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?

Yes I had an Amiga too; it was great! Floppy discs with Superfrog, Zool etc. That takes me back, feeling old now!

I have a nearly 8, nearly 6 and 2 year old. I'd say 50% of our friends have tablets for their kids. What I don't like about them is the insularity of them - being used as personal devices. With a TV you can see what they are watching and I believe it's more social. I don't think it's worth taking a judgemental tone on this thread but they are still so little that you could definitely either find they are broken or just take them away. The fallout will be brief but sounds like it needs to happen.

I will tell my dcs if they cannot handle a screen time limit, than they're not old enough to use them, and they'll be taken away. This works.

Essays, maybe. But not notes.

You need to use the age old parenting classic of “it’s broken”. My parents used it on me when I had noisy annoying toys, I’m sure it’s been used since the dawn of time. Let it run out of charge and say it’s broken.

I know a lot of people are very judgemental and say you’re an awful parent for giving in at 6, but you are right, a lot of kids are basically born with them in their hands. You’ve not done too bad, and you’re not giving them ages on it. Compared to the general population you’re probably doing pretty well, however the mumsnet demographic is skewed very middle class and very “crunchy”. It’s always important to keep that in mind.

If I was you, I’d go with the “it’s broken” line. Distract them on the day they break with something fun like swimming so they don’t have time to moan and they’re tried when they get back.

Yes, that’s what I was meaning. It should be a mixture of handwriting and typed work. Kids shouldn’t be doing everything on laptops/keyboards.

Yes assignments is what the conversation was talking about they were all typed in the early 90s.

I wouldn't go down the broken line, they can be excellent when used properly. Especially for travelling or some educational apps.

I'd put controls in place.

We’ve only ever had one iPad for the whole family, that has always been known as “Mummy’s iPad”

when they were 6-8 our kids would watch specific YouTube channels on the TV, that we had approved. They couldn’t just randomly flick to anything. They would also watch things on CBeebies - it’s not all baby stuff.

they also watched CBBC shows until 10+ (there are some really good kids shows, also on Netflix and Disney+)

the key is to know what they’re watching and monitor it.

each child having their own private device is not necessary and leads to obsessive use plus much harder to monitor.

I would also go down the “it’s broken” route

An hour per day is way too much screen time for six year olds.
Their brains and social skills are still developing.

Hello OP, I haven’t read the whole thread, so I’m sure this has already been suggested. Just in case, there is a kids version of YouTube where content is all age appropriate. Block their access to the main YT site, tighten up ALL parental controls, and install the kids YT instead.
YANBU on regretting buying them, so you either take them away, or totally control what they can see or do. Good luck

https://www.youtube.com/kids/

Just get rid of them. IMO ipads and the like are unnecessary for young children.

Of course you'll be judged.
Absolutely no need for 6 year olds to have internet.
One of the best inventions but also one of the worse.

The thing is, you can't set your standards by other people and expect your child to escape unscathed because you did better. My husband was happy with our teeth brushing because other friends are only brushing once a day. But tooth decay isn't going to go, "fair dos, you did better than Jonny's mum".

See link above that shows you why you can’t trust it.

And a few hundred years ago you would have been saying, "don't write anything down, remember it all in your head because otherwise your memory will be shot to shit" and yet here we all are.

The poster clearly said twice a week🤣

Well, maybe. But we know more now about how the brain works and there is evidence of the difference that handwriting has on learning versus typing everything.

I think it’s more YouTube. The government deleted YouTube on my daughter’s iPad about 6 months ago apparently and she is far less bothered about having it now (she’s 5 nearly 6). It’s definitely YouTube, evil thing.

6?! Jesus Christ. Just take them back, say they are broken or whatever

sorry for confusion then - I read it as every day after bath and dinner, plus an hour at weekends.

??? you remove devices from your 20 year old adult child?

and your husband? this is a wind up?

All I can think is you'll have teens who never go outside and are stuck on gaming all the time.

If you think trash on YouTube is ok then go for it but it sounds like you don't so ban it. I have 2 kids and hate kids YouTube so we don't have it except toothbrushing. They have too much screen time (tv) so not perfect at all but I decide what I'm happy with exposing then too.

use the parental controls. Limit the time to 45 minutes per day. In six weeks once they have got used to this limit to 35 minutes per day. Wait six weeks, limit to 30 minutes. And so on. I think 20 minutes is reasonable at this age.