So the Grandparents bought the kids Ipads for Xmas

[chinchuckchick]

Over it already. When does the newness wear off? OH and I have had one for a few years but the kids are just obsessed by it. 3 weeks post Xmas and I have disabled the internet on both and given them 1 hour a day to play.

They both think I'm mean (hey I'm a mum, that's my job) but I dont think a 12 and 7 year old need to have their eyes and hands glued to a tablet.

[monstersinthedungeon]

I hear ya!

My 14yo stepdaughter has just gone home after staying with us for nearly a month. We only saw her at night for dinner, the rest of the time she was in her room glued to the laptop screen.

Bear in mind we are on 126 acres with eight dogs, four cats, poultry of all descriptions (with chicks hatching all over the place), two pet pigs, bottle-fed poddy calves, a couple of camels, goats, a 4wd buggy, a creek, dam, etc, etc - all of which would have been absolute paradise to me as a kid, but she just wasn't interested, no matter how much we tried to involve her (even though she keeps telling us how much she loves animals ?:|). I was seriously worried about her getting bedsores from sitting in her bed and playing on the computer for so many hours/days at a stretch!

I did start teaching her how to drive (around the farm), out of desperation to try and find something to get her away from the damn computer. She enjoyed the driving lessons, but apart from that she was always behind the laptop, she didn't even want to practice driving in the buggy (which she is allowed to drive by herself), wanted to get straight back to the computer. The only time she really wanted to spend with us was at night if we watched a movie together (MORE screen!) I had stocked up on heaps of craft stuff that I thought she might enjoy doing, nup, computer please.

I found it so sad and frustrating, but it is nothing different from what she does at home, her life consists of school and a screen, so little point me trying to force a difference for her time with us and make her holiday miserable.The weirdest thing is that when she got home she told her mother she had a great holiday!

It's nice to hear of a parent restricting screen time, especially at a young age, so very important to encourage other interests IMO.

[chinchuckchick]

If our kids were lucky enough to spend time at a property like yours the electronics wouldn't be going with them. We had a few little hicupps when they got Ipods a few years ago, but with everything else going on in their lives they lost interest (well they lost the obsession) in a few weeks.

The ipads are a whole different ball game though, I've already told them that screen time is going to further reduced a week before school goes back.

Having said all that, we just spent a few days on the boat (no devices allowed) and there were no issues, back home and bikes and skateboards are still getting ridden. So I guess its not that bad, just annoying lol

[getting_of_wisdom]

I enjoyed a short article in the Sydney Morning Herald recently on a similar theme.  The link is really long, so put "Change your thinking to connect with Gen Y" into the search box at smh.com.au if you'd like to read it.

[i-need-a-martini]

Yeah there is something about the ipad/iphone that hooks them in even when the other gadgets don't.

My 14year old has always been gadget mad (nintendos/xbox/ipod etc) so we have had the need to restrict.

But my daughetr (now 11) has never been an issue as she has always lost interest in those kind of things really quickly. But she was given a hand me down iphone for christmas and she is obsessed. Playing on this thing and charging this thing  is the first thing she thinks of when she gets up and the last thing before she goes to bed. She even sneaks to it in restricted time which is very unlike her.

[daydream**believer]

yeh, my daughter got an ipod and im restricting her time on it

[monstersinthedungeon]

If our kids were lucky enough to spend time at a property like yours the electronics wouldn't be going with them. We had a few little hicupps when they got Ipods a few years ago, but with everything else going on in their lives they lost interest (well they lost the obsession) in a few weeks.

The ipads are a whole different ball game though, I've already told them that screen time is going to further reduced a week before school goes back.

Having said all that, we just spent a few days on the boat (no devices allowed) and there were no issues, back home and bikes and skateboards are still getting ridden. So I guess its not that bad, just annoying lol

No point in my banning the electronics, it would just make her miserable and as she's with us for only around 8 weeks a year I don't want to make that time unhappy for her. Having said that, however, she has asked if she could move in with us at the end of this year and if that happens I will certainly be trying extremely hard to get her to develop outside interests.

For the last two years previously we hired a houseboat for a week over the summer hols, so much to do, a wonderful holiday swimming, fishing, yabbying, exploring, heaps of crafts.  What did she want to do? DS! (Those hand-held game thingies)

Admittedly she did enjoy the swimming, (hated the exploring 'cos that involved WALKING!), but as soon as she was back on the boat out came the DS. Fortunately that legitimately had to be restricted as we were running on solar power and it could only be charged at certain times of the day.