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Strollerderby
Do You Let Your iPad Babysit?
kids love the iPad
Over at The Stir, Andrew Dalton writes about a 3-year-old in Australia who reportedly uses her mom’s iPad for a few hours a day.
Recently, the kid ran up $50 in app purchases.
“Sounds like someone’s letting Steve Jobs be their babysitter,” writes Dalton.
I’m sure that’s not an isolated incident.
Just yesterday at a restaurant with my kids, I noticed that another family had let their children play on their parents’ cell phones through the meal. Sure, it can be difficult keeping your kids quiet during dinner at a restaurant, but if you give them your cell phone, they’ll never learn to behave.
I recently bought an iPhone for work and my kids are already begging me to buy games for them to play. But, I’m hesitant to turn my phone into a toy for them. Sure, every once in a while when we’re on a long line, it will come in handy to have instant entertainment for them. But I also think that we’re too worried about constantly keeping our kids entertained. What about being bored? I remember being bored a lot during my childhood. During that time, I had to use my brain to entertain myself. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
I figure that eventually my kids will get sucked into technology and spend a lot of time looking down at a little screen. But I’m in no rush for that to happen.
By the way, Dalton did some research and discovered that under settings on an iPad, you can turn app purchases “off” so that your kid won’t run up a bill!
What about you? Do you use your iPad or iPhone to entertain your kids?
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Photo: flickr/aperturismo
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0 Comments
Dave commented on Sep 16 10 at 1:49 pmSadie can play with our phones all she wants–in fact we gave her a 3G (sans contract, of course, though it can make VOIP calls) that we stopped using, though she still wants ours all the time, at least in part because she’s just not very good at keeping track of hers–but she’s not getting my password to be able to buy apps until she finds paying work.
lam commented on Sep 16 10 at 3:36 pmboth of our children have ipads (6 and 3) and we think they are great. before theses, they had ipod touches. i select all the apps, and none are worthless entertainment. i don’t always bring them with me,and we have a no ipads at the table rule for most restaurant outings and of course at home. but they are fantastic learning tools. it’s not true that children who are allowed to use them are never going to learn to behave. that’s up to the parents to work out. fear of technology only increases the likelihood that children will not learn how to use it for anything other than escapist entertainment. devices such as these will absolutely be a part of their lives at some point. there is a world of data out there for htem to explore. if they don’t learn from you that these devices are simply another way to explore their curiosity, they will end up like those zombie psp kids who can’t be bothered to look up. my kids love talking to people about their apps and what they are doing, learning, exploring, trying to figure out. there is so much more that’s possible! being engaged with a piece of technology does not have to equal addiction to something frivolous and empty. part of the problem with the app store is its totally lame response to parents dealing with children as users. it can be time consuming to try to find good apps for kids, but good, enriching apps are out there! try crayon physics, or kid analogies, or coin math, or cute math, or wiki offline, or algebra touch, or thatquiz math, or flag matching, or tic tac math, or the elementals, or the elements, or abc tracer, or intro to math, intro to letters, or bridges, or bookworm, or word magic, or solar walk, or sum of ten, or montessori crossword, or mathboard, or spellboard, or LIFE wonders of the world or jungle time, jungle fractions, jungle coins… or for recreational games try osmos, or geared, or zen loops, or kaeru jump, or constellamajor, or touch maze…
Marilyn commented on Sep 16 10 at 3:37 pmWhatever happened to family conversation when out to dinner at a restaurant? I noted what you did, Paula, that the kids were playing games, separately, while the adults were talking together. My, how times have changed! I’m not sure the new technology is all good. As an aside, I love playing Scrabble or doing crossword puzzles on my husband’s IPad – but not during dinner.
Manjari commented on Sep 17 10 at 9:57 amI don’t think banning technology from a dinner table means there is any fear of it. I agree with Marilyn that family conversation is important at meals. The entire benefit of eating together as a family is negated by everyone doing his/her own thing. I also agree that if phones and ipads are used to keep kids quiet in restaurants, they aren’t learning how to behave properly without them. Every single second of life doesn’t need to be filled up with entertainment.
autumn commented on Mar 15 11 at 10:09 amits the age we live in . its all about technology . my kids dont have cell phones . and we told the this is not a privilage its earned . i feel if it helps to make them behave fer a bit in ceartin place then fine play wit the phone , but if we are at home where they have plenty to do than play wit technology then no find something to do . kids r jus straight lazy now a day !
autumn commented on Mar 15 11 at 10:12 amo and whta three yer old needs an i pad . what happened to tonka trucks and barbie dolls !
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