To think that IPads/laptops for younger children are just ridiculous

[MummyGalore]

I don't know if this has been covered before as not on here often so sorry if so.
But AIBU to be getting increasingly riled/concerned with the amount of mums who are talking about getting their children (I'm talking under 10s but some i know are buying them for children as young as 4!!!) Ipads and laptops for christmas. It riles me as i think that they are starving their children of their opportunity to learn through imaginative play. Simple toys are the best at that age, surely ipads are not a good option especially at 4.
What do others think?

Working as a Manager in an electical dept for a large popular company I am amazed by the number of Ipads and laptops that are brought in by parents with smashed screens and impact damage. This is not covered by warranty and needs to be claimed on home insurance as the screens often cost the same price as the unit itself.

We have had a number brought back that have been thrown against the wall when the children lost games and lost their patience. The parents are then amazed that we are unable to do anything about it especially when they are only 2-3 days old (that man was really not happy having bought a £500 ipad for his 7 year old). I often have to sit down with parents explaining that the screen cannot crack by itself and needs help and then look over to a very guilty child who has just witnessed their parent yelling and screaming at me!

Personally, I think it is on a child to child basis depending on how you think your child will treat it and when they are aware of their actions. Just holding an laptop the wrong way and too tightly can cause impact damage and only you will know when your child knows and more importantly can understand this.

Interesting how this conversation moved from whether it is unreasonable for a 3~4yo to have their own ipad/laptop to whether it is reasonable for a primary school age child to sue an ipad/computer....

I would hope that most people will agree that having a primary school age child using a computer is OK (whithin limits).

Whereas having their own computer at 3~4yo can be more of an issue.
If I based myself on comments on this thread, these pre-schoolers would only use the equipment for 1hour max a day. I am puzzled as to why it is then an issue to 'share' the equipment with the rest of the family...

It's an unpopular view, but I'm not a fan of ipads and the like for younger children - having access to them for doing homework is one thing, but the constant use of them as a child-minder is another. But I accept that I am a bit hardcore on this one - my DC's weren't allowed to watch TV before the age of three.

I just can't get away from the feeling that we are losing sight of the value of boredom - that's a fringe benefit of long car journeys - children learning how to deal with boredom, it makes them better able to entertain themselves. I'm not saying I've never handed over my iphone for them to play with for ten minutes peace if they're squabbling in the car - but that's the inescapable point technology gets used to get some peace from the kids.

Normally on car journeys my kids are expected to read a book, play with some toys on their lap, listen to the radio (they love radio 4 when Just a minute etc is on), listen to a CD either our music or theirs, or god forbid engage in conversation with us. I've found that car journeys are a really valuable time to spend together as a family.

I don't criticise anyone else's choices, but I am happy with my own. My kids know they'll never own their own ipad or ds and they're not bothered. Whether laptops for school work might be useful at secondary school I will have to reassess

We don't live in the UK anymore KTK9, so I haven't a clue as to what is part of KS or not.

Here where I live they teach them to use Dictionary and Enc at school, but also like them to do their researches at home on books.
Teachers at middle school here (children between 11 and 14) often find that some of their pupils merely print stuff from wikipedia without really grasping the complexity of what they are asked to do.

But as I said, I am sure this is not the case of the MN children.

i totally agree with kids learning how to deal with boredom. I can remember being bored as a child and pushing through that to discover new things about myself and what i could do. Everything is about balance, too much boredom is bad for anyone but never experiencing it brings its own problems.

What a long thread!

mcphee you've had a bit of a battering on here but you speak sense and I agree with every word you say. Yes we are living in a technological age but there is time for electronic devices. Why rush into buying an expensive bit of equipment for such a young child?

My dc are all keen readers. The type of child who walks along with a book in her hands. If we have to go anywhere that involves a wait, they take a book. I wonder if I had bought them iPads etc as young children, maybe they wouldn't have developed such a love of books.

And as for 'needing' a laptop or whatever for school, rubbish. Even at secondary school. My dd has just started secondary school and we don't have a working printer at home at the moment. I asked the school if that was a problem, they said of course not, there are good computing/printing facilities at school. I've never heard of any secondary school not having good computer facilities and they don't dictate what you must have at home.

Matana - My child almost certainly has an IQ above yours. (Unless your is over 200)

He has lots of problems he will have to overcome. Knowing his own mind isn't one of them.

He doesn't think like you do.
He doesn't see the world like you do.
Don't tell him what to do.

Again, it all comes down to how you parent Personally I won't let dd on You Tube (8 yrs). Yet I know some of her friends do. I also have a lot of parental controls set up on my laptop, not sure about iPad as we haven't got one yet'.

However I am surprised to hear that some schools don't request children to find info on the computer, both schools dd has been to ( previously state, now indie), have asked for her to look at specific sites, and I did wonder how anyone would do this without easy access.

I still don't think it ridiculous!

No one is telling your child what to do, Once, regardless of his IQ.

This is just a general discussion where people are musing about the opportunity to buy expensive tech to young children, not about the opportunity to give MasterOnce an ipad.

KTK9, I am in Italy, perhaps we are a bit backwards here

DH reckons this thread is mostly a load of stealth boasting about who can actually afford an iPad for their small child. Or afford to send child to a school that issues iPads to the new starters. Etc.

lljkk - there are some problems you just can't throw money at. One of them is autism. Affording an IPAD is a drop in the ocean on the help my DS needs. IF you think I am boasting, you are really, really wrong.

So dont buy one for your children and mind your own business about what others want to do

Hmm, I'm really not sure what I think about this, even having read some of the thread. On the one hand, I agree that quite a lot of parents (including me, sometimes), use TV/computer as a babysitter when they don't have the time or inclination to talk to their children themselves. On the other hand, I do think some people have an automatic disapproval of children using technology that isn't really thought through. For example, my mum loathes technology and says kids spend too much time playing computer games these days. When I ask what harm it does, she says 'Oh, they're not communicating with other people, it's socially harmful'. But I remind her that when I was a kid, I spent most of my time reading books, which has to be the most solitary activity there is - but she just won't accept the comparison. Also, I think that technology has moved on so much over the last five years or so that the boundaries have been seriously blurred. After all, the child 'glued to a screen' these days might now actually be reading War and Peace on his Kindle.

In the end, I think I agree with others that it's all about limits and balance. No, I wouldn't buy my technology-mad 5 year old an ipad even if I could afford it, nor will I let him have a TV in his room. However, he does spend a reasonably significant amount of time (maybe 1-2 hours a day in total) either watching TV or on the family computer or my iphone, because he doesn't access anything harmful and it brings him a huge amount of joy.

Thanks Dancergirl

Sadly we seem to be in the minority.

Again, you can do both. Why is that so hard to understand? My 9yo niece has a book with her at all times. Way ahead of her age since she first learnt to read. There is an open book in every room of her house including the loo. She outreads me and I thought I was a bookworm. I gave her a bag of my old books and when I saw her the following weekend she'd finished them and was quizzing me on the stories. Her favourite pastime is for me to set quizzes for her on particular books.

But she adores and is very proficient on my brother's iPad and would love one for her birthday.

The simple answer is, it doesn't suit your purposes to understand. And for the purposes of lljkk's DH's research, I get my iPads because my dad gets them through work. Sorry to disappoint, but I'm very poor but extremely lucky.

DD's school manage to combine the use of dictionaries, encyclopeadia, reference books and the internet very easily. They know to check all sources with at least one other to check for accuracy and reliability. They are taught this from the start. The use of technology does not mean that non technology sources will be used.

Likewise at school with y1/2 children when I am working with children I ask them to do research with both books and with the internet. Again - children are using both forms equally.

Dancergirl - DD would take one of a selection depending on her mood at the time - book, her Kindle, a DS or her iTouch. Books are becoming less often chosen simply as she tends to read on her Kindle far more.

I don't know about secondary school but teachers in DD1's primary school have set homework that assumes everyone has internet access, from the word go.

lljkk - fpor ypur DH's thoughts..

My niece goes to a state school and they have class sets of iPads.
My DD goes to an independent school and have 5 iPads.

I have an iPad. My DD uses mine.

DD does have her own computer - we don't pay for them.

I really don;t think this is down to money as such though. And def not boasting over it!!!

This is the last thing I'm going to add to the thread, but I think a lot of people are misunderstanding the heart of the arguement, for want of a better word. This isn't about children having access to research/learning via the web. It's about the mad new trend of buying these things for very young children. And really, it is a trend, and not a comfortable one either. And I blame the companies and media pushing it forward.

Children are being entered in to a world their not naturally meant to be in.
This next comment is bound to stir the hornets nest, but do you remember all the media issues around the sexualisation of young children through fashion? That was also entering them in to a world they weren't meant to be in. I think we as adults need to step back and take a look at the much bigger picture here.

Yes, you have stirred the hornet's nest now, but I don't agree with your point. I do actually agree that childhood has become compressed, and that kids are now given access to adult things inappropriately (sexualisation is just one of very many examples of this). But I don't see why ipads are specifically adult. We got a computer (a C64) when I was about 8 IIRC, and there was no suggestion that it was an 'adult' thing - it was to play games on, and therefore a kids' toy. Surely you could just as well argue that adults are regressing/infantilising by spending their time playing Angry Birds on their tablets?? So I don't think ipads are a particularly adult or child thing (in that you can use them for work or games). I find it much more absurd when parents buy their 18 month olds babyccinos in Starbucks. It's a glass of milk, FFS - why not call it one.

ipads are not like sexualising children, there is nothing inherently adult about them.

when i was at school in reception etc we played grannys garden, computers and technologies have been accessible for kids for years.

Personally my dd2 has taught herself to read and stuff from apps on my phone, how can a piece of technology that can teach a child to read not be appropriate for children?

my ds (2) also uses ipad, he watches films and plays games, he knows how to use you tube, he is also one of the most active, cheeky, confident, sociable 2 years old boys I have ever seen, and I am not just saying that as I am his mum. I cant see what negative impact it has on my kids, except they argue over it, like they argue over anything.

I personally would not buy them for my children yet (my oldest is 8). Primarily because they wouldn't look after them properly and I'd be forever getting annoyed by that.... and also because I want one myself first!!

Also, I prefer my DCs to use the family computer because it teaches them how to share/ take turns and it turns into more of a social thing (they all end up going on moshi monsters together because they are incapable of sharing/ taking turns!) and I can keep a far better eye on what they're doing than I'd be able to if they had their own laptops/ ipads. I'll probably consider getting DD1 her own computer when she's at secondary school and will need to spend more time using it for school related things but I'll hold off for as long as possible.