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

10min for homework is not the end of the world. However, I can’t understand why parents think a screen is appropriate at mealtimes, just before bedtime, in the buggy, etc.
Obviously it is an easy way to avoid having to interact with your child, but people get quite defensive about it « he can’t sit at the table without the tablet » well, he could if you didn’t give him this bad habit and talked to him instead…

I don’t think tablets are the problem, parenting is the problem. If use is restricted there’s nothing wrong with a child having a tablet, they just need firm rules in place , nobody “has” to let their young child use a tablet all day, you can take it away after an hour and make them do something else

They don’t have their own, but have access to them. Homework is on apps, which often come with needing access to other apps.

Also, have you ever felt ill - sore throat, headache, tired, nasal pain, can maybe struggle through for twenty minutes and then floored? People will say “do what you need to get through, let them have some screen time”. Mum guilt washes over you. That’s me on a good day (long covid).

Is it? Because as a teenager 25/26 years ago my whole class had mobile phones and we'd text each other from across a room and play snake while chatting on our Nokia's. Prior to that we all had tamagotchis we took very seriously and would be studiously caring for for entire break times.

People like to paint the past in rosy colours, what I suspect most teachers who are complaining don't like is that previous generations we were taught blind compliance and obedience. That's no longer what kids are being taught. The majority of people complaining about children's behaviour and the rise of acknowledgement of developmental differences aren't complaining because they're worried the kids are being done a disservice, they're complaining because kids being treated like human beings inconveniences them.

My parents would chain smoke with 5 of us stacked in the back seat and no back seatbelts anywhere on the 80s.

We'd never drink water (we being all my friends too) and instead of was squash or fizzy juice.

We'd be turfed out of the house at 7am in the holidays and only allowed back in at mealtimes (and actually my mum wasn't fully like that despite having 5 of us so the whole street would congregate in our house)

People say the world was safer but as someone who ran in large multi age 'play groups' of children I can tell you it wasn't some idyllic time, there was a lovely freedom, yes, but there was also a co.plete vulnerability of the youngest kids placed in care of older kids who had a similar loose parenting.

Everyone bleats for the past but I'd love to go back and offer us as kids the kind of understanding and support my kids get these days. Also availability of I formation and learning tools. It was also more acceptable back then to just let kids fail and fall through the cracks, I wonder if the boys I went to primary with who were bad and from bad families could have not ended up in borstal in their teens if they'd had more support and less just being expelled and left to it.

Were they more sociable though, or did it once again depend on how they were used? If i wanted to spend time with my mother , I had to watch what she was watching(often completely inappropriate for my age) and sit there quietly so I wouldn’t distract/disturb her. There was no talking , interaction or talking about the topics after, if something came up.

I think they are like everything else in life, OK in moderation. I let my daughter go on the iPad while I put my baby to sleep. It's a treat for her and she doesn't disturb the baby. Otherwise she doesn't have it. I don't like them at meals out. Obviously some people take it to the extreme but these are the same people who would plonk their child in front of a TV all day in the 90s.

Literally everyone I knew in the 80s and 90s had a TV in their bedroom and it wasn't a communal affair at all. I can assure you my parents has no interest in watching Dawson's Creek.

I’m a teacher and I hate it too. The people comparing it to TV in the 80s and 90s need to research the impact of the smaller screen on the developing brain as opposed to a TV screen. TV in earlier decades was a communal activity with a lounge TV that was on in the background while kids played or was watched as a family. The smaller screens like tablets and phones are isolating children. I’ve been teaching for just 13 years and the decline in social communication, concentration, focus and attention, imaginative play, etc is massively noticeable and more so every year.

Tv is more sociable though. And you don’t carry it around with you the way tablets and mobiles are carried around. The change in the way teens interact with each other when personal screens are around is astonishing when compared to twenty years ago.

My 2 infant age dds came home with an app to download to do maths on. I refuse to let them do it. I don’t want them getting into tablets yet

I am not a massive tablet fan. But whenever this debate comes up I always think. When we were kids we used to watch TV daily. My parents and friends parents did the same as kids. Behaviours were better back then. So I would argue. It isn't the tablet that is the problem. It is how they are being provided by parents and used by children.

They’re a pain but my 10-year-old son has to do 20 minutes of Times Table Rockstars every day and stay in the green zone on DoodleMaths then he will sometimes have homework set on spag.com so it’s easier for him to do that on a tablet than to take over my work computer for a long period every day. I wanted to block YouTube at the router but my 18-year-old has to use YouTube for A level maths homework. My 12-year-old son has all his homework set on an app, has two hours of maths homework per week on an app, one hour of science homework on an app. How are we supposed to manage without devices? At least I can have parental controls in place to limit access.

The denial and self-delusion are really strong on this thread.

Does he have a smartphone?

I think they are wise. In the absence of evidence, why not err on the side of caution? At these young ages, brains are neuroplastic and developing. We don’t know what fast moving images, scrolling, rapidly changing content, will do to kids’ brains.

I know that I am on my phone far more than I should be. But I am old and in a professional career, relationship etc already, so the stakes are just not so high.

I am surprised that so many people are so blasé about it, given the other anxious aspects of modern parenting. You can have long threads about whether or not to say no to a child, whereas the same parents happily give their little ones iPads in restaurants.

Anyway let’s hope it all works out for the next generation and that screen time from toddlerhood is found to be ok. We need decent quality research really.

Why 12?

Glib answer to your question- keeps em quiet, innit?

Semi serious answer... because during Covid I'm not sure how else it was possible to juggle working full time and having children at home doing "home learning". So that genie got let out of the box fairly quickly when all the work shifted online overnight.

But does it have to be done? Our school uses apps for homework and we refuse to do it, along with many other parents in the school. Just give your child paper based homework.

Most kids in the world, if they had never seen a screen, if given one aged 12, with some guidance could pick it up within a few days. Guaranteed. They don’t need to start age 2. My elderly parents are at a different stage of learning and cognitive development altogether.

If you engage with it and use it well instead of thinking the tool itself is good or evil then it can be very good.

Amoung other things, my kids stayed in touch with distant family through tablets. One learnt to code when they were in primary and taught herself Welsh and Latin. One became a prolific writer and storyteller, producing written and animated stories that gained a niche but loyal following. They were a social lifeline during COVID.

They've both gained huge amounts from tablets.

My ds had his first tablet age 11, he had my old laptop when he was 5 & learned how to use it to put music on his IPod shuffle which we used for car journeys. He used his tablet for games that designed railways & airports, both of which have fuelled his interests in transport & designing towns & cities. He designed extensions for the Supertram network in Sheffield when he was 13 & when he joined the Green Party at 14 was able to join the local Green controlled transport committee, his designs were taken up as policy to campaign for improved transport networks, he is now the transport guru for the National Green Party & is studying Urban Studies & Planning at university. Technology can be used to fuel interests for children who want more than just playing video games, especially for those with autism & other learning disabilities.

What will the findings be finding in 10/15/20 years when these kids brains have matured? Tablets and phones haven't been around long enough for a lot of young people to be experiencing the full effect yet.
Cigarettes were deemed fine years ago until the light switched on, oh, nicotine isn't so good after all. Just saying...

The research is a great deal more complex and nuanced than this. There are active benefits to young children using tablets with parents where scaffolding, modelling, quality language expression and bonding is taking place. It is no where near as simple and give or don’t give the tablet. What you do and how you do it are instrumental in the outcomes of use.

Not really in a good way though are they

Educational books do exist

I'm not an advocate but I'm pretty sure the same thing was said about television and computer games when I was growing up, the times, they are a changing!