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Mary Belgrave's avatar

My question in all this is what about the parents? The kids aren’t buying them themselves are they. What has happened to these parents? what are they thinking? The answer is they’re not. They’ve seriously lost the plot. These mostly 30 something parents (a generation awash with parenting guide books:-) must deep down know that if 3 yr olds are to develop into healthy, happy adults then they need proper opportunities to play, social activities, sensory learning etc etc. Somehow they have rolled over and succumbed to the force of the marketing, letting it override their instincts. It’s another example of herd mentality - now these poor toddlers are bring trained up to be consumers of “the next thing” dreamt up by Big Tech and managed by algorithms. As a single parent myself in the 70’s I was only too happy when the kids sat in front of their favourite TV programme after school. It gave me a bit of time off - but I didn’t let them stare at the screen for hours on end. If they had tried it would have been turned it off. Often they would say they were bored. Now it turns out psychologists say it’s not good to be stimulated all the time, boredom can result in innovation!

People dismiss this line of reasoning with “ oh that was back in the day” but we also faced new challenges then as parents - e.g the clamour for brands, another battle for us to fight if we couldn’t afford the labels. Can parents no longer stand up and say “ No” ?

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stephen crane's avatar

I was 12 before I heard the F word when I went to grammar school (ironically!) from my rural idyll of a primary school (C of E my first teacher was Mrs Robinson the rector’s wife) where we children were sheltered from the modern world’s negative side. We had television (black and white 2 channels only), radio, washing machines, telephones (party line of lucky) and council housing but no profanity or other aspects of the so called sexual revolution. To this day I do not know what the political leanings of any of my primary school teachers were we were not exposed to politics on any shape or form. We did go to church every Wednesday morning but were not indoctrinated but learnt the yearly pattern of festivals, high days and holidays. The only outside media were consumed was the BBC children’s programmes at school and listen with mother and Blue Peter on BBC television. I trust my case.

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