My kids (4 and 6) have a "dedictated" iPhone, a iPad with the pencil, and a MacBook Air. But they were just hand me downs. They don't get to use them unless we let them, but we mostly use them to learn how to type, write, draw, play learning games, Khan Academy, and to mess around in general.

They also call or text aunts/uncles/cousins/grandparents. I feel like it has helped them with reading and just the exercise of trial and error to figure out how it works is beneficial.

Haven’t needed to delve into parental controls yet though.

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epiccoleman 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> They don't get to use them unless we let them, but we mostly use them to learn how to type, write, draw, play learning games, Khan Academy, and to mess around in general.

That seems fine to me. What I'm referring to above is that the kid literally just has an iPhone with, as far as I can see, virtually no restriction. I imagine you would not let your kids use their device to scroll through Youtube Shorts for an unsupervised 2 hours, for example.

Just like it's hard for me to find the right balance of benefit to downside in technology for my kids, it's also hard to strike a balanced tone when discussing my feelings on this stuff. Every time I write something about this problem online I feel like I'm coming off as some authoritarian luddite - which I'm definitely not. I want my kids to get the benefits of technology. Any bright future for them is almost sure to include the need to engage with the net.

Instilling the values that allow for that is the hard part.

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lotsofpulp 6 hours ago | parent [-]

> That seems fine to me. What I'm referring to above is that the kid literally just has an iPhone with, as far as I can see, virtually no restriction. I imagine you would not let your kids use their device to scroll through Youtube Shorts for an unsupervised 2 hours, for example.

Yes, they aren’t allowed to watch youtube shorts at all (nor do either of the parents), but we’ll look up nature or physics videos, and if they want to watch a video on repeat, we use yt-dlp to download and they watch via infuse. But again, not of their own accord. When it’s time to play outside or elsewhere, it’s time to do that. And no devices at meal time, even if they see other kids at the same table with them.

I guess my point was that the devices are immensely powerful tools for learning and communication, so I try to teach them how. But they also play games with non gambling mechanics (thank god for Apple Arcade).

	▲	epiccoleman 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> (nor do either of the parents) This is key, in my experience. I've told my kids that if they catch me scrolling shorts or reddit, they have the right to confiscate my phone. A big part of instilling the values I referenced above is embodying them myself. (obviously, but it bears repeating). > But they also play games with non gambling mechanics This is important too. There's so much genuinely great media out there - TV shows, video games, movies, books. It's not that I don't want my kids to experience that stuff - I just want them to learn how to focus on the stuff that's quality rather than the stuff that is slop.