Why oh why are people giving their under 12s tablets?

Our prep school works exclusively across tablets, most subjects require them, excluding art, PE, music and drama. Showbie records their progress and homework, so you can’t really be a non-conformist, how will the school monitor your child? Let’s face it, they are really monitoring us monitoring the child (and how well we oversee). Screens can convey good and bad information, it’s the adults who set permissions and access. I agree toddlers clutching phones is the norm, but then I have no idea how well that mum is coping/how much sleep everyone had the previous evening/how far they are travelling- all are factors.

Do they?

Are they?

Do we?

Those seem like somewhat nonsense statements

People like to prioritise their own desire for peace and quiet, and their desire to go to places which aren't entirely suitable for children to sit quietly.

Tablets and phones are incredibly damaging. We know this, and have known for long enough for people to adjust their approach to using them.

😆 Its also funny that schools effectively went back to 'slates' in the form of white or wipe boards what 100 years later?

Which just shows the brewing stigma around adhd diagnosis which is so detrimental to kids and adults with that diagnosis. I always think it's a very convenient nd diagnosis to be dismissive of because often the associated behaviours are quite frustrating to others particularly when people affected reach puberty or teen years. It's just so much easier to be dismissive/ stereotype/ label them little shits with bad parents than to practice empathy isn't it.

I took the kids to watersyones last world book day, my son chose a dogman colouring book as well as his free book and my daughter a little pack of duggee mini books. Then we went to Starbucks and got cake and milk and they sat colouring and reading and I sent my husband a photo titled 'me and my screefree kids' 😂 because same reason! Absolute snapshot and normally we wouldn't get both sitting quietly (that was a year ago, actually now it's much more common as he's discovered colouring and drawing)

It does , because needing extra support , means needing extra support regardless of the cause , how long for or what form it takes.

But that PP has a bee in her bonnet, particularly about ADHD it seems .

Absolutely, and the thing is ds is normally very similar to your dd. Usually if we're going to an appointment he picks one toy to bring and with occupy himself/play quietly with me while he waits and is very good in those situations, but on that occasion we'd waited over an hour to be seen, only to be told he then needed drops in his eyes and then we needed to wait another 40 minutes before being taken again so by that point he was really done. Even very content, easy pleased children have their limits and I think that's the bit people often don't remember when they see a child on a tablet or phone - it's only a small snapshot of that parents day. I've always prioritised meal times together as a social thing so we don't do screens while eating, but I remember coming back from holiday just the two of us, me having been on the go from 1am on 2 hrs sleep, got back home at 9am and took ds for breakfast before I started the 2 hr drive home and I was totally wrecked. He'd done so well the whole way and we'd avoided screens the entire time while travelling for the week up to that point including in the airports and on planes but I really needed my head showered for a few minutes before I was ready for a long drive home so he got to watch a bit of TV on my phone while he ate his breakfast. And I remember thinking about what other people would have thought about me as a mother with him on it and the assumptions they'd make about me and how ridiculous it was because that was so out of the norm for us. I don't think anyone has any business judging another parent for screen time unless they've the full context of the usage.

Like I said to another PP, “at a certain point of their schooling “ also carries a lot of weight and it’s not quantified or specified.

Let’s say you have a class with 3 kids with diabetes, one with epilepsy , one with epi pen , 2 with autism, one with ADHD , a couple with speech delay (that they overcame in time) , one in care(SEMH) , two who had traumatic events that resulted in anxiety and/or panic attacks either long or short term and you’d possibly get to half the class at some point or another. The level of support /intervention/ care plans will be different and sometimes very minimal , but they’d all fall under ALN .

The chances of your child being harmed by half an hour of tablet use per the course of a day in a balanced living family is zero. Unless they spend that time watching porn or talking to strangers in a chatroom.

Ok this thread has really upset me.

My DC is 7 and has been asking why they don't have a tablet since they started school two years ago.

I like to think we weigh issues up carefully. For example they are no longer allowed watch any YouTube videos after attending a talk in the school. They cried uncontrollably for one night but then accepted it. For a brief period last year DC and their dad were playing on the Xbox for a rationed amount of time. However it was glaringly obvious that it was having a very negative impact on them; sobbing in bed at night unable to calm down. So that has been removed and again, after one day it was fine.

But we have decided they can have a tablet from FC and we are going to put a 30 mins per day timer on it. We are also going to allow it be used for reading.

Do the studies show that there are no positives to any use?

It definitely does! It's an extremely loose term and totally misleading especially if you've no understanding of maths or statistics which seems to be the case for pp

I would question if this also includes children and young people in care, with school avoidance or anxiety or trauma experience including bullying etc? When all of that is taken into account that's quite an extensive cohort.

So what that link states is in kids born between 2002-2008 50% were identified as having 'special needs' AT SOME POINT. so that would include bed wetters, it would include kids with dyslexia, it would include me who had ankle surgery in childhood and was immobilized for a time, it would include every child who went through childhood cancer, every child with a childhood seizure disorder, type 1 diabetes, severe eczema, every child needing additional exam support, every child a school didn't want to support so wanted to document as academically behind. It specifically states that a restructuring to allow support in education for additional support needs led to a 20% drop instantly in those considered AT ANY POINT on their childhood to have additional needs.

You understand the difference there right? At no point did 50% of children at any time have a documented additional needs, across the 18 years of their childhood 50% of children at some point had AN additional need. Can you understand the statistical difference there?

In Wales, recent data from the January 2024 schools census showed that 11.2% of pupils in maintained schools had Additional Learning Needs (ALN) or Special Educational Needs (SEN). Another study based on a birth cohort found that nearly half of children born in 2002/2003 were identified with some form of ALN at some point during their schooling.

The 50% statistics focuses on a specific cohort. “At some point during their schooling” carries a lot of weight for that statistic as well.

Do your 4 and 6 yr old play out unsupervised? How many hours a day are you spending outside? I'm genuinely interested because having a neurotypical child and a neurodivergent child the difference is massive. I actually COULD lazily parent my daughter and shed manage absolutely fine. She potters from her room where her small world toys and dolls are to the dining room where her messy play and colouring is to the living room where her roleplay toys are and if she wants screentime it's 15 minutes of numberblocks or doc McStuffins. She will actually watch a Disney movie or whatever curled up on the couch with a snack on a rainy afternoon and she might play a tablet game for 5 mins now and again but it's not even weekly id say. I could definitely have been entirely screen free with her no trouble at all.

As I said I was with my son too all through babyhood and toddler years. But he had hospitalisations and keeping a hyperactive 3 yr in a hospital bed on a busy ward opened the portal. And we discovered that gaming was the only thing he'd do sitting down. I'm going to have a look at that link now. I am however genuinely interested in your kids playing out and ages

Even if that's the case, it's clearly absurd. If half of people have a special need, it isn't special

Just think back to your own time at school. 50% of your year group were so profoundly disabled they needed special support and provision? Come on

schoolofeducation.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2024/07/29/wales-sen-children-research/ - again, if 50% of all children have a special need, it isn't special anymore and over diagnosis and unnecessary pathologisation is very clearly at play. So you have to ask what people's motivation might be for getting such a diagnosis on paper...

My children are 4, 6 and 10. All have asked for ipads and smartphones once or twice and the answer is no. They don't continue to ask as we've held the line.

That's right. Past generations of parents had different issues to contend with. But I do feel devices such are these are distinct in that they are collecting data on usage and identity and optimizing along those metrics all the time for purely cynical reasons. There is no need for them at all or benefit to them.

I have a 4 yr old neurotypical child, she had a GP appt recently, we waited half an hour, she sat by me in the waiting area talking about what to expect, about her day at nursery, about her favourite doctor based toys etc. we went into the appt, she basically answered all the history questions herself, when symptoms started, what shed eaten that day, what she drinks in a day etc, got examined, asked questions and waited patiently while the locum GP checked with a superior and came back with a prescription.

I had a flashback to having my son at an appt same age, I went armed with a bag of lego, hot wheels, fidgets and a tablet, we waited 10 minutes and he was screaming running round (he has medical trauma from hospitalisations right through babyhood) was trying to climb INTO the filing cabinet in the doctors room, ultimately I let go of him to grab the prescription copy form the GP and he opened the door and bolted, made it into the car park by the time I grabbed him luckily unharmed. I wished I could have got him to focus on 15 minutes of paw patrol. When he started happily having short stints of gaming he was easier to keep safe and everyones life improved. And as I said he's academically advanced it's everything else he can't do and it all predates any interest in a screen.

I do wonder if my daughter had come first would I even believe people like me because the difference is ridiculous. I could parent my daughter all day long and in any siruation with nothing but a pen and paper and a handful of Sylvania families.

You do realise that SEN/ALN also includes physical disabilities/chronic illnesses, right?

And that's a typical 7 yr old! Which mine is not.

Can you link to the 50% statistic? I've never seen that nor am I in Wales.

How old are your children?

Yes and before iPads there was always something else wasn't there?! The TV, video games, in my generations case chucking is out the door until mealtimes so we just wandered round getting in trouble or not as the day may go. I'd love to know how that's more educationally or developmentally useful.

Those of us raised in the 80s and 90s have a whole wealth of gut problems from high use of formula and processed foods, a whole wealth of mental health problems from absent parents, high levels of lung cancer and adult asthma from passive smoking but it's involved parents who use tech tools for their kids that are somehow lazy.

As someone who regularly takes high risk children on outdoor trails and bushcraft camps let me tell you the risk assessing is scary when you've children with no impulse control or perception of danger. They don't need to be on the m4 to cause serious harm to themselves or others. It sounds like you aren't maybe familiar personally with any children who are functioning at that level if you'd dismiss the other poster.

You can’t even let them go to school/come home without an adult at age 7.

" In the 90s, we were sent outside and told to entertain ourselves, and guess what, we all did!"

There were also many safeguarding failings with this which parents now are more aware of. I was also a 90s child who was put out in the morning after breakfast and expected to only appear again when I was hungry - this was how my mother coped with serious depression so as you can imagine our engagement and investment from her was minimal. This also affects development. Never mind all the children who were abused or abducted. We have smaller rates of stranger abduction or assault on children now because parents are more vigilant as to where their kids are and who they are with. I think you're looking at the 90s with very rose tinted glasses on unfortunately. Many children with ADHD or ASD were effectively failed in the 90s because they didn't receive adequate support or adjustment.

There's no excuse for a child to be sitting 24-7 on a screen but I think we also need to be careful not to confuse a struggling parent with a lazy parent because that's a race to the bottom and the judgement helps noone. However there are plenty of short intervals where actually a screen can be useful if monitored and utilised carefully for example ds and I were at a hospital appointment recently, it ran over by well over an hour than what I'd been prepared for so naturally ds got bored of the toys I'd brought and there was nothing to use in the waiting area. We did many rounds of eye spy etc but eventually he started to get bored and fussy and was beginning to sing to the rest of the people waiting. So in that scenario I had no issue providing my phone for a short episode of puffin rock which has been listed as low stimulation. It kept him quiet for 15 minutes until we were called. Should I have spent this 15 minutes letting him shout/cry/ sing and otherwise annoy those around me? Do I think those 15 mins have affected him long term? Nope.