To wonder why my ex wants to buy our 16m son a tablet!!

[glitternanny]

My little boy is at his Dad's this weekend - I got a text from my ex saying our son can unlock his phone and find his (our boys) boat game, then another saying his killed the battery twice today by playing on it, and killed the battery on nanny's tablet by playing on it - and he's looking at buying our 16mo his own cheap tablet!!!!

Lost for words!!!

His comment was our lb likes it!!!

So what if he does like it, a 16 month old is most likely to break a tablet and is absolutely no way a suitable 'toy'

Some people think that buying a child their own gadget is the best way to stop them from constantly playing with the parents gadgets and reduce risk of parent gadget breaking.

His money to waste.

I haven't thought of a suitable way to reply yet!

Why is a tablet an unsuitable toy?

Let him do it. It'll be him that's out of pocket when it gets broken.

why the outrage?

My 2yo has a tablet.

She uses it in the car, does puzzles and colouring etc.

It has a rubber bumper thing and a screen protector.

My 19 month niece loves playing on the Ipad. She's much more adept at it than me.

Its his money. I would just say that. Your money, do what you will.

It's not so bad, maybe a bit OTT and lazy, but Ex may find he prefers more physical stuff anyway.

It's the kind of thing I'd have wanted to do tbh though maybe you could ask your ex to wait until a certain age?

By saying lazy, I'm projecting btw - it's the equivalent of giving my own ds something distracting to look at for ten minutes peace.

DD is 15mo and a tablet is the last thing I would want her to have. Nor is she ever given our phones to play with.

I get the whole 'its educational' and 'technology is a way of life now' but I also grew up with technology and didnt have a tv, games console, etc until 16/17 yo when I could buy my own - it has in no way been detrimental to my own capabilities with technology.

If DH and I split and he bought dd a tablet then I honestly wouldnt bat an eyelid though, as he is her parent too. I wouldn't however allow her to bring home with her.

Let him buy it. It's not your money. No harm done really.

Why not encourage him to buy a childrens console like the leappad type for him which he will get years of use of of.

His money let him waste it. My mum brought me a tablet for my birthday, my DS 2.1 at the time learnt how to use bbc iplayer and the drawing app and he still loves it now so your DS probably wont take long to learn to use it

He's being unreasonable for letting a 16MO anywhere near a tablet. Children need proper stimulation, not electronic drugs.

Let him, he's the parent, too. Either dc breaks it at exh house or he breaks it at yours. My ds is also 16m and throws things like its going out of fashion -a tablet wouldn't last 5 minutes here!
Perhaps the more you refuse it, the more determind your exp will be to buy it. Maybe better to just shrug it off?

I don't really see the big deal, and it's his money to waste. I bought my 15 month old a cheap tablet for Easter. I've ordered a car holder for it so that it can be used in the car for him to watch videos when we do our (frequent) long trips. It actually cost not much more than a portable dvd player, which is why I chose the tablet. I've disabled the internet, and downloaded a heap of sesame street videos. He loves it, and it kept him happy on the two hour drive we did yesterday.

You can always insist that it stays at ex's house and doesn't come home to yours with your DC.

It's up to him, really.

I wouldn't buy my toddler a tablet but he uses our old one that I was given three years ago and I'm surprised how many good games/interactive books are available for young children.

He (2.7 yrs) plays apps where you do jigsaws - he can do ones with many, many pieces and this has translated into real-life cardboard jigsaws too, which he now loves. He also plays apps where you do cooking, which again has made him interested in actual real-life cooking, which he snubbed before. And lots of apps with nursery rhymes, which he sings along too with great joy in the car.

But to be honest, it's not nearly his favourite thing. He likes books or imaginative play with toys (figurines, dinosaurs) much more. So I don't have any particularly strong feelings about it being bad as it is only a small part of his time spent using it.

But I'm pretty relaxed about these things anyway. Both DH and I have jobs requiring us to understand the latest things happening with technology, so it's just part of our lives. I'm a stickler on things like sharing nicely, saying thank you, not hitting and always brushing your teeth thoroughly, but a bit of tablet time isn't a big deal for me.

It's up to him how he wants to spend his money really and most DC I know are adept at using iPads/iPhones/tablets well before they're 2.

I think it's fairly sensible actually as I can never find my iPhone because DS1 (2) always takes it, then leaves it in random places if I don't watch where I leave it!

My eldest 2 are amazing on it. They use apps, navigate round it with ease and load cbeebies/channel 5/tv catchup etc it also keeps them occupied for a while when they've come in my bed at 5am so I can snooze a bit longer

Its an excellent toy, and can be quite educational fun. When we were kids it was all about other kinds of gadgets and toys.

Can anyone recommend free games/apps for a four year old?Android not Apple?

DD nicked my iPad when she was 20mo and loves it. She plays music and dances to it, she has games with animal sounds and can point to the right animals, she does puzzles and games. Intellectually and physically stimulating fun as far as I am concerned!

Well given that I have spent much of today and yesterday trying to wrestle my iPad off my 19mo....it doesn't sound like such a bonkers idea to me as it would have done a few weeks ago!

his child, his decision!