To wish I'd never bought my children Ipads?

[Goodnurseorgremlin]

I have six year old twins. They have never had ipads/tablets until this Christmas where I relented and bought them an ipad each.

Worst thing I ever did. I'm quite strict. with them They are only allowed an hour on a morning on weekends and same after school weekdays. It's still driving me insane. Pre ipad they would have been watching TV or playing at this time on a morning. Now they are glued to their ipads watching absolute brain dead kiddie trash on YouTube. I've had to send them to the kitchen for my sanity.

Can anyone relate? Is it too late to tell them santa needs the bloody things back?

What did you think would happen?

I think age 6 is far too young for iPads. What were you thinking? Maybe limit use to weekends only, but you’ll now need to replace time spent with alternative activities and that might be a mighty hard job now…

Get family link OP and use YouTube kids instead of YouTube.
With family link you can set the time, so 15 minutes and then it locks the tablet and it can't be used.
On YouTube kids you can stop automatic play, ie so it won't just keep playing videos, they will have to select the next video to watch.

You’re the parent. Just take them away. At 6 mine were getting dolls and Lego for Christmas.

Kids cannot self regulate.
Husband bought an iPad for our 8 year old, and she was SO addicted she could not stop, would override any security, kept finding it etc… in the end, we just sold it!
Much better to provide arts and crafts etc try BakerRoss.com x

Read it again - Twice a week!! Not every day Saturday and Sunday only and it’s my iPad not hers

she plays with toys and does arts and crafts and is outside loads.

Why on earth would it make any economic sense to trade in two brand new tablets for a second hand one??

They are twins they are going to want to be on them at the same time. And possibly play against each other on certain apps.

Parent restrictions catches Jack shit.

I still don’t want my kids watching girls licking pens suggestively and giggling and going on about makeup and hot guys. And ‘ooooh Bethany, your butt looks amaze in those tight jeans’ etc. parental restrictions blocks none of that shit with young girls just being silly and suggestive and OTT. Totally not suitable for 5-10yr olds to be watching.

I’m not judging you but would very much agree with anyone saying just take them away. I am baffled why anyone would buy their young child an iPad. An hour a day?? Blimey. That’s an hour not spent playing/being creative. These kind of devices are so addictive. Please think about the level of kindness stimulation you are hardwiring your children’s plastic little brains to expect. Just remove them. No drama from you. They’ll kick off for a bit but then they’ll forget

Forgot to say OP that if you want to keep some access to YT then I’d suggest deleting it off their iPads but having another device that they can watch stuff on but that you have control over. For example my kids can watch limited YT on our TV which makes it much easier for me to have sight over what exactly they are watching. My 10 year old has been watching videos about his upcoming school residential and like you said there is educational stuff on there.

Also in case you don’t do this already, keep the iPads out of their bedrooms. I used to charge them in their bedrooms overnight, they are locked down so can’t access anything at all before 7am, so I didn’t see the harm. I then discovered through the parental controls that my 7 year old was waking up in the early hours and checking if he could use it yet! I thought he was sleeping through, so that was a shock to me. Keeping devices out of their rooms also forms habits for when they get older.

Maybe people should just follow Claudia Winkleman’s approach ;)

D

Just take them away, and sell them.

Use the money for a special family outing, or activity classes, or to buy non-digital things instead. Board games, jigsaws, books, art and craft materials, lego, bicycles, a pool or climbing frame if you have a garden, etc.

Be upfront. Explain the tablets are maybe not good so for developing brains, and involve them in what to do with the time and money instead.

Op a few people are mentions Family Link, Family Link is an Android app.

There is something similar on Apple but I'm not sure what it is. I'm sure if you Google you will find it.

Ipads and tablets can be very good a few bad apps and social media give them a bad name.

you are the parent. remove the tablets from them... its very simply really!

My DD is a fair bit older. She’s allowed to watch proper programmes eg on Netflix but no YouTube. Allowed to play computer games but only if with her friends.

You can restrict access on YouTube/internet but it's not easy. My IT tech husband found it hard!
My 9 year old has apps we've approved and channels we have subscribed to on YouTube but no Google access.

Agree with others to take them away and say they’re broken. My kids are older and don’t have iPads (we’re not perfect, they do have a Switch and watch TV). I’ve also deleted YouTube from the family TV as they started watching football skills videos (fine) but then moved on to stupid OTT Americans making trampolines in their houses and screaming a lot. At six they will soon forget about it.

Restricting Internet is easy.
You go into parental controls and have them request access to sites. So you approve on a site by site basis what you are happy for them to get into.
I'd approve things like BBC Website, Lego, I think my oldest went through a stint of watching rocket launches on NASA's website.

don’t let them have free access to YouTube!!

What are you thinking of, allowing access to YouTube?

Remove the iPads and give them back, supervised, when they need them for school work.

Six year olds with their own iPads blows my mind.

When I was a kid I didn’t have an iPad but I had an educational tablet that was loaded with educational games and interactive books. I still remember the Lion King book where you could press the letters and it’d read it for you or you could press leaves/characters and it’d tell you fun facts. I loved it and spent a lot of time playing the games and I achieved very highly at school.

You need to seriously modify the iPads, there’s no reason they should be on YouTube at that age and you’ve no idea what they’re watching.

there are lots of monitoring apps that you can use. Download lots and lots of educational apps and delete everything else. Lock the App Store so they can’t download anything. The iPad is for educational fun, not mindless watching.

Even Kids YouTube has porn and horror stuff on it. What the fuck were you thinking?

www.commonsensemedia.org/articles/parents-ultimate-guide-to-youtube-kids

I would just remove them.

we need to normalise saying to our children ‘I made a mistake and it’s nothing you have done wrong, this is my mistake as a parent.’ And removing the device. It’s one sentence and if you deliver it correctly it brooks no argument.