What do you allow

[freespirit333]

…for an 8 year old (Year 3) in terms of screens? Mine has ADHD and we banned YouTube years ago, yet to give it back, although he watches it at grandparents.

He’s allowed to watch TV which is usually rubbish on Netflix or Deadly 60/animal shows. And he has a Switch which he plays Mario/Sonic/Lego games on.

No iPad, no Roblox, no YouTube, no Minecraft (I would be happy if he asked for the game for his switch for Christmas but he never has).

So many in his class play Roblox, seem to have unlimited access to YouTube, iPads etc. His friends play Roblox together online after school and I worry about him being left out, but I don’t really think it’s the right thing at his age and how he is.

I Let My DC 7 and 12 Play roblox as i play it with them and have turned off chat features.

No Roblox or YouTube here either. We have Netflix, switch and Disney

My oldest DS is y3 and also has ADHD and he’s not got any gaming devices as he doesn’t cope very well with coming off them and not winning. His behaviour was really difficult because he was obsessed with the games (he used to have an old phone with no internet but a few CBeebies type games) and just wanted to be on it constantly. We’ve banned YouTube as well although he never watched it here it was allowed for the odd 15 minutes at grandmas.

I do worry a bit about him being left out but all his friends at school seem to be playing Fortnite along with all sorts of other undesirable things on a variety of consoles. I just think they’re too young for it all. DS is youngish for his age in some ways and I’m not confident I’ll even be getting him a phone in year 7 because I don’t think it’s the right thing for him and his ADHD brain as it sends him into a dopamine chasing cycle which he finds it difficult to break out of. 2p machines on holiday were also a disaster which ended in a meltdown as he couldn’t understand why he’d put so much “effort” in to not win!

sorry this has turned out long but I think trust your instincts, you know what’s right for him.

DD has an iPad completely locked down to only allow homework apps, a handful of carefully chosen websites plus iPlayer. She probably spends a couple of hours a week on the iPad on average, more at the moment as she’s not well. As well as that we watch a film together on Disney+ most weekends in the winter.

I don’t let her watch YouTube as I feel like it’s so addictive to watch one short video after the next and impossible to vet the quality of what they’re watching unless you sit with them. No computer games here apart from the occasional short word game or Nerdle on my phone.