Limiting your child’s fire time: A guide for concerned Paleolithic Parents

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Those of you struggling with the “how many hours should I let my kid play electronic games” question, remember that our parents struggled with the “ho
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Elly

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When I was a little boy, and even later when no so little, if still a boy, I was full of cuts and bruises for a variety of reasons, including taking part in vigorous warfare against the other bunch. We the neighborhood children (boys and girls) will get together somewhere and then divide into two groups: our bunch and the other bunch; that settled, then would go at it with sticks as hand weapons and with clumps of dirt as projectiles, often running up and down the tops of the brick walls that separated house backyards in the old town where I grew up. That did not seem to concern grown ups particularly, as far as I remember, maybe because it was also believed to build up our natural defenses. Now those scrapes were just for fun. For real, I proudly had to my credit several bleeding noses, not all my own.

Now days I have evolved into a pale old guy, because I do not get a whole lot of sunlight, but instead spend several hours a day behind a computer screen, blinking at it now and then.

So: who am I to judge the kids these days?

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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OscarCP wrote:

who am I to judge the kids these days?

Don’t ever forget: grandkids are the best revenge.

By the same token—just flip it over—we owe it to our kids to [be]at ’em about comparable things to what they’ll [be] at the grandkids for. Gives ’em cover, lessens the guilt—or increases the pleasure… “I got [edited] at, so you’re going to get it too”.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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OscarCP

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My granddaughter takes refuge at my address for undisturbed tablet-time. Her mother tries to insist she spend only one hour per day on her tablet; whilst with me she can lose herself in Roblox in peace whilst I surf. But shouldn’t I support my daughter in enforcing boundaries, you say? Perhaps I would, if she didn’t spend every moment she comes to see me either playing games, facebooking or messaging on her i-phone. I wonder how much I’d actually see of either of them if I didn’t have wifi?

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In the best of cases? One could have smoke signals. Bush drums. Conversation. The basics are the same as with WiFi connections: through some convenient medium, signals are sent or received that, sometimes, may communicate information.

Once upon a time, I read a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel where, at the end, people went so feral that they lost the ability to speak. I was very disappointed with the author: how could possibly humans lose such an advantageous survival trait?

Now, I am not so sure about that.

Win 7 Pro (Group B) + M&L

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Heh.

One of my kids has a tablet device from school, for homework and the like. (It’s a bit of an experimental program.) Limiting time with that would not be very productive…

Oh well. Looks like so far he hasn’t found his grandma’s programming notes (from engineering / technical computing)… DG Nova Extended BASIC, heh.

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Having kids is sooo last century.

Windows 10 Home 22H2, Acer Aspire TC-1660 desktop + LibreOffice, non-techie

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woody

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I’m just a retro kind of guy.

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Eh, retro tends to mean things have been tried and found working.

Although my two oldest *have* had the lecture on spending too much time staring at the fire, from someone wearing animal skins and using a just-knapped flint knife to cut up fish for cooking.

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I’m always surprised by the double standards parents seem to apply. “No you can’t do that”, but I was the same when I was your age. Maybe it’s selective amnesia?

cheers, Paul

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Two hundred years ago, a certain Tom Lincoln worried about how to limit the “book time” of his son Abraham.

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The Surfing Pensioner, OscarCP

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