My kids aren't getting a smart phone and no screens except within sight of other members of the household. The house router shuts down internet during the night.
That effectively deals with the problem of your kids accessing screens right now, but you have no idea what the impact of denying access to "social" tech will have on them in the long term. Maybe it'll work out and they'll develop a healthy relationship with tech, or maybe they'll be traumatized by that denial and be far more susceptible to screen addiction in later life because there's no one there to regulate it for them and they haven't had the opportunity to learn how to self-regulate. There's no way to know. This stuff hasn't been around long enough to study it properly.
I agree with this approach but there’s more to it. It’s a process. You coach them along the way over a period of years. You offer other outlets for boredom and opportunity for IRL socializing. I feel like this is the real root cause. Our society has largely 1) outsourced all parent responsibilities (too hard, over worked, etc. are just excuses for being lazy, my observation is most parents are glad to throw a iPad in little Jimmy’s face if he’ll leave them alone) and 2) kids are not playing enough outside with other kids in unstructured ways (when they do, they care not about what’s happening on TikTok).
I like to take my son fishing because it teaches him it’s ok to be bored, silence is ok too, also our talks and bonding is deeper in these moments, and it gets us out in nature.
last time my parents tried this to my brother. It backfired badly because my brother used mobile data wasting our money. He wasted like 20 usd in mobile data in 1 week and our monthly fiber internet costs was only 15 usd. And the sad thing is he wasted that money which was supposed to be his tiffin for school.
After that day we realized its not easy to control smart children.
Welcome to North Korea. I will win.