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?

Your mistake was buying one that was theirs

This.
We have one family iPad - only DH and I know the code and the DC can only use them downstairs. They are in their teens now so the iPad use is less of an issue but they still don’t know the code. Laptops and phones remain downstairs.

You’re the parent. You say how often they can have them. Cut it down to one hour a day if it helps.

Just to state the obvious- you tube is designed to be addictive, they make their money this way. Easiest targets for them to get hooked onto YouTube are children and once hooked they hooked for years unless parents take the screen away. But it’s not easy to do so.
Sorry, OP, it was naive of you to give them an iPad (not sure why one each was necessary - no need to even share) and yes, I am judging you, because information about the negative effects of screens on young minds is pretty much on the news (tv, radio) every day.

Take them back. Buy them bikes or skates instead.

A friend of mine took the iPad from her 4yo because weird men kept sending her photos of their dicks 😡

Number Blocks for a six year old? My child stopped watching CBeebies when she was four.

It's not too late. We also did this and honestly the kids become some kind of new monster when they have unfettered access to an iPad. For some reason they are manageable when they watch stuff on a normal TV but the iPad really seems to cause issues. Having to share / take turns watching their favourite shows on the TV also seems to help manage terrible behaviour.

We ended up taking the iPads away except during holidays.

But you say you regret it. So just remove the iPads. Sell them.

We only have the children’s tablets and they’re bad enough! I would say you’re not actually being very strict - in fact it sounds like you’re really quite lenient with times! Mine are allowed them only after 3 at the weekend- they manage to squeeze plenty of time into that!

The trouble is that once they have pads they won't want to do anything else.
IPad or tv? IPad?
Ipad or drawing? Ipad?
Ipad or trains/dolls/dinosaurs/teddies? Ipad

They will choose ipads every time..... but they don't have the faculties to make good choices at this age, so you need to do it for them. Take the ipads away. Or just turn the WiFi off. Or lose the charger. Or just tell them that they are watching it too much and that you have noticed a change in their behaviour that you aren't liking to see.

Yep. Restricting their time on it while they whinge for 5 more minutes forevermore.

If it were me I’d just admit I’d made a mistake and sell them. They’re 6, don’t do this to them.

How? What sort of app, social media was the child using?

What did you expect?

I left my 8 Yr olds iPad on a train and literally dhe best thing that ever happened. It transformed her from watching shit and playing shit games..she went back to tv programmes and drawing and playing.

Honestly at 6 they will be over it in a week . Just get rid.

Youtube is not safe for kids and it is full of unregulated crap

They.dont need cbeebies there is a huge range of brilliant tv . Get Disney plus. Let them watch properly made scripted tv instead of YouTube shit. Honestly is much better. And stop all the crap games

I have seen a big improvement since doing it

Well done for doing this! I have 2 young DC and plan to take this approach when they start reception. I was horrified to discover recently that primary schools set homework on apps. Did you get much pushback from the school? How did the conversation go? I avoid conflict in general but believe this is worth standing up for, I'm so passionate about my children having a childhood like mine and not losing them to dopamine addiction at a young age.

I simply informed them that we wouldn't be engaging. No push back at all. I think most teachers don't really see the benefit of homework in primary school anyway. He still reads books and does spelling( which have now starred arriving on paper).

Well, whilst it is awful.

Why the fuck was a FOUR YEAR OLD on the tablet unsupervised? So much so that they somehow managed to get into a messaging app and have people talking to them?
Surely at 4 you're sitting with the child on the iPad. It you lock to just Cbeebies app (or app of choice)

The reason that happened is entirely the parents fault.

I do the same for my child.

If it can't be done on a family laptop through a webpage, then it won't be done.

They're more than welcome to buy an iPad for me though, and I will lock it o just the app that is needed.

As adults we are glued to screens, why on earth would you have thought giving access to kids would be different? It’s the tech equivalent of giving them a dummy.

For those not using a screen for your child’s homework, how are they accessing the multiplication test in Y4 (if you are in England)? Also they will be using screens in school

Anybody can send msgs to a iPad you don't need a app for it your iPad is the address I'm in Australia and we don't have CBeebies people can also msg your kid via Roblox if they have it they pretend to be kids

Again...it all is down to supervision and responsibilities.

You can block imessages from unknown senders
You can lock the iPad to certain apps
You can disable chat in Roblox.
Australia has things like the ABC kids app.

And if you can't it won't do anything to prevent your child being exposed to the content... Don't fucking give them an iPad.

It's like saying "well, I'll let them cross the road on their own, the roads are quiet round here" and then getting upset they got hit by a cyclist.

Yes, but the school will have filtered access, locked down iPads etc

@GiraffeCup some posters don’t want their child to use a screen full stop (doesn’t matter whether it is connected to the internet)