My son loves to play video games, always has. Both his dad and my partner game a lot so I feel like it was inevitable. He's been gaming since he was like 4. (He's 10 now.)

If we're not eating dinner, reading, playing a board game/card game/activity, shopping or at the pool/playground/etc hes on the screen. YouTube, Netflix, video games. I just pretty much let him. Why? Because hes fine. He has good grades. He has good manners. He's not addicted. He's not overweight. He doesn't fight me when I say it's time to turn it off. It hasn't made him dumber or a zombie. He has lots of interests. We watch and play plenty of stuff together. He shows me cool shows and games and I do the same for him.

Some weekends we're out and about, some weekends he plays video games for like 12 hours straight. It doesn't really seem to matter, he's still the same kid.

I'm posting this in case any of y'all are feeling guilty about letting your kids go hard on the screen time. Obviously, they should be directed to other non-screen activities. And be directed to enriching material when they use screens, at least for some of the time. One of the reasons I let my kid go hard is because there is SOOOO much free edutainment within reach compared to the days of cable TV. But if you let your kids watch and play a lot... it's not going to rot their brains, it's not going to harm them, they won't become little zombies. It's normal and fine. I know crunchy parents who severely restrict screen time and their kids are honestly no more better behaved or capable than mine.