this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
11 points (92.3% liked)

Dads

433 readers
1 users here now

This is a community for Dads. Single Dads, new Dads, Step-Dads, tall Dads, short Dads, and any other kind of Dad. If you've got kids in your life that you love and provide for, come join us as we discuss everything from birth announcements to code browns in the shower.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

My daughter is approaching 3 and my wife has suggested a tablet either as a birthday or Christmas present, and I’m a bit hesitant. It’d be great for long trips, but I think as a day-to-day thing it might be a distraction. It’d get Spidey and Friends off the telly though. How and when did you handle this?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

My kid was about three or four. We got an Amazon kids fire tablet with the subscription, so that it's pretty locked down, but has lots of curated content available. You set the kid's age, and it shows relevant content, as well as anything that you specifically share from your Amazon account.

When my kid started school, there was content from the school on their website, so I side loaded the Google Play Store and installed Chrome and Gmail. It's not necessary, but it made some things easier.

We didn't use them, but I think there are built in restrictions that you can use, like only allowing a certain amount of time per day. I used the Google account to try to add the tablet to the Google Family system, but couldn't get it to work in the way that I wanted.

If you do get a tablet, add YouTube Kids and disable regular YouTube. There are no ads, and the content is curated.