Screens are raising your children, and you're letting them

"So ugly it's cute!" someone squealed.

"My little baby kitty!" another said, tweaking its cheeks and fake-scolding it in a voice only dogs and dolphins could understand.

I squinted. Was this a game? Ah, right. Like when Vietnamese people say "I hate you" but really mean "marry me." So I jumped in.

"Let's punch the baby!"

Silence.

Faces went white. The mother clutched her child like I'd just sprouted rabies. The baby let out a howl that could trigger a nationwide emergency alert. Everyone looked at me as if I'd just stepped on the national flag in muddy boots. Clearly, I was playing the wrong game.

To calm the "victim," someone quickly turned on the TV and summoned the ancient parenting spell: Baby Shark.

The baby, just moments ago sobbing like the rainy season had come early, fell silent. Its eyes went blank. Its head started bobbing gently, like a sleepy chicken on a motorbike. And just like that, the lesson landed: you don't need to understand anything. As long as the music is cheerful, the colors are bright, and a grown-up presses play, you're good. Within seconds, that tiny brain shifted from "curious explorer" to "completely checked out."

But here's the thing, boredom is how kids learn. When there's nothing left to entertain them, they begin to think. They crawl around, taste an ant, touch a hot kettle, and scream. That's when the brain kicks in and locks in the first real lesson: don't lick the floor, don't touch the boiling thing. Human development wasn't built on flashcards and phonics apps. It came from a mess of trial, error, survival, and trying again with fewer bruises.

According to a study from the Center for Toddler Development at Barnard College, kids raised on a steady diet of iPads and iPhones actually develop more slowly than those who grow up tech-free. Sure, sticking a screen in front of a child is convenient. It buys you peace and quiet in record time. But over the long term, it can slow down emotional growth, stunt social skills, and even mess with basic coordination. It's like pouring digital syrup into their brains. Everything gets sticky and sweet, but nothing useful gets built. What you're left with is a generation that sits still, but feels empty.

In the same study, researchers compared two groups of children. One group was raised with all the latest tech. The other group had the old-school upbringing, playing in dirt, falling down, getting back up. The results were striking. The tech kids showed a massive drop in curiosity. And once curiosity disappears, passion's not far behind. Without passion, the only thing left is muscle memory, swipe, scroll, and wait for the day to end.

A boy uses an iPad. Illustration photo by Unsplash

Do you remember life before the internet? Back then, if you wanted to know something, you had to go to a library. You had to physically go somewhere, flip through real books, and hunt down an answer like an academic caveman. And when you finally found it, that information stuck. It clung to your brain like a tattoo. Now? You Google something in the morning, and by lunchtime it's been erased by cat memes and the latest TikTok trend involving a blender, a ukulele, and questionable parenting choices.

A thousand years ago, humans built pyramids (allegedly). They wrote poetry under the stars and mapped the night sky, dreaming of distant planets. Today? We sit hunched in front of screens, scrolling endlessly, trying to figure out which YouTube thumbnail has the most dramatic face so we can click on it.

So how do we fix this? How do we pull our kids, and ourselves, out of the dopamine whirlpool we keep willingly swimming in?

Simple. Let them get bored.

You don't need a 300-page parenting manual imported from Denmark, or a PhD in Japanese child psychology, or a Silicon Valley app with pastel icons. You just need to turn off the screens, kill the "doo doo doo" soundtrack, and let them face that scary, wonderful thing called boredom. Because curiosity is like a small garden. You can't yank it out of the ground. But you can water it. You can wait. And eventually, it grows.

Before you know it, you've got a tiny scientist running around your house, firing off questions that make you question everything: "Mom, what are houses made of?" "Dad, how do trees know which way is up?" "Why does your food taste like the restaurant but cost less?" That's it. Curiosity leads to questions. Questions lead to discovery. Discovery builds thinking. And real thinking, that's what turns your child into a human being, not just an iPad that screams when it's hungry.

Meanwhile, in Vietnam, curiosity often gets crushed before it has a chance to sprout. Not only by iPads, but by homework too. By after-school classes. By cram centers disguised as "enrichment." It's like feeding a kid a soggy veggie burger: one sad gray meatball of rote learning, wedged between layers of limp worksheets and group photos they'll never look at again.

Please. Let your kid get bored. Let them poke ants. Stare at leaves. Ask where seeds come from and how trees know when to grow. That's not a waste of time, it's the beginning of thought.

Silence shouldn't mean numbness. And order shouldn't come from surrender.

We don't need to ban screens entirely. This isn't about going back to oil lamps, cooking rice with straw, or letting your kid play with a rock and call it "educational." What matters is knowing what screens are doing, to you, to your child, and choosing when to say, "Not today."

Or not. That's your call.

Just don't be too shocked when your kid grows up, graduates, gets a job, knows how to sign a contract and drive a car, but still starts drooling every time they hear: "doo doo doo doo doo..."

Told you.

Up to you.

*Jesse Peterson is an author who has published some books in Vietnamese, including "Jesse Cười", "Funny Tragedy: adding color to life".