Why oh why are people giving their under 12s tablets?

[Bigpinksweater]

The evidence regarding the effects of tablets on developing brains is damning. They are absolutely not necessary and barely existed 15 years ago. We are seeing huge rises in behavioural and developmental issues while steadfastly ignoring the fact screen time and in particular tablets can contribute to virtually all of them.

Why oh why are people still handing their toddlers and primary school children tablets?

Its fine in moderation, its those who give their babies/toddlers phones while in the pram when they could be looking around that are the issue. Theres a six year old who gets in a pram at my sons school (he can walk fine!), mum hands him his phone immediately the second hes out of school. Thats an issue.

Our kids had to have iPads for school from Y5 (9/10yo) so it has been part of his life since then.

Sorry, I got it wrong. I thought all councils were doing it at the same time. It looks like the plan is by end of 2026 to give all P6+ students an iPad.

Clearly my brain isn't working this morning because it took me an embarrassingly long time reading the comments to realise you weren't talking about medication.

But even my sons nursery implemented tablet use, they did a "programming" section with those little robot floor tortoises.

My son did get a tablet but we use it for things like reading eggs, edurino and other apps to help him catch up at school after it became obvious he was very far behind due to his disability. It's helping to bridge the gap between what he knows and what he needs to know to catch up with his peers and develop skills like holding a pen and writing in order.

I was having a pub lunch with my sister on Saturday. On the next table was a family of grandparents, parents, and a boy of about 10. Apart from when he was eating, he spent the ENTIRE time with his head bowed, staring at the ipad on his lap, playing a game.
I'm pretty "you do you bo", but I thought it was actually really fucking sad.

Get your parental controls set up properly.
If its android use Family Link.
Ask questions if its a Amazon Fire.

It’s so sad to see. I truly believe longer term studies will find the source of all this ‘anxiety’ in teens is screen withdrawal syndrome and a complete inability to socialise to do anything essential for MH on account of never developing those skills due to endless screen time

Same at DD’s. Just so lazy and negligent

Studies are emerging all the time regarding the harmful effects -
mental health / focus and concentration skills / social functioning / body image distress etc etc

huge resistance from many who don’t wish to hear this, and then there is of course all the screen addicted parents who can’t see the problem, and are increasingly tired and unable to effectively problem solve and see alternatives beyond the devices …

the huge surge of SEN kids reliant on devices - the narrative of they need them to regulate

how did people regulate before devices ?
they developed a more varied tool box as opposed to being soothed / distracted / dopamine dripped from the device - which then in turn increases problems with withdrawal / sleep function / connection from real world etc etc

OP you are spot on - 👍

I think you make some good points but I think you're off the mark in some places.

Not all screen time is equal. I agree letting kids watch continuous streams of content is bad, it can and does cause an upsurge in mental health issues, it does provide a source of dopamine that can become easily relied upon but...

Screens can also be regulating for SEN kids.

You ask how they regulated before screens. Self regulation isn't a skill you develop simply due to the absence of screens. Before screens were more commonplace a lot of SEN needs just went unnoticed or uncatered for. A lot of needs were unmet. Children were told off, ignored, or labelled naughty because that dysregulated energy was directed elsewhere like self injurious behaviours, harmful behaviours, destructive behaviours or internalised. It's not a case of these children just learned to pick up a book and read to calm down instead or went to pick up a toy.

Screen time does give dopamine, and it's important to understand the role that dopamine plays in emotional regulation. It can take children out of crisis states. It's a very useful tool. It can also be a welcome distraction when the world around you is chaotic, it can be a really helpful communication tool, not just in AAC but providing gestalts for our gestalt language processors who otherwise would have been written off as non-verbal for life. It can help caregivers understand needs from our children with idiosyncratic speech patterns.

In short, in moderation, it's not the devils work, and it should be moderated, but with children which it is an essential means of communication and distraction a bit of grace wouldn't go amiss.

It's easy to judge SEN kids, because the world holds them to neurotypical standards but ultimately that's unfair and unrealistic.

Absolutely. The iPads are taken home by pupils every night and taken to school every morning.

So many things blocked - YouTube, social media etc.

loads of educational apps including Duolingo. Kids can use them at home to further their learning at school. They have access to each other and the teacher through Microsoft Teams.

Yeah, I assumed it was all councils at the same time. Looks like the target is end of 2026 for all councils.

Absolutely. And we weren't usually watching age appropriate content. It would be mostly soaps in our house. Rape scenes, murder scenes etc. If you wanted to watch programmes suitable for you, you locked yourself away in your bedroom.

But again it doesn't have to be all or nothing, everything in moderation. You think that if you give your child a tablet, you will give up parenting them and neglect them. It is like saying I cannot give my child a sweet necause I will stop feeding them meals and raise them on a diet of 100% sugar. Most of us are better parents than that. The toddlers you judge are the extreme, not the norm.

That was my post. Sorry, assumed it was across Scotland.

The security on them is excellent. They are completely locked down. I do agree with them being broken/stolen/lost though.

In our council area there is a charge of £70 if your kid breaks the screen the first time. £140 the second time. Although it’s classed as a “contribution” so I would presume low income families would not have to pay towards the repair.

So the previous generation presumably complained kids just sat and watched TV, the generation before I’m guessing it was “their face is always stuck in a comic” etc etc.

I’m not saying too much screen time is good but if kids don’t get used to the digital world (via homework, steaming, games, creative apps etc but with limits) they’ll struggle. I see it now at work already, people unable to do their jobs, not engaging (even on a basic level) with AI.

Balance, like anything, is the key.

So I've heard.
I'm sorry if you're a binary thinker who enjoys a bicker, but I'm not.

Have they made provision for online access for the poorest?
(And do they come with a good protective case?)

I still ban tv from the bedrooms, and laptops and tablets go downstairs in the evening 😂

But I consider tablets as a tool, they need to be just as used to them as my parents were with a landline.

Why do we give tablets? Because they need one, and they can use them.

It doesn't mean they are on it 12 hours a day watching crap and shorts on youtube from school to bedtime.

We can't guarantee that sadly, some will many might not. For example, Some kids pick up reading almost spontaneously, most are in between but some struggle for years. I was late to adopt to apps for banking and parking etc as a young adult - I was particularly ludditeish about this- and I do struggle with this stuff now much more than most my age. My default is to want to speak to someone when buying tickets if I'm physically in a cinema, not be directed to a machine - or to want to have a number to call when things go wrong with online banking, which is increasingly impossible! So in some ways I'm like a young boomer more than a young gen-x!
I absolutely think people should be aware of what their children are doing online but I'm personally more worried about my kids in terms of stranger danger, real life bullying and violence, and traffic.

Gosh, given we're talking about lazy parenting, I never pushed my kids around in a push chair - they were both walking before they were one, and we either took ages to get anywhere (eg. 1 hour getting to school and back rather than 10 mins) or I carried them in a carrier (when little) or on my shoulders or on a scooter (when bigger)

See, we can all play that game..

Besides, unless your child has ambushed you in the car to talk about the finer points of WW1 politics (which, I might add, I know basically nothing about - we did the victorians in GCSE), you probably don't realise how much effort it takes to keep up with them once they get going on tablets. I started doing the daily flagle and Worldle just to try and be vaguely competitive with my eldest.

Judgemental and sweeping statements such as ‘absolutely not necessary’ are short-sighted and hurtful to many parents who have been in situations where screen-time truly has benefitted a child and been absolutely necessary.

What I find strange is the constant chips about lazy parenting.
Screens aside, helicopter parenting is a really fairly new phenomenon.
My FIL remembers he and his friends played out all their free time on WW2 bomb sites in their city. My mother can recall walking to visit a friend two streets away, alone, at the age of five and that when she and her friend were about nine or ten they would take her friend's toddler sister out in a push chair for hours with no adults supervising them. And these were normal, respectable families!
When we'd visit our granny in the 80s we didn't actually see her much as all the kids would be sent out together to play in the garden, for hours - only being allowed inside for lunch or to use the loo.

Now I'm not saying any of that is ideal, absolutely not! But I do find the modern competitive parenting a bit odd in contrast!

when you become a parent, you need to decide to ignore all judgement and never take them personally.

People who make them either have no children, or have awful brats anyway 😂

As long as you know you are not one of the lazy parents and you do what is best for the kids, not just because you want to watch Eastenders in peace, who cares.

My teenage son is severely disabled including being non verbal. Using tablets was part of his curriculum from an early age at specialist school.