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04/17/2014
We live in a high tech household. Our kids at the ages of 4 and 6 were given our iPads when we upgraded to newer versions. We are far from being a typical tech family though. We have firm limits of no more than 2 hours of any form of screen time at our house. The only exceptions are being home sick where we might watch a few classic movies together, special occasions like family movie night, or having to sit in a medical office for hours.
Mind you, the 2 hours a day is NOT a given, it must be earned. They earn it by reading beyond what the school requires, doing EXTRA nice things for members of the family, good behavior choices at home and at school, and completing their morning, after school, and evening routines/chores in an efficient and kindly manner.
The best part about the iPad is the restrictions that I can password save into the device. I know my kids are safe if they take their iPad to their room for their time. They have no access to the Internet, texting, YouTube, FaceTime, making in-App purchases, Facebook, Instagram, email, or any games that allow chatting beyond your own wifi network. The music and videos are what we have downloaded for them. We have set the Netflix account to appropriate settings for kids. They have used the video and pictures they take on their iPads for school reports. They sit together now at 7 and 8 years old and work out screen plays, lines, stunts, and create movie sets, then film their short films. This is something they came up with completely on their own. My youngest listens to classical piano on the iPad and then does an amazing job of replicating the basic melodies of the songs on our piano. He can sit there and play the piece bit by bit and then play it on the piano. He has learned basic phrases in Vietnamese or other languages using the iPad so he may speak with people when we travel. Finding a tutor for the native languages in the countries we go to would be expensive and hard to do. When they aren't using a device which is much of the time they are playing in the snow, building forts in our woods, riding bikes and scooters, catching bugs and creatures, climbing trees, making indoor forts, building Legos, Nerf sword fighting, playing ninjas/indians/soldiers, swimming/digging in the sand at the beach, or just plain old sliding down our muddy hillside. They are boys and they are incredibly creative and imaginative, and have a lot of free time to just explore the neighborhood.
Using iDevices give us the freedom to allow them to play video games, while also opening up whole worlds of learning we never had as kids, all in a safe controlled way. Many folks do not realize the restrictions one can place on these devices so I share this knowledge with every parent I know. I love being able to give my kids a mix of the world I had playing free AND the tech world they must have some knowledge of to get by in the future.
Thank you for bringing up this topic.
Nichole
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