IPads at sleepover

[DiamondGoldandSilver]

I recently hosted a sleepover for my DC, aged 9. All of the children arrived with iPads and played on them during their stay, which I had not been expecting. Is this normal? I hadn’t anticipated all the screens but perhaps I have been naive. I was reluctant to give out the wifi code, but one of the children said she wanted to contact her mum on her device, so I let them all have wifi access. I would have expected this with teenagers, but not 9 and 10 year olds. It is so different from when I was that age.

YABU- yes it is normal for children to bring devices on sleepovers so they can play online games and message parents.

YANBU- it is not common for 9 year olds to take devices on sleepovers.

To me that sounds shit and kind of rude. "Yes, happy to come to your house but I don't want to interact with you". I would have collected them all up and made them do something else

Just to add a bit of balance- they were not on the iPads the whole time. They had an activity in the afternoon, tried on loads of outfits and were screen free during the meal. The devices came our during the movie- my DD was device free but it was clear that a couple others preferred their iPads (roblox, etc). Then we switched off the wifi after the film. I don’t think it ruined the sleepover by any measure, but in future I think I’ll make it clear when invitations are sent that it will be device free.

Thank you for all your replies- it’s helped a lot.

I think people sometimes misunderstand what they might be doing on the iPads. Obviously not great if they’re all watching different YouTube channels and not talking to each other, but my kids and their friends play Roblox together. The noise that comes from the room is deafening- laughter, shouting warnings to each other, building and decorating houses together etc. it’s actually really sociable. IMO it’s not that iPads are inherently bad, it just depends how they are using them.