Everything in moderation. Such as stopping your 11 y/o kid from playing runescape at 2am when they should be sleeping.

Source: Me.

Yes ! Stopping kids from staying up at night is the funniest game though. The length each party is willing to go to one-up the each other is where you truely get to know each other.

When my husband was a kid, he kept a broken console on hand so that when his dad caught him gaming in bed, he could turn over the broken one and keep playing the real one when his dad left.

My first year of university (and then associate degree when I failed univ) was spending my nights raiding in Everquest...Ahh those all night long 8pm-6am raids in VT.

15 years ago I was setting my alarm for 2am to sneak some before-school Runescape! The growing discussion thee days on the long-term effects of sleep deprivation, especially in youth, is a bit scary. :)

Pre-runescape here, 2am alarm was for skinimax.

Screens are even more addictive than books.

My 1.5 year old shuts off completely whenever he can get access to a screen, it is amazing and scary. He likes books also, but is much more engaged with them.

Screen time is probably a top issue for parenting today.

Current pedagogical advise is to keep children under 2 away from screens, period. Presumably because they are much more affected by them.

Does you kid gain access to a screen accidentally or is it something you employ as an emergency pacifier on rare occasions?

Accidentally for sure. He is only 18 months old! We don’t even have a TV.

What is it about his relationships with books that is more "engaged" and thus better?

Each kid is different, it seems yours has a particular thing going on (with ipads or phones I guess ?)

Did you find what’s sucking him into these apps ? At 1.5 yo it can be super interesting to understand what makes him focus and direct his learning.

For ours it was simply things that move that he can’t touch (no texture, no tactile feedback), and it was new enough to him that he stuck with learning numbers and letters shapes just to keep using the ipad.

Screen time is an issue for us and our 5 year old, but "war on screens" is crap from outrage culture.

Similarly, when I'm in "the zone" and someone interrupts me, I'm actually a bit disgruntled.

When everything is new in the world, I'm sure they're feeling the "zone" moment too of absorbing new information.

I don't think tablets are the issue - curation of content is.

> is much more engaged with them

What do you mean? Isn't he just reading them?

I doubt it, he's 1.5 years old.