Your Mental Health

[Two Pour Bore]

I'm not sure what the answer to this is JimmY.. for all of us with kids, not just yourself

I am wired in a way that I'm not great at sitting still so I fill my days with stuff - I coach kids in the evenings 3 week nights, and get some exercise in myself on one free night while the youngfella has soccer training, and Fridays are the one night I sit down and chill out no matter what. At the weekends I have a match on a Saturday morning with the kids, and Sundays I've stopped going to his soccer match and get myself out for a decent exercise session for 3-4 hours. Theres not loads of time left outside of all of that when you take the normal run of family life into account but even still i think I spend too much time on my phone, it does tend to be late evening and mostly reading the likes of the IT or posting a bit on here, I have never bothered with any of the social media stuff. Still between that, work and the coaching WhatsApp stuff I have 3 hours per day screen time

My approach to the kids has been to immerse them in sport which has worked with both thus far - they both train or play matches/compete in tournaments etc 7 days a week in various sports, so thats a block of their spare time taken up and they both genuinely love the sports they are involved in, theres no coercing them but there was years of keeping my girl involved in the likes of GAA when she might well have stopped if she was not managed! We delayed giving them a phone as long as possible, my youngfella was last in his entire year, and my daughter is probably the only one without a phone in 5th class right now. His phone has Snapchat but no TikTok, Insta or any of that stuff. They do have iPads and both watch a few hours each day which tends to be a mixture of that mind numbing generic US content creator shit and gymnastics stuff for herself and sports for himself, mostly on uTube. There is a little bit of gaming, but not enough to be bothered at all by it.

I try to bear in mind that screens and the type of content generated for them is the new reality so there is no point trying to somehow block them out completely as whether we like it or not this is what kids are watching now, conversing about etc. We have a trampoline and the kids have a load of games they made up with their friends which are a cross between hurling with paddle rackets, footballs, bouncing, and beating the daylights out of each other! Having said that I think they have too much screen time even if it is probably a lot less than the average, but my observation is that kids need constant stimulation now and are not fantastic with their own company. I think part of the reason for this though is that any kid who wants to play outside or do something other than screens has the challenge of convincing their friends to put their screens down, especially as they get older.

We will without doubt be here in 20 years talking about the effect screens had on this generation, and probably have a better handle on that type of interaction, but it will be old school at that point anyway and have been replaced with something else altogether which will now be the worst thing in the whole world ever and detrimental to everything we know!

That's a great mix of things you have going on for on them.

Unfortunately, or maybe not, for the way the world is going to be going, a lot of work and a lot of life will be spent on a computer. It's the nature of the beast. Finding ways to shut off from it is important. To bring this around to the pub thread it's a shame people spend their time on phones there and not chatting. I've met a lot of lovely people in pubs and with the likes of Covid, health issues, etc. I fell away from all of them. It's tough to rebuild after that, especially when you're also looking for work to actually fund going to the pub to talk to people.

 

[Happyhonkaman]

That's a great mix of things you have going on for on them.

Unfortunately, or maybe not, for the way the world is going to be going, a lot of work and a lot of life will be spent on a computer. It's the nature of the beast. Finding ways to shut off from it is important. To bring this around to the pub thread it's a shame people spend their time on phones there and not chatting. I've met a lot of lovely people in pubs and with the likes of Covid, health issues, etc. I fell away from all of them. It's tough to rebuild after that, especially when you're also looking for work to actually fund going to the pub to talk to people.

I dont think there is even an argument to be had, phones have absolutely killed human interaction stone dead, and it is particularly sad here where we always had a culture of conversing, story telling, joke telling, singing etc. These are all under serious threat even though they might be more accessible online from an educational perspective, but not in everyday life

If anything sets me off its the sight of 3 or 4 kids after meeting somewhere and all of them staring at their phone, no talking to each other, no looking at what's going in around them even if it meant getting up to a bit of mischief, no anything.. just staring at a focking screen

My own youngfella asked a girl out recently for the first time.. I asked him what he said to her and where he asked - he looked at me like I had 10 heads and explained that he messaged her on Snapchat because they had some long streak of messaging each other every day! Funny enough she turned him down because he told her it was a game of truth or dare to give himself an out

 

[Blue Jasmin]

You're all forgetting the fact that for children unsupervised play outdoors is largely a thing of the past because we have given over our public spaces to cars.

When I was a child if I was going to an activity I'd make my own way there if it was within a walkable distance.

 

[Matlock]

You're all forgetting the fact that for children unsupervised play outdoors is largely a thing of the past because we have given over our public spaces to cars.

When I was a child if I was going to an activity I'd make my own way there if it was within a walkable distance.

I am hopeful that we will manage that with out lads. It is terrifying to bring them out on the road cycling though (which is what my husband would have done in the same area as a kid to get to training and the likes). They should be able to walk to school themselves by 5th class I think. There are a gang of kids in the houses around us, so we will try and organise for them to all walk in together.

I really want their default to be walking/cycling.

 

[Hallbopping]

You're all forgetting the fact that for children unsupervised play outdoors is largely a thing of the past because we have given over our public spaces to cars.

When I was a child if I was going to an activity I'd make my own way there if it was within a walkable distance.

Very good point. Even in the 90s from the age of 8/9 if I wanted to go somewhere in the locality I’d cycle. We were rarely seen at home especially during the summer.

I do remember cycling out a country road one day, I must have been 11 or 12, and I wasn’t cycling very straight. A driver behind me became inpatient and starting blowing the horn. You’re spot on. Motorists feel entitled to ownership of public spaces. I’m probably guilty of it too at times.

 

[jimmym]

I remember when you would get a call on the landline saturday evening, Hi we are meeting in the Rob Roy at 8, See you then,
As time went on it moved to text messages and ...Where r ye now? Hang on for me il be in 20 minutes, No we are moving on, Ok where
are ye going next? The oak, Ok see yee then, An hour later....are ye still in the oak?

 

[JimmyBarrySmurph]

I used get the train from midleton to cork every morning, As soon as everybody got on they would immediately start scrolling
on their phone, Myself included, I think it is a form of nerves ,

They used to do the same and read the paper or a magazine up to about 2008.

 

[JimmyBarrySmurph]

It’s also a very effective way of stopping OAPs trying to strike up a conversation with you. Head down and no eye contact.

And we are glad that you do

 

[JimmyBarrySmurph]

As Stuffy said, I think we all feel a bit odd just sitting there now with nothing in our hands. We've forgotten how to just sit and do nothing.

People have to go and pay the likes of a spa nowadays to do nothing

 

[jimmym]

My buddy does a bit of meditating, He says it beats sitting around doing nothing,