Let’s play hide the iPad!

We seek it here, we seek it there, we seek that damn iPad everywhere. Well, my two sons do anyway.

There is a brilliant new game in our house, called Hide the iPad.   It involves me, endlessly dreaming up new places to hide the boys’ iPads at the end of their allotted time so that they can’t find them.

They do seem to be quite addicted of late.  For them, the iPad is downtime, time to connect with friends, time to catch up on the latest goings-on on YouTube, time to play some games.  They are very attached, so attached, in fact, I’m certain that one day they may have to be surgically removed from them.

For me, their iPads are not viewed with such love and affection.  For me, the iPads make my children sullen, unresponsive, stroppy.  So why do I let them have them?  It’s a very good question and one that I have asked myself many times over the last few months.  The answer is fairly simple, I do it because I know that they work hard at school, they do their homework, going out isn’t really an option now that the nights are cold and dark and I know that they are growing up and like that connection with the outside world.

What I don’t like is the seemingly never- ending argument about coming off.  The ‘I just need to’ conversations, the endless Skype or Facetime calls that ‘must not be disturbed’, the seeming inability to be able to function screen free.

This is why I have always set limits.  In the summer, weekends and during school holidays, evenings, I will always allow them a certain amount of time but the rules are very clear.  They might not like that, but I am hoping that they will thank me for it one day.

It is thanks to the limits that the game of hide the iPad came about.  I used to just put them away in a drawer or next to my bed but after a while, I discovered the shocking truth that my sons cannot be trusted and I would find them sneaking back on when I wasn’t looking.  Of course, in their eyes, this was natural.  They would have ‘heard’ a message noise or saw a message flash up and they ‘had to check’.  I tried to be more creative with my hiding but soon discovered that they were far sneakier and cleverer at finding things than I realised.

Having exhausted the obvious places and realised that they really had no qualms about rummaging through my undies to get to their prized iPads, I was going to have to win this battle and I am pleased to say that apart from a few exceptions, I am winning.

They might be good at finding, but I am better at hiding.  I came home late one day to find that the house looked as though it had been burgled as I had forgotten to leave their precious devices.  When I asked them if it was really necessary to ransack the house, they duly informed me that it was AND it was my fault. My fault??

Some of my best hiding places so far have been in the bookcase (disguised as a book), behind the washing basket (this is a place they quite clearly don’t even know exists as all dirty washing gets left on the floor), in the oven ( a bit risky if I forgot they were there) and in their sister’s room ( it is too pink and girly in there, not a place they only enter when absolutely necessary).

The funny thing is that there are endless bags and boxes hanging around at the moment, filled with Christmas presents and they aren’t the slightest bit interested in or curious about those.  It’s all about the iPads.

I will be glad when spring comes around and I can get them back outside a bit more, at least then I can have some time and space to come up with a few more hiding places.