Nuttin' personal Gen X and Gen Y'ers.. this Baby Boomer is really glad, no, let's change that to hella glad I ain't raising kids nowadays.
"When should we buy 'em their first phone." "The heck you mean? Our one year old infant has had a toy one since he could hold his head up and the 4 year old has your old one." One friend claims her child's first word was not "Mum" or "Dad" but "iPad"....
Buddy'o mine was texting, his 6 year old granddaughter grabbed the phone from him, turned it to "Landscape orientation" (ahm the other way... where the width is larger) and added "No, do it like this grandpa!" Voilà! A larger keyboard magically appeared.
The Guardian tells us "The researchers warned that using a tablet or smartphone to divert a child’s attention could be detrimental to “their social-emotional development”.
“If these devices become the predominant method to calm and distract young children, will they be able to develop their own internal mechanisms of self-regulation?” the scientists asked."
Psychology Today adds (regarding kids/electronic devices) "That’s not always a bad thing: Educational apps and TV shows are great ways for children to sharpen their developing brains and hone their communication skills—not to mention the break these gadgets provide harried parents. But tread carefully: A number of troubling studies connect delayed cognitive development in kids with extended exposure to electronic media. The US Department of Health and Human Services estimates that American children spend a whopping seven hours a day in front of electronic media. Other statistics reveal that kids as young as two regularly play iPad games and have playroom toys that involve touch screens."
We piggos probably don't set a very good example.. Some studies estimate that an average person checks their screen 150 times a day.
To be frank, yeah, I reckon I do care about this, my grandkids - but I'm no longer on the decision-making end - and actually, I'm kind of glad about that. Sure I can 'suggest'.. warn if I have to.. but again (Victor, why do you do that? "but again".. Remember how much you HATED hearing "like I said"?) Uh huh, I do. But again, it's like my buddy Fernando Papi I usedta work with said "It not my yob man."
I admire families that monitor, have time constraints.. MIX IN OTHER FUN STUFF THAT AIN'T ELECTRONIC. I was just gonna make a post, but it led into a blog, sorry, kinda.
My buddy, an old grandfather-aged fart like me, was telling me about his girlfriend's 6 and 9 year old g-kids.. she had taken them into the basement.. Opened up two HUGE containers of Tinker Toys. The 9 looked at the 6 bewildered. She returned the bewildered back at him. Granny says "Oh come on, give 'em a chance... your DAD played with these when he was your age."
So, they were to hand the two kiddos off to the other seta grandparents at 2pm. 1:50pm "It's time to clean up, break 'em down, put 'em away." "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" They were having so much fun, and they didn't wanna undo the creativity they'd done. She had to bribe 'em with "Ok, you can each pick one favorite thing you built, and we won't unassemble it. Then, we'll break apart all the other beauties you created, put them in this container and you can take 'em to Granny (so and so's) now.. "YAAAAAAAYYYY!!!!!!"
Brings a tear to my eye. Not really, but I thought it was fun, worth sharing. Bottom-line, in this world where we all so heavily lean on social media, electronics, streaming, binging, talking into, texting, yada... don't forget to tinker around occasionally.
Love, Victurd.
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