"Keeping teens away from screens"? And why are there screens?

Sugar is addictive. One would not necessarily expect a teen to healthily control their sugar intake; accordingly, we don't put bowls of candy around the house, and if we did we certainly wouldn't be shocked when they emptied themselves, and then thrown up our hands and said "can't keep kids from candy, what can you do?".

Our kids aren't teens yet, but the plan is for screen time to be whitelisted, that is, there are certain times and circumstances where screens are okay and the rest of the time they are not.

EDIT: To elaborate on parenting philosophy a bit, one can provide structure (good) without being authoritarian (bad). Rather than bouncing between "you have all the options available, including screens, hope you make a good choice!" and "you are doing this specific activity now", one can provide unstructured time with lots of options available- reading, board game, doing something outdoors, creating a craft, etc- while having none of those options be screens.

There are screens because their entire social circle has phones, sometimes from an early age. If your kids don’t have them then they are the odd ones out, and excluded socially, which has their own extremely negative consequences.

And if the parent cannot find a single way to prevent the constant use of the screens beyond simply packing the day with activities, that says more about the parent than the kid.

If the only way a teenager knows how to make good choices is through outright avoidance of situations where a poor choice might arise, then they don't know how to make good choices.

Do you have kids? Lots of assumptions from someone who doesn’t seem to be a parent.

I have three kids (19, 13, 11) and I agree with them completely.

My son at 19 is building websites for companies, still deep into manga and video games but is started to get out more with the gym. He still lives with us, but essentially has his own life and seems to be doing well.

My 13 year old daughter is the one who loves to try everything. She's in dance, show choir, volley ball, tennis, violin, clarinet, etc. She even signs up for college for kids classes over the summer. All self motivated. Just yesterday her and her friends walked about 5 miles around town to different stores. She has her own phone.

My 11 year old is the smartest of the bunch. She has an amazing vocabulary and reading has always seemed to be "natural" for her. She's straining my policy of buying my children any books they want. She's bored of the advanced learning classes she's been put in. She also plays tennis and flute and cello. She learns her own crafts and sciency projects to try at home from TikTok. She will likely get a phone this year, but has an iPad.

All of them have had practically unlimited screen time since they were double digit ages. They are on TikTok and YouTube and SnapChat. They just have many other interests as well and it doesn't consume their lives. They manage their own bedtimes (within reason) and are responsible for getting themselves up and ready in the morning.

The only times we've forced them into activities is when they were too young to make those sorts of decisions for themselves. So all of my kids played soccer while young until they could suggest an alternative activity they would rather do more. They all started in music, until they could find other creative alternatives. None of them are screen zombies that so many HN posters swear is inevitable without banning things. I'm not sure where the panic is coming from, but leave me and my children out of it.

I do, they are younger than teenaged, but still.

Good luck with that. Please report back on how it goes.

Happy to, how would you like me to contact you? I don't think HN allows replies after threads have been multiple years dead...

Went fine. Quite happy with how my children are turning out. We don't even limit screen time anymore. They seem to have developed healthy habits and boundaries.