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Comment by concinds | Hacker News Reader

> But some have a hard time doing it since it is a great babysitter.

We should be clearer on what it means. An iPad will satisfy their need for stimulation but not their developmental emotional and social needs, nor their fine motor skills and executive functioning skills (and it likely harms the latter two, unlike old-school toys). Boredom and non-excessive stimulation levels are essential to letting the child’s inner world develop. Giving young kids iPads so they’ll be quiet is a normalized form of neglect.

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It's worse, iPads don't satisfy the simulation but instead create a harmful dependency on it. I'll go as far to say that giving young kids iPads is a form of abuse that doesn't get called out.

Significant emotional neglect will put you in the 1st or 2nd decile of emotional health. It can make you a total train wreck. I don’t think every bad thing needs to be abuse.

iPads are so easy to lockdown though, Apple did a good job on their parental controls. Roblox is the main brain stealer these days with a horrible social component, we only give our kid an hour a week now and even Thats probably too much.

> We should be clearer on what it means.

In this occurrence I mean "distract the kids with something such that they don't hurt them self, fight or destroy stuff so the parent can do X" such as doing the disches or resting.

Not like, great at raising the kids in some moral sense. In which YT etc is terrible.

I cheat on fancy restaurants and might hand the kids some screen (not YT) to give us a chance to finnish the meal. Stuff like that, but overused.

Harm is a spectrum, but being able to sit still, and not harm yourself and destroy things, is a skill kids need to learn and using an iPad for that can stunt their growth.

Sure I agree. I am trying to understand parents that capitulate. I think it mainly is a stamina and mental energy issue. Like those parents that give kids too much kandy too handle outbursts short term or something.

> Giving young kids iPads so they’ll be quiet is a normalized form of neglect.

I'd say it's closer to outright abuse. One of the better things you can do is a parent is seek out a community where this sort of thing is frowned upon. It's much harder to control when those around you think it's ok. I wish that were easier for people to find.

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