[RobertRoberts]

I am wary of joining this conversation in general. But I have kids, and I have lived both in big cities where stuff was stolen from our porch on a regular basis (we needed a neighborhood watch) and in small towns where we never had to lock our doors.

I've lived in incredibly liberal and conservative areas as well. Some places were very religious with a church for every few hundred in the populace, and where you couldn't even find a church.

Across the board, the liberal, non-religious, high-populace areas had the worst behaved children in public. But religious groups control public perceptions better (my opinion) so privately they could be just as bad or worse off, but that doesn't seem to be the point of this article.

But what I found as a parent, was that children mimic their parents. Period.

Even if you have vacant parents, the kids will still have enough time around them to copy their beliefs and act on them.

I taught in college for 12 years, and the kids that came into my class room changed dramatically from early 2000s till I was done. Something changed in society the past 20 years in a way I can't understand.

One thing is for certain though, you can take a nice decent kid, and give them everything they want, and they can turn into brats when you try and take anything back.

I learned this the hard way with cellphones. My first kid turned super nasty as soon as she got a phone. Partly because all her friends ignored her, she was the only one without a phone in the group settings, so she sat by herself with no one to play with. So we got her an ipod touch, and we instantly had behavior problems.

In retrospect, she was copying my problems as a person, so it's not her fault. But any discussion where the blame isn't placed squarely on the parents first and foremost, is in my opinion, either deceitful with a motive or simply ignorant and possibly a parent in denial.

A parent can raise decent children in almost any environment as long as they are willing to stand up against the negative influences around them.

[BerislavLopac]

> Something changed in society the past 20 years in a way I can't understand.

> My first kid turned super nasty as soon as she got a phone.

I think you might be on to something here...

[BerislavLopac]

And Scott Adams agrees: http://dilbert.com/strip/2018-06-07

[hycaria]

>In retrospect, she was copying my problems as a person, so it's not her fault.

Care to elaborate ? And what could she do anyways ? Launch a discussion that friends would be too absorbed to follow ?

Although I hope there might be a small minority of parents who don't buy their children phones (because of conviction or lack of money) and that eventually they could end up befriending each other, far from instagram and snapchat. But maybe thats wishful thinking.

[RobertRoberts]

>Care to elaborate? And what could she do anyways?

I found that adults can have "mental challenges" that if a child has the same thing, acts differently. For example, I was quite sarcastic as a parent, and having a child be sarcastic to other kids and adults is often disrespectful because they don't know how to "be sarcastic" correctly, or know when it's not appropriate.

When I told my daughter to put her phone down at dinner, or play a game with her siblings, something she had no issue doing before, she reacted harshly in response. I was a very stressed out and tense parent and reacted harshly, and not patiently. So she was mimicing my behavior when she also got stressed and didn't know how to deal with the emotions.

Contrast this with her younger siblings, who I was much more patient with, and when I asked them to put their devices down,if they didn't want to, I was more patient with them. I didn't give up on the request, but I also gave them a little time to put the things down. Which they always do.

>Although I hope there might be a small minority of parents who don't buy their children phones...

A very small minority in my experience. Some parents give their kids high-end iphones when they are in grade school.

My rules are simple. They got a "device" (could be phone without a cell account) when there were 13-14. Limited screen time "asked of them" (I really want them to learn to be responsible, so I don't set hard limits, I taught them to notice how tiring and wastful the time is, and they monitor themselves well), no screen locks, no social media, etc... When they are 16, they can drive and if they want cell connection, they pay for it themselves. (inexpensive extra line on family plan) Garners responsibility, and the expectations are "people over devices". And then also "people next to you over people online".

But I've seen a backlash in kids that are now older, becoming adults, they are working and don't have time for social media like they used to. Maybe a good trend coming?