Your kid and your iphone

ali-1411

I've created a monster.

I downloaded Angry Birds last week.  I've never played this game before, kept hearing about it, thought I might as well check it out.  Let's see what this phone can do....

Of course, Layna sees what I'm doing and suddenly she's obsessed.  She wants our phones all the time now.  DH is annoyed with me because he's had his phone for a year and the kids have never touched it.  But a couple weeks into my phone and she's playing Angry Birds and Angry Birds Rio and some water shooting game...

Anyway.  Are your kids obsessed with your phone?  Do you let them play with it whenever they want?  Do you set limits?  How do you set limits with a 3 yr old who can't tell time?

amyliisa

Very rarely I let DS play something on my phone.  Usually it's if we're at a restaurant waiting for our food (which, admittedly, is kinda hypocritical of me because I cannot STAND it when DH keeps his nose stuck in his phone throughout a family meal together.).  As soon as our food comes, I take the phone away.  Also, if we're in the waiting room of someplace and I need him to be still and quiet.  Once or twice I've let him play with it in the car during a long road trip, but he ends up deleting some app icons or otherwise screwing with the phone so I don't do that anymore.  That's about it - never at home.

Also, I don't have Angry Birds.  I have some other toddler apps that were rec'd on here, his favorite is the Itsy Bitsy Spider app by Duck Duck Moose, and Word Wagon by Duck Duck Moose.  We also have Talking Carl, Glow Doodle (drawing) and a few others I can't remember.  Strangely, DS knows exactly what Angry Birds is and talks about it often (I think his older cousin has it on his iPod Touch and showed it to him), and the other day at Best Buy he played it on a demo iPad.  But I refuse to download it to my phone because I'm sure it would create an obsession!

vnstacie

I don't have experience with this.... 

But if you wanted to set a time limit, you could set the timer and once it goes off if you have the "sleep iPod" setting checked, it will lock the phone when time is up.  

MrsMillerTime

amyliisa:

Very rarely I let DS play something on my phone.  Usually it's if we're at a restaurant waiting for our food (which, admittedly, is kinda hypocritical of me because I cannot STAND it when DH keeps his nose stuck in his phone throughout a family meal together.).  As soon as our food comes, I take the phone away.  Also, if we're in the waiting room of someplace and I need him to be still and quiet.  Once or twice I've let him play with it in the car during a long road trip, but he ends up deleting some app icons or otherwise screwing with the phone so I don't do that anymore.  That's about it - never at home.

Also, I don't have Angry Birds.  I have some other toddler apps that were rec'd on here, his favorite is the Itsy Bitsy Spider app by Duck Duck Moose, and Word Wagon by Duck Duck Moose.  We also have Talking Carl, Glow Doodle (drawing) and a few others I can't remember.  Strangely, DS knows exactly what Angry Birds is and talks about it often (I think his older cousin has it on his iPod Touch and showed it to him), and the other day at Best Buy he played it on a demo iPad.  But I refuse to download it to my phone because I'm sure it would create an obsession!

Ditto a lot of this.

I have a whole page of toddler apps that I've downloaded that DD can play with during certain times.  ALL of my apps are organized into folders that are harder for her to get to.  If she accidentally navigates to one of my apps, I exit out and redirect her to one of her apps.

Any like amyliisa, she only plays with it when we're waiting at restaurants (sometimes), at doctors offices (when she needs to be quiet in the waiting room, and sometimes towards the end of the shopping trip at the grocery store when she is flipping.  I always give her a warning ("I'm taking the phone away in one minute") and when I take it away, it's gone.  She hardly ever plays with my phone at home.  Every now and then she'll grab it off the counter but I just take it away and give her something else.

It was tough at first (when she first "discovered" it) and she definitely wanted to play with it all the time.  We just slowly cut back and set pretty firm boundaries and she hardly ever really asks for it anymore. 

ETA: You also have to set boundaries for yourself, too.  You can't exactly ask your kid to not play with your phone if you're on it all the time, KWIM?

Nessia

ali-1411:

I've created a monster.

I downloaded Angry Birds last week.  I've never played this game before, kept hearing about it, thought I might as well check it out.  Let's see what this phone can do....

Of course, Layna sees what I'm doing and suddenly she's obsessed.  She wants our phones all the time now.  DH is annoyed with me because he's had his phone for a year and the kids have never touched it.  But a couple weeks into my phone and she's playing Angry Birds and Angry Birds Rio and some water shooting game...

Anyway.  Are your kids obsessed with your phone?  Do you let them play with it whenever they want?  Do you set limits?  How do you set limits with a 3 yr old who can't tell time?

DS can become obsessed if I don't reign him in. He even knows the passcode to the iPad. I don't necessarily set a time limit but I will tell him he can play 3 more games of Angry Birds or when the cartoon he's watching on Netflix is over. There was a time every time he came home, he would immediately ask for the iPad. I just told him no because it was getting to be too much.

ali-1411

vnstacie:

I don't have experience with this.... 

But if you wanted to set a time limit, you could set the timer and once it goes off if you have the "sleep iPod" setting checked, it will lock the phone when time is up.  

There's a sleep iPod setting?  I must find this...

joyco

My sister has a reward chart for her almost 4-year-old and one of the rewards is 30 minutes iPhone time.  You could do that for Layna?  I very rarely let the boys play w/ my phone or w/ my iTouch.  Only when I'm trying to get something done and they ask to play w/ the barn (PeekABoo Barn) or the talking dog one.  Then they're only allowed to play until they can't share anymore (which is not very long!).

amyliisa

ali-1411:

vnstacie:

I don't have experience with this.... 

But if you wanted to set a time limit, you could set the timer and once it goes off if you have the "sleep iPod" setting checked, it will lock the phone when time is up.  

There's a sleep iPod setting?  I must find this...

I didn't know this either, but that's a great idea!  Let me know if you find it!

august8080

I haven't read the responses so sorry if this is a repeat. We only let our son look at pics and videos (that we take) on our phone while we're holding it.

As far as setting a time limit, if you're willing to let her play with it, start your timer and then hand it to her. The alarm will go off when the time is up and if you're consistent with that, then she'll learn that really quickly. 

MrsMillerTime

amyliisa:

ali-1411:

vnstacie:

I don't have experience with this.... 

But if you wanted to set a time limit, you could set the timer and once it goes off if you have the "sleep iPod" setting checked, it will lock the phone when time is up.  

There's a sleep iPod setting?  I must find this...

I didn't know this either, but that's a great idea!  Let me know if you find it!

It's in the clock settings.  Set a timer and under the "when timer ends" setting you can have it sleep your iPod. 

MrsMillerTime

dup

Ruby44

I let my kids play educational games on my iPhone. They like AniMatch, LunchBox, Wheels on the Bus, Toddler Counting, and Interactive Alphabet. My 3-yr-old gets tired of it after a while though. I take it away if the kids start fighting over it. I guess if I wanted/needed to set limits, I would say "you can play this game for 10 mins" and then I'd take it away after that.

vnstacie

MrsMillerTime:

amyliisa:

ali-1411:

vnstacie:

I don't have experience with this.... 

But if you wanted to set a time limit, you could set the timer and once it goes off if you have the "sleep iPod" setting checked, it will lock the phone when time is up.  

There's a sleep iPod setting?  I must find this...

I didn't know this either, but that's a great idea!  Let me know if you find it!

It's in the clock settings.  Set a timer and under the "when timer ends" setting you can have it sleep your iPod. 

I found it on accident, set it once and forgot then couldn't figure out why my phone kept locking lol.