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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Wwyd. Would you buy a kindle fire for a 2 year old?

240 replies

UmbongoUnchained · 20/07/2016 08:16

Just out of interest.

OP posts:
slithytove · 20/07/2016 18:41

Yes, my 18mo old and 3 year old have iPads
It's been fab

UmbongoUnchained · 20/07/2016 18:43

I mean that I don't want my child to be technology free. We aren't living in the 70's anymore. It's 2016 and technology is a normal part of everyday life and will become more more so over the near future. I want my daughter to learn everything about it from an early age. And it's clearly not holding her back, she's very advanced for her age.

OP posts:
LuchiMangsho · 20/07/2016 18:43

They are not mutually exclusive but drawing on an iPad from a sensory level is not the same as drawing on paper with pencils and crayons. And pretty much any educational psychologist will say that. We didn't intend to be technology free btw- we don't watch much/any TV ourselves except for sport and the news (TV was on all day during Wimbledon for eg) and we lived our ordinary mostly tech free life with DD. It is when we had to travel (and she has been travelling long haul a lot her entire life) that we had to make an active decision but so far we have been fine. DD has watched Frozen. She has watched the odd ten minutes on a flight. Because of her slightly mad love of music and the violin she has watched bits of this year's Proms on TV (and last year). I am not 'anti technology', I just think that there will be a time and a place to introduce it in a limited manner.

TheUnsullied · 20/07/2016 18:58

Isn't it a good job I don't get flustered over other people's opinions on my parenting, eh? Grin

I don't see why children can't be immersed in a book or music
Neither do I...a tablet doesn't render them incapable of enjoying books and music.

And to the poster who said it's actively damaging...rubbish. Lazy parenting is actively damaging, not half an hour playing a game on a tablet. Letting a child routinely spend hours on end using it is lazy parenting.

Letting a child of any age play on a tablet doesn't mean they're on it all the time to the detriment of other activities. Many of you would do well to have a mull over that before making sweeping statements condemning other people's parenting.

StopShoutingAtYourBrother · 20/07/2016 19:01

Nah - probably waste of money. I gave my dd my old kindle when she was 6 and into books and she just couldn't get into it. I found paper books at her age where she can actively turn paper pages are much more engaging

LuchiMangsho · 20/07/2016 19:47

But no one was critiquing your parenting. I am very much in the minority here and in real life and totally comfortable with that. I am also as 'non crunchy' as it comes. I work almost FT and DD has been in childcare most of her life (and I am certain been exposed to screen time which is fine). I am very strict on discipline and possibly I am far too strict, and although I did breastfeed and was mostly meh about it, I couldn't hack baby wearing. I am the most non clingy mother around.

OP's DD is in fact unable to concentrate on books. I would be trying to cultivate that than the iPad but as I said, each to their own. No need to be quite so defensive. I was just saying that an alternate world where there is technology- sport on TV, coding, the odd film rather than some draconian ban, but it isn't part of daily or family life is entirely possible. Soneone will come on to say my DD watched 4 hours of TV and is now at Oxbridge. Which is not the point, of course. We all find our somewhat muddled path but the OP, whose DD won't go past the first page of a book at 2, was asking if a Kindle Fire was the way forward and I gently put forth how our family dynamics work to suggest that it wasn't necessary.

I fear I have struck a nerve with all the defensive replies. Not once did I suggest what other people should do, I was merely laying out my experiences.

The only exception is when children have additional needs. My mother works with children with various disabilities in a developing country and she says the difference that technology has made to her work is just remarkable.

mirime · 20/07/2016 20:00

Bought DS a Kindle Fire for Christmas, so he was 2 years 8 months. It's less risky than letting him use my tablet (£50 vs £250 replacement cost), and I like the child profile. He doesn't use it that much, once a week or fortnight he'll decide he wants to play the Timmy Time game, or Room on the Broom and that's fine.

Where it's a godsend is on the 5 hour drive to visit my in laws. Load it up with Thomas the Tank Engine episodes, some games and some e-books I can read to him and we all have a better journey and I still have some leg room.

UmbongoUnchained · 20/07/2016 20:25

I don't see the whole big deal with the book thing. She doesn't like them, I'm not going to force her. She reads just as well on the ipad.

OP posts:
MiaowTheCat · 20/07/2016 21:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Kanga59 · 20/07/2016 21:41

Yes and have done.

woodwaj · 20/07/2016 21:53

I would get one. Probably the amazon fire with the case and the free replacements though. It would keep my tablet safe, great for longer car journeys and you can get some fun apps for kids! Just because i had one wouldnt mean the toys and books would no longer get used. My DS plays with things for a few minutes then moves on! However he will drop all activities to go and run in the garden and play with mud! He is 18 months.

PandasRock · 20/07/2016 22:08

Yep, all 3 of mine have their own iPad.

Dc are 11, 9 and 3. Dd1 got her first iPad when she was 6. Dd2 (then 3) had to slum it with my iPod touch. Dd2 got dd1's old iPad when we upgraded dd1 to a mini (so around 3 years ago, I guess?) meaning she was about 6 as well. When we upgraded dd2 to a mini too (pretty swiftly, as she was struggling with the size of the big iPad), ds inherited it - he was 2.

Judge away.

I'm happy with my parenting, my dc are far from square eyed, and having access to this technology has literally changed (severely disabled) dd1's life.

MummyBex1985 · 20/07/2016 22:22

No. DD had her first Vtech thing from about 3/4 though.

All of the kids have iPads now (12, 11, 10&10). We tried them with cheap tablets for a year from aged 8 to make sure they would look after them and as they were responsible with them we let them have iPad minis for Christmas 18 months ago. They've looked after them very well and it keeps them entertained!

RupertPupkin · 20/07/2016 23:43

I think this argument is just bizarre. Why do some posters consider books and technology to be mutually exclusive? Ilke it or not, children are going to grow up with this technology. Why not let them (if you have the means) grow up learning about it, AND teaching them about all other avenues of learning like books etc? I can't see any reason why a toddler can't learn about technology via a tablet while learning about the world through other means.

SalemSaberhagen · 21/07/2016 00:04

Your perfect parent badge is in the post, Luchi.

SalemSaberhagen · 21/07/2016 00:06

And also art, four hours spent eating and getting dressed?! That's ridiculous.

It is also perfectly normal for a 2 year old to sleep less than 12 hours a day.

UmbongoUnchained · 21/07/2016 00:24

4 hours?! Wtf?

OP posts:
AndNowItsSeven · 21/07/2016 00:38

Sorry op I came back to the thread late. Glad you settled in the iPad I things it's much easier to use. The kindle can get a bit frustrating. One thing I love about the iPad is guided access - it's in accessibility and you can control the volume and lock your dd in an app or a movie. You do this by making some or all of the screen unresponsive to touch. You can also set an alarm in clock mode so the iPad will lock down after a certain amount of time.

UmbongoUnchained · 21/07/2016 00:40

That is actually perfect. She's always turning movies off by playing with the screen so that works really well! Will have a play around with it in the morning

OP posts:
EveOnline2016 · 21/07/2016 00:42

I am Pmsl at the parents who don't allow pads.

My dd aged 7 has had pads in school since nursery.

This is in a council estate.

georgetteheyersbonnet · 21/07/2016 01:10

I wouldn't get a Kindle Fire for a 2yo! We have one, but I got it when it was £35 quid on Amazon as an impulse purchase and didn't even open it for six months. DH reads Brexity news on it in the loo so I prefer not to touch it (yeuch! What is it about men and reading tablets in the loo?) and certainly wouldn't let DD near it.

DD is nearly 4 and doesn't use a tablet. I work in education (in an area that bears on media theory!) and see no need to give her one purely because "that's where life is moving" or "they have them in schools". These are not technologies that will teach your child much: they are passive and designed to be so, like watching TV. (MY DD watches entirely too much TV, I have to say, but does loads of non-TV play too.) Books, drawing, playdoh and outdoor play are all much more interactive than tablets: don't be fooled by the "interactivity" that is built into them: it's designed to offer you only very limited ways of interacting with the device. It will teach you nothing about how digital devices work or how to understand them or indeed to make or code them. They are designed to be "intuitive" and hide their interfacing behind a spurious naturalness, offering you very scripted pathways that feel natural but are very limited. They are also designed to be used by someone with little to no experience of the digital world. They are a very limiting way in to technology.

My own students (aged 18-25, from undergraduate to PhD) have all grown up as digital natives whereas I barely used a computer before the age of 18. I am actually now far more at ease with the digital world than my students are and much more able to make use of new technology. I was very puzzled by this until I watched them closely interacting with technology in seminars, etc., and ran some detailed hands-on classes on digital resources with them. Their problem is that they don't really understand the underlying ways in which physical knowledge and conceptual data are organised - they don't really understand the organising principles of library catalogues, databases, data sets etc. Neither do they know or understand anything about Boolean searches or how to access and evaluate digital information properly. This means that they tend to treat the digital world, and especially the internet, as a kind of floating morass of "information" that they blindly type phrases into and then see what appears. They expect programs to give them pat processes and answers rather than understanding how to manipulate data fields and sets. In short, they appear genuinely bemused by a sort of undifferentiated fog of information that they are not sure how to navigate. They are also attached to their tablets, phones and laptops like their life depends on it.

If you want your toddler to be well-prepared for school and life, give the child some books; take her to a library and explain how it works; get down on the floor and help her build some small world play environments so she can develop true skills of concept-building and analysing the structures of the world around her. A tablet is like TV: pure entertainment but don't kid yourself that it is educational - it isn't.

georgetteheyersbonnet · 21/07/2016 01:15

*I am Pmsl at the parents who don't allow pads.

My dd aged 7 has had pads in school since nursery.

This is in a council estate.*

This is not a good thing.

Ask yourself which is cheaper: changing the environment of children in a council estate school so that they have amazing, inspiring teaching, great physical and educational and play resources, loads of time and input for imaginative play, developing reading and skills like playing music, outdoor experiences, language learning with high-quality resources?

Or buying 25 cheap tablets with some pre-loaded "educational apps" that keep the kids quiet for a bit?

I can tell you that at the most expensive schools in the country the parents are paying for their children not to be using iPads.

UmbongoUnchained · 21/07/2016 01:17

Yeah ok. Obviously she can't do any of those other things from the technology dungeon I'm currently keeping her chained up in.

OP posts:
georgetteheyersbonnet · 21/07/2016 01:43

Of course she can. But buying a toddler a tablet is like buying her a TV, and of the same level of educational usefulness. Nice if something good is on, and just one part of childhood, but it isn't play.

I wonder if I posted a thread asking if I should buy my 2 yo a TV for her bedroom, there would be as many posts saying things like "well they have to learn how to watch TV early, they'll be watching screens all their lives now so it's important to start young"?

Just because they're swiping at stuff and moving stuff around on the screen doesn't make it learning about the workings of technology - any more than when my DD's watching Minibeast Adventure it means she'll grow up to engineer LED circuit displays. And it might be nice for me to think that she's learning about woodlice, but it would probably be far more educational for her if I got off my arse instead and took her outside to find some actual ones under a pot.

(Disclaimer: I do not much care for getting off my arse and looking at bugs under pots: nice smiley Jess is doing it for me on the screen, but only because I can't be bothered, not because I think DD's getting a better deal from the TV....)

EverythingWillBeFine · 21/07/2016 08:11

I like the comparaison between giving a 2yo a TV in their bedroom and giving them a tablet.

Umbongo it is clear that your decision is to buy the tablet. That's OK.
What I am more surprised about is the fact that you asking for opinions but refusing to acknowledge any of the comments from people who aren't keen on it.
No you are not putting your dd in a dungeon forcing her to play on an iPad or whatever. No more than those people who are against the idea are forcing their DC to be stuck in the garden studying mini beasts.
But refusing to acknowledge there ARE some issues with tablets and all electronic devices is no helping either.
And so is refusing to listen to people who have given tablets etc.. To their dcs and have experienced problems. Maybe you won't. Maybe you will.
And maybe your first step is to address the 'I'm not accepting books' regardless of whether your dd has a tablet or not.

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