Really struggling with tech for 7 year old

[Gonesocoldsosuddenly]

Dd doesn’t have any tech-no tablet, phone etc. We’ve managed to get away without it until now, but now two of her friends have phones 🙄 and she wants to ask santa for a phone, I’ve told her that he won’t bring one as 7 is too young..way too young
We allow Dd to play games on our phones occasionally, under our supervision, but she’s asking more and more.
Do I have to give in and get her a safe tablet with just a few games on? Is that better than using our phones to play games?
I’d rather she didn’t have any, but it’s getting harder and harder to say no.

What tech do you have for your child (if any) and what age are they? What would I be best doing? What rules do you have/how often can they use them?

Totally agree. Shitty phone games with constant ads and flashy lights to try and get you to buy in-game add-ons are far worse than something like Mario Kart, Animal Crossing or FIFA on a proper console.

Ds has no tech other than a yoto player so screen free there, I just tell him parents make different decisions and exclusion to him why I don't think screens are good for young people. We also have no phones at the table, if we're watching a film all together dh and I will leave it phones in the kitchen etc so try and model not being on devices a lot around him. He's never used our phones

There is a happy medium.

Our kids have an android tablet (like an iPad but £150) which they use for educational apps like My Maths, Duolingo, online chess and shared films on long journeys. The eldest also codes a robot (the app was recommended by the school coding club) and now does her homework on it via Google classroom. No rubbish games.

They don't have TV or tablets in the morning before school. They have 30 minutes on a weekday and an hour on a weekend once homework is done.

Tech is a part of life and it's about managing it safely. Educating them about safe technology, appropriate use and the dangers of social media is far more appropriate than an outright ban.

Everyone remembers the kids who were kept under strict supervision from their own time at school - they were always the ones throwing up in bathrooms at parties at 14.

Sensible, appropriate and proportionate use instead.

My 7 year old is getting an iPad for Xmas. He’s had the Amazon one before but it’s quite limited to what you can have on it so he got bored of it. I don’t think there’s much difference between a tablet and a phone tbh but at least if she has her own tablet, she’s not using your phone! We got him an iPad 9 from backmarket for £171 so reasonably cheap too. I’d get her a tablet but restricted and she has to do educational stuff too. I wouldn’t let her have YouTube, DS got addicted so we took it away.

Mine (8 & 6) don't play any games and don't have access to any sort of screen other than the telly, but if you really want to give them something instead of your phone - what about a Vtech toy that has some learning basis and simple games? In fact, the children's digital camera we got for my daughter has some sort of silly game on it. A Lexibook laptop? There are all sorts of daft, cheap un-smart screen options with no connectivitey that can distract your kids!

Personally I don't think a tablet or other device is wrong if there's appropriate restrictions and supervision. My 9yo doesn't actually care that much for his but loves pc games, which are more strategic with less fast tapping. At 7 he also enjoyed my old game boy, we played through pokemon red together, which I loved the nostalgia of, but to him it was new because he had no point of reference to know it was 30 years out of date.

I’ve just been looking and have seen a lexibook Stitch one, she’d probably like it, but may find the games a bit boring

I believe we got ours as a bundle wirh 3 games then for birthdays and Christmas we gift him a game for it. There are always second hand ones available with games or refurbished to counteract the cost!

It's worth talking to the school to understand what their expectations are for later years of primary. My kids started to get homework on gamified maths apps [TT Rockstars] and phonics apps from Year 3 onwards. We found that iPads gave us the most flexibility at the time to be able to lock down security, access times and monitor rather than the basic tablets marketed for kids.

Unless you are prepared to educate yourself on online safety and set it up and monitor it very carefully I would resist as long as possible.

Last piece of advice, if you are sharing your own phone with your kids. Put safety features on your own phone and that of your husband so the kids can't inadvertently or deliberately access adult content. Bright kids are curious and I know personally of an instance where a 9 yrs old ended up on a pornsite via his fathers tablet [because I know the teacher who had to call the parents in]; and an 8 year old ended up watching footage taken of the military arriving in Dachau at the end of world war 2 [Youtube's side bar can offer some really inappropriate choices].

I'm amazed so many people have said no nothing at all because since my DC started school their homework is all online. My DD, since around aged 4 has had a Kindle fire (don't get this it's so annoying), followed by a standard Samsung tablet with parental control and a spongy kids case for it. She's 8 now and uses it for kids Netflix and Disney+, times tables and spelling apps and other homework, and a few games like Minecraft and Toca. We don't have a TV or home computer and we travel a fair bit so it's very handy for them to have their own tablet with their videos and all their things on. I think it's really important, they'll need to be computer literate.

Absolutely no one ever regrets holding out for longer on not giving kids tech. And almost everyone regrets giving tech as early as they did, irrespective of the age they allow it. Once the genie is out of the bottle it’s hard to put back in.

My DS2 is 8 and he plays Minecraft and a couple of other PC games on our home computer. My DH has always been into gaming and insists that our DC only play “proper games” (eg Lego Harry Potter, Lego Star Wars), with some sort of story or skill and purpose, and only after DH has read reviews somewhere like PC Gamer to check they are ok and played it a bit himself. Hard no on Roblox which is full or crappy first person shooters and pointless rubbish, mostly designed to make your kids want to spend real world money on Robucks content.

DS also likes the New York Times games like Wordle and Spelling Bee, and geography ones like Flaggle (introduced to them all at school) so we let him play those a bit on our phones when we are on the tube or while waiting for the food to come if we are in a cafe. Not at home though.

My dd is 9. We have a family iPad we’ve put some educational games and drawing apps on. She’s being gifted MILs old Nintendo switch for Christmas. She goes on my phone occasionally to play a rolling ball game she requested - it’s full of constant adverts though. At the end of yr 6 she’ll get a phone that is locked down to only do calls and messages.
do what feels right for your family.

I would stop giving her your phone tbh. It’s not a good habit. Phones are for adults. Mobile gaming is designed to be addictive for the most part, unless you are using something like CBeebies Let’s Play on a mobile device.

We were previously very strict on only big static screens but introduced a tablet with very strict controls for things like holidays.

What games is she playing?

I would get an iPad (if you are an apple family) with family settings on and download age appropriate games (usually via BBC) and things like reading eggs or teach your monster to read.

It’s not ‘hers’. It lives in the cupboard but can come
on plane journeys or any other emergencies.

We have a switch but they are too young for it really, but when they are older that will be fine as we only use as a static console.

I have a DS of same age and no intention of buying any tech that would be his own. I believe at this age there is really no need for it, but he also never asked so that's quite an easy decision.
We never shared our phones with him and we have no games on them, so he's not really interested anyway.
He's allowed to use our family iPad, with restrictions (there is a timer on the apps he uses, and they are all selected). And he's using it always in the living room/kitchen space so it's really easy to check what he's doing.

I fear that by allowing him to have his own phone or tablet, the implicit message is that he can do what he wants/when he wants with it, so we are avoiding this entirely.

It takes about three minutes to learn how to use a tablet, they will not struggle with that whenever they first use one!

Proper coding I can see the point of starting early, but what do they actually learn about 'computer literacy' from watching Netflix?

Yep a child can learn in about a few minutes. It’s intuitive. Waiting will not make them miss out on any of this stuff to their detriment. They’ll pick it up when older easily.

You can stop her playing games on your phone. You seem to think now you’ve done it it’s there forever. DD is 6 and never played a game on a phone or a tablet. She uses an old family tablet for her schools maths app but there’s nothing else on there. It’s not obligatory to have them do screens for fun. Teach her to play cards, keep reading, remember how young she is.

i agree with the rest of your post- it sounds like you have a solid approach given your lifestyle but unfortunately the dominance of tablets are leading to a massive back-slide in IT literacy.

i work with lots of young people who cannot even turn a document into a PDF or understand how to install a printer let alone writing simple macros. They have been around tablets all their life but they are consumers, not creators.

Yes, some things like Scratch Jr are good, and you can do some block coding- but kids are having their entire IT experience in a black box with the backend hidden and nothing ever breaking or needing tinkering.

there is no ‘family computer’ any more. Lots of homes don’t have them. Just phones and iPads.

If you want your child to be IT literate and this is something you value- it means using an actual computer. A laptop will do. Typing drills, using a mouse, word processing.

This is in the curriculum but you can’t rely on schools. The national curriculum doesn’t allow enough time for this. They’re throwing ‘AI’ and all sorts in without kids actually being able to understand the concept of ‘right-click’.

I can’t think of a single parent I know who wished they’d given their kid tech earlier! Quite a few who regretted letting primary school kids have devices though.

I agree with this. DD (age10) doesn’t have her own tablet, but she can use mine to play games or watch something. The fact that it’s my tablet rather than hers makes it easier to enforce rules as she knows she is borrowing it from me. She also plays a few age-appropriate computer games (DH plays computer games so they do this together), but this is on the family laptop, not her own console. I feel that it helps enforce the boundaries.

eldest is 10 he has an ipad which he can do homework on and watch disney+/netflix. also have a switch (which was £100 2nd hand a couple of years ago) the games he gets as xmas or bday presents or will spend his pocket money on.

youngest is 6 and plays Minecraft now on an amazon fire tablet and uses it for numbots homework.

both are limited to 45 mins a day on school days and 1.5 hours a day on weekends.

Neither play on our phones.

Do not give in. 7 years old is an absolutely insane age to give a child a mobile phone. Are you absolutely sure her friends have them?!

She doesn’t need her own device.

Do you think thats better than occasional play on our phones?

I can't say if its 'better' but I know most phone based games have ad after ad aimed at them and tbh I couldn't be bnothered wiht them asking to go on our phones all the time.

they know they have time limits, they get pop up reminders that they will close down in 10 mins 5 mins, and they aren't allowed to game until after homework complete, its almost automatic for DS1 now to pick his up to do his homework while I cook tea, knowing he will have some time to relax afterwards. Oh - they also close down at 6:30 on a school night whether they've had their game time or not.

You should not let her play in the phone. You need to do better.
My daughter is 10 and she is fully aware that she won't have a phone any time soon.
Up your game, lovely.