anyone know how to safety an ipad for kids? any advice?

[FirstTimeMomIn2009]

anyone know how to safety an ipad so kids don't go into the apps store and get encouraged to buy all the games they see? any advice about ipad safety in general to have it more kid friendly and prevent them from roaming and changing ipad settings? or make internet/youtube kid user friendly etc? any advice in general? thanks

[Mojo3]

We have a password set up for in app purchases. That way they can't purchases anything. You can also set up a password for settings, that way the settings can't be changed unless you enter the password.

Here are some sites that might help.

Set up a kid-friendly iPad | Macworld

Parent's Guide: Make your iPad Kid safe | iPad Insight

[Ingalls]

I have 4,8,and12 year old kids and none of them have tried to change any settings, or would even think to try that -- if you just explain to them these icons here, don't touch. They're not games. They probably won't bother them. But doesn't hurt to do what mojo says and make the settings password protected.
For the app store I have my settings such that if I enter the password to buy something it is only effective for fifteen minutes, as I usually only shop apps at night when they're in bed.

Youtube is a tougher one. There's a kids' youtube app and for a while I fell for that. It's a lot of crap, and sometimes weird stuff gets through. For example my girls loved this game called Talking Angela. It's a cat you train, teach, and talk to. There are links in the game to videos on youtube that other players have made. My 8 year old watched one that says that
Angela is actually evil and if you don't turn your ipad off at night she will climb out and kill you And then there were often videos popping up for this game Charlie, something about how if you say his name three times or something he appears and he's a ghost etc I dunno. So I deleted the app.
I just let them do youtube on my desktop when I'm busy in the kitchen or something, the few times they do it without a parent initiating it.

Depending what your kid is into you can also downoad appisodes of shows, or you can find apps that have videos too. For example the Monster High app has many music videos
or there's karaoke apps so the kids can sing music or there's tv channel apps that give you access to episodes.

[ChinUp]

I have an old ipad and for whatever weird reason it doesn't have safari. You can't surf the net at all on it. It's perfect for the kids.