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Do you send your kids' iPads on playdates?!

107 replies

Purpleturtle45 · 31/07/2026 18:34

This is doing my head in recently. Whenever my daughter (9) has a friend to play they bring their iPad (or equivalent). I have playdates to get them off a screen and wouldn't dream or sending her on a playdate with her tablet. I have 2 older kids and this was never a thing!

OP posts:
Marroon · 01/08/2026 08:27

Velumental · 01/08/2026 08:24

Why? The ownership part specifically? My kids had Kindle fires with kid friendly covers so they weren't using the more expensive adult tech. I could replace 7/8 kindle frees before I could replace my MacBook for example and 6 before I could replace my phone

I don’t understand what you’re not getting, got questioned multiple posters about whether they even had children because they didn’t think a 9 year old needed a tablet.
That’s an insane view imo and there are plenty of 9 year olds with no tablets, it’s weird to suggest posters couldn’t possibly even have children if they didn’t think a 9 year old needed their own tech.
You don’t have to agree, I never mentioned price. I just don’t think is that shocking that a 9 year old wouldn’t have a tablet.

Bonsaibaby · 01/08/2026 08:52

dd 9 has an ipad very locked down. I’ve disabled messages from friends as well. It’s never been to a friend’s house and they’ve never brought one to ours. I would say it’s unusual to do that.

Velumental · 01/08/2026 09:08

Marroon · 01/08/2026 08:27

I don’t understand what you’re not getting, got questioned multiple posters about whether they even had children because they didn’t think a 9 year old needed a tablet.
That’s an insane view imo and there are plenty of 9 year olds with no tablets, it’s weird to suggest posters couldn’t possibly even have children if they didn’t think a 9 year old needed their own tech.
You don’t have to agree, I never mentioned price. I just don’t think is that shocking that a 9 year old wouldn’t have a tablet.

I just think it's weird that you were so incredulous that 9 yr olds HAVE tablets. As if that's so unusual somehow

Mwnci123 · 01/08/2026 09:08

Mine don't. I'm always disappointed if they go on playdates and I learn they spent a lot of time on the other kid's tablet. Lots of comments here about demonising tech and the importance of balance, but the issue IMO is that for lots of kids these things are addictive, isolating, and sedentary, and they absolutely do take away from imaginative and physical joint playing. It's also worrying because you don't know what age safeguards are on other children's devices.

I've had a little girl of 7 round who asked persistently for her iPad over several hours, despite clearly having fun doing other things and wanting to be with the other children (I eventually caved and popped her home for her iPad, thinking I'd leave her there, but she asked really earnestly to come back to my house, where she spent the rest of the playdate staring at her tablet and periodically trying to get the other kids to do the same).

If I've got kids round for a long time and they have been very active and want to chill, or if they just aren't clicking, I will let them choose something on the TV. We host a lot and this is very rarely necessary.

The comments that are more pro playdate tech seem to be about communal gaming. I can imagine permitting that to some extent if my kids were in to it, because it's not quite the same as little kids parked on their individual tablets. That said, I'd rather my kids (8 and 10) continued to play physically/ imaginatively for hours with their mates.

Velumental · 01/08/2026 09:19

Mwnci123 · 01/08/2026 09:08

Mine don't. I'm always disappointed if they go on playdates and I learn they spent a lot of time on the other kid's tablet. Lots of comments here about demonising tech and the importance of balance, but the issue IMO is that for lots of kids these things are addictive, isolating, and sedentary, and they absolutely do take away from imaginative and physical joint playing. It's also worrying because you don't know what age safeguards are on other children's devices.

I've had a little girl of 7 round who asked persistently for her iPad over several hours, despite clearly having fun doing other things and wanting to be with the other children (I eventually caved and popped her home for her iPad, thinking I'd leave her there, but she asked really earnestly to come back to my house, where she spent the rest of the playdate staring at her tablet and periodically trying to get the other kids to do the same).

If I've got kids round for a long time and they have been very active and want to chill, or if they just aren't clicking, I will let them choose something on the TV. We host a lot and this is very rarely necessary.

The comments that are more pro playdate tech seem to be about communal gaming. I can imagine permitting that to some extent if my kids were in to it, because it's not quite the same as little kids parked on their individual tablets. That said, I'd rather my kids (8 and 10) continued to play physically/ imaginatively for hours with their mates.

I agree re the communal play, sitting together staring at their own tablets would work me too. For a standard 2 hour playdate no one has or brings tech but for a whole day or sleepover typically there's gaming of some sort or my youngest had a whole day out with her best friend and when we came home they watched tangled while playing 'spa'.

I've never experienced the iPad kid thing of them sitting on their own screen ignoring each other

Houseofdrums · 01/08/2026 09:30

Is that a thing now?

No I don’t.

Thisisnobridgetjones · 01/08/2026 16:37

Velumental · 01/08/2026 08:11

Yeah that's the one that seemed massively unrealistic to me, here kids turn up with a wide array of toys, some also bring tech but usually that's a pre planned gaming thing. They're all mad into Pokemon cards and figures and turn up with pockets full, or bags of their favourite hot wheels cars. My son actually said to me why are they making fun of her for having toys, she's my age?!

Mine is 7, and I don’t let her leave the house on her iPad (it’s really mine that I don’t use). She’s only allowed on it for school work, to be honest. I know she has one at her dad that she uses a lot more but, by her own admission, she worries about how much screen time she has at dads

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