limiting screen time to 1 to 2 hours daily for children over 2. But American children spend far more time in front of screens than that and the situation is only worsening.

Before the pandemic, kids between the ages of 4 and 12 spent an average of 4.4 hours a day looking at screens, but since 2020, the average child’s daily screen time has increased by 1.75 hours.

A father in Long Beach, California, is getting some love for his TikTok video sharing what happens when you give your kid books instead of an iPhone. Armando Hart posted a video showing his 10-year-old son, Raya, reading a book in the back of a car and it’s been seen over 8 million times.

"Give them books instead of phones when they are little and this is the result," the caption reads. "Thank me later."

We’re so blessed with our son Raya. I think he’s read more books than I have.

@lifeinmotion08

We’re so blessed with our son Raya. I think he’s read more books than I have. #Books #Read #Fyp

Hart and his wife started reading to their son every night before bedtime, hoping to instill a love for books. "It was all about leading by example and creating a nurturing environment where reading was celebrated," Hart told Newsweek. These days, Raya is an avid reader who enjoys just about anything.

“My son likes novels, fiction, nonfiction, and realistic fiction,” Hart told Upworthy. “He also likes informative content, such as reading the almanac and other informative magazines. He loves to build, cook from recipes, and make art.”

For Hart, reading is all about creating a sense of balance in his son’s life.

“It's not about being against technology but about fostering a balanced approach that prioritizes meaningful experiences and hands-on learning,” he told Upworthy. “By instilling a love for reading, creativity, and exploration early on, we're equipping Raya with the skills and mindset he needs to thrive in an ever-changing world.”

Hart believes that the screen time discussion isn’t just about technology but a trend that goes deeper. “It speaks to a broader societal problem: our youth's lack of self-esteem, confidence and fundamental values. While screen time may exacerbate these issues, it is not the sole cause,” he told Upworthy.

“In contrast, physical activity, such as exercise, promotes joy and well-being. Spending hours scrolling on a phone can detract from genuine moments of happiness and fulfillment,” he continued. “Therefore, we must address the deeper underlying issues affecting our youth's mental and emotional health rather than solely attributing them to screen time.”

Hart believes the key to fostering healthy habits in children is to be wholly present and reject the “pressures of convenience” that encourage parental complacency.

“We prioritize quality time together, whether exploring nature, sharing meals with the best available foods, or engaging in meaningful conversations. In today's rapidly advancing technological world, staying grounded in our humanity and embodying integrity in everything we do is crucial,” he continued. “This means staying connected to our authentic selves and teaching our son the importance of honesty, kindness, and respect.”


This article originally appeared on 4.18.24

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Gen Z grew up in a screen-saturated world. They're vowing to raise their kids differently.

As Gen Z approaches parenting age, they say refuse to raise "iPad kids."

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Gen Z is planning to take a restrictive approach to their own kids when it comes to screens.

As a parent of three Gen Zers ages 15, 19 and 23, I spent many years fending off children begging, pleading and cajoling for screens and screen time of one sort or another. From around ages 9 to 14 with each child, I fielded question after question and complaint after complaint about them not having a phone and/or the limits my husband and I placed on their screen usage. It was exhausting to stick to our guns on that front (especially with our one child who would make an excellent lawyer). But we held the line, hoping and praying that someday they all would thank us for it.

Sure enough, each one of them has thanked us for it. Phew.

In fact, they've all started talking about how their own kids won't have any screens at all until they really need to, which is more restriction than we placed on them even.

"Good for you!" I tell my them. "And good luck." Their convictions are admirable, but little do they know that it's not as easy as it looks.

As the first full generation to be raised in the internet-enabled, screen-saturated world, Gen Z (approximately ages 11 to 26) has grown up in uncharted waters. Pretty much every adult they've ever known has carried and used a smartphone. Their educations have included hand-held screens from their earliest years, as the "edutainment" industry has exploded. Today's older kids and young adults became tech-savvy very young, they've been marketed to with various addictive apps their entire childhoods and have felt the pressures of social media throughout their formative years.

And Gen Z's parents have had to navigate those uncharted waters, raising kids in an online world we didn't have ourselves as children and struggling mightily to find a balance for them amid the digital chaos,. In an era where parents often need to work and childcare is prohibitively expensive, devices have become the easiest temporary babysitter, and a moderate amount of screen time (whatever "moderate" means) feels practically inevitable. Even the experts no longer have set screen time limit recommendations, but rather encourage parents to be conscious and engaged with what their children are using screens for. (In my former teacher opinion, there's a significant difference between setting up a child with an interactive app that teaches kids math or reading or geography and leaving a child with unbridled access to the internet.)

We also live in a world where people in general use our devices for almost everything and where sites like YouTube can be valuable tools. It's a reality that kids will not just get their own devices eventually, but will actually need to. But when, which one, how much, how often, what to limit and allow at what ages can be overwhelming questions for parents to navigate. Very few of us have managed to strike a balance that feels right. Sometimes I've worried we were being too strict and other times I worried we were too lenient. With each kid, especially when we were thrown into pandemic isolation, determining healthy screen time became more complicated.

But now that a good chunk of Gen Z are officially adults and starting to think about how they want to parent their own kids, they're surprisingly Luddite-like. After years and years of wanting screen time, getting screen time, and seeing how screen time can be filled with pitfalls, and also after observing Gen Alpha's early screen addictions, they don't want the same for their kids.

Interestingly, some Gen Zers are even trying to limit their own screen time by switching to 90s-style flip phones—or "dumb phones" as they now say.

Some are also pleading with their fellow Gen Zers to vow not to raise "iPad kids" who can't behave without having a screen shoved into their hands. Gabe Escobar garnered 25 million views with his "iPad kids" rant, with countless Gen Zers in the comments agreeing with him.

@gabesco

seriously pls we cant let it happen #genz #genalpha #ipadkid

And these Gen Zers aren't just kneejerk-reflex saying they don't want their kids to have screens at all. They understand that technology is a tool we all need and kids need to have access to learn how to use it. But they're watching the struggles of Gen Alpha and seeing how giving kids the excessive amount of screen time that they themselves probably begged their parents for at one point actually impacts them. It's not that they don't want their kids on screens at all, but it appears Gen Z is preparing for their parenting approach with foresight and wisdom, which is great to see.

@hopeyoufindyourdad

@gabesco I am fully on board with what this creator is saying although kids having ipads is a bit inevitable at this point the real issue is regulation and parenting styles #genz #genalpha #millennial #parenting #ipadkid #greenscreenvideo #greenscreen

I just hope they're prepared for how exhausting it is to fight that battle with their kids when the time comes. But at the very least, they can speak from experience when they tell their kids that they'll thank them someday for the limits.

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‘Really concerning’: Researcher reveals how she instantly knows if a child is an 'iPad kid'

“There is a big difference between babies who are exposed to screens 24/7 and babies who are not."

via Jelleke Vanooteghem/Unsplash and Ratiliciousxx/TikTok

The jury is still out on screen time but the effects are obvious to this researcher.

Screen time is a big topic among parents, but unfortunately, there are no clear-cut answers on how much exposure a child should have. Being that iPads and similar devices haven’t been around that long, there haven’t been enough solid longitudinal studies on the topic for researchers to come to a screen-time consensus.

Given the uncertainty surrounding the issue, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) says that children 18 to 24 months old shouldn’t have any screen time (excluding video chatting) and kids who are 2 to 5 years old should have no more than an hour a day.

Liva, a researcher who works with children ages 3 months to 3 years, says that the effects of constant iPad use on a young child are apparent. She says that iPad kids have parents who allow unlimited use and believe an “iPad can raise a child.” As compared to parents who allow their kids to have an hour or less of screen time a day.

“Let me tell you, every single time an iPad kid comes in, us, the researchers, we know. It doesn’t take very long to tell,” she explains in a video with over 1 million views. “There is a big difference between babies who are exposed to screens 24/7 and babies who are not, and you can tell within the first 10 minutes of meeting a baby.”

If i ever have kids theyre getting minimal screen time, like im talking almost 0. I feel so bad for teachers too. #ipadbabies #childdevelopment

@ratiliciousxx

If i ever have kids theyre getting minimal screen time, like im talking almost 0. I feel so bad for teachers too. #ipadbabies #childdevelopment


“At one point, we give the parent an iPad, and if the baby cannot have that iPad, all hell breaks loose,” she continued. “It is, like, the end of the world. Like, I’ve seen babies who are 8 to 10 months old, who have zero interest in actual baby toys but freak out when they see the iPad. And it’s really concerning.”

In a follow-up video, Liv further explained the difference between healthy and unhealthy iPad use in young children.

@ratiliciousxx

Replying to @´･ᴗ･`

Replying to @´･ᴗ･`

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Mom's viral clip argues parents are spending too much time on kids' activities

“We’ve changed the expectation of parenting."

Keira Burton/ Pexels

Parents today spend far more time with their kids than previous generations.

Are we placing unrealistic expectations on ourselves as parents to entertain our children every second of every day? This is what a mom on Instagram purports in a clip that’s resonated deeply with fellow parents who feel stretched to the breaking point.

“I just spent a weekend with my kids who are 6, 4 and 2-years-old,” begins working mom Jen B who goes by the 8thdayformomonly. “And the amount of time I spent setting up activities, cleaning up activities, participating in activities is so much.”

In a video viewed over 35 thousand times, she says she doesn’t recall her parents ever putting in this much time. “I feel like the standard that we are holding ourselves to as parents to entertain our children is so much higher than it was when we were kids.

“It’s just a really, really high bar when you have two working parents and you’re also maintaining a house,” she continued.

The content creator says the expectation has shifted over the years.

“We’ve changed the expectation of parenting to think we’re always supposed to be involved and we’re supposed to enjoy every minute and get on the ground and play with them… and so I don’t know if you needed to hear this today," Jen B said. "I needed to hear this today. We can lower the bar, we don’t have to be constantly entertaining our kids, we can give them space to entertain themselves.”

The comments on the video contain astute commentary.

One commenter wonders if part of the reason we’re running ourselves ragged is to make up for what we felt was missing from our own childhoods.

“Part of me wonders if the reason we do this to ourselves is because we don’t have any memory of our parents playing with us like this,” writes Littleseel.

Another says she once heard that the amount of time put in by working parents today is more than stay-at-home-parents of the '50s.

“I heard somewhere that working parents today spend 50% more time entertaining kids than SAHMs did in the '50s,” writes laura.b823.

“I believe that stat,” 8thdayformomonly responded.

While we didn’t find a study citing working parents today versus stay-at-home moms in the 50s, this study from 2016 shows the amount of time parents spend with their children doubled for moms and quadrupled for dads between 1965 and 2012.

And then, of course, there’s the question of whether this level of attention is in the children's best interests. After all, they need to learn to keep themselves occupied and to work through boredom. Commenter little_beast_miguel writes, “It’s also important to let them entertain themselves to learn not to rely on their parents for literally everything."

There is a school of thought that a more laissez-faire, hands-off approach dubbed “benign neglect” helps foster a greater sense of independence and self-reliance.

“The benign neglect movement seems to be a backswing from helicopter parenting, which encouraged coddling millennials and Gen Zs throughout childhood,” NYU Langone Health child psychologist Yamalis Diaz told The New York Post.

Actress Jennifer Garner is a big proponent of this style of parenting.

jennifer garner, ben affleck, parenting

Jennifer Garner believes in "benign neglect"

Karon Liu/Wikimeda Commons

In a Today Show appearance, the actress, who raises three children with her ex, Ben Affleck, said, “I want to be around. But I also think it’s OK if they suffer from a little bit of benign neglect. Their lives are their own. I’m not trying to live their life, and I don’t mind that they see that I love mine.”

As with anything, though, balance is key.

Benign neglect is not the same as actual neglect.

Says Sanam Hafeez, PsyD, a neuropsychologist in New York and the Director of Comprehensive Consultation Psychological Services to Parents. “It's a balance between freedom and safety, ensuring that children have the space to grow while maintaining a secure environment.”









Jennifer Garner believes in "benign neglect"

Karon Liu/Wikimeda Commons

In a Today Show appearance, the actress, who raises three children with her ex, Ben Affleck, said, “I want to be around. But I also think it’s OK if they suffer from a little bit of benign neglect. Their lives are their own. I’m not trying to live their life, and I don’t mind that they see that I love mine.”

As with anything, though, balance is key.

Benign neglect is not the same as actual neglect.

Says Sanam Hafeez, PsyD, a neuropsychologist in New York and the Director of Comprehensive Consultation Psychological Services to Parents. “It's a balance between freedom and safety, ensuring that children have the space to grow while maintaining a secure environment.”

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