Oceaneers Club activities

[lolomarie]

Plus schools now put them in front of laptops from kindergarten onward, so you're not getting out of it.

Hopefully it's stuff where they are creating content rather than consuming content. I do see a difference there.

 

[apathetic]

They have a lot of screens, but they could have tons of funs without ever touching a screen. They do crafts, games, dancing, etc. My kids aren't screen limited but we noticed after a few days they didn't mess with them at all. They were engaged in all of the other stuff. It was actually surprising some of the activities they enjoyed.

 

[Dug720]

Plus schools now put them in front of laptops from kindergarten onward, so you're not getting out of it.

Unless they home school and use only dead tree books for learning purposes. Just sayin...

The use of them in the classroom can be like the straw argument when it comes to special needs. I have 3 kids in my class who have or have had a tablet that facilitates their communication. I teach kids with autism, and these three are on the cusp of being verbal. Using the tablets - which they always have with them at school and they can go in and select the word they want (or spell it on a keyboard if the word they want is not there). Contrary to discouraging speech, it encourages it - they will 9 times out of 10 repeat what the device has said. One of them is totally off the device now and completely verbal. Others use a program to help them develop their fine motor skills. Obviously this is in addition to the hands-on lessons and practice activities. But for my guys, having access to tablets has already changed their lives will continue to change their lives and makes them more and more independent. So using screens in the classroom is not always the devil incarnate. (Not saying you were saying this at all @cadien - just adding it onto this reply.)

 

[CyndiLouWho]

Unless they home school and use only dead tree books for learning purposes. Just sayin...

The use of them in the classroom can be like the straw argument when it comes to special needs. I have 3 kids in my class who have or have had a tablet that facilitates their communication. I teach kids with autism, and these three are on the cusp of being verbal. Using the tablets - which they always have with them at school and they can go in and select the word they want (or spell it on a keyboard if the word they want is not there). Contrary to discouraging speech, it encourages it - they will 9 times out of 10 repeat what the device has said. One of them is totally off the device now and completely verbal. Others use a program to help them develop their fine motor skills. Obviously this is in addition to the hands-on lessons and practice activities. But for my guys, having access to tablets has already changed their lives will continue to change their lives and makes them more and more independent. So using screens in the classroom is not always the devil incarnate. (Not saying you were saying this at all @cadien - just adding it onto this reply.)

Our first tablet was an iPad because DS had a speech delay. A year with an SLP hadn’t shown much improvement but he was turning 3 in March so we stopped therapy in December and started with the school district the following April (school district takes over at 3) The SLP had been recommending apps to use but she only knew Apple and said that’s where the best apps were. So December to April we used the iPad we bought for that purpose. DSs speech exploded. He worked with an SLP the rest of the year but the first quarter, with the iPad, showed the most improvement at one time. Personally I didn’t even have a smart phone for over two years after DS got an iPad.

 

[hardis5]

The CM's (depending on which screen) when the clubs are busy and there are kids waiting for screen time, often rotate the kids off not allowing any to dominate the available screens which forces the kids to other activity indirectly. If anything our youngest is addicted to the club/lab themselves and could spend his waking days there doing all the activities (we scan the DCL app forward days to see when all the activities are scheduled in the club/lab as he anticipates). Where we'd expect him to be on a screen/game (he has sunk many a ship there at the ship wheel simulation) we are normally surprised to see him engaged in group lead CM activity more often than not when going to check him out.

 

[eeyoreandtink]

Here is a great article!
http://www.ecswe.org/downloads/publications/QOC-V3/Chapter-4.pdf

You're right about the peer reviewed studies on the cocaine, but I have seen non-peer reviewedstudies where the same areas of the brain are "lit" up. Maybe it's fear mongering, but it's working on me. I'm very wary of how addictive screens are, heck I'm typing this on my iPhone and will probably scroll some social media platform after this.

I know it's just vacation, but I was just trying to find out if my kid can play in there for 3 hours or 1? I think I'll do a try and see approach. If he plays with kids and toys, I'll comfortably drop him off for long periods of time. If he's starring at a screen the whole time, probably short burst.

Any study that isn't peer reviewed is that way for a reason, it won't stand up to the peer review process. Anyone can set up the right set of conditions to "prove" anything they want, if they have the right people in their study.

Here's the thing, researchers draw a lot of correlations here, but I don't see them adequately showing causality. I honestly don't think a lot of what they are measuring is 100% due to the screen. Screens are just one symptom of a larger problem, parent's lack of engagement with their children and their unwillingness to see that they are playing with other kids regularly. No one is willing to just turn their kids out to play anymore(and rightly so), and in most households both parents work, so there isn't time to take them for supervised play. Kids are finding ways to entertain themselves, alone. They have been doing it for decades, screen are just the latest manifestation of that. Most kids used to go out and play with other kids to entertain themselves. That avenue has been cut off for most kids these days. I don't think screens would be the issue they are if this wasn't the case.

I was an only child of working parents, and when I was young we didn't live in a safe neighborhood where I could go out and play with other kids. I didn't have a screen to turn to, but I was definitely too sedentary. I didn't have the "social interaction" these studies talk about. When mom got home from work she was focused on doing what had to be done. I entertained myself, with what I had inside. There were days when I only surfaced from books to eat. Screens are just the latest manifestation of what has been going on for a long time. I know that studies show that screen time effects the brain, but have we looked at the same brain engaged in reading a book? I bet it lights up too. It's the same pleasure center.

Don't get me wrong, I do think that limiting kids screen time and controlling the content they are seeing is a good idea. The effects on sleep in particular are concerning to me and I think would bear further study. I don't think that screens are any more addictive than anything else kids have been doing for entertainment. I think that the fact that most kids have instant access to them at all times is an issue. My kid grew up with tv, ipod, ipad, and had an iphone from the time she was 10. She also danced from the time she was 3. She found her passion there and was in the studio several hours a week by the time she was 8. She is a straight A high school student handling an International Baccalaureate course load and 15 hours of dance a week. I know dozens of others just like her. I don't think screens are going to destroy our kids. I think WE have to take the time to see to it that our kids get the engagement they need, and limiting screen alone isn't going to do that.

I know a lot of this is anecdotal and not scientific evidence of anything, but I share it more to show you where my perspective is coming from.

 

[Numtini]

The big reason I'm dubious about the screen-scare stuff is that it so closely mirrors every cultural change parental scare across the generations: rock & roll, comic books, tv, video nasties/vhs/cable, video games, the interwebs, and so on. In the 1800s there was a panic about the dangerous practice of "novel reading" among young girls.

 

[Anchors Away 2016]

You're right about the peer reviewed studies on the cocaine, but I have seen non-peer reviewed studies where the same areas of the brain are "lit" up. Maybe it's fear mongering, but it's working on me. I'm very wary of how addictive screens are, heck I'm typing this on my iPhone and will probably scroll some social media platform after this.

I know it's just vacation, but I was just trying to find out if my kid can play in there for 3 hours or 1? I think I'll do a try and see approach. If he plays with kids and toys, I'll comfortably drop him off for long periods of time. If he's starring at a screen the whole time, probably short burst.

Any study that isn't peer reviewed is that way for a reason, it won't stand up to the peer review process. Anyone can set up the right set of conditions to "prove" anything they want, if they have the right people in their study.

Here's the thing, researchers draw a lot of correlations here, but I don't see them adequately showing causality.

Please don't take this the wrong way, @lolomarie. I almost didn't say anything because I don't want to fuel a big debate, but since you seem open-minded to different ideas, I will add some information of my own. I did Dopamine research for over 10 years and I have a concrete example of what @eeyoreandtink is saying. Lots of things "light up" those areas of the brain. Exercise, excitement, new experiences. So it is very important (and very difficult) to control for those things in the experiment. Also, the hazards of cocaine use aren't primarily because they activate Dopamine pathways. That is only a part of cocaine's effect. So the fact that screens also light up this region is not really concerning.

Again, I am a parent too, and we did go to significant lengths to limit our own sons' screen time (still try, now that they are smart phone wielding teens), but I'm just trying to give you some context, so that you can evaluate the risks for yourself more clearly.

 

[cadien]

Hopefully it's stuff where they are creating content rather than consuming content. I do see a difference there.

But which side to games fall onto? I'm really not sure. With the individual screens in the lab, they're playing video games rather than watching movies/shows. I like to think that engages the brain more. There's a continuum. Minecraft isn't at all passive, for example. I have a 7-year old boy, so we're deep into Minecraft.

 

[cadien]

Again, I am a parent too, and we did go to significant lengths to limit our own sons' screen time (still try, now that they are smart phone wielding teens), but I'm just trying to give you some context, so that you can evaluate the risks for yourself more clearly.

Teenagers with smartphones do scare me. I see no sign of addiction in my kid with his Nintendo. He never complains when it's time to do something else. But the cyber-bullying etc is terrifying.

 

[eeyoreandtink]

Teenagers with smartphones do scare me. I see no sign of addiction in my kid with his Nintendo. He never complains when it's time to do something else. But the cyber-bullying etc is terrifying.

Cyber bullying is a HUGE issue, and as the mom of a teen girl it is a concern. Cyber bullying can and does take place whether or not a child has a device. Kids will post stuff about other kids, make slam threads, ect even if the person is not on the site. Then they find out about it second hand by being shown on someone else's device. Not giving them a phone prevents immediate 24/7 access to it, but doesn't stop it from happening. I have watched phoneless kids go nuts wondering what others are posting about them that they cannot see.

 

[Kate_45]

The thread seems to have shifted slightly since I last read it, but the pp who said about their child in the club going towards screens when tired is spot on now I come to think about it with my two. More going on during the day, but when we picked them up in the evening after a film that was when they were sitting in front of screens as opposed to playing.

Maybe fewer kids at that time meant my little one could get on tablets, maybe cast members encouraging winding down with a film instead of leading physical games? Or maybe just sleepy children doing something easy.

 

[lilsonicfan]

Gonna say that while I love DCL, other lines do kids clubs better IMO. Much less screen time, much less screen availability, much more interaction with the counsellors.