Help needed: how to limit time on tablets for kids?!?

[gandtformeplease]

Hi,

Posting in here for traffic.

Bought kids (10 and 7) kindle fire 7s for Christmas. Had read up beforehand and thought I could use the parental control settings on them to limit screen time. Turns out it only works for apps, not internet use.

After a bit more research I found ScreenLimit app and downloaded it. Seemed fantastic. I could set limits for each day and block whatever I wanted, all controlled from app on my iPhone. Trouble is....it slows the tablets down so much it renders them useless. Deleted the apps and back to usual speed.

So...can anybody recommend anything else? I just want an app that will allow them to use them up to a certain point (say an hour a day) then just lock them. I want the kids to regulate their own time knowing they only have an hour so they choose wisely! Surely there’s something out there that does that?

Thanks in advance.

Fwiw I just read that again and the 'simple right' sounds much more condescending than I meant :/

We used a chart with minutes in exchange for chores. 5 mins for the dishwasher, 5 mins per bucket of compost taken to the bin, 10-15 minutes for feeding chickens & getting eggs as neither of them particularly like that one, 5 per basket of laundry sorted, etc. The boys knew which chores were worth which points and decided what they wanted to do to earn screen time. All chores for that day had to be done before screen time was allowed.

They set themselves a timer and once they’d run out of time they stopped playing. Largely self motivated but with the added warning that if anyone fudged the timer, “forgot to set it”, “paused and forgot to restart” we had to assume that all points had therefore been used, screen time was set to zero and they had to earn more points before playing again. It’s not worth losing 45minutes game time to squeeze in an extra 5!

We worked on the chores lists and points values together so they had some input into the system and they then pretty much ran it themselves.

I use Screentime app. It's worked well and been worth it for us. We use a timer for anything TV-related (and for so many other things in my house).

My children earn screentime by doing something active - like today we went for a long walk and tomorrow we are going swimming.

I think you can do it with the fire. You can also have the internet set up so only specific sites can be accessed and so that it is always off between certain times (different limits can be set for different times). If you go to parental controls it should be there. Obviously I am a shit parent!