The Hard Truth about Tablets
This isn't a fun or beautiful travelog post. It's my unloading about what I see as a necessary evil of family travel: the tablet.
As we prepare for a 14-hour flight from Santiago to Sydney, I can't imagine traveling without one tablet per kid. When the kids come home exhausted from an amazing day of activity, I'm happy we can reward them with their screen time. When they need a motivation to push through a tough patch of school, it's awesome that the tablet is such a powerful incentive.
But when it's time to put the tablets down so that we can go to dinner, for example, it's agony. When we're doing something - anything - and one asks (repeatedly), "can I have tablet time when we get home?", it's agony. It's a fight we're really tired of fighting.
These devices are miraculous. We have Kindle Fires. We have one per kid. When we received them for Christmas last year, we installed screen covers and protective cases. They also received high quality, noise-cancelling headphones that can connect by bluetooth or volume-limiting cords. Each has an immense library of content downloaded from Netflix. Each has books and apps through Amazon FreeTime. We also pay monthly for Kindle Unlimited, although we underutilize that one horribly.
It's also necessary to note that it's wonderful to be able to have the kids plug themselves into their devices so that the adults can have some breathing space. It quiets the incessant questions. Whenever we need to threaten or impose discipline, the currency of choice is tablet time and what a powerful message that is! But it punishes us as well as them because they become underfoot when we most need a break.
It has also always been true, regardless of the device, that screen time leads to terrible behavior. They definitely have withdraw periods after each episode of screen time. It is less but not zero when they watch something on a TV, when they are less isolated.
I also want to say that I'm largely happy with the content they enjoy. We've battled with the 6 year olds to limit or eliminate Barbie. There are a few animated Barbie shows and movies that are pure trash and they turn the twins into demons. The vocabulary and attitudes they mimic are terrible. Definitely nothing we want around our family.
In contrast, the kids often get absorbed for days and weeks in nature shows, PBS shows like Daniel Tiger, or other imagination-growing programs. The consequences of watching these shows are less.
Lily, the 11 year old, has discovered reading on her tablet and we see no reason to limit this, of course. The biggest problem, though, is that the other kids don't understand or accept that she can have her tablet when they can't.
We have a separate "profile" for doing school on their tablets because some of the platforms we use for school are available on there. We have a trust issue, though, with giving the kids their tablets and being sure that they will remain on the assigned tasks.
As we prepared for this trip, many of the families I heard from had similar set ups. I don't remember any podcast interviews that touched on these issues with which I'm grappling here. Everybody always chuckled about the number of wires, the volume and weight of the stuff, and the challenges of connecting to wifi and electricity (damn the adapters!). But I don't remember anybody saying, "holy shit, we couldn't do the flights without them and here's the approach we took to regulating them at other times."
I don't know what this lament sounds like, dear reader. I can imagine somebody thinking, "well, Jon, just pitch them if they're such trouble. Clearly, you need to work on your kids' ability to entertain themselves." I think this all the time. But I simply can't explain how wonderful it is to plug them in so easily.
Yes, this means that the issue is with mom and dad and not with kids. We pay one way or the other, right? Ugh.
Sorry, back to the stories and pictures.
As we prepare for a 14-hour flight from Santiago to Sydney, I can't imagine traveling without one tablet per kid. When the kids come home exhausted from an amazing day of activity, I'm happy we can reward them with their screen time. When they need a motivation to push through a tough patch of school, it's awesome that the tablet is such a powerful incentive.
But when it's time to put the tablets down so that we can go to dinner, for example, it's agony. When we're doing something - anything - and one asks (repeatedly), "can I have tablet time when we get home?", it's agony. It's a fight we're really tired of fighting.
These devices are miraculous. We have Kindle Fires. We have one per kid. When we received them for Christmas last year, we installed screen covers and protective cases. They also received high quality, noise-cancelling headphones that can connect by bluetooth or volume-limiting cords. Each has an immense library of content downloaded from Netflix. Each has books and apps through Amazon FreeTime. We also pay monthly for Kindle Unlimited, although we underutilize that one horribly.
It's also necessary to note that it's wonderful to be able to have the kids plug themselves into their devices so that the adults can have some breathing space. It quiets the incessant questions. Whenever we need to threaten or impose discipline, the currency of choice is tablet time and what a powerful message that is! But it punishes us as well as them because they become underfoot when we most need a break.
It has also always been true, regardless of the device, that screen time leads to terrible behavior. They definitely have withdraw periods after each episode of screen time. It is less but not zero when they watch something on a TV, when they are less isolated.
I also want to say that I'm largely happy with the content they enjoy. We've battled with the 6 year olds to limit or eliminate Barbie. There are a few animated Barbie shows and movies that are pure trash and they turn the twins into demons. The vocabulary and attitudes they mimic are terrible. Definitely nothing we want around our family.
In contrast, the kids often get absorbed for days and weeks in nature shows, PBS shows like Daniel Tiger, or other imagination-growing programs. The consequences of watching these shows are less.
Lily, the 11 year old, has discovered reading on her tablet and we see no reason to limit this, of course. The biggest problem, though, is that the other kids don't understand or accept that she can have her tablet when they can't.
We have a separate "profile" for doing school on their tablets because some of the platforms we use for school are available on there. We have a trust issue, though, with giving the kids their tablets and being sure that they will remain on the assigned tasks.
As we prepared for this trip, many of the families I heard from had similar set ups. I don't remember any podcast interviews that touched on these issues with which I'm grappling here. Everybody always chuckled about the number of wires, the volume and weight of the stuff, and the challenges of connecting to wifi and electricity (damn the adapters!). But I don't remember anybody saying, "holy shit, we couldn't do the flights without them and here's the approach we took to regulating them at other times."
I don't know what this lament sounds like, dear reader. I can imagine somebody thinking, "well, Jon, just pitch them if they're such trouble. Clearly, you need to work on your kids' ability to entertain themselves." I think this all the time. But I simply can't explain how wonderful it is to plug them in so easily.
Yes, this means that the issue is with mom and dad and not with kids. We pay one way or the other, right? Ugh.
Sorry, back to the stories and pictures.
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