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Does that mean you have tried giving your kids an iPad and found that it has detrimental effect? Or how else has having kids given you more insights into the is

Does that mean you have tried giving your kids an iPad and found that it has detrimental effect? Or how else has having kids given you more insights into the issue?

nothrabannosir 11y ago
You're right, good question. Just the mere having of kids doesn't make you an expert. But in this case, the beauty (or ugly) is not that OP can now say this without backing it up; it's that when you don't have kids, the roles are reversed. You don't have children? You don't know what you're talking about. You do? Now suddenly we want proof and all that jazz. He put his money where his mouth was, good on him. If he wasn't entitled to an opinion for not having kids at first, then, now that he has them, I say let the man have his hour.
- facepalm 11y ago
  I don't exactly understand your argument, to be honest. Surely the majority of people who care about that kind of rules are parents anyway? If parents would agree that kids shouldn't have iPads, then no legislation would be necessary? So ultimately it is parents opinion vs parents opinion... He is completely entitled to his opinion, of course. I just don't see how merely having kids gives you any insights on the impact of iPads on kids, unless you give them an iPad.
  - yawz 11y ago
    > So ultimately it is parents opinion vs parents opinion... I'd argue that, while parents controlling their young kids' exposure to electronics are doing it deliberately, some (most?) of the parents giving their young kids access to electronics simply can't be bothered to have an opinion.
yawz 11y ago
Nobody sane would experiment on their kids that way so I assume it's a rhetorical question. iPads and TVs are results of lazy parenting, especially at early ages. Kids should develop playing with parents, siblings, friends and on their own. At a later stage, banning is probably bad but I believe exposure to electronics and their content should be controlled by parents. When you start to have kids, you notice your social circle is full of other parents (on the one hand your friends are around the same age so they're having kids and on the other hand you tend to be with people having kids - usually the same age). You can clearly see the differences in kids getting (uncontrolled) exposure to electronics at various ages and their reaction to being deprived of them etc. So you certainly develop some awareness and some idea about their effects.
- facepalm 11y ago
  There is also a point where kids are exhausted from playing or from too much human interaction. Many HN users are probably introverts, they might understand. When my kid watches certain TV shows or uses certain apps, he can be extremely focused and extremely happy. I myself also have some fond memories of my favorite TV shows as a kid. There are some TV shows that explain things very well. Of course we do not let him use these things indefinitely, and he doesn't even watch normal TV where you could do mindless "zapping" between channels. Maybe if studies find children who are allowed to do worth computers whatever they want for an unlimited time, they also find parents who generally don't care at all. So that might be the root issue, and excessive iPad use might just be a symptom.
- golergka 11y ago
  > Kids should develop playing with parents, siblings, friends and on their own. I don't see how these statement is opposed to kids using iPads.
- yawz 11y ago
  I certainly agree that it also depends on the children. However, let's not forget that the original post is about 0-to-2-year-olds. I've a 4 year old and we control his exposure to TV and tablets. I'm against banning it for many reasons but controlling the amount of exposure and the content seems important.
veidr 11y ago
Yes, basically I do mean that. It's not exactly that I gave him an iPad as an experiment, but the times he somehow got an iPad I 'experimented' with not taking it away. Eventually, I felt like I should take it away, though. (And I did.) The reasons basically boiled down -- as much of being a parent does -- to gut feeling. The way he played with most iPad apps didn't seem healthy. He plays with blocks, builds a tower, it falls down... sometimes he is upset about that, sometimes he laughs. But his experiments with blocks and trains somehow lacked this obsessive quality. I mentioned it in my reply to jasonkester elsewhere in this thread, but I felt like he was a kitten and the iPad was a laser pointer. He couldn't/wouldn't stop himself from using it, even when it was obvious that it had passed the point of being fun and became this frustrating, negative experience. At such a young age, under two, the brain really is working on the basics. Weight. Gravity. Hard. Soft. Big. Small. Etc. As he has grown, some of the things he can do with the iPad are getting pretty neat (painting, music, etc) and he does get a little bit of (supervised) iPad time now. It's hard to say at this stage, but I wouldn't be surprised if we let him do iPad for an hour a day (or an hour or two every few days) by the time he is say, four. It depends on what we see him doing with it, and how observing that makes us feel as parents. I'm just speaking from my experience here, because I am not an expert on brain development and things like that. But I do really think there is a qualitative difference between e.g., physical wooden blocks and blocks on a screen. In general, younger than two just seems self-evidently too young.

Does that mean you have tried giving your kids an iPad and found that it has detrimental effect? Or how else has having kids given you more insights into the issue?

nothrabannosir 11y ago

You're right, good question. Just the mere having of kids doesn't make you an expert. But in this case, the beauty (or ugly) is not that OP can now say this without backing it up; it's that when you don't have kids, the roles are reversed. You don't have children? You don't know what you're talking about. You do? Now suddenly we want proof and all that jazz. He put his money where his mouth was, good on him. If he wasn't entitled to an opinion for not having kids at first, then, now that he has them, I say let the man have his hour.

facepalm 11y ago
I don't exactly understand your argument, to be honest. Surely the majority of people who care about that kind of rules are parents anyway? If parents would agree that kids shouldn't have iPads, then no legislation would be necessary? So ultimately it is parents opinion vs parents opinion... He is completely entitled to his opinion, of course. I just don't see how merely having kids gives you any insights on the impact of iPads on kids, unless you give them an iPad.
- yawz 11y ago
  > So ultimately it is parents opinion vs parents opinion... I'd argue that, while parents controlling their young kids' exposure to electronics are doing it deliberately, some (most?) of the parents giving their young kids access to electronics simply can't be bothered to have an opinion.

yawz 11y ago

Nobody sane would experiment on their kids that way so I assume it's a rhetorical question. iPads and TVs are results of lazy parenting, especially at early ages. Kids should develop playing with parents, siblings, friends and on their own. At a later stage, banning is probably bad but I believe exposure to electronics and their content should be controlled by parents. When you start to have kids, you notice your social circle is full of other parents (on the one hand your friends are around the same age so they're having kids and on the other hand you tend to be with people having kids - usually the same age). You can clearly see the differences in kids getting (uncontrolled) exposure to electronics at various ages and their reaction to being deprived of them etc. So you certainly develop some awareness and some idea about their effects.

facepalm 11y ago
There is also a point where kids are exhausted from playing or from too much human interaction. Many HN users are probably introverts, they might understand. When my kid watches certain TV shows or uses certain apps, he can be extremely focused and extremely happy. I myself also have some fond memories of my favorite TV shows as a kid. There are some TV shows that explain things very well. Of course we do not let him use these things indefinitely, and he doesn't even watch normal TV where you could do mindless "zapping" between channels. Maybe if studies find children who are allowed to do worth computers whatever they want for an unlimited time, they also find parents who generally don't care at all. So that might be the root issue, and excessive iPad use might just be a symptom.
golergka 11y ago
> Kids should develop playing with parents, siblings, friends and on their own. I don't see how these statement is opposed to kids using iPads.
yawz 11y ago
I certainly agree that it also depends on the children. However, let's not forget that the original post is about 0-to-2-year-olds. I've a 4 year old and we control his exposure to TV and tablets. I'm against banning it for many reasons but controlling the amount of exposure and the content seems important.

veidr 11y ago

Yes, basically I do mean that. It's not exactly that I gave him an iPad as an experiment, but the times he somehow got an iPad I 'experimented' with not taking it away. Eventually, I felt like I should take it away, though. (And I did.) The reasons basically boiled down -- as much of being a parent does -- to gut feeling. The way he played with most iPad apps didn't seem healthy. He plays with blocks, builds a tower, it falls down... sometimes he is upset about that, sometimes he laughs. But his experiments with blocks and trains somehow lacked this obsessive quality. I mentioned it in my reply to jasonkester elsewhere in this thread, but I felt like he was a kitten and the iPad was a laser pointer. He couldn't/wouldn't stop himself from using it, even when it was obvious that it had passed the point of being fun and became this frustrating, negative experience. At such a young age, under two, the brain really is working on the basics. Weight. Gravity. Hard. Soft. Big. Small. Etc. As he has grown, some of the things he can do with the iPad are getting pretty neat (painting, music, etc) and he does get a little bit of (supervised) iPad time now. It's hard to say at this stage, but I wouldn't be surprised if we let him do iPad for an hour a day (or an hour or two every few days) by the time he is say, four. It depends on what we see him doing with it, and how observing that makes us feel as parents. I'm just speaking from my experience here, because I am not an expert on brain development and things like that. But I do really think there is a qualitative difference between e.g., physical wooden blocks and blocks on a screen. In general, younger than two just seems self-evidently too young.