[spiderdev]

In regards to screen time management and as a tech enthusiast dad of two kids--I have learned that simple low tech solutions work much better than most other more complicated methods. For example to limit screen time at night... we have a rule that all of the kid's devices need to be charged over night downstairs in the kitchen. I have a charging station setup in the kitchen for all their devices.

Also during the week devices are only allowed upstairs for homework use only.

[aprinsen]

Along these lines, I just purchased a low tech solution called a KSafe for personal use and I love it.

It's basically a safe with a timer and no override, so you can say, lock up for 2 hours, put your (de)vice inside, and push the button. The only way to open it early is to break the safe.

As someone who has struggled with impulse control, especially around technology, I have used it to great effect. Spent an uninterrupted two hours playing guitar and reading physical books for the first time in ages.

I use it personally, but I could see it being useful for families as well.

[boplicity]

When I was young (late eighties, early nineties), we had a device that controlled power to the TV. You had to type in a code to be able to turn it on; each kid in our family had a code, and each code had a certain amount of time allowed per week. Sounds similar -- but for a different era!

[lilyball]

I had one of these too! Though parents could override it if needed (which was generally done if e.g. we had a friend over, so we could play games together without using up all our weekly time).

[josephcsible]

Is the safe fragile enough that anyone can break it with just their bare hands? If not, then what if you need to call 911 while your phone's in there?

[dangrossman]

It's plastic. You could throw it on a hard floor, or hit it with a hammer, and it would break open. They sell replacement bases because people breaking their own safe open isn't terribly uncommon, and the locking part is all in the lid.

https://www.thekitchensafe.com/

[aprinsen]

You could break the safe with a hammer or by smashing it on the ground, as others have mentioned.

You know though, you are mostly using the safe in your own home or office, for increments of 30 minutes to a couple hours. For many folks I think the risk is very low.

I guess, I find this emergency access sentiment really similar to something my wife's students say when there phones are taken away: "what if my parents need to contact me in an emergency?"

It's a really sincere worry they have that seems totally foreign to me, having grown up in an era when my parents often couldn't contact me for hours at a time. Food for thought.

[gpvos]

Have a landline?

[josephcsible]

A lot of people don't these days.

[nelgaard]

Then just use one of your old cell phones and keep it charged. Even if it does not have a subscription, it can still dial 911/112

[gpvos]

Yeah, except they're turning off 2G now so my old Nokia 3210 can't connect anymore. The two newer phones I have had since then actually broke down.

[josephcsible]

Don't most people trade in their old phones to get their new ones for cheaper?

[stjohnswarts]

I would say a strong majority don't. I don't know anyone personally with a land line other than my mother

[eh9]

My wife and I both have ADHD and we couldn’t recommend this enough. So far, it’s helped us cut down on our weed habit and now I’m throwing the Xbox controllers in there because of my terrible impulse control.

[clarle]

I think as a parent it's also important to set the standard for your kids by doing the same thing. If they need to charge their phones overnight in the kitchen, then you should do the same too.

I think leading by example is a good parenting technique in general, kids figure out when their parents are being hypocritical pretty fast.

[chmod600]

When a child asks for X, they are not really asking for X. They are asking for X, and for you to deal with any consequences of that action, regardless of how poorly-executed. When you do X you are also dealing with the consequences, so it's really no concern of theirs.

Mentioning that a parent gets to do X while they do not is just a way for a child to score a point against foolish parents in an argument.

You are right to a degree. Clearly a parent can lose credibility by being too hypocritical. But you shouldn't feel any general obligation to treat children as adults or yourself as a child.

[justnotworthit]

People will misinterpret you, but if something is bad for you at any age, then the parent should be taking their own advice. "If you can't do it with self-control, then don't do it, or find a way to make it work..." applies to everyone, regardless of roles. No, you don't have to wear pajamas and sleep the same times they do, but you cant tell them how healthy it is to get a full night's sleep with the screen down if you're (frivously) harming your own sleep.

[irrational]

>then you should do the same too.

No. My phone is my alarm system. It is what wakes me up at 5:20am every morning to start things going. My wife uses hers for white noise.

[andruby]

That’s easy to fix with a $15 alarm clock.

[irrational]

My phone has this super quiet noise that is so calming and doesn't wake up the wife when it goes off. It is such a soothing way to wake up. That $15 alarm clock? That's a klaxon alarm letting you know that Armageddon has started.

[syntheticnature]

My alarm clock, purchased as an undergraduate in the 90s, has never had any bugs in its alarm or clock functionalities, and comes with (red 7-segment LED) digit display that's larger than my phone. I do think it was more than $15, even back then, but it's lasted a long time.

[sophacles]

Or you know... $1 at a garage sale or goodwill.

[cyberbanjo]

Goodwill isn't cheap for stuff like that any more

[nomel]

After I realized I could buy, brand new, many of the items I was looking for for a couple dollars more, and sometimes a couple dollars less (they left the original price tag), I mostly stopped going. I went back in for the first time in a couple years and it was just ridiculous. I have to assume their real purpose is some sort of tax benefit at this point, because none of it made sense, besides the clothes.

[justbaker]

I’ve seen cheaply made kids toys for exactly what they cost brand new. Goodwill has been going downhill. I’ve seen on numerous occasions employees breaking fragile items on drop off, no regard. I might as well trash them that give them to someone else to do the same.

[khedoros1]

About $4 at the thrifts near me, and at one in particular, that's likely to be half-price on specific days of the week.

[watwut]

O would rather model not wasting money unnecessary

[andruby]

Is spending $15 on an alarm clock wasting money? That thing will probably last a decade or two and outlive a couple of phone generations.

You’ll get to lead by example and perhaps even improve your sleep.

[ohyoutravel]

Buying a second thing to unnecessarily duplicate functionality seems like a waste, even if the thing by itself would otherwise be a solid deal.

[watwut]

Yes it is wanting money. Especially since I already own multiple device capable to do exact same thing.

I prefer to set example of not buying all the available crap. That one is more important all I all.

[aprinsen]

This has really got me thinking about the hidden costs of having one high tech device that does everything.

Like, I wonder if someone is running ML models on all of our sleeping habits based on phone alarms. Would be interesting to get some of the telemetry/tracking output from the clocks app.

[throw3838]

Or just install opensource ROM without this stuff.

[danieljacksonno]

I use my apple watch for this.

That said, you can easily buy a simple analog alarm for a few bucks.

[saagarjha]

Ok, but why shouldn’t your kids be able to also use them in similar ways?

[stjohnswarts]

Because kids lack almost all control when it comes to entertainment and talking to friends and their brains aren't fully formed. I have a screen time timer set for my phone. After 1 hour each day I don't use it for anything fun after that hour is up. My kids aren't going to be able to handle that with personal discipline. Before you ask, yeah I've tried, the only way is to force them to surrender their devices at a reasonable time at night like 8pm.

[saagarjha]

So it sounds like you gave them an opportunity to use their devices productively, and they couldn't, so they don't get to use your phone. Had you not been able to do that, your screen time would kick in and do the same to you. Seems reasonable to me?

[stjohnswarts]

I did, I watched very closely (and took estimated times) for a couple weeks and they were obsessed a couple years back. All they wanted to do was be on the phone or switch. If you close some doors then other doors will open up. Board games, actually sitting down and telling their day to me (and their mom), playing with the cats and dog. Etc. I give them a lot of freedom until around 8, everyone needs personal time that they own, including kids, then it's back to business of being a family and homework.

[brnt]

You are aware impulse control is something that takes a decade or two (or more) to acquire? Most kids simply can't use them just in those similar ways.

[amflare]

Because they are children. They get to have fewer responsibilities in return for having fewer freedoms while they grow up and gain experience.

[saagarjha]

I know if I was a child, I would be upset that you get to take your phone into your bedroom and use it for useful things. I understand that this is OK for some parents, but the whole point of the comment above the one I was responding to was that children react positively to consistent applications of the rules, and the comment was basically "I have valid uses for my devices (but this is not true for my children)".

[PathOfEclipse]

It's not that you have valid uses for your devices. It's that you trust yourself with the self-control to not to use the devices improperly or in ways that could be self-harmful, or, if so, to be able to bear the consequences. Adults can also drive, but children can't. There is no inconsistency there, either.

Writing as a parent who has had to deal with children staying up late at night, way after they should be sleeping, and looking up things on devices that I would consider inappropriate for both children and adults.

[moistly]

Were you upset that your parents got to drink booze and you didn’t? That they got to watch nighttime (e.g. adult) TV? Drive the car? Stay up late? Have sex?

Adults have myriad privileges that children do not. It is not unfair.

[nickpeterson]

I think you’re inadvertently propping up another idea, that all rules apply equally to children and adults. This is obviously not true.

[irrational]

Were you upset that your parents could drive the car and you couldn't? Parents and children are not the same and do not abide by the same rules.

[irrational]

Because, when it's my bed time, I go to bed. I know that I have responsibilities that require me to get a full nights sleep. The kids? It doesn't matter if they know that they have to diffuse a nuclear bomb in the morning. They will stay up all night on their devices if given the chance and then let the world burn. Their brains are not ready yet. That is why they have parents.

[stjohnswarts]

Kids need to learn that we all have roles to play, not everything is egalitarian.

Edit: for the downvoters, you're the problem with the education system and parenting, your kids aren't little adults, they need some guidance and boundaries to learn a bit of self-control.

[hinkley]

I wish I'd been wise enough to see this solution on my own, but in our case what happened is that charging cables kept disappearing, and it came down to the fact that when the kids broke a cable, they would throw it away and take another one without telling anybody. This same pattern was how I ended up having to put stickers on all of my laptop chargers because I had posession of 1-2 despite having 3 laptops and bought 2 extras when I dropped below 3. Shit just walks off.

And the reason the cables broke is that the distance from their bed to the nearest outlet was 2m, and they would lay in bed on their screens, with the cable stretched to its limits.

Eventually you'd reach crisis mode when we simply couldn't find a cable anywhere and someone was trying to call a plumber or talk to grandma with a dying phone. Anker charging stations came to a partial rescue, The Rules were that the cables in that charger should stay there. But kids (and sometimes my partner) rationalize 'needing' things and eventually I had to zip tie a daisy chain across all of the cables to make it easier to ask for a new cable than to try to take one.

It wasn't perfect, but about half of the devices ended up living at that charging station, because spare chargers [were] still in short supply.

[watwut]

I bought 3m and longer cables for myself and kids. Best purchase ever.

One is 6m, but that one is truly excessive.

[mwint]

I did the opposite thing: everyone in my family kept ruining the standard length lightning cables by smashing them against something while using their phone, so I found a 10-pack of literally 4 inch cables on Amazon.

Now their options are to use the phone or let it charge (or squat inches from the outlet). Haven’t had to buy any more cables.

[watwut]

My daughters tablet will go down the battery in like 15min of minecraft or roblox. And I don't mind her using it for longer then that. Plus, especially during covid, I was glad that they occasionally socialized with friends when at home.

I don't want to intentionally cause discomfort to them or me either.

[hinkley]

15 minutes is extreme, but I find for my own time management I really need artificial interruptions to help me check in with myself and others about with what I’m doing is still a good idea. For instance drinking water and coffee all day, my cup empties, I hit a stopping point, I get up, pump the blood a bit on the trio back and forth to the kitchen, come back. And then an hour later it’s off to the bathroom. The only thing I miss about the office is the routines I haven’t been able to recreate, but I’m still trying. For instance I only fill my glass from the kitchen now instead of using the closer faucet to “save time”.

Having a game eat the battery in two hours might be enough gaming for one sitting. I have a couple games that used to eat my laptop battery in a few hours even when plugged in (60W charging off the monitor) but the new monitor has a bigger power supply, and that can almost keep up with the game. I’ve had a few late nights that I didn’t plan because of it.

[alistairSH]

Yep, the only sure way to keep a kid off a screen is to physically remove the screen. My son is grown and out of the house, but when he was a kid, he was eventually able to defeat just about anything I installed on our PC. With friends younger kids, removing iPads and suchlike is much easier than maintaining software limits.

[hinkley]

We keep asking for wireless charging but if we ever actually get it then we are going to discover all the ways we made a liability into an asset. This being prime amongst them.

I could also see a black market of kids selling each other their old phones so that the kid can have a 'prison phone' they use at night.

[jagraff]

Yep - when I was a kid, I had to put all my electronics in the kitchen at night, so I bought an old used smartphone that my parents didn't know about. Kids are crafty

[quacked]

I've been reading some of your comments elsewhere in the thread--I think you're one of the few people commenting that has some serious respect for how kids actually think and behave. I'm curious for my own sake if you've ever read a certain pseudonymous psychiatry blog--you will immediately know what I'm talking about if you have, and if you haven't I'd like to ask how you learned what you did about child behavior and consistent parenting.

[hinkley]

I have not.

I could say that I have spent a lot of time and energy in my life doing root cause analysis, how you can steer people away from self-sabotage, how you can empower people to help themselves instead of being reliant on you for everything, but that's only the book jacket version of the real story.

The real story is sadder and I'm still actively dealing with the consequences of feeling like I needed to become an autodidact at the age of 8 to ever have any success at anything. Which necessitated spending a lot of time thinking about thinking. Self-teaching morphed into self-mentoring, self-doctoring, and self-parenting. Me, me, me (what could go wrong?) I watched my parents (from my perspective) abandon Discipline almost entirely with my kid brother, who has struggled his entire adult life, and even at 14 I could see this road ahead of him. I wish I had been like some stories where the eldest child takes care of the younger ones, but unfortunately he spent most of his childhood finding ways to push my buttons and we were never close (something my mother has pointed out as a mistake that is playing out now between his own kids, to which I responded, "Tell him this is why I never call.")

That story about my friend's kid reminds me a lot of my little brother and as you can imagine by the length of that reply, was a little triggering.

[alistairSH]

I could also see a black market of kids selling each other their old phones so that the kid can have a 'prison phone' they use at night.

Sneaky little devils. I can totally see it, especially pre-teens and older.

[quacked]

It's quite common among communities that have heavy phone restrictions (religious kids that go to public schools, etc.) They're as clever as adults are, just more monitored.

[hinkley]

They are also less encumbered by thoughts of consequences.

I worked on a contract one time where they were trying to alerts for college sports, and I insisted on adding some security to the system. The manager reasoned that the cost/benefit analysis for someone deciding to hack a sport score feed did not add up and so nobody would think to try that.

I pointed out that college students have poor risk assessment. I pointed out MIT/Stanford. I pointed out it was already written. They made me rip it all out. And then the customer cancelled the project because 'we' had given them exactly the system they already had and why should he pay for it again. I just stared at the manager, who avoided eye contact. (If I'd been a bigger and braver person I would have jumped in here with a counterproposal that amounted to restoring all of my changes, but I did not think of it)

Which is just as well because there totally would be fake messages sent out during the last timeout stating that <our team> won by 6 points just for the lulz. Because of course they would.

[gunshai]

>allowed upstairs for homework use only.

How are you enforcing that one?

[kaiby]

> kid's devices need to be charged over night downstairs in the kitchen

How do you prevent them from going downstairs after you've fallen asleep?

[behringer]

You don't. You just teach them self control through reinforcement.

[kept3k]

You're lucky, and must have a typical child.

When my oldest child was 2, he snuck an allen wrench in his diaper and disassembled his whole crib. He is atypical with aspergers syndrome.

You "just don't know" how difficult it is for some children to learn self control through reinforcement.

[jacquesm]

> When my oldest child was 2, he snuck an allen wrench in his diaper and disassembled his whole crib.

I have to tell a colleague/friend about this, his kid is quite similar to yours in that respect.

[spaceisballer]

Basically the exact same thing in my household. But for their iPads I do have screen time to be off over night after I happened to find out if my kids woke up early (like 3/4am) they would just go hop on a device. I used to have all kinds of time limits but then I was having to always adjust for exceptions.

[irrational]

> we have a rule that all of the kid's devices need to be charged over night downstairs in the kitchen

Tried this, didn't work. The problem is that we go to sleep earlier than the kids, so the kids will go get their devices after they figure we are probably asleep.

[avgcorrection]

> I have a charging station setup in the kitchen for all their devices.

Isn’t that considered a fire hazard? I mean to charge gadgets overnight when there are no one close by in case something catches fire.

[alxlu]

But there are many other battery powered things like UPSes in an office, teslas, roombas, or Dyson vacuums that wouldn’t necessarily make sense to charge in your bedroom but tend to stay connected to a charger when not in use.

[stjohnswarts]

As long as you have a proper smoke alarm system and maintain it, why would it be? I have multiple exits upstairs, all bedrooms have a chain ladder, alarms go off all over the house.