My brother has two sons, ages 3 and 5, and my parents often look after them, on many occasions I’m there as well to help and play with them.
My brother has set out a clear rule, his sons must not watch TV or play on a smartphone or tablet.
On Saturday my brother dropped off his sons and left, within 10 minutes of him leaving the 5yr hurt himself and started crying. My dad to solve the situation put him on his lap and gave him a smart phone to play with, I masterfully swapped the phone with an espresso cup and hid the phone, by the time I came back my dad had given him a tablet to play with, I then took a video recording and sent it to my brother then I took the tablet away and hid that too.
Furthermore, the day before they babysat the kids and my mum told me that the younger boy couldn’t sleep, as a solution my dad played a kids show on his phone and gave it to him. I told my brother about that as well along with the video recording.
My dad says that I’ve betrayed him, the consequence of this is that my brother might not let them look after the kids for a few weeks.
AITA for ratting on my dad to my brother concerning his children?
Some additional context:
I am in favour of this rule, I think children should not have access to any bright, colourful screens. My parents don’t have this opinion, they don’t believe in or know about the negative impact of these devices on children and are very skeptical.
My dad is amazing with his grandchildren, the kids love him, and they bring him more joy than anything else in the world.
On a previous occasion my dad was showing one of his grandchildren photos on his phone, I told him to put the phone away and my dad said “I’m sorry kids, but {my name!} won’t let us play with the phone”.
My parents have been ignoring me since Saturday.
TLDR:
My dad is amazing with his grandchildren but keeps giving them screens to play with despite being told not to on many multiple occasions, I ratted on him to his son (the farther of the kids aka my brother).
\–UPDATE–
Thank you for all of the comments, many are very thoughtful.
To answer some common themes:
\- The children have a lot of toys available, train sets, a children’s electric car and quad bike, children’s books, toy cars, even small bouncy castle, the lot, and when they go out my brother brings colouring pencils and books to occupy them.
\- My dad is amazing with the kids and the kids are his whole life, this is literally the only issue, my brother has spoken to him many times about it, and many times, my brother knows because the 5yr old tells him "grandad let us watch paw patrol" for example.
What I got from the helpful comments is that I’m making perfect is the enemy of good, regarding this situation my dad is being very stubborn and I should just ignore it as long as it doesn’t turn into sessions of over 5 minutes on the phone.