It's been very tough, but we don't have a T.V., we do let our kids use the tablet, with restricted apps and time. Our neighbors below us hate us and are moving....because you know....five kids stomping around above them, but I guess this is the new reality. The best thing we did was smooth coat all the walls with plaster and then make 2 large chalkboard walls. I am constantly surprised by how well this worked out. I think the tactility of the chalk has been an important factor, one that I overlooked, as I always used dry erase markers. I'm a convert to chalk now and my kids only use the best, Hagaromo full-touch. Working on math homework is a dream now as I can easily sketch out geometric concepts and have them trace over it with their fingers. Sure you could do it on paper, but something about standing in front of the chalkboard makes it more compelling. Aside from that setting up a folding table on the balcony and buying them a bunch of mid-grade chemistry stuff has also worked out surprisingly well. A couple days ago they created a catalytic reaction that actually gave off quite a good bit of heat. Could they have injured themselves? Probably. I'd rather have them experiment and explore.
4 of my kids are girls, and this raises special challenges. We fought a war with both sets of grandparents about not buying them dresses or pink gender defining toys. I was shocked how much resistance we got on this, but I strongly advise parents of girls to consider what the value of gender neutrality is, and whether or not it makes sense for them to try and abide by it when buying toys or clothes. If you do, be prepared to meet with a lot of resistance, both from your parents and public school. Just my two cents.
https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/is-life-actually-wort...
Our population isn't declining either, as long as you watch it from Earth's PoV instead of whatever nation you're from.
I don't want to judge a specific person on having a number of children, and being the parent of one child I can't even fathom having five (!!!) but the general notions you made in conclusion to that I disagree with.
Perhaps we should all read this, or at least look at it from a different perspective, as I confess I do not study these issues carefully, but I don't think any type of neo-Malthusianism is worthwhile.
(Full disclosure: I hate pink and was shocked too over how much of it grandparents and such forced on us and in what way. But I am still curious about your reasons. )
So my (completely amateur) opinion is to have a policy like you're doing, but only enforce it like 80% of the time. 100% is where you start to get into giving people complexes territory.
Also, the association between apparently girly and bad or dumb is not healthy if you happen to be girl.
The inability to get a quiet room alone is my personal vision of hell, but I suppose that if I literally never had the experience of a quiet room to myself, I wouldn't miss it. I wonder if this is like language learning... much easier if you're immersed in it from birth, than trying to adapt later in life.
Yes.
My family got our first computer in 1998, when I was 13 years old. Nobody in my family was very computer literate at the time but they knew they could "ground" me from the computer by changing the Windows password.
Somewhere along the line (in a gaming magazine, probably) I stumbled an article about Slackware and Linux and later BeOS. I was determined to have access to the computer when I was grounded and my parents weren't home so I figured out how to download Slackware and BeOS floppies from friend's computers and get them working on our home PC.
Without all of this dedication to mischief and getting around the rules, I might still consider a computer just a terminal for sports news, games and email.
Breaking these rules and discovering Linux and the fact that I could write software without "doing crazy math problems" changed my life.
I was denied access to computers, and I don't think it did me any good. I'm 27, so a bit old for this topic, but my house was specially up to date bc of my dad's job. The internet was dangerous and diabolic in my mom's mind though, and my access to computers was extremely limited.
This, I feel, made me want computers even more. I realised early the magical powers of the internet. I wanted nothing more than a computer for myself. Even now, I easily get hooked (wouldn't say addicted) with videogames, porn, or just browsing.
Observing my friends, those who had more freedom in this regard are the ones that cares less about any of this; those of us still playing too much videogames are the ones who had very stingy restrictions there.
I'm under the impression that what my parents would have been better advised to do is give me more freedom. All of my younger siblings had more leeway in that sense, and I'm by far the most introverted of the bunch. All of my peers were very obviously more socially apt than me; they had been going out for years by the time I was allowed. Feeling at a constant disadvantage in social situations stifled me.
Of course, anecdata. Also, raising a child might be one of the most difficult and terrible things you can do. And at the same time, kids are more resilient that we give them credit for, as long as they're loved (!) and fed.
(I feel my parents did a fantastic job, even though I could point out a dozen things I think were very wrong. I'm sure if I had children of my own my opinion on my parents' job would increase dramatically.)