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Tablets for kids, 7 and 5 year old?

TallBill

TallBill

Lifer
My sister wants to get some tablets for her sons, looking at some $99 price range ones. I'm curious what's decent and will survive more than a few months. I know nothing about what's out there, just seeing what input ya'll have.
 
TallBill said:
My sister wants to get some tablets for her sons, looking at some $99 price range ones. I'm curious what's decent and will survive more than a few months. I know nothing about what's out there, just seeing what input ya'll have.
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The newer Kindle Fires would be of a nice tablet. And provides reading material and has parental controls that are of ease to set.

It is a bit more in cost for the latest Fires, but it doesn't require a lot of work to use, set up, play, and read with.
 
I still have a problem with folks who think they have to get children the latest tech or, that every child has to have their own tv / game system in their room for that matter. Children need to physically investigate the world, get dirty and, scrape their knees. There's plenty of time to become basement dwellers later.
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
I still have a problem with folks who think they have to get children the latest tech or, that every child has to have their own tv / game system in their room for that matter. Children need to physically investigate the world, get dirty and, scrape their knees. There's plenty of time to become basement dwellers later.
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Not the case at all with these kids.
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
I still have a problem with folks who think they have to get children the latest tech or, that every child has to have their own tv / game system in their room for that matter. Children need to physically investigate the world, get dirty and, scrape their knees. There's plenty of time to become basement dwellers later.
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That's fine and all. But right now it's getting dark at 4:30PM, will continue to be this way for another 3+ months and going to be cold as hell for that same amount of time. Can't be "outside exploring" all the time. Plus my family packs up and takes vacations a couple times a year for 8-16 hour drives. Tablets are nice peace savers.

As for the OP - I recently bought a Kindle HDX with the primary purpose of the Free Time app. I was really disappointed in how it worked. Books were very hard to read, managing the content was very cumbersome, and there are just very deep rooted fundamental problems in content sharing local to the device and what is available to the "Freetime" space.

It's no where close to the budget, but I'd be looking at refurb Ipad mini's and be happy with the content and general "use" of the device. They are just much more kid friendly than the Kindle's.
 
That's fine and all but, you won't expose them to a city park, the cold or, the dark but, you'll expose them to the Internet? Children that age do not have the maturity to properly care for $5 toys let alone $100 tablets.
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
That's fine and all but, you won't expose them to a city park, the cold or, the dark but, you'll expose them to the Internet? Children that age do not have the maturity to properly care for $5 toys let alone $100 tablets.
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Your schtick is getting old and predicable. You missed the opportunity to toss in "youts" while you were at it.
 
vi edit said:
Your schtick is getting old and predicable. You missed the opportunity to toss in "youts" while you were at it.
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Look, I could have just put in a plug for the new MS surface but, even you might think that a tad overkill. Sometimes, the easiest, most efficient, most elegant solution is not more computing power but, a pad of paper and a pencil /Crayon. You 'youts ' just lack the experience to see it. 🙂

I apologize for side tracking this latest tech solves everything thread.
 
vi edit said:
It's no where close to the budget, but I'd be looking at refurb Ipad mini's and be happy with the content and general "use" of the device. They are just much more kid friendly than the Kindle's.
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Well yeah, for a price. For cheap it is hard to beat Amazon with the free app a day as most are crappy games for little kids.
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
Look, I could have just put in a plug for the new MS surface but, even you might think that a tad overkill. Sometimes, the easiest, most efficient, most elegant solution is not more computing power but, a pad of paper and a pencil /Crayon. You 'youts ' just lack the experience to see it. 🙂

I apologize for side tracking this latest tech solves everything thread.
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I absolutely agree. Playing with a tablet requires no imagination, all the thought and stimuli is done for the child. There are thousands of activities available through parenting books or online that require $0 and infinite imagination. I remember fighting my brother with paper towel tubes when I was younger. I remember that more than playing NES 🙂
 
Yeah, seriously. I don't understand. I heard NPR segments about how kids need to type at Kindergarten and then they need to be taking all their standardized tests electronically and they need to type their essays out on those tests. So what? I didn't learn to type til 2nd grade, and I struggled. I picked it up in no time by middle school when IM became popular.

I don't see how having kids start using tablets at elementary school really helps that much. The way I see it is that when they get to college, they're not going to be any smarter than I was. And seriously, I just finished grad school last year. It's not like having a tablet in class makes you take notes any better. If anything, my notebooks with colored pens are still awesome. It worked undergrad and it still worked in grad school in the era of tablets. The way I see tablets is that they should be like a family computer like I had back in the day.

Sorry for the derailing.
 
Just to sort of put things in perspective, here's how things work in my house.

I've got a 5 (almost 6) year old and a nearly 2 year old. My 5 year old is in kindergarden and at the beginning of the year was testing out at nearly 1st grade levels. She's not ready to skip a grade but she's quite advanced. We're working on reading and basic math stuff.

We've got a tablet in our house (an iPad) and gets very limited, but purposeful by her. On the weekends we'll leave it out for her to grab in the morning and watch cartoons on. She normally gets up at 6:00-6:30AM on Saturday and Sunday and if she grabs that when she wakes up she'll stay in bed until 8:00AM when my 2 year old is ready to get up and leave my wife an I a bit more sleep. It's selfish..but she's happy. We're happy and it's a win all around.

On weekends/days off from school she's still to the age where she really *needs* a nap in the afternoon because she just wears down. But she doesn't want to take one. So instead of fighting that battle she can go crash on the couch and play some state maps, or angry birds or whatever for an hour or so and just sort of chill out and recharge. She also likes to flip through picture albums we have on there of family and places we've been on vacation.

As she's starting to get more and more into books I'm looking into options to make books more portable and easy to read. I'm not sure if you guys have priced books lately but they don't give kids books away. These things add up in prices. Plus with a 2 year old in the house it's hard to keep them out on shelves because they just get pulled off and destroyed. The idea of a kindle and a book subscription is intriguing and worth looking into. There's a pile of stuff that is easily available to download and read. We've gone through a lot of the books that our modest local library has and our own books shelves have been read through dozens of times and a little stale.

When we travel the tablet is nice for road trips. My 5 year old has been to about 20 different states. My 2 year old to about 10 different ones. We get out and travel a good amount. The tablets are nice for tossing the back and keeping the drive more peaceful. She can color on there, work on puzzles, play games, watch movies. Whatever. It's a lifesaver. Plus when we get into wherever we are going it's a good babysitter for a little bit while we get unpacked and settled in.

We watch very little TV in our house, tablet use is highly monitored and it's just one little tool in the bag that we use to keep everyone happy. We still spend *a lot* of time outside. We've got memberships to the local zoo and science museums that we frequent multiple times a year. We travel a lot. Tablets for us are just a little bit of extra free time on the weekends to catch some sleep, get dishes done, get a few extra hours on the road, ect. They are versatile in content, easy for kids to use, get great battery life, and offer utility to us once we get to where we are going.

They aren't replacing outdoor time, coloring books or legos. We've got lots of those. It's just a supplement to those.
 
vi edit said:
We watch very little TV in our house, tablet use is highly monitored and it's just one little tool in the bag that we use to keep everyone happy. We still spend *a lot* of time outside. We've got memberships to the local zoo and science museums that we frequent multiple times a year. We travel a lot. Tablets for us are just a little bit of extra free time on the weekends to catch some sleep, get dishes done, get a few extra hours on the road, ect. They are versatile in content, easy for kids to use, get great battery life, and offer utility to us once we get to where we are going.
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I think the problem a lot of people have is this image in their head of kids doing nothing but sitting in the living room all day, and want to blame the available present for it, when really it's how the parents engage both with the kids and the devices that matters far more. All of the tablet complaints above could have also been said about the TV or even books. I would argue, in fact, that tablet use is far more appealing from a child development standpoint than a TV, because at least there's some interaction on the part of the child.

My only concern with the move from desktops to tablets is a long-term, general population one, and not really specific to any family. When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time entertaining myself on the computer, but it was also a device capable of creating the kind of program I was using. I do worry a little bit that children growing up with tablets but not desktops will be far less likely to program than my generation. On the other hand, when I was growing up, there were a lot fewer families with computers of any kind in the house, so maybe this is all irrelevant.





OP, there really aren't a lot of great tablets in the $100 range right now. The tech hasn't quite matured to that price point. I might suggest getting a single $200 tablet that the kids can share. It's always a tricky proposition, I know, but I think they'll have a better experience than trying to buy two barely-functional devices.
 
MagnusTheBrewer said:
I still have a problem with folks who think they have to get children the latest tech or, that every child has to have their own tv / game system in their room for that matter. Children need to physically investigate the world, get dirty and, scrape their knees. There's plenty of time to become basement dwellers later.
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Heh. It only took 4 posts for this to show up.
 
Subyman said:
I absolutely agree. Playing with a tablet requires no imagination, all the thought and stimuli is done for the child. There are thousands of activities available through parenting books or online that require $0 and infinite imagination. I remember fighting my brother with paper towel tubes when I was younger. I remember that more than playing NES 🙂
Click to expand...

This morning my 3 year old has drawn shapes and colors on an ipad, made a trumpet and a sword out of as paper towel tube, learned the song about flying in the Peter Pan movie, asled me to pause it and has been playing for an hour with various animals and dolls and play houses flying around, making meals..

What's my point ? technology isn't the enemy of childhood.

And I think it's obnoxious to make presumptions about people based on something as innocuous as asking a question about tablets for kids.
 
Tom said:
This morning my 3 year old has drawn shapes and colors on an ipad, made a trumpet and a sword out of as paper towel tube, learned the song about flying in the Peter Pan movie, asled me to pause it and has been playing for an hour with various animals and dolls and play houses flying around, making meals..

What's my point ? technology isn't the enemy of childhood.

And I think it's obnoxious to make presumptions about people based on something as innocuous as asking a question about tablets for kids.
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Bingo.

Anyhoo, back on topic... I'd recommend something has decent parental controls, and which has access to a decent app store. El-cheapo Chinese no-name tablets are thus excluded.
 
Eug said:
Anyhoo, back on topic... I'd recommend something has decent parental controls, and which has access to a decent app store. El-cheapo Chinese no-name tablets are thus excluded.
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I wish Apple would *finally* recognize the need for a "Kids Mode" and enable profiles where you can lock down functions on ipads/phones.
 
There aren't really any good tablets for kids. The closest I found was the Acer Iconia range as they're pretty rugged. Terrible screens though. Don't get a first gen Nexus 7, they'll break and be a write-off with a single drop.
 
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