Screen Time, Kindle Fire, and please help me make this work!
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Anonymous
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We are a very limited screen time family. Kids are 2, 3, 5, and 7. Their regular screen time (at home; ODS gets quite a bit at school) is a Kindle book on dad's tablet at bedtime and a movie on Sunday afternoon.
My DH has ADD, and had a major video game addiction; he still plays way too much on his phone. The only thing that worked for him was completely getting rid of the video game equipment. That's the background. I am hesitant to buy a kid's tablet because I worry that it will quickly devolve into DH playing games all the time with the kids, and then we'll have the screen time/video game problem we've avoided by not having the screens available to the kids, essentially. But, we have amassed a large collection of children's books on Kindle, and at this point, they can really only be read infrequently, by dad, at bedtime. They represent a not inconsiderate amount of money spent, too, and I hate that we aren't reading them much. Unlike our physical library, we won't even be able to give them away when the kids outgrow them. This expensive lack of use really bothers me. We're also heading to FL on a 10 hour in a couple of weeks. my 7-year-old reads well, and the 5 and 3 year old can spend lots of time looking at books, too. We take a large bag of books with us when we travel, but with four kids and all of our stuff, there's not that much room to pack toys and books in the van. Those two things seem to scream out for buying a Kindle Fire (or two) to me. But I'm really concerned about tablet use creep, particularly because DH has such poor impulse control when it comes to electronics. Please tell me how to make this work! And tell me that we can reverse it if my fears come to pass and it becomes a huge time suck. I just don't want to end up adding something else we have to manage and argue with the kids about. They are totally fine with/used to our current screen policies. |
Anonymous
| Talk to your DH first b/c you'll need his input to make anything work. |
Anonymous
| Is there a reason you can't use a paperwhite (maybe picture books not available)? I believe there are also settings on the Fire (Freetime?) that can limit to only books... |
Anonymous
| Your husband needs to exert some control over himself. That's the real answer. |
Anonymous
Most of the children's books are incompatible with the paperwhites; yes, it's because of the illustrations. |
Anonymous
Yes, well, he's medicated and doing his best. It took a lot of willpower for him to get rid of the system in the first place. I understand this is the obvious solution, but I married a man with ADD. It requires management. I also understand that this is the crux of my problem. I do not want to end up in a big fight with DH if we have to pull back on these. |
Anonymous
| We use Overdrive (app) on our ipad -- allows instant downloading of library books. When your kids are younger they will read books over and over but as they get older, not to much. Can you download library books on the kindle? If so, then I would make the investment to buy more, especially if the 7 year old will use it. Also overdrive lets you download audio books from the library, which is great for long drives (well, in your case the 5 & 7 year old could listen to the same thing). |
Anonymous
The Fire is a fully functional tablet; that's my main hesitation! But, yes, we can get library books, Netflix, etc.. We have Audible, and a bunch of books on that; I had thought about that. My daughter (3.5) wants to listen to Curious George over and over and over and over which drives the older boys NUTS. The fires would let them listen to some of the other books, or read ... We had a talk last night. We're going to go for it. We're going to buy two for this trip, and then we'll reevaluate as necessary. |
Anonymous
Got it-- then, OP, do the Freetime controls. I had/have a Fire for myself and brought it on a 3-week trip to Asia with my 3 yo. She still has no "screen time" per se-- except for Skype and apparently e-books when necessary. Well, this was necessary. We read 10-15 books per day and couldn't have brought more than about 5 on the plane d/t space restrictions, so I got Freetime for the month. If I recall correctly, w/Freetime you can specifically restrict the tablet to whatever you have preapproved-- I read this as OP's DS, but with DH's consent, it can work the same way. I restricted to only certain books, although I'm not sure I had to worry, since I never handed it off completely to my DD anyway. Good luck-- there is literally an app for this. |
Anonymous
| I should be clearer-- I meant we couldn't have brought more than 5 PHYSICAL books in our carryons, and I wanted a lot more options for 30+ hours worth of flights and layovers, etc. |
ThomK
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Member Offline
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Hi -
Maybe one more reason for less screentime and more outdoor playtime is the connection with worsening myopia aka nearsightedness. It might motivate your kids if they think they can avoid stronger glasses each year for the next 20. 
Here' some info from our blog page, http://treehouseeyes.com/the-myopia-blog/ with several articles about the relationship between too much screentime and too little outdoor time contributing to the myopia epidemic. Hope the best for you, your husband and the kids! And thanks very much for letting me post.
Thom thom@treehouseeyes.com |
Anonymous
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We don't have any tablets for the kids, but we don't travel long distances. I think it makes sense, in that scenario, to get them.
However, I also think it makes sense to let the kids know the tablets are only for special circumstances- long periods of travel and a few other special times. You can make it something they only have access to when you give it to them. |
Anonymous
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Kindle Freetime has parental controls where you can set limits on game times. So let's say you put minecraft (for ex.) on the tablet, you can set it so the kid is only allowed 30 min per week on that game. Would that help?
You can also set it so reading is unlimited. (You can also download library books, which are cheaper.) |
Anonymous
Can I lock DH out? JK. Mostly. The Fires came today. I'm going to figure out the Freetime comtrols tomorrow. Thank you everyone! |
Anonymous
+1. This. Screentime management made easy. Also check OP, you can set times when the kindles cannot operate-- between 8pm and 7am, for example. |