[HN Gopher] Raising Kids to Have an Analog Childhood in a Digita...
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Raising Kids to Have an Analog Childhood in a Digital World
Author : walterbell
Score : 70 points
Date : 2025-03-30 19:51 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.joshuakennon.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.joshuakennon.com)
| jajko wrote:
| Hmm, where we live (western Switzerland), this is the default
| among basically all parents we know. Locals, immigrants, doesn't
| matter. Not every single thing in same way as article, but cca
| same ideas and approach. Simply reasonable.
|
| Any digital screen is simply too intense stimulus for those
| little minds and leads to passivity. Human mind is wired
| internally to create habits -> addictions naturally. And most
| stuff in those screens is highly addictive, even without going
| into the topic of brain and soul cancer that all social platforms
| are in one way or another (and many here are even proud of
| contributing, then folks wonder how trump can happen
| repeatedly... the trail in US is long but ie reality shows are
| one of the stepping stones - stuff mostly marginal here). Also
| time spent on screen is the time spent alone, no social
| interaction. Not the best idea for developing mind.
|
| Its true that our circles are mostly university-educated folks
| but not only. Expecting different behavior in families of say car
| mechanics or prison guard on average. We know one local farmer
| family and they do same as we do.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Same here in NZ, although I think our peers are biased. Ranging
| from home-schooled home-birthers with 0 screen time to hybrid
| schoolers with perhaps 1 hour per week screen time (for toddler
| age).
|
| My kids get more screen time (TV) now in school and daycare as
| we do not own at home lol.
| kuahyeow wrote:
| OP does not ban digital screens despite the title. They even
| play video games !
|
| It's more the en-shittification of the Internet, and other
| media.
| kurthr wrote:
| I guess it's nice if you want to have that much control over your
| kid's time.
|
| I wouldn't worry about Tiktok till they're 10 anyway, but by then
| highschool or homeschool will be the big question. Teaching them
| to be in control of their own environment and emotions is one
| thing, but "there's a time and place for everything. It's called
| college". Maybe building an informational immune system when
| they're younger will help, or not.
| gizajob wrote:
| What's listed below is too much - ok we're being analogue and
| curating more naturalistic play, but restricting play like this
| is getting a bit draconian. Kids occasionally need to hit each
| other. Many great artists sometimes have to "destroy" books to
| get them into a different form where they can be inspired by
| them. Musicians smash and otherwise derange their instruments.
| Asking gross questions, even as a way of challenging rules and
| boundaries, isn't going to kill anyone. Basquiat, for example,
| drew on the walls of a small cupboard in his home, a practice
| that stretched out onto the walls of the city streets, and then
| onto canvases that now sell for $150,000,000.
|
| --------
|
| The playroom itself, in contrast, has only a couple of rules:
|
| If the playroom gets too messy to the point it is a tripping
| hazard, everything stops and they have to clean it up (which
| really only occurs a few times a week since they are pretty good
| about managing the space). They cannot destroy or harm their
| books, they must show them respect, They cannot mark on the walls
| or furniture, They cannot run in the house or jump off of
| furniture or towers they build, They cannot hit each other, and
| They cannot speak harshly to one another, which includes
| requiring them to say, "Thank you," "Please", etc. Throughout
| your life, your family should be the one rock you depend upon and
| that you know will always have your back if times get tough. We
| support each other, we don't fight or say things in frustration.
| They cannot talk about gross topics at the dinner table. They
| have to wait until they are finished eating and allowed to get
| up, then it's fair game, again. That way, they are being
| considerate of other people.
|
| P.S. for portfolio sizes between $500,000 and PS10,000,000 how is
| there better advice than "invest in an S&P500 ETF"?
|
| P.P.S. What's wrong with the emotion of frustration? It's as
| valid as any other emotion even if you don't like the way it
| might manifest.
| techpineapple wrote:
| I think of myself as relatively laid back, but these rules
| don't seem that bad to me, maybe it depends on age? I probably
| wouldn't let my <10 year old destroy a book, certainly not from
| poor impulse control, but I'd probably let me teen due so,
| particularly for an art project. And hitting people? It may not
| be totally abnormal to experience a little aggression, but I
| don't really think it's a parents place to let it go either.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I don't think any of those rules were unreasonable. In fact I'd
| say they were pretty common in England.
|
| I can't think of anyone who would be ok with kids drawing on
| the walls.
|
| And saying "please" and "thank you" is just common decency. If
| you can't show your own family that level of respect then how
| are you going to treat anyone else?
|
| That all said, I don't agree with the core premise of the
| article about limiting digital content purely because it's
| digital. You can have "analogue" play with kids _and_ still
| allow them to consume TV, play games on a tablet, etc.
|
| It's about getting the balance right. Kids need exposure to
| digital content to learn self control for starters. And they
| need to understand what content is safe and what is not. If
| parents are banning digital content wholesale then kids will
| learn these lessons the hard way in adulthood.
|
| And in my experience, most kids want a balance of analogue and
| digital play anyway. Younger kids want to spend time riding
| bikes, plays sports and/or board/card games with their parents.
| They want experiences with their parents.
|
| So you can have the best of both worlds here.
| wingworks wrote:
| Re your investing question, I'm not OP, but gone pretty deep
| into retirement investing. If you belief is that the US will
| continue to outperform other countries then S&P500 (VOO) is
| your best option. If however you're not sure the US will
| outperform other countries, then VT (world) is the best option.
| It'll automatically rebalance as countries have larger/smaller
| GDP etc. Thus VT is the safer option.
|
| And then there is the question if you'll sleep well being 100%
| stocks (be it VOO or VT), if you don't then you may need to
| have a split of stocks and bonds. Bonds will usually "smooth"
| out the ride, but at the cost of returns. But if you sell your
| 100% shares when stocks tank, which they will (like now), then
| you won't get the best return from being 100% shares. (aka, you
| can't time the market).
|
| Also, there are a bunch of things you can do to maximize your
| tax efficiency when investing for retirement. Depending on the
| country your in.
|
| I didn't look into what exactly joshuakennon company does, but
| appears to be active investing in value companies. But
| statistically speaking, most companies trying to beat the index
| (active investing) under perform it long term (and usually
| charge high fees for the pleasure). Maybe these guys are the
| exception, nobody will know, till it's too late.
|
| Thus passive/index investing is the safest long term bet. (e.g.
| VT or VOO being the lowest cost ETFs for those types of
| investments)
|
| Edit, checked there disclosure PDFs, sounds like you're paying
| a pretty high on-going fee for financial advice, and for them
| to buy VOO for you, for example. They seem to offer Passive
| investments, but also the fee is well above say Vanguard.
| They're also not very forthcoming with how well there "value
| investing" does, compared to others offering the same or an
| index. Kinda a red flag.
|
| If you want investment advice, see an adviser who charges a
| flat fee for your meetings with them, this is fine, but don't
| go with anyone (like these guys) who charge a % portfolio fee,
| every year. They will be the ones getting rich, not you.
| Animats wrote:
| The house looks like it was staged for sale, not a place anyone
| lives.
|
| If you want grounded kids, and can afford it, get them into
| horses and ponies. The kids I see around barns all have
| smartphones, but don't use them for timepass.
| teg4n_ wrote:
| even the design of the website looks like it should for a
| funeral home
| walterbell wrote:
| _> global asset management firm that specializes in helping
| affluent and high net worth individuals, families, and
| institutions invest their capital around the world._
| ohgr wrote:
| The house looks fucking awful. I mean my place basically is an
| IKEA show room and it looks more like a home.
| chongli wrote:
| Question for parents:
|
| Is this era, where parents create an entire world for their
| children, unprecedented in history? I know that parents have
| sheltered their children to varying degrees throughout history
| but now it seems way more extreme than it's ever been before.
|
| What is going on here? Are we totally rejecting the society we've
| built for ourselves? Where do we go from here?
| lqet wrote:
| > I know that parents have sheltered their children to varying
| degrees throughout history but now it seems way more extreme
| than it's ever been before.
|
| This seems like an upper class issue, and the upper classes
| (especially aristocracy) have always carefully sheltered their
| children from the real world. Most parents, myself included, do
| not have the time to contemplate such questions. They are too
| busy improvising their way through raising a child.
| ohgr wrote:
| Not really doing that with my kids. It's important to nudge
| them in the right direction but that's about it. Any absolutist
| things are not helpful as they build resentment and resistance.
| Constructive discussions and teaching them to reflect is
| important.
|
| I mean my youngest got into Roblox for a bit (talking weeks).
| Yeah fine with that, with one eye open. One day someone stole
| all her shit and her friend was an asshole on the same day. Sat
| down and talked about virtual items and grinding games and life
| generally. She never touched it again!
| kortilla wrote:
| >Is this era, where parents create an entire world for their
| children, unprecedented in history?
|
| I'm not sure exactly what you mean here, but people born in
| rural areas in the early 1900s were extremely sheltered from an
| intellectual perspective.
|
| With travel being so much more difficult and no TV, things as
| simple as seeing a picture of New York were mind-blowing.
| chongli wrote:
| _I'm not sure exactly what you mean here, but people born in
| rural areas in the early 1900s were extremely sheltered from
| an intellectual perspective._
|
| Right but that was not deliberate. People lived in rural
| areas and that's where their kids grew up. They weren't
| trying to _engineer_ a rural lifestyle for their kids in
| order to produce some particular desired outcome.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| >What is going on here? Are we totally rejecting the society
| we've built for ourselves? Where do we go from here?
|
| Internet decimated subcultures now we're stuck in a weird
| reflection loop with the internet and real life.
| ewzimm wrote:
| When you shelter your children from the world to an extreme
| degree, you end up getting one of the most popular stories in
| both Europe and Asia for the last 2500 years:
|
| https://theconversation.com/how-the-buddha-became-a-christia...
| theGnuMe wrote:
| [delayed]
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I mean thats great, but it sounds an awful lot like someone
| boasting about owning a race horse.
|
| Sure stopping your kids having access to youtube and tiktok is a
| good thing, a great thing even. A soul mirror is a dangerous
| thing for an impressionable mind.
|
| But it feels like none of this post is actually about protecting
| kids, its more about showing off how cultured the author is.
| Which is fun when seeing a mishmash of french/english 18th
| century furniture with incorrectly hung paintings.
|
| Look social media is corrosive. There is a reason why the skill
| of an editor makes or breaks a media company. There is no editor
| in social media, only you. But to mix up anti-social media with a
| half baked aesthetic is just bollocks.
|
| The irony is, the aesthetic is an analogue, its an analogue of an
| english/french town house. As remembered by someone who goes
| "what image does this project" rather than "do I like it"
|
| The artwork on the walls is not going to make up for being raised
| by a succession of nannies, or going to a school surrounded by
| exceptionally rich and emotionally damaged kids.
|
| If you want to raise your kids in an "analogue world" You need to
| be there. Otherwise you're just outsourcing your kids world view
| to zuckerberg et al.
| wingworks wrote:
| I grew up without TV, computer, Playstation etc in a fairly
| rural area. It was great most of the time, till I had to go to
| school. I spent most of my time at home or around the farm, and
| my 2 other siblings. Very rare to see others outside our fam.
| And if anyone did visit I would hide from them, not knowing how
| to interact with them. I never learnt how to socialize, and was
| very shy as a kid (and still am to a degree). I was even afraid
| to enter shops, and would only go into ones I had been to
| before with parents, if I had to. Wasn't till my early 20s that
| I built up enough courage to enter new stores without intense
| fear.
|
| I started off at a school which I was bullied allot, never
| learnt anything, eventually was pulled and put into a
| traditional state school where I did much better (but far
| behind other kids). Though still bullied a bit, but teachers
| there actually cared, most bullying didn't last.
|
| But once I got to High School (and to a degree primary) having
| such a different upbringing to all the other kids made it very
| hard to make any friends. Or have anything to in-common to talk
| about. It also made parts of learning in school harder, because
| teachers would talk about xyz pop culture that 99% of kids knew
| about (e.g. popular movies), and I was just like.. what, I've
| never seen that.
|
| The last 1-2 years of school once I was allowed a computer I
| had no self control, and binge watched SOO much tv/movies, in
| an attempt to catch up to kids my age, and have something to
| talk about. It would take many years to get it mostly under
| control.
|
| I think for my kinda upbringing to work, you need to live
| somewhere where everyone is doing it too, otherwise it's a
| painful upbringing for the kids, which effects them for life,
| in a bad way in my case.
|
| Maybe there is a middle ground to take here that would work
| better, idk.
| soupfordummies wrote:
| Yeah it really went took a hard left turn into interior design
| about halfway through, LOL
| casey2 wrote:
| Having all the neoluddit posts on a tech site, especially one
| that involve children is very disconcerting.
|
| Please don't ruin your child's life based on things you read on
| the internet. Just go with the flow.
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