Can I Give My Child A Tablet

2023 Author: Amber Richards | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-22 00:24

“IPad no longer lives in our house!” - recently exhaled a friend with a sense of accomplishment. “We just told the kids that the tablets were being repaired - that's all. Imagine - they don't ask about them anymore. Already a week. This is just a miracle!"

Yes, really a miracle. Because more and more often it seems to me that we have new family members. “Apad! Typhon! " - announces my two year old baby almost immediately after waking up in the morning. As if overnight he manages to miss these gadgets. Probably, this is really so - I even started to get jealous.

As for a friend whose family has an iPad non grata - she is one of the wealthy perfectionist moms. The obligatory steamer, farm chicken, a new five course menu every day, not to mention the staff of tutors and other domestic staff. True, despite the clearly structured children's schedule, the tablet addiction took its toll there too. Carried away by the game with gadgets, developed beyond their years, having traveled half the world, the cheerful and mobile children of a friend - a girl and a boy (they are six and four years old) - become, in her own words, like a zombie. They forget about place and time, hunger and thirst, and generally do not react to anything. Even a cry. And attempts to tear them away from the iPad often ended in hysteria.

If one of the gadgets still falls into the hands of my child, he also falls out of reality for a while. Sometimes, I confess, it suits me. For example, in the morning I can sleep an extra 15 minutes. While it is really 15 minutes, rarely more. After that, the tablet or "typhon" usually loses its relevance - the baby becomes bored. I am in no hurry to download a large number of applications, and he gets tired of a couple of available ones pretty quickly. And cartoons are also not our topic yet.

During the day I put "aped" and "typhon" where the child cannot reach - otherwise scandals and tears cannot be avoided either. I don't know what will happen next, but I would not want to exclude gadgets from his life at all. Although stories about radical taboos on the computer - as my friend did - I hear more and more often lately.

Is it correct? Digital devices have long been a part of our life, there is no turning back. Perhaps by the time my son goes to school, education will be almost completely computerized. And the iphone and iWatch will be replaced by an almost invisible built-in device, similar to what the heroes of the futuristic melodrama Her by Spike Jones use.

But the overly tender relationship between the child and the “aped” still worries me. And the availability and efficiency of the (conditional) digital nanny is also alarming. To give your child a tablet for a while and go about their business is really a big temptation.

I talked about this with a psychologist - Marina Chizhova. She is the Vice-Rector of the Institute of Perinatal Psychology and Reproductive Psychology. Marina is also against the “forbidden fruit”. (Naturally, with the exception of games where violence and cruelty are present, they are dangerous for the psyche of babies, since a small child is not able to distinguish the virtual world from reality and can begin to project such behavior onto real life.) She also does not recommend using gadgets in as a reward (“here you eat porridge - and you will get an ipad”) or banning them as a punishment. In general, the main thing in a child's contact with a computer is measure. For children under seven years old, this is no more than 20 minutes twice a day. (For me, this is a lot - at least for two-year-olds.) And then, in theory, they need to be cunningly distracted with something.“The phrases“you have half an hour”or“turn off the computer in twenty minutes”will be understandable only to older children, adds Chizhova. - “It is better for kids to offer an alternative activity - for example, going to the puppet theater”.

By the way, about alternative activities. The best computer replacement is, of course, Mom. Or dad, grandmother, nanny and other people from the inner circle who are able to show empathy towards the child and with whom he is interested. If the right computer games can contribute to intellectual development - for example, improve cognitive skills, then emotionally we develop only in the process of live communication. After all, there has not yet appeared a robot that gives love.

In general, most scientists believe that gadgets - if you communicate with them intelligently - are more useful than harmful. Interactive devices - games, educational applications - in this sense are an order of magnitude better than a TV set and, in general, any passive time alone with a computer. Interactive classes help develop fast, fractional, multitasking, creative thinking, without which there is nowhere in the modern world. I am, however, intimidated by the very low ability to focus inherent in today's children and many gadget-addicted adults (the author of this column is no exception). But here it is important to be able to really interest. My baby, by the way, can take a very long time - half an hour, no less! - play with the garbage truck. Not virtual, but real - or rather a reduced copy. At these moments, he is also, as they say, in the zone - if, of course, mom is also nearby.

5 of my favorite iOS apps:

Weather Marco Polo (iphone, ipad - free) - all about the weather and the ability to control it
Busy Shapes (iphone, ipad - 69 rubles) - acquaintance with different colors and shapes and exercises for the development of logic based on the works of the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget.
Tiggly Chef (iPad - Free) - Learn the basics of arithmetic using recipes.
Lego Creator Islands (iPad - free) - children build an island where toy figures will live.
Tony the Truck (iPhone, iPad - 99 rubles) - interactive construction