[dcsommer]

Correct parental examples are key to successfully training healthy habits, but phones are plenty addictive in their own right. It's not just a problem of bad parental examples. Why do you think the parents are addicted in the first place? Are children somehow immune? Hypocrisy is not the main thing here.

[steve_adams_86]

I don’t think children are somehow immune. I think the fact that the phones are evidently addictive warrants adults working harder to set a better example.

Expecting kids to abstain from using them in an area should mean adults don’t use them either, though I can imagine cases where it is warranted and makes sense. But, here I think the adult should be expected to only use the phone when warranted.

Perhaps this isn’t typical, but the teachers in my kid’s schools use their phones way too much. It sets such a terrible example. I can try all I want to make screen time intentional in my home, but they go to school and see people (including adults they’re supposed to trust) using their phones without much restraint. I went on a field trip with my youngest and was blown away by how much the teachers were disappearing into screens on a regular basis.

To me, that’s a complete failure to model good behaviour. If kids are growing up with that, who are we to arbitrarily tell them they have to do better?