to be really annoyed out local soft play centre has installed three ipads within the play area

[Drqedwa]

okay so im not even sure why I am so annoyed about this really but I am.

My sons are three and four. I limit their ipad usage to 30 mins a day each. Im not anti ipads but I like them to have limited use of them at this age.

We have a varied week with different activities and one place they love going to is the local soft play. Today I noticed the soft play place have installed three ipads within the main play frame. My sons were immediately drawn to them but there was no way I was paying a combined £13 for then to sit down watching a screen. So I told them they were not allowed play on the ipads unti! 10 mins before home time. My oldest to his credit obeyed but my y youngest spent half the time playing on them. There were loads of children just watching the ipads when beforr they would have been running around using up energy.

I just think children have enough technology eithout the need for ipads in a soft play centre. The very reason I take my sons to soft play is to burn some energy off and do physical activity. Or else they might aswell stay indoors and ssve my money!

The table next to us were also annoyed about the ipads and said to me they csnt see why they needed to be in the main play area and not downstairs or out of the main play area a bit so that parents could more easily control when their child went on them.

AIBU to think ipads werr not necessary in thr main play frame and to be annoyed they were installed?

Soft play is shit for kids take them to an actual park outside

My kids love both. Sometimes we wrap up warm sometimes they would rather play indoors.

I hate soft play places but thankfully it has WiFi and good coffee.

Sometimes I let them choose what we do, although sometimes I regret that. Today I have had my arm twisted to take them to the arcades!(Instead of the great theatre/craft day I suggested).

idontdowindows yeah, it's fantastic, isn't it?!

As for soft play being shit like someone said, how is it shit?! It's bloody fantastic! Loved it as a kid and I still love it now. All the kids I see there are having a blast (and some of the more childish parents)

Yanbu

It changes the point of a softplay from somewhere safe to burn off energy whilst parents are warm dry and caffeinated to somewhere that children will stay still playing on tablet or watching others play. There are plenty of places around for children to sit still. Places where you want them to sit still!

If it had always been set up like that and you came in to it and objected then yeah ywbu. But not unreasonable to object to a change of service, even though I imagine they are just responding to feedback of other customers..... of course your only option is to vote with your feet and change your soft play venue.

Why is softplay shit for kids, Mercury?

It has it's role. A big bit of that role is that it is safe even when the weather is wet or icy when wooden or metal play things are not. My children and I have proper outdoor wear. Doesnt magically make a slippy wet play park suitable for toddlers.

Mud and puddles are only so much fun. Then they want to climb and i want to let them.

It’s Sunday. Your kids have spent the morning watching Tv while you catch up with the housework and your partner is out doing his mysterious and potentially outing man-hobby. You’ve just eaten lunch and the kids are climbing the walls. You’re tired and stressed and it’s raining outside. So, you bundle your kids in the car, drive to the local soft play and let the kids run feral for a few hours while you Mumsnet and drink coffee. You stop at McDonalds for dinner so you don’t have to cook or even worse clean up afterwards, drive home, put the kids in the bath, then hopefully they’ll be worn out enough that they’ll go straight to sleep. You can then spend the evening drinking wine in front of the TV and maybe even have some sex with your partner.

Or something like that...

I have worked in one they are not healthy just thinking of the amount of human waste I had to clean up

Yes kids do have accidents at times. Or vomit. The soft play near us has always been cleaned thoroughly using specialist products whenever I've seen anyone report bodily fluids in the soft play area.

Whereas outdoor play parks near here have animal waste that isn't cleaned up by anyone except me when i take my kids there. My friend's son once had a nose bleed in an outdoor play park. We cleaned it up as best we could but it soaked into the wood to join the various bodily fluids of however many generations of children came before.

and some of the more childish parents

Me? On the trampolines? Certainly not. I am also not closely following my grandson in the climbing frames under the guise of supervision....

YANBU I find all the little £1 ride ons and grabber machine's annoying enough at soft play. I'm forever telling them to come off/away from them because I didn't pay almost £15 for them to sit on a ride that I refuse to put money into.

If parents dont like ipads in children's areas then dont go to them and they will shut down, its supply and demand. I have the feeling most parents actually like them. This is just a case of "in my day we didn't have soft play, we had to go outside and climb trees, even in the wind and rain".

I don’t mean the OP is smug (sorry OP, YANBU)

I meant this thread is good for spotting the standard ‘oh so superior’ comments in the replies, such as
‘well you should not be in soft play you should be in the park’
‘I would just tell MY children not to play on the iPads and they wouldnt’,
‘why on Earth is Your child even in McDonalds ’ all of which have appeared on this thread and I haven’t even read the 2nd half.

So yes, like I said, smug parent bingo.