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?

That posters child is only 8 he can easily catch up.
I'm in my early twenties so computers were around when I was a child but my family were poor so didn't have one, we had computer class in primary school and I was the slowest typer.

But it really didn't take much to catch up tech wise as a teenager.

The other weird thing about that 4yo story is how did anyone on the Internet know it was a 4yo child on the app?
How capable was the child of sending messages? And engaging in social media?
Most 4yos can barely read never mind send messages on social media

Why can't children share anymore? Even a magazine or comic was shared around our house and we weren't poor.

I suspect it was a fabricated comment.

And...after the first time, why wasn't the 4 year old not allowed on the iPad.... Seems like a fake...

Which is fine. They can learn with out it. Especially at primary.

Them doing work in a Chromebook at school in the context of learning is enough.

The PP isn't "leaving her child behind" computers and tech are easy to use. Hence why 3 year olds can use iPads and 90 year olds can use smart phones and computers are, by design, intuitive to use.

Children's digital literacy is fine in small controlled bursts with a purpose, such as a Chromebook session once or twice a week inKS2.

Giving them an iPad at 6 isn't the way forward.

I would take it off them. They’ll soon forget about it. Far too young. Knowing what we do now about dopamine hits and how addictive screens are you should delay as much as possible or at least dramatically reduce their use to 15 mins a day and half an hour on the weekend.

Just take them away. They'll have a meltdown but then they'll have their childhood back and forget about them. So much less hassle for you in the long run.

Agreed

Why are they behaving like toddlers? And when they act grown yo? What on earth does that mean they are 6 🤣

Delete the YouTube app and replace it with YouTube Kids app.
Set the timer on the iPads and reduce it gradually, 5-10 minutes less every week until your desired time.

An hour on an iPad for a six-year-old is far too much.
There’s lots of good updated research, to support this .
you made a mistake, take them away sell them whatever buy books art materials instead.
the initial fallout will be tricky to navigate, but just be strict and stick the rules.
tv should also be limited.
long term your children will benefit.
if you’re strong now
good luck Op we’ll all make mistakes but u have time to fix this huge one

Hi OP. I haven’t read all the comments but when my DD was younger I used an app called Safe Vision. It sort of sits on top of YouTube.
You can pick 5 channels that they can watch (you can set an age limit too) and they can only watch those channels. You can switch them around and take some off and add new ones. Maybe you could have some educational ones and a least annoying squeaky kid playing with random toys one?

Kids don't need devices until they are in secondary school. Get rid of the ipads for at least the next 5 years.
And you said everyone you know has given ipads to their kids long before you did. Well, everyone I know has never given their children any electronic devices until they were at least 10 years old and they are still controlling their teenagers' social media far more than we do. So, start looking into that other direction a bit more maybe?

I let mine watch elmos toothbrush song to help with teeth brushing. That turned into another song and another. It's so addictive. So then the ipad "broke". What a pity 😆 Never again, just go cold turkey, they'll kick you a fuss for a day or two then forget about it

2 hours per day IPad use for a six year old is not “strict”, I’d actually consider that quite excessive…

Another one here refusing to do app based homework set by school, I think it’s so wrong that AI is being brought in to schools.

in the meantime, for us what they do at school is plenty. Any practise done in the old fashioned ways.

Chuckling at the poster who said the kids wouldn’t learn to ‘type’ as a result - these apps involve jabbing at a screen and receiving some dopamine hits, it’s hardly touch typing! On second year of it and both teachers ok with it so long as paper alternatives are used. If it’s something a bit more meaningful like a bit of research and typing something out then happy for DC to do that and I supervise.

DC getting high scores for the times table test at school already so won’t be doing any apps for that at home either.

We have a ‘family’ iPad we use for long journeys / flights so sometimes DC watches tv on it / plays games, but no regular use at home and no browsing or YouTube. If I were op I’d probably put them away if they can’t be returned, and use them like that.

Indeed, 2hrs a week is more reasonable.

Honestly? Take them away. Now.
DH used to work for an ‘educational’ IT company - making apps for reading and learning and so on. Left for moral reasons.
Every piece of marketing research they did came back with the same answer - it was all doing more harm than good.
The dopamine hits from gamifying learning was affecting young brains, and destroying their focus.
You want your kids to read and learn maths? Give them books and physical counting games.

This.

I wanted to discuss this earlier but was worried about a pile-on. We absolutely kid ourselves about educational stuff on devices. Even time table rockstars is BS.

It’s actually nice to have a problem with such an easy solution I think! Sell the iPads and job done.

I couldn’t agree more!

It is too young and especially one each that they own! We started with a family owned ipad. I then had more control over how much they used it for. They still had time for TV and DVDs which was better than dross on you tube.

All of mine have had tablets since they turned 2-ish. They are great but you have to do it right.

Assuming they're using YouTube Kids (they should not be on the adult version), change the settings so that they can only watch channels you've approved, then go through and find the educational channels. There was one my then 4-year-old watched during covid that gave him a better understanding of health than most adults, and my now 5-year-old was teaching herself to read at 3 using the thing.

Take off the fluff apps and put on the good quality ones. There's a great app called ABCMouse that is great for kids 2-8. It gives them school work in the form of games, activities, videos, etc. and is absolutely worth the subscription fee and really helped my kids get ahead in school.

You can also use the tablets for rewards/discipline. My kids get sassy, I they lose their devices/I turn off the wifi, etc. Works better than any time out.