Mystery power outages that seem to hit only our house have been known to occur in my neighborhood on fine weather days. It's like a ghost in the breaker box or something...

Kids today learn faster than we did also. One they he will fix the breaker box for you and its GG dad.

I truly consider that my kid will be able to use the internet against me in ways inimaginable. Its exciting!

My parents used to swipe critical computer parts from my machine as punishment, to take it away. Things like power cords, keyboards -- little stuff that cripples the computer. But I had spares for days, stuffed in a little box in the back of my closet :)

Growing up, I didn't need my parents to do that. Getting an IBM PC clone to play the latest games in the 80s required a constant effort of flipping dip switches, pulling jumpers, and reseating chips. Not to mention the whole EMM/EMS thing.

I'm still figuring out what I'm going to do for my son to give him the same... incentives.

"Man I have no idea where we keep the key for this thing"

"Dont worry dad, I'll know how to pick locks in a sec"

"Oh man who snuck in and welded the thing shut and buried it under 5 feet of concrete? What are the odds?"

I told you, its an exciting time to be a parent.

One day the kid may outsmart the sly, old fox. Hopefully, today is not that day!

I just shut off the wifi and turn off the data on their phones

That's awesome! I'm going to use that one

One of the things our kids did was Riekes Nature Studies[1] which gave them one day a week where they spent in a variety of activities with other kids in a large park nearby (Huddart Park in Woodside). This became one of their favorite things to do because not only were many friends present, the facilitators were excellent at engaging the interests in a wide variety of kids. I remember "forcing" my youngest daughter to go and once she went she couldn't stop talking about how great it was and developed many friends that persist to today.

As a parent I came to realize that kids are unlikely to try new things spontaneously if they already have an activity they could be doing which meets their expectations of interest. So as a parent it was incumbent on me to give them the exposure to new experiences in order for them to develop their own understanding of what they did and didn't like.

[1] http://www.riekes.org/nature/

How old are your kids if you don't mind me asking? I'm from Easter-Europe so obviously a much different culture - my child's 3.5 and spends ~4 hours outside every day (except when he's sick or it's really raining outside) and I don't think that's enough to be honest - that's still 20h/day from his childhood spent trapped between 4 walls :(

early teens. they should be outside.

Teenagers don't really play outside.

I was outside all the time before age 13 - after that I started going to the mall and talking on the phone and working on the computer in lieu of outdoor activities.

This was back in the early 90s. No need to panic.

Don't you have an equivalent to football (soccer) wherever you are?

I've heard many parents of teenagers complaining that it's hard to get them off their football matches (5-a-side soccer is huge here, and any street can become an impromptu pitch).

Of course, depends on the kid, you couldn't take me off books and computers (when available) as a teenager.

I sometimes ssh in and turn off the computer if my wife has told the kids to turn it off already. But seriously, you're the adult, turn it off and take them outside.

Ah, even that's a phase. Wait 'til they get a girlfriend/boyfriend and a taste of freedom. Suddenly it's all bus passes and coffee shops and wandering around downtown in every weather. Can't get them home.

(But when they are home, yeah, it's text text text.)

What happens if you want to go somewhere cool like a National Park? Do they not want to come along? Is there anything you can trade? Maybe an hour more of game time?

What happens when you take away the phones as a consequence (other than surly behavior)?

Sounds like a problem of the US. It’s not (yet) like that in Europe. We spend a lot of time outside with kids not matter how bad the weather is.

Don’t listen to one anecdotal opinion and conclude it’s a US problem. My neighbors kids are outside almost everyday after school and I know of others who have sports practice and other daily activities that aren’t spent inside.

The main difference between US and Europe is the way the cities are setup. Much more walkable and urban centric in EU. Populations are much denser. It was a nice change of pace to be able to walk everywhere last year when I was in Italy.

As a European, I disagree. I spent most of my time playing videogames, and my childhood was during the 90s. Maybe because I was city kid.

I spent a lot of my teenage years playing videogames, but I was very rural, maybe theres a sweet village sized spot for it being safe enough to be outside, whilst also having people to be outside with.

I lived in a city (pop. 100k) and most preteens and older walked alone. You don't need a village, just safe roads (single lane, limited speeds) and parks spread throughout the city so that people (young and old) are around.

When was that.

Late 90s/early 2000s. But my younger brother did the same for the past eight years.

Sign them up for sports! Start with signing them up for everything as the season hits. Try everything once. Let them pick which things they continue with.

Go to the park to practice said sports as a family. Take breaks to play on the play structures. Repeat as needed.

we do, but I am also sick of every requirement to go outside being a scheduled event. there is no spontaneity to their lives, they only go outside when there is a practice or game for one of their sports.

btw their entire middle school is like this. I hope this is not a sad preview of their adult lives...locked in their homes on screens.

I don't have kids, and I'm still pretty young (23), but one of my favorite things to do as a kid was go camping with my family.

Have you thought about a "spontaneous" roadtrip and weekend camping trip somewhere with no reception?

Joining scouts will also make a fair amount of camping happen. Not spontaneously.

How old were your kids before they got their smartphones/computers?

in our area, most kids seem to be carrying iPhones by 4th grade. sad, but there it is.

My wife's a teacher. ~1/2 of the kids around here have smartphones by 2nd or 3rd grade, all but the children of "weirdos" (maybe 2-3%) have them by 5th. The schools don't make them leave them at home anymore like they did back when regular ol' dumb phones started to show up in kids' possession. Sometimes kids will be texting during class and it's their friggin' parents they're texting, as in, their parents contacted them during class. This is not as rare an occurrence as one might hope. Teachers can't confiscate them for practically any reason because most parents freak out if they do. No parental support for discipline basically = teachers can't do it (it's ineffective and a bigger headache than it's worth).

This at lower- to middle-middle class schools, not the rich ones. And we're deep in flyover country, not anywhere trendy.

Why did you give them continuous phone and steam access?

Because otherwise they will be loners. All of their friends are online. If you are offline, you are alone. I don't like this but in 2017 it is the reality for teens.

The question was why do you give them continuous phone and steam access? - continuous being the key word here. Limiting their device usage to a few hours a day does not make them socal outcasts.

Why do you feel that it's so important that kids get "fresh air?" My parents relentlessly tried to get me to get off the computer and go outside. I hated it, and in retrospect I can't see how it did me any good.

Did you put effort into raising them to behave differently?

Limit their access to these devices. After a pre set amount of time you take away their devices or data and they have to figure something else to do.