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- 📺 The Truth About Screen Time
📺 The Truth About Screen Time
Plus: The best parenting styles explained, male birth control, and why it's imperative that you always meet the boyfriend.
Dadpack Digest, V8
We're talking about volume eight of this newsletter, and not the sensible and surprisingly refreshing beverage to drink your vegetables. We're also talking about parenting styles, screen time, and the gear you need to deck out your house for the most wonderful time of the year.
💊 In the words of fellow dad Clark Griswold, "Where's the Tylenol?" 💊
This Week From Dadpack
🤓✏️ Study, buddy: While the jury is still out on how bad screen time is for a kid, if it's anything like television was for us growing up, then it could lead to addiction problems in the future.
📰 In case you missed it: All the news dads can use but were too busy chasing kids around to find.
👔👞🎩 The best parenting style, according to experts: Oddly enough, the worst style sounds very similar to the best one.
🎄🏠💡 Great recommendations: Let there be (solar) light.
🕵🏻 Always meet the significant other: Your kid is going to go on a date one day, and no matter how embarrassing it is for them, the person taking them out better be ready to meet their old man.
"Too Much TV" As Kids May Have Been Bad For Us
The American Academy of Pediatrics advises parents to avoid screen time entirely for children until they reach 18 to 24 months of age, with the exception of video chatting. Still, even the American Psychological Association admits that "screen time research has been less than definitive, mainly owing to a lack of strong longitudinal studies to date."
So most of what parents have to go off of is instincts and personal experience. And if you watched a lot of television growing up and insist you turned out fine, a recent longitudinal study argues you're wrong. And people who grew up watching an "excessive" amount of TV were more likely to be gamblers and smokers by the time they reached their forties.
Data was obtained from the Dunedin Study, an ongoing investigation of the health of a children born in the same hospital between April 1, 1972 and March 31, 1973 in Dunedin, New Zealand. Through this, children were given a series of assessments that measured how much TV they watched in their formative years, that started at age three and followed up at ages 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15 years of age.
The study then checked in with them as adults at age 18, when the began to track smoking habits — and again at 21 to do the same for gambling, with additional follow up assessments at ages 26, 32, 38 and 45 years of age. Results revealed that the more TV children watched between the ages of 5 and 15, the more prone they were to future smoking and gambling problems.
“People often talk of television viewing as an addiction; this research indicates that, for some people, television viewing may be an early expression of an addictive disorder or may lead to later substance-related and other addictive disorders,” study author Helena McAnally explained in a press release.
Bob Hancox, co-author of the research, agrees. "To our knowledge this research is among the first to assess how a common, but potentially addictive behavior, such as television viewing is related to later substance disorder and disordered gambling," he adds. "Public health agencies have put great effort into advocating for safer alcohol use and safe sexual practices; similar campaigns could be used to advocate for safe screen use."
As a parent who doesn't want to be told what to do when the iPad is the only thing that can get you through a road trip or doctors appointment, the results may make you want to gamble with your kid's future, but consider how you got into this mess.
All joking aside, smartphones can cause an addictive spike in dopamine for adult brains. Since your child's brain is still growing, you might not want to mess with that delicate development, even if it means making a scene at a restaurant.
And look on the bright side, this means more TV for dad.
Good News, Dad News
💉 🦀 Scientists are finally making progress on a hormonal shoulder gel form of male birth control, despite past clinical trial setbacks. However, the key to a non-hormonal option might be found in crabs and lobsters.
🏅🏆 Time named Ukrainian president and father of two Volodymyr Zelensky (along with "the sprite of Ukraine") as the magazine's 2022 Person of the year. Given the ongoing Russian assault on the country, Time's editor said the choice was "the most clear-cut in memory."
💰 💸 🚨 A Manhattan jury found two Trump Organization companies guilty on multiple charges of tax fraud and using false business records to trick tax authorities over the course of the 15-year scheme. The organization could face up to $1.61 million in fines when sentenced in early 2023. Donald Trump and his family members were not charged themselves, but they were mentioned throughout the court proceedings.
🎸🎹🎶 Pitchfork released their picks for the 50 Best Albums Of 2022, and no, Wilco's latest is nowhere to be found. Get ready to feel old.
🎥 🌞 Finally, if you ever get a chance to burn two hours ever again, The Ringer gave the title of Best Movie of 2022 to the film Aftersun. And you guessed it: it's a story about a sad dad, doing his best to raise a happier daughter.
Dad Debrief: What Is The Best Parenting Style?
When you think about your "dad style" there are more important things to consider than new balances and cargo pockets.
Child psychologist Diana Baumrind began developing three parenting styles back in the 1960s, which were later expanded on by psychologists at Stanford University, Eleanor Maccoby and John Martin. Today, the four main parenting styles include authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and neglectful.
What do they mean?
Permissive parents often fall into the "free-range" parenting trap of letting their kids do whatever they wan't and have whatever they ask for. As obnoxious as their relaxed attitudes are, permissive parents are very much present in their children's lives and strive to meet their emotional needs.
Neglectful parents similarly let their kids do whatever they want, but they also fail to show up for them in other ways. Compared to permissive parents, they aren't really present at all. Although none of these styles are ideal, the worst parenting style by far is authoritarian parenting. This style may as well be referred to as "because I said so parenting," because these moms and dads don't care about what their children think or how they feel, as long as they fall in line and follow the rules.
So, what's the best style?
Experts like child psychologist Francyne Zeltser agree that authoritative parenting, or parents who hold their children to a high standard but are responsive to their thoughts and feelings, is the optimal style for raising children.
"Instead of always coming to their kid’s rescue, which is more typical among permissive parents, authoritative parents allow their kids to make mistakes," Zeltser wrote in an article for CNBC. "This offers kids the opportunity to learn while also letting them know that their parents will be there to support them."
In the end, parenting isn't a style or an exact science and authoritative parenting won't alway work. But the goal is to not get it mixed up with authoritarian parenting.
"Don’t simply focus on punishment. Be supportive and really listen to your child," she noted. "Ask them questions and try to understand things from their point of view. Allow them into the decision-making process so that they can grow and learn things on their own.
Clark Griswold, But Make It Green
There are still a few more weeks to flex on your neighbors with your Christmas decorations, and the smuggest way to do that is by reducing your ecological footprint in the process. Luckily, Good Housekeeping recently used their lab to test out an array of solar-powered lights, so you don't have to chose between the earth and your ego.
Tis' the season to be saving money on your electric bill with the following environmentally friendly options.
Parting Paternalism: Always Meet The Boyfriend
When his 13-year-old daughter informed him that she was asked out for pizza by a boy from school, a single dad on Reddit had a simple request — to meet the boy first.
On the day of the date, his daughter tried to sneak out before introducing her date to her dad. Then she lied and said he was too nervous to come to the door and didn't know what to say, when in reality she just didn't see the point. So her dad made her cancel the date, and posted in the group "Am I The Asshole?" to check his work.
"She started getting teary eyed, texted him, told me I was mean and that she hated me and went to her room," the now-deleted user wrote. "When I told my sister what'd happened, she thought I was in the wrong and said I should've let my daughter go on the date."
The group overwhelming sided with the dad, with the top comment summing it up best: "If she can’t handle asking him to meet her parent she isn’t mature enough to be alone with a person you don’t know."
The lesson? Most of the time, being the asshole and being a good dad are not mutually exclusive.
Polling Your Leg
