Quick poll please.

I’m trying to prove to my eldest lad that he spends far to much time on his iPad and that we aren’t the nastiest parents in the world by restricting his usage.

Cheers
Steve.

probably about 12 hours less than his dad……………

Hour on week nights , couple hours on weekends max , 8yr old girl , if that’s any help

About 2 hours at the weekend nothing[ish] during the week

About to go outside and ride their bikes which they prefer doing

Aged 8 and 10

Is it stampylongnose?

It is stampy along with others.

Got a bit of a shock when our last bill said we had downloaded 150 gig of stuff.

My eldest is 10 and getting to that age where all his mates have phones and they tell him that they can spend as much time on their iPads and phones etc as they want.

So he comes home saying we are horrible and strict.

Kids eh.

Provide him with alternative activities and you won’t need to restrict him.

Some days our daughter (12) can spend 6 hours or more on devices of one sort or another (XBox, laptop, phone), but this is offset by her other activities – tae kwon do, gymnastics, trampolining, walking dog with us and more.

I don’t think blanket bans work, and can just lead to resentment.

It’s a good question: nothing during the week. Usage at the weekend varies but probably 1 – 2 hours each day but behaviour led (iPad has gone away for the rest of the weekend after this mornings efforts!!). Ages 7 and 9. Oldest wants playstation for Christmas (I don’t think so). “When I was your age we only had… Blah blah blah”.

My eldest is the only one in his class with no phone

he has no interest in one though and plenty let their kids do as they please and play 18 games

I guess it was ever thus except when we were kids they were the ones out at all hours rather than online at all hours.

We aren’t blanket banning him at all. What we have done is said they can charge their ipads twice a week and its then up to them how they manage the battery life.

He does a lot of other activities apart from his iPad.

His mates also tell him that they can stay up past 10 o’clock at night. We send him to bed at 8.

8pm to bed does seem a rather early for a 10 yr old. (after 10 is too late though!)

10 going 11. Not allowed before school and only once home work is finished. Not allowed in his bedroom with it. Dont restrict it other than that. He does other things himself, we have no games console so his tablet is only really used for fifa and youtube. When I check his search history its all football facts. If he does anything wrong his tablet is first to be taken off him, which in its self restricts his use.. 😀

Mine are outside now playing in the streets with a hoop and stick, all the kids are running around behind them and a little friendly terrier too. The boys are wearing shorts and shirts, the girls big floral dresses, one of the is drinking milk straight out of a glass bottle. Later they’ll be off to work in the factories though but not before church.

Don’t all kids think they are hard done by compared to their friends?!

The girls will always choose being outside versus gadgets however the eldest two where given the freedom to use their devices at will so long as homework etc was done first and that they didn’t take the pee. Didn’t last so we restricted use which caused the whole so and so can do what ever they want, your just mean, blah blah stuff.

We had a one month blanket ban, unless needed for school work, and they now get an hour during week per day, and a couple at weekend. If they choose to spend it on the computer then there’s no Xbox or tablet afterwards. We will give them extra at times, say if they are on computer learning stuff instead of games etc.

Tbh since restricting use they have used them less anyway of their own choice.

My 4 year old plays learning games and he’s pretty good. Not an every day thing but useful when you’ve got house stuff to do. Maybe an hour a go perhaps.

Ours (4 & 6) have a leappad, but it’s only used about 2 hours per week.
If they can’t find anything to do, then out comes homework practice.
Funnily enough, they can find lots to do.

dd1 12 yrs old.. research for school only circa an hour per day dd2 10 years old wathes tv on it if the adults are watching something else.. in a month they ‘might’ spend two hours on the xbox or whatever it is they have..both do after school activities every night and both compete in sports

Eldest just got up and turned it on. Half an hour in the morning, hour at night depending on activities/homework/telly alternatives.

But I’m posting on here, hypocrisy rules

An hour a day on their tablets. They are 13 and 12. I use an app called Screentime where you can set time limit, so how 5they use the time in the day is up to them.

Neither of them have phones. Tablets not allowed in bedroom and they are a privelige that is first to go if the aren’t behaving

Just to add, talk to other parents about what they do – will soon expose the lies and over exaggerated nonsense his mates claim to do.

And we have a “no screens in bedroom” rule. Parents as well. Phones and tablets sleep downstairs.

He does a lot of other activities apart from his iPad.

Not really seeing the problem, then.

Tablets / phones are the modern day demons. Before that it was computers, before that video games, TV, rock and roll, and if you go back far enough, books. If he’s got a habit which is all-encompassing then yes, it’s a problem; but if he’s got lots of other interests as well then it’s healthy enough.

I wonder how many parents ever felt the need to restrict their son’s “obsessing about football” time? Sorry son, you’ve already watched two games this week, why don’t you play with your iPad?

Can I post it now?

😆

nice one graham 🙂

we have a hudl for our girls (nearly 5 and 2), when we first got it we set the parental controls to a 3hr daily maximum but they never get anywhere near it, some days they have more than others but we always make sure there is something coming to break the screen time, a meal or an activity

it lives on the top of the fridge !

None during the week, about 2 hours total on Saturday and Sunday (two 6 year old girls).

Depends whether its raining or not.

If it isn’t, then they forget they’ve even got them. If it is, then they tend to get some hammer. I reckon it all balances out.

Usually about 30 mins in the morning watching CBeebies in bed while we all get adjusted to the fact it’s 6am! Some tv or a film before bed to calm them down before they have a book or two then into bed.

May I ask to all … genuine question

Whats the difference between an ipad or xbox compaired to a watching the tele … when talking about child entertainment.

Becuase I could seem really conscientious/harsh and say my lad only gets to spend an hour or 2 a week on the ipad…. but he spends far longer in front of the tele.

Didn’t we all spend ages in front of the gogglebox as kids… whats the difference now for kids with ipad/playstations

Internet round here goes off around 10pm (seems very local, just the WiFi, I don’t know how it happens lol)

Boys aged 9 and 12 here. They do a lot of sport stuff, both are in football teams, with training week nights, games weekends, plus tennis, swimming, bikes etc.

so when they are relaxing in the house we don’t restrict access at all, apart from curfew at bedtime. Between Amazon Prime on the main telly, their 2 xbox’s, ipads, iphones and chromebooks they are spoilt for choice, which is fine in my book.

Probably a couple of hrs each per day, depending what else they have on.

Whats the difference between an ipad or xbox compaired to a watching the tele … when talking about child entertainment.

Becuase I could seem really conscientious/harsh and say my lad only gets to spend an hour or 2 a week on the ipad…. but he spends far longer in front of the tele.

Personally speaking I would much rather my kids were using a tablet/console than sitting passively consuming telly. And I would limit telly before tablet use (and have done so a couple of times).

Of course if they are clever they just watch iPlayer on the tablet…

The rule in my house is Monday and Thursday no computer/iPad/ps4
So as long as he has been good and his homework is done….he can go for as long as he likes……after a few hours he’ll get bored and do something else

Personally speaking I would much rather my kids were using a tablet/console than sitting passively consuming telly. And I would limit telly before tablet use (and have done so a couple of times).

I go along with this, just wish they’d move on from Clash of Fricking Clans.

Minecraft now supporting peer to peer on PE isn’t going to help either.

Any suggestions for more creative uses? They already have / use Scratch for example.. when I were their age it t’were all ZX81s round ere.

Raspberry Pi, mini breadboard and a big bag of LEDs?

About to go outside and ride their bikes which they prefer doing
Aged 8 and 10
Is it stampylongnose?

8 & 11

The 8 year old is addicted to Dan TDM or Dan Tedium as he is imaginatively known in our house!

6 year old boy – none
8 year old girl – around one hour per week watching TV (i-player, Youtube)
10 year old girl – starting to become an issue. probably around 15 minutes a day, but would be on all day if we let her. All of her time spent on messenger / facebook with her friends.

10 year old girl – starting to become an issue. probably around 15 minutes a day, but would be on all day if we let her. All of her time spent on messenger / facebook with her friends.

She spends 15 minutes a day talking to her friends and this is becoming an issue?

It’s probably a good thing I’m not a parent, I’m clearly out of touch. If it were me I’d be encouraging her to make friends and develop her social skills.

Ah Facebook that’s the other issue.

According to my eldest all his friends have Facebook and we are horrible parents for not letting him have it. He is 10.

Isn’t the age limit on Facebook 15 ?

When my two have their ipads they become different characters. Don’t listen when we ask them to do things and get very obnoxious.

Don’t listen when we ask them to do things and get very obnoxious.

don’t worry, they’ll soon be teenagers and that becomes the norm 🙂

Raspberry Pi, mini breadboard and a big bag of LEDs?

That’s fine for Dad time, but pushing it for 5-9 year old ‘unstructured learning’ (aka leave me alone for 20 minutes I’m trying to cook tea here)

Was thinking more of apps.

Although having introduced the eldest to the delights of W10, and created a MS account to start introducing email, IM etc in a measured way, I’m going off the idea completely. Within 10 minutes I had a mail saying I had a head like a pineapple. Followed by another saying ‘That was meant for mum’. 😀