Not parent and I don't have kids but if I did, there's no way I'm giving them an ipad.
They can have coloring books, crayons, Legos and building blocks, doll houses, physical plastic, wooden and plush toys, restricted access to PCs/consoles, but no portable smart devices with screens, online connection and spyware apps.
By kids I'm talking about pre-teens. They can get smart devices when they're teenagers.
So... the kids will probably not have much friends as all the other kids will be socializing online even if that's inferior to physical friendship.
Good or bad, that is the norm now and if you don't let your kid access to a tablet while all the other kids do, that child will be lacking a lot of confidence and practical tech skills.
A balance with both iPad time and physical activity time would be a better tradeoff IMO.
> Good or bad, that is the norm now and if you don't let your kid access to a tablet while all the other kids do, that child will be lacking a lot of confidence and practical tech skills.
I'm pretty sure most of us on HN grew up without access to iPads, but still somehow developed practical tech skills, including the ability to learn to use iPads.
We've grown up to something technically harder-to-use than an iPad, and I'm comparing today's equivalent.
If we normalize this to current HN audience's childhood (roughly), it's more like not touching a computer and not seeing a modem until 20s, while all the kids know at least how to turn a computer, use Windows Explorer/Mac Finder, developed motor skills to use a keyboard efficiently, know how to modify Word docs etc. and the social norm is knowing all these things (as opposed to our chilhood).
Sure, a legendary hacker might arise after touching a computer first time after 20s, but much less likely.
Certainly, but all the technology with which we grew up is still out there. A kid who hasn't had an iPad is not automatically a kid who hasn't had any hands-on experience with technology, and, while I can imagine there's some debate here about whether or not it's feasible to raise a child in today's world without an iPad or equivalent device—I'm not a parent, and so wouldn't presume to participate—I can't imagine anyone here advancing the position that "I'll raise my kid without any kind of 'hacking' experience."
Then how do your kids communicate with those who only have android devices? That's a big social issue among teens in the US.
iMessage is never popular in Europe, as everyone here uses cross platform apps like Whatsapp, Telegram, Snapchat, etc. due to the lower market share of IOS vs Andorid.
Some of the auto updated apps have a history of adding circumventable embedded browsers in about boxes and things on Android which can be used to browse the internet. This happens on iOS too but the browser engine is safari and is subject to the same white lists as normal Safari.
This is a fairly large security concern if I'm honest generally.
Unless your kids are network engineers who can join wifi networks or get around firewalls, or hackers who can defeat parental controls, you should be able to control what they do on an iPad pretty easily, including making it an offline device. You can even lock them in to a single app if you really wanted to.
There are some things which you should not answer unless you have experienced it yourself. Having kids is one of them.
All your activity sounds good on paper but real life does not work like that. Kids are smart, they can see you are on your smart device, they can see others are on their phones/ipads when they go outside. You dont want your kid to be a social outcast.
Sometimes when you want to do your chores or want some quiet time for yourself the best solution is to give your kids an ipad so that they remain busy.
I don't think that's a responsible attitude to have. "You dont want your kid to be a social outcast", sure, but sometimes you have to lay down the law. That starts with setting an example yourself.
If you're always on your phone, you're sending your children the social signal that that's OK.
parent here, if you can’t work while your 3-5 year old is entertained with drawing or reading (looking at pictures in) your books/library, you didn’t teach them to entertain themselves. Music and radio drama work wonders too.
Just compare their feedback over time using the different approaches and you’ll notice that they work more their imagination when the content is not laid out entirely by someone else.
I agree this is a good attitude and start off point for parents-to-be but I have to agree with other commenters that it is impractical and goes out the window pretty quickly unless you have nerves of steel :). Imagine for example being on a flight with a toddler throwing a tantrum, for the sake of everyone's sanity an iPad is a wonderful device.
Having said that it is all about balance, and limiting screen time is a good way to go about it.
Some parenting advice: if your toddler loses their marbles, do not pacify them with a reward. That's a seriously bad idea.
I found the best low stress and low effort solution was to be a larger drama than they are. This culminated in myself lying on the floor in the Lakeside shopping centre in the UK screaming my head off. Oh yes I can do it too. And it makes you look like a dick when I do it. Make sure you talk to them at the same level afterwards. You are now equals :)
She never did it again after that and has been a joy. Advice has worked for other people.
> agree this is a good attitude and start off point for parents-to-be but I have to agree with other commenters that it is impractical and goes out the window pretty quickly unless you have nerves of steel :). Imagine for example being on a flight with a toddler throwing a tantrum, for the sake of everyone's sanity an iPad is a wonderful device.
It doesn't have to be the kid's iPad though.
We have a "family" nintendo switch. I sure don't mind if they play with it on the plane, but at home they only have access to it on request and within a limited time. Same as for a laptop if they want to watch something or my eldest daughter's phone. There is no way these devices stay in their room either. I give them an allotted time, and all these devices need to get back to my office where the charging cables are once time is over. And if for some reason they try to cheat and use the fact I am busy with something to not take notice they are still using it, they get punished for a week without access to said device.
In the end I am glad my daughters are so creative and spend so much time drawing, building things with cardboard, glue and tape, or play outside. Usually screen time is limited to when I am cooking for dinner, after they took a shower. They still aren't stranger to tech but don't need to be hooked on social medias. My daughter's phone is mostly used to play music and for whatsapp, as well as camera when we go out. But since her time on it is limited, every comm is asynchronous and doesn't end with her having to answer to every single notification right away.
Haha, man, gotta love how you get downvoted for wanting to be a proper loving father and not someone who outsources the upbringing of their children to youtube and roblox!
It's a tool. Another creative outlet. I bought my kids ipads and apple pencils and they love them. My eldest, now at university bought a new iPad Pro recently and uses that exclusively as her work computer.
What you're doing is enforcing a semi-luddite position on your own kids because you can only leave them unattended with old things. Just be a parent ffs.
My child is 4. They prefer fruit and vegetables over sweets. Milk or water over soft drinks. They come home from nursery and, in the warmer months, play outside with their friends until 7pm. They also draw and do "craft", and we do "science" together (make slime etc). They also have a base model iPad.
It's locked down using a combination of Apple's parental controls, controls on the router and NextDNS. The level of pedagogic software available on the platform is excellent, especially for preschool. There are also other 'games', like Crayola's Create and Play[0] app (available for Android too) which are fun, engaging, creative and educational.
Like it or not, this is the world they are going to grow up in. It's the parents job to teach them to be responsible with everything, from sweets to using technology. Kids aged 3-12 can get as much out of a device like an iPad as any teenager.
In early childhood, children's brains will rapidly adapt to their environment (https://academic.oup.com/pch/article/11/9/571/2648303?login=...), for example Aboriginal Australian children develop strong spatial cognition to survive in an environment with few landmarks (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/001002...). It'll be interesting to see what happens when the generation of children whose brains have adapted to oversaturated, constantly changing, narrative-free stimuli by being raised on YouTube Kids reaches adulthood.
> It'll be interesting to see what happens when the generation of children whose brains have adapted to oversaturated, constantly changing, narrative-free stimuli by being raised on YouTube Kids reaches adulthood.
This sounds word for word like worries about the first generation of children raised with ready access to TVs.
Let me guess you dont have kids.