You know the standoff. You ask for ten more minutes, then five, then you're the villain for taking it away — and the toy bin three feet behind them hasn't been opened in a month. You bought most of what's in there hopefully. A remote-control car, something that lights up, whatever the last thing was. Ten minutes of excitement each, then the pile.
And the alternatives don't hold. RC cars have nowhere to go and nothing to win, so they're abandoned by Tuesday. Board games need a table, a rulebook, and twenty minutes of setup before anyone's having fun. Anything with two kids and one toy turns into you refereeing turns until you'd rather they just went back on the iPad. Meanwhile the screen keeps winning, because the screen has a score, a goal, and a reason to try again — and almost nothing on the floor does.
So most of us just live with it. Another rainy afternoon negotiating over a device, another forty dollars on a toy that lasts a week, another year of quality time that looks a lot like supervision. It doesn't have to be the plan.