[ObsoleteNerd]

I do not restrict screen time in any way. If they want to watch videos (from our scraped collection on the NAS), they can. If they want to play with the carefully chosen educational apps/games on our phones, they can. We've never restricted them since they first became interested, and it has worked out fine for us.

They barely ever watch shows or play with the phones, and most the time just want to colour in, play with Lego, or play with toys. They use the phones maybe for an hour every 3 days or so (or if we're waiting at the Doctors office or on a road trip), and watch shows maybe half an hour to an hour each day (usually in evening when they're too tired to physically play and we're preparing dinner). YMMV of course.

[Double_a_92]

> or if we're waiting at the Doctors office or on a road trip

I wonder if that robs them from the experience of ever being bored. And if that might influence them.

[ObsoleteNerd]

We regularly make sure they get experience doing nothing too. My wife and I are big believers in the importance of doing nothing, for imagination/creativity and also just because it's an important skill to have in life, to be able to sit and wait.

They're very imaginative, and we regularly find the eldest just sitting in a sunny spot in the room and "dreaming in the warm" as she calls it.

The only problem we struggle with as far as technology is that a lot of her friends already have unlimited access to TV and talk about shows she's never heard of because we don't watch (or have) TV. We purely do Netflix/Stan and YouTube, so she gets a bit upset not knowing what they're going on about, but she's starting to understand that everyone has different things they do.

[VLM]

Older, teen kids (not just my own) do seem to think they're entitled to continuous digital mental stimulation via passive consumption...