#I can't be the only fnaf nerd LMAO

[amuhav]

Leave you mangled and winding away...

[thecoolerliauditore]

what if instead of internet access I exclusively let my kid read books and watch DVDs up until their late teens? You can get as much information about safety and sex ed and stuff from books as you can on the internet. I’d let them read whatever they wanted to within their age range/level, but not use social media. Would that be bad? Also, since you work with kids, how do kids actually feel about reading nowadays? Books are still popular and are being sold but I always wonder what the consensus is among actual kids. Like are you a nerd for reading something like Captain Underpants or Wimpy Kid now?

First of all I do feel like I should clarify I'm not exactly the perfect source of parenting advice, I worked as a teachers aide for a little and then went into tutoring so my knowledge of kids comes primarily from just talking to them and trying to convince them learning is fun. I'm no childhood psychology expert I can only share what I've observed.

So the issue with cutting the internet off isn't that your kids can't learn things like sex ed, it's that a good chunk of the conversations other kids are having at school have to do with stuff like their favourite youtubers and tiktoks, etc. If your kid can't relate to any of that then they will have a disadvantage socially when it comes to making friends. It's not impossible by any means, hell I had a friend in school who was not allowed to watch most movies just at all (one of those hyper religious families), but it is very likely going to be a source of frustration for them that they can't join in on the fun.

I can't say whether that'd be capital B Bad, I just think it's something people should be aware of and ready to help their kids navigate if they do choose to cut them off from the internet.

As for the reading thing I can't really give you an unbiased answer either since I was a spend-recess-in-the-library type kid so to me it seemed like everyone already hated reading lmao but kids definitely do still read. From what I can tell Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Captain Underpants have both somewhat fallen off in popularity but the kids who do actively like reading don't act much differently from the kids who were into reading when I was a kid. There's also other properties that prompt kids into reading, like the FNAF books, so that's a thing too.

I think booktok and fanfiction has influenced marketing a bit but otherwise yeah, alot of bookworm kids love telling you about what they're reading it's really cute