Have you checked out your kid’s apps?
“I’m a researcher. I want to stay objective. We started this study really just trying to look at distraction. My frustrated response is about all the surprising, potentially deceptive stuff we found.”
Researchers have found ads in almost all of the popular apps for kids, and some of them are pretty deceptive.
This is definitely a problem and the best advice is to stay away from free apps. If you've paid for the app upfront it's way less likely to have ads or deceptive in-app purchase stuff. We have a couple apps that use a subscription model that are really high quality — Endless ABCs, ABC Mouse and Homer. You have a pay a couple bucks per month but they have endless amounts of content and educational games, with no ads. tl;dr — get fewer, higher quality apps, pay for the ones you do get, and use them yourself before giving them to your child.