Screen Time for Junior

Irish Gunner

Have tried to avoid it giving Junior access to any screen but travelling with him and Thomas the Tank engine would keep him entertained for a while on the phone

Seen Kurio and Amazon fires and would only use it for watching You Tube or loading up Thomas on it.

Still in Research mode and Ive tried him with the vTech but that does not scroll and I get the look of 'What is this?'

So any suggestions

shesty

.......I gave this consideration last year (3&2 year old) and concluded if I bought anything I would be creating a rod to beat myself with......how could I explain to that age group they could have the screen while travelling but not while we there (much) and not when we got home??

Sorry, totally no help to you but maybe something to bear in mind!!!!!

fits

We use a laptop up out of reach as we have no tv in the house.

Theres a dvd player in the car for very long journeys (i.e 4 hours). Thats it.

So no recommendation for a tablet here. Id be very hesitant about introducing one at all.

Irish Gunner

Yeah Dilemma alright

I have a travel laptop I must dig out and yeah good for only travelling. At home we can limit any Screen time and by that I mean TV only

I agree if we buy one we would be getting into into the frying pan

I just wanted to test the water to see how other parents feel

shesty

Ah don't get me wrong, I went so far as to do research, and then somewhat regretfully decided that I would have to put up with the short term pain of the travel for the long term gain of not having a tablet in the house for a bit longer....we are off again this year and I am.once more considering it.But with age, comes increased vocab and pester power and there are two of them vocal now so......

mirrorwall14

We’ve had an d iPad in use from age 2 for journeys and the odd time with educational stuff. He just gets told it’s dead or no when we don’t want to give it. No compromise ever. IF we say no it’s no and knows that still at 4

Millem

I bought a fire tablet 7inch and have a kids profile on it. You can set a limit on it per day and it automatically switches off and your child can’t go back in. I just have youtube and netflix on it.
I bought the bumper case too.

Irish Gunner

Looking at the Fire HD 8 kids edition looks good

Are there any adds that pop up on the 7?

Can you put apps on it like the play store?

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Zero screen time for toddler. It's simply not good for the childs development. 2 or 3 is simply far too young for any tablet/laptop whatever. You should research other means to keep them entertained for the journey.

How old is your child OP and how long is the journey?

Millem

Irish Gunner wrote: »

Looking at the Fire HD 8 kids edition looks good

Are there any adds that pop up on the 7?

Can you put apps on it like the play store?

Gosh I am not sure re ads. I don’t use the adult profile! On my son’s profile he doesn’t even have google! I literally have just netflix and youtube.
I have only used the adult prifile to go to the app store and load the 2 apps.

I bought the 7 for something like €30 during black friday. I bought the case for maybe €10 from ebay.

Irish Gunner

Douglas Dazzling Ringworm wrote: »

Zero screen time for toddler. It's simply not good for the childs development. 2 or 3 is simply far too young for any tablet/laptop whatever. You should research other means to keep them entertained for the journey.

How old is your child OP and how long is the journey?

Agree we are not sold yet and he is into his books so trying to get him more into them than screen

We are just testing the water in relation to research

antix80

How long is the journey that you feel he needs to be "kept entertained"/quiet/subdued?

jlm29

Prime day is coming up in the middle of the month, if you decide to buy it might be a good time!

Irish Gunner

We have just returned from holiday and it was 3 hour flight with 2 hour delay and it was awful going over, back not so bad as I had some Thomas on the phone.

Few trips planned during the year but not long flights so was just looking at this option. We only let him watch so much before saying its broke or just a plain No

Yeah prime day is the 15th and 16th so may look at prices then

maxsmum

shesty wrote: »

.......I gave this consideration last year (3&2 year old) and concluded if I bought anything I would be creating a rod to beat myself with......how could I explain to that age group they could have the screen while travelling but not while we there (much) and not when we got home??

Sorry, totally no help to you but maybe something to bear in mind!!!!!

I could explain to my son from when he was 2 that tablet was only in car/plane etc. He said 'bye bye tablet' when the car stopped or we got off the plane. TBH I couldn't have managed some situations without the tablet! If he never had tablet in sitting room or in bed it never was an issue. Same with his soother (naps only). Now I've no other kids to compare with but the all or nothing approach to screens seems bizarre to me. It's a treat like chocolate or whatever in my house.

colm_c

We bought some new colouring books and a small pack of crayons for each of ours for a recent 3 hour flight.

Best 10 euro I ever spent, kept them entertained for the whole flight.

They were a bit restless in the hire car, but we had a break every hour and it was grand, plus they played with some toys they brought from home.

Some screen time is ok, I just don't like it for hours on end.

lazygal

We don't have a tablet. I had one when I had my first and became totally addicted to it so when it broke I never replaced it. We have one TV and our five and seven year olds get some TV time every day, we tend to put on Netflix shows so we can limit the ads and because they have a few favourites. We try to avoid handing them phones too. They don't go on our desktop. We do a long drive in France every summer (4 to 6 hours) and they just....enjoy the drive. They don't need to be entertained every second and they need to learn that sometimes things are boring and you have to suck it up.
My husband is in IT and that's one reason why we don't have a lot of tech in the house. These devices designed for babies and young toddlers aren't necessary. They have no real benefit.

shesty

maxsmum wrote: »

I could explain to my son from when he was 2 that tablet was only in car/plane etc. He said 'bye bye tablet' when the car stopped or we got off the plane. TBH I couldn't have managed some situations without the tablet! If he never had tablet in sitting room or in bed it never was an issue. Same with his soother (naps only). Now I've no other kids to compare with but the all or nothing approach to screens seems bizarre to me. It's a treat like chocolate or whatever in my house.

They watch TV (are currently watching it).They see stuff on our phones sometimes.I just don't see the need for phones and tablets to entertain them while out and about, that's all.Also we have two kids who would want to watch something and a third who will be demanding it soon enough.I am not supplying them all with screens.

Kids are noisy and they get bored.While they are small I figure we have to just do our best to mitigate against that.And socially it's up to us to teach them how to behave in public, I guess we can't do that by sticking a screen in front of them all of the time.It's rubbish for us, and it does limit where we go and what we do for a few years (we don't do restaurants with them...yet..), but sure such is life when you have small kids.

That's just my thought process on it, and what works for us, is all.Whether other people give their child a screen in a car or plane is entirely their business and not mine.

Kintarō Hattori

The missus and myself would have been quite strict about screen time. For a very long time our now 2 year old had no idea about videos or the TV etc as nothing was on when she was around. We encouraged her to look at books and she does seem to love them. Gradually though, how I'm not sure, YouTube crept in there.
That said though it's strictly controlled and only for a short period once per day. When we've been on the plane with her we've had books, toys, food, naps and when that has run its course, she's had some videos on a Chromebook.

I'm of the option that it's better to let her watch some, in moderation, rather than try to exclude it from her altogether. Invariably she will get to see videos later when she starts having play dates and the craic so it's better to normalise it for her to some degree. However we never use it to simply entertain her. We always play with her via toys, books, going outside etc and TV is limited.

Jurgen The German

Our 27 month old gets zero screen time and we have made the decision to keep it that way for as long as possible. He loves things like jigsaws, books and music in particular so we have a few playlists made up and he will tell us what he wants to hear depending on his humour. The phone is kept out of reach. The only exception is if he is having a melt down when getting his nappy changed I will give him the phone, screen off, until he is changed. His 11 month old sister will be the same. He doesn't and cant miss what he doesn't know.

Macha

I'm jumping on this thread rather than start a new one but our (almost) 4 year old really acts out around screen time.

He unfortunately has seen a lot of TV in the past because he's been very sick and sitting for 15 minutes holding onto a nebulizer without a video is basically impossible. Luckily that phase seems to be over

But now he wakes us up early asking to watch videos, cries when we switch then off (he's crying right now as I just said no), always wants to watch one more etc. I'd like him to be able to watch one short video every now and then also to give me a break (we have a baby in the house now) and to normalise it but he just goes mental.

Any tips? Go cold turkey and cut them out entirely?

deisedevil

My kids rather playing outside to anything else. They love lego, magnatiles and anything they can build. They sit with books and like to listen to us read. We go to the library every week. They paint regularly and colour. They watch a small amount of TV every evening. For short periods of time they can watch programmes on their tablet. What's the harm. If watching on a tablet is harmful then no one should ever leave their kids watch TV either. Once kids get a good mix of activities and plenty exercise then what's the harm in watching TV or tablets when they are tired or bored on long car journeys. I think there is far too big a deal being made of tablets and some parents like to look down their nose at anyone who gives their child a tablet. You'd swear they had just given them a glass of wine with the reaction you'd get. Where is the evidence that tablets do so much harm to development. The same was said of TV and video games. Too much of anything is good for nothing. If a child has a good mix of activities and stimulation then watching a tablet in moderation won't cause them any problems and instead they are getting used to technology and learning skills that they are going to need in the future. In both my workplace (pharma) and my wife's (nursing) tablets are an essential part of our workplace. The earlier kids get used to touchscreen and technology the better in my opinion. If someone can show me proper, peer reviewed research on a good sample size (not a Facebook click bait article) as to why tablets are the devil then I'll change my mind.

shesty

Macha I try to hold out til at least 4pm/5pm most days before the tv goes on.They get one 10 minute programme in the morning if they are dressed and ready in time for it, but if not, we are running out the door otherwise so there is no time.

They need to learn how to be bored in my house ;-)Like you, I found the TV nearly caused more crazy behaviour so it wasn't worth it.It is only just now beginning to become useful.

chases0102

With our 27 month old, we limit exposure to TV to the weekends - perhaps Saturday morning/evening, and always try to keep a handle on it and try not to use it as a crutch, or 'babysitting'. I think Monday to Friday, the house is so busy that Screen time isn't really necessary, although during the Winter months the temptation is there in order to get some space to cook the dinner!

He also loves looking at photos of himself on our phones! Although we wouldn't be fascist about it, I certainly have seen children really react badly to screen being taken away from them, and have it the rare time in our own lad.

The thing is, some of the stuff can be quite educational. Our fella is obsessed with dinosaurs, and there are some good videos on YouTube Kidz (this I think is great - none of those pesky, horrible ads on regular YouTube). But it is about moderation we think.

Irish Gunner

Following up on this

Did not buy a tablet in the Prime sales and going to hold off as long as possible. We dont have the TV on in the morning and when home from work limit tv to a few episodes of Thomas (after playtime) and the Chase(yes he loves the chase) but turn it off and the white lie of 'Its broke' works a treat a few moans but no tantrums:rolleyes:. But this is not every day we turn on the tv

Junior does like looking at photos on the phone and does the gesture of the swipes however no long journeys plan yet so we keep him entertained by other means.

We probably will succumb in the future but for the moment moderation seems to work