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My daughter is 5. We've done several things: 1. Blocked youtube on all iOS devices. This has been the most significant, positive action. She was rabid and unha
by mkempe 12y ago
My daughter is 5. We've done several things:
1. Blocked youtube on all iOS devices. This has been the most significant, positive action. She was rabid and unhappy whenever she used youtube, even for 20 minutes. The mental unbalance would sometimes last for hours.
2. NO live TV (no ads), unless we're watching a special event, e.g. a tennis tournament or other major cultural happenings (usually via BBC/VPN). The TV screen is hooked to a Mac mini, with XBMC and an account for the parents and another one for our daughter.
3. Weekly budget. She has a few cards which she can use in a given week (refill each Monday morning): 3 for documentaries (mostly nature, 45-60' each), and 1 for a weekend movie (animated or musical). Initially she had 2 documentary-cards, which we increased when she turned 4, and we added the movie card when she turned 5. She's much happier and specific about what she wants to watch with her own budget control. She has made a fake mickey mouse club card (she had discovered it through youtube), but we've never honored it. She also made a joker card to enable herself to watch anything she wants as many times as she wants; never accepted that one either... I highly recommend all the BBC Natural World shows.
4. Purchased a few iOS apps for her enjoyment: first animal pictures and sounds; next Doodle; and in the last couple of years several Montessori apps. She loves them all, and usually after an initial obsessive [edit: 1 hour over a] day or two with a new app she'll only return to the iPad for much shorter, infrequent sessions (maybe twice a week). I buy a new app maybe once every 2-3 months. I've turned on restrictions in all devices, to prevent in-app purchases and installing+deleting apps; if a (rare) free app keeps popping up advertisement when she's using it we delete it and explain to her it was broken.
Last year she inherited my old, sim-less iPhone 4 which she can use as an iPod to listen to audiobooks and her favorite music. She loves that, especially Roald Dahl stories. I've only recently installed on it one of the apps I had purchased (via the iOS/iCloud family feature). And this week she discovered Siri ("the computer speaks to me!") by accident.
hth
- hluska 12y agoYour daughter made fake cards to let her watch anything she wants whenever she wants??? Congratulations on raising a very cool little person!!! :)
- 0942v8653 12y agoHow did you block youtube?
- mkempe 12y agoUnder iOS, if you want to control access by URLs, see Settings > General > Restrictions > Websites We disabled the Youtube app in Restrictions when Apple included it in the default setup (up to iOS 5).
- ChrisNorstrom 12y agoTo block websites on ALL your devices you need to block them on the router level. If you have a linksys router you can visit http://192.168.1.1 http://192.168.1.1 and the default username and password are both "admin". From there you can visit the website restrictions area and add YouTube to be 1 of 4 restricted domains.
- mkempe 12y agoA couple of other things I've done with her: when she was 2 I'd sometimes ask her what pictures she wanted to look at (usually an animal) then I'd show her the results of Google Image search on a tablet or laptop. The color filter was fun, especially for starfish. Now she also knows about Wikipedia and will ask every other week whether we can look something up on the iPad, e.g. why do camels have humps; we end up learning a lot of other things. She's not yet able to comfortably read at the level of Wikipedia, maybe next year. I can see in her eyes she doesn't quite grok it when I say this access to images and explanations did not exist when I was a child. I loved the depictions of The Diamond Age. Wish we were closer to it by now.
- Bakkot 12y agoRe: reading level: do give the Simple English Wikipedia a try!
- avinashv 12y ago> She's not yet able to comfortably read at the level of Wikipedia May I recommend http://simple.wikipedia.org http://simple.wikipedia.org? It's obviously not nearly as expansive as the standard English version, but it's a great option for EFL adults or younger kids.
- ferrari8608 12y agoI know what you mean about the Youtube access. Just a few days ago I blocked it on my four-year-old's PC. Anytime she watched Youtube, she would throw a fit when her time's up. So it's best to just avoid it all together. All she would watch on there anyway were videos of kids playing with toys and Minecraft commentary. I would rather she just played Minecraft or with her toys.
- ceejayoz 12y agoWe had a very different experience with YouTube. Our daughter would seek out phonics videos and at 5 can write sentences and read words like "maltodextrin" (school has deemed her a "word caller" - intuitive understanding of word/sentence construction). We were kicking ourselves in the ass for not reading enough to her and suddenly she reads an entire book in front of us without any warning that she was picking up words.
- jamesaguilar 12y agoI really like your idea to give her cards. I think practicing budgeting and spending is probably really good for kids, and your solution feeds into that. Great job! I will probably steal this idea when my son is older . . . and perhaps I should also use it on myself.
- parag_c_mehta 12y agoI am sorry but I don't agree with your excessive controls. You may end up raising very mean and materialistic kid. I have 5 year old daughter too, but strongly disagree with your methods.