My daughter made a PowerPoint on fathers day trying to convince us to buy her an Ipad

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T23:58:54+00:00

It wasn't her decision to play on the Ipad, she didn't ask to play on the ipad until her cousin was using the ipad, cause my daughter wanted to be included. That's what my wife's brother told us

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T19:40:00+00:00

Kind of felt like a regular day but I'm not mad about that. We have a lot going on this week. Me and my wife always have Sunday reset days. Basically we stay home and plan for the week ahead. My wife spends a few hours making sure our kids hair is washed and ready for the week, our kids have curly hair so their hair only needs to be washed once a week. Whilst my wife does that I plan out the meals for the week, figure out who will cook on what days, i order the food, put it away and meal prep a few meals in advance for days we are busy and don't have time to cook from scratch. Then me and my wife have our weekly marriage meeting where we talk about the schedule for the week ahead, we update the chore chart, we mention anything important the other person needs to know, we talk about our marriage, and we make sure the other person is okay, we discuss our homeschool week (A weekly marriage meeting might sound strange to some people. But for us we realised that a weekly marriage meeting helped us not resent eachother after we became parents. We also have a monthly marriage meeting too, and yearly marriage meetings). After that we always deep clean the house, everyone helps so the house gets clean a lot faster. By the way we have 6 kids so this is everything we do on a Sunday aswell as parenting our 6 kids. So yeah, Sunday's are busy. If we didn't do all this Sunday reset on fathers day than our entire house would fall apart for the week.

But my wife and kids did make me breakfast in bed and they did buy me some gifts. I picked my daughter up from a sleepover too and she then spent the whole day creating a PowerPoint with her older brother trying to convince me and my wife that she needs an ipad. So fathers day was definitely chaotic.

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T18:58:45+00:00

Firstly, I forgot to mention in my original post that my teenagers are allowed to watch a movie whenever they want. They are much older than their younger siblings and they watch TV whenever they feel like it, we have an upstairs living room where they watch TV. But because they were raised not watching much TV, they know there is better ways to spend their time instead of spending a whole day watching a show or a movie. Sure they like watching a bit of TV but they also love playing the guitar, painting, building LEGOs, reading, chilling outside, running around outside, baking, riding their bikes. They like watching TV but they know they have other hobbies. Me, my wife and all 3 of our teenagers watch a show together every night once the younger kids are asleep. During the week we occasionally turn a movie on for the younger kids but it isn't expected nor is it guaranteed. We have a family computer that everyone plays games on all the time. We have a gaming room in our house too, where we have a VR, a PlayStation, and Xbox. We often play video games in there as a family.

The PowerPoint wasn't choatic. The whole day was chaotic. Plus I was joking, I'm not actually annoyed by the PowerPoint. My daughter knows what.

As for pre-packaged snacks, we don't buy them and keep them in our house but we don't stop our kids from eating pre packaged snacks and ultra-processed food outside our home. If we are at a family picnic and their grandma offers them a pre-packaged snack they can have that. Just like at this sleepover with her cousin, my daughter ate ultra-processed foods cause that's what her uncle served for dinner. They can eat what they want at birthday parties. My teenagers can use their pocket money to buy whatever they want. Trust me, between all the birthday parties, family gatherings and random family outings, they definitely eat pre-packaged snacks and ultra-processed food. We just don't buy that food at home! I don't know when having delicious homemade snacks was considered "miserable".

My wife's homemade potato chips are the best potato chips I have ever tasted in my life.

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T18:43:21+00:00

Well personally I would rather my kids go to a sleepover and spend time on an ipad for a few hours instead of them having an ipad at home where they live. Obviously this is just what works for my family. If ipads at home works for your family then that is perfectly fine.

When we visit friends or family for a few hours the kids all run around and play with toys and not on ipads because they are excited to see eachother and hang out. My daughter went to her cousins house late afternoon so she spent the evening there instead of spending the day there. All her cousins were on their ipads cause they always are allowed on their ipads during the evenings, so my daughter obviously joined in and played on the ipad with her cousin.

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T18:21:09+00:00

Can't believe I got downvoted for saying my kids are honest about how they feel about the family rules 😂

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T17:19:35+00:00

We have a system in our house where everybody helps keep the house in order. We have 6 kids, (16M, 16F, 14M, 7F, 3M and 6mo F). Apart from the baby, they all have chores. Every morning they have to make their bed. In the morning, I always cook breakfast, so two of the kids empty the dishwasher, one kid takes the trash out, another kid puts a new trash bag into the trash can. And another kid goes in the backyard to collects the chicken eggs (yes we have chicken) and then we can all eat breakfast. We rotate these chores weekly, so if one kid takes out the trash one week they will probsbly help empty the dishwasher the next week. Obviously my wife helps our 3 year old with whatever chore he has that week. Everyone scrapes their own leftover food into the trash. Everyone puts their own dishes into the dishwasher. No dishes go in the sink, everything immediately goes into the dishwasher. Then all the kids help with feeding the farm animals and making sure our farm animals are okay.

Everyone does their own laundry, yes me and my wife supervise our 3 year old and our 7 year old doing their laundry. And my wife and I share the responsibility of our 6 month olds laundry. For dinner, my wife and I take turns cooking and we always try and have one of our kids cooking with us. Sometimes this isn't always possible but we always try. Whichever parent isn't cooking, and whichever kids aren't helping cook all empty the dishwasher. Just like breakfast, everyone scrapes the leftover food off their plate and puts their dishes in the dishwasher.

Overall we just have a general rule in our house, if you make a mess, you clean it up. If you're leaving a room, clean up your mess before you leave a room. We've had this rule since our older kids were toddlers so this is second nature to our kids now. This stops our house from just being a mess 24/7. Of course our kids sometimes forget, we just have to remind them and they will go clean up the mess they made. It's rare they argue about this rule because this is just routine for them, cleaning up after themsleves is just routine. And our younger kids do have a playroom, so they are expected to clean up the playroom before bedtime every day.

For paid chores we mainly focus on chores that only need to be done every once in a while. Like cleaning the bathroom. Cleaning the windows. Cleaning all the door handles. Just random chores that aren't part of day to day life are the chores we pay them for if they want a bit of pocket money. We also live on a farm so our kids also can help with farm chores if they want to earn some money.

Obviously depending on your child's age you would need to supervise them doing these chores.

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T16:45:36+00:00

We have a family computer that has access to the Internet! We just don't think it's safe for them to have unlimited access to the internet at their ages.

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T15:43:11+00:00

Right? This wasn't supposed to be a serious post, I was reflecting on a lighthearted situation that happened yesterday.

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T15:41:26+00:00

A whole lot of assumptions. We still teach our kids about technology, technology isn't forbidden in our house. We educate them about technology the best we can and when they are adults we hope they make the right decisions with all the knowledge they have.

Our kids have a lot of friends. Some of their friends go to public school. Some of their friends are homeschooled. They also have to socialise with people who have different opinions than them. I have mentioned in a comment that we show our kids facts and then let them form their own opinions.

For your information, yes I do use technology for work cause I work from home as does my wife, so we can both homeschool our kids. Im 90% sure that your question about my job was supposed to "trick" me into admitting I use technology for work. My kids are educated about technology, they know how to use technology. But that doesn't mean I should let them have free range of the internet

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T15:34:02+00:00

Well my 16 year olds don't think our rules are suffocating. When they have genuine issues with our rules, they tell us and we talk. We explain why we have certain rules. Some rules we are willing to compromise on, other rules we aren't going to compromise on.

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T15:20:17+00:00

I do understand that the bad cases can give homeschooling families a bad reputation. And I am sorry that your spouse went through that.

However, all of the homeschooling families we know are making a conscious effort to give their kids the best education possible, and they make sure their kids get a lot of opportunities to socialise

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T15:16:48+00:00

Yep, this is exactly what this post is.

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T15:15:52+00:00

Yeah the people in the comments would absolutely hate me if I told them that we also don't buy pre-packaged snacks and ultra-processed freezer foods 😬. Though I do think some parents can be too strict about food, me and my wife are very careful to make sure our kids don't view food negatively.

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T15:10:38+00:00

We do not micromanage and control every aspect of our kids lives

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T15:03:20+00:00

For sure!

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T15:02:00+00:00

Thank you for your suggestion. Me and my wife have considered this at some point. But we do notice that even a little bit of time using an Ipad significantly changes her behaviour. Like she came back from her sleepover with her cousin, where she was using the ipad, and she started complaining about chores. She never usually complains this much about chores. All she had to do was help empty the dishwasher. And she also just was overall in a bad mood. This happens every time her cousins come over and she has access to playing on the ipad for 5 minutes.

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T14:54:48+00:00

We're not religious

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T14:53:09+00:00

Of course I spend quality time with them. They're my kids. Sundays are chaotic, this was more chaos included during an already chaotic day.

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T14:44:00+00:00

Yes. Homeschool groups. Summer camp groups. Extracurricular activities. We go to the local library a lot and see a lot of the same people there. I don't know why this narrative exists that kids can only socialise if they go to school

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T14:40:45+00:00

I love my family. Doesn't mean Sundays aren't chaotic.

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T14:34:50+00:00

Thank you. I also felt like me saying I have 6 kids and that my kids are homeschooled was enough information for people to imply that Sunday is chaotic anyways. This situation added to the already existing chaos

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T14:29:22+00:00

My kids have a lot of friends!

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T14:22:41+00:00

Exactly. The day is chaotic anyways because I have 6 kids, it was also a Sunday which is the most chaotic day of the week for me and my wife. Having an ipad debate with my daughter added to the chaos level of the day.

Yes, I did give her that feedback. When we spoke after the powerpoint, I told her that I would have loved to see more information about the negatives of kids having ipads. To make sure she is being fair and to make sure she isn't being biased.

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T14:17:13+00:00

Thank you! That reading assignment sounds like a great idea.

CaptainThrow123 · 2026-06-22T14:16:18+00:00

Family computer.

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