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I would like to add one other small question for a soon to be 3 year old, how to encourage books over tech?
Do you really think there is an advantage to books over tech? I tend to think most people are attached to books for nostalgic reasons.
“ What other tools for creativity and learning do you arbitrarily limit? Do you have a hard rule on “paper time”? ”¹ ① http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/06/30/quantification Edit: Related blog posts: http://penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/06/30/quantification http://penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/06/30/screen-time
The problem is that TV and computers can be used for far more than 'creativity and learning' and, in my experience with kids, the majority of use is mindless. Kids get hooked on games.
At least based on my kids (4 and 7) I concur. We give them an hour a day of screen time.
My daughter is 5. We've done several things: 1. Blocked youtube on all iOS devices. This has been the most significant, positive action. She was rabid and unhappy whenever she used youtube, even for 20 minutes. The mental unbalance would sometimes last for hours. 2. NO live TV (no ads), unless we're watching a special event, e.g. a tennis tournament or other major cultural happenings (usually via BBC/VPN). The TV scr…
How did you block youtube?
We disabled the Youtube app in Restrictions when Apple included it in the default setup (up to iOS 5).
My daughter is 5. We've done several things: 1. Blocked youtube on all iOS devices. This has been the most significant, positive action. She was rabid and unhappy whenever she used youtube, even for 20 minutes. The mental unbalance would sometimes last for hours. 2. NO live TV (no ads), unless we're watching a special event, e.g. a tennis tournament or other major cultural happenings (usually via BBC/VPN). The TV scr…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you really think there is an advantage to books over tech? I tend to think most people are attached to books for nostalgic reasons.
How many pixels of resolution and what latency of screen refresh does your imagination offer? That's what stories offer - a personalized virtual reality with higher resolution than all current tech. Books are a delivery mechanism for stories. Poems offer even more - the brain fills in the blanks.
Your approach seems almost like saying never take a kid on a trip to the grand canyon or show them a picture or video of it, when you can read them a poem or stage an interpretive dance about the grand canyon instead.
My daughter is 5. She had zero screen time till she was 2. After that, it was a case by case basis. 5 minutes a day when she was 3 - which is one peppa pig episode. The only computer time she was allowed were for drawing using paint or Photoshop. At 4, on special occasions, she got to ask for a few YouTube videos - usually Dora, peppa pig, or something educational. She was also allowed to ask to watch the news, which…
Whatever you do, don't ever permit Caillou. A couple episodes of it and our kids were mimicking bad behaviours - "hrmph" to any requests, whining constantly, etc. We banned it and everything went back to normal. http://www.sbnation.com/2014/3/26/5549908/arian-foster-caill...
I would like to add one other small question for a soon to be 3 year old, how to encourage books over tech?
As a new parent I quickly learned that kids emulate what they see (and they seem to pay more attention that we give them credit for) In an effort to prove this out my wife and I got library cards and started reading books during my daughter's (alone) play time after dinner. Very soon after this experiment started she too started picking books and now likes to read (recite from memory) her bed-time books.
I would like to add one other small question for a soon to be 3 year old, how to encourage books over tech?
Do you really think there is an advantage to books over tech? I tend to think most people are attached to books for nostalgic reasons.
But this is a free world and everyone to feel what they think is correct. Reading education and brain development materials could help deciding on what is good or not.
Parent of a 7yo and an almost 3yo with no TV at home, no computer time at all, and few iphone screen-time: only screen time is during long flights to Europe or somewhere else, road trips or when they are really sick. And the few screen time is always watching something in their second language (primary is English) as we're raising them bilingual. Again, this is our decision and this is a free world.
Why? because we feel that encouraging imagination development is key for their future as an adult being artistic or more technical. As adults we are constantly using our imagination for thinking out of the box, reaching far in our imagination for creating new solutions, etc.
No judging here and everyone can have is own point of view; and at the end who knows who is right or wrong? My only advice would be for the parents to educate themselves more on brain development and use their own judgement when reading such materials (often really opinionated).
Something about this topic disturbs me. I would always have loved computers no matter what, but if my parents had restricted my screen time during my obsessive periods I don't think I would be half the programmer I am today.
Should my parents have restricted my screen time? Sometimes, yes. But more importantly, they should have tried to make my screen time more meaningful to me instead of leaving me to my own devices.