My daughter is approaching 3 and my wife has suggested a tablet either as a birthday or Christmas present, and I’m a bit hesitant. It’d be great for long trips, but I think as a day-to-day thing it might be a distraction. It’d get Spidey and Friends off the telly though. How and when did you handle this?
Too early.
My daughter was born on 10.01.2020 so when she was 8 weeks old and ready to meet the world we went into lockdown. She was about 18 months old when she figured out that daddys phone or mommys phone could make Bluey appear on the TV. And she literally spent a great deal of her first 2 years watching mummy work from home on a variety of screens. So the “screen free” household ship sailed hard.
Like all toddlers had absolutely no compuntions about picking up my phone absolutely whereever it was, trying to unlock it, failing and then yeeting it across the fucking room. Or walking up to you and straight snatching it out of your hand and just randomly pressing shit. So at about 2 she got her tablet. Now I locked that motherfucker down HARD, she had Khan Academy kids, a few games that were add free, and educational and Netflix. I deleted youtube, blocked everything I could or put it behind a password, and put family link on it.
The problem came about a year later from Nanny… who didnt lock HER Ipad down at all and showed my daughter that theres a wonderful catalogue of mind numbing games, most of which are laden with Adds or want $15 a month subscriptions behind one of the buttons. Not educational at all, let her watch youtube kids and showed her just how much wasnt on her tablet.
Now I kind of regret getting it for her, but as she is now approaching 4 and the reasoning skills are kicking in “No, you cant have your tablet because you didnt eat dinner” is actually something that makes sense. Its not so bad, its a great lever for “eat your dinner or no tablet time before we go upstairs” and all but “Tabbet” became just a little too needed to have her be well behaved than I like.
You know your kid, does she take “no” well? Does she take “Its run out of time today sweetheart” type statements well? Does she constantly try and demand Ice Cream for breakfast and throw a tantrum if she doesnt get it.? Because it WILL be a hit, I can absolutely guarantee it, but then you have to get them to put it down sometimes and eat, sleep or just go play.