Baby talk.  A cherished ritual, inspiring images of drooly bundles of joy cooing Mama, Dada, Ball, and/or Dog, while Mama and/or Dada coo back in singsong tones.  Baby talk is simple.  Baby talk is free.  Baby talk is perfect just the way it is.

Added bonus: baby talk is how babies learn to talk.

The anxieties felt by parents regarding their children’s development are well known.  Whether a byproduct of too much information, too many choices, too much peer pressure, or a prevailing too much, is hard to say.  But it is real, and we’ve all felt it.  Whether expressed via a well-child visit, a  gathering of friends, or on Facebook, all parents want their children to be the best they can be, if not better.  Thus, those first few words are precious, but soon we worry about the next ones.  Which should they be?  Is “serendipity” too hard?  How about “Twitter?”  How fast?  Which is first, ABCs or 123s?  What does Harvard expect by 18 months?

Anxiety is rocket fuel for consumer products, be they beauty care, vitamins, or children’s media and toys.   Marketers are smart (they probably said tons of words at 18 months), and have leveraged family angst by developing – and prominently labeling – almost everything for young children as “educational,” promising all manner of oft-unrealistic, unsubstantiated “learning.”  Thus, we buy videos for our little ones where characters sing about smart things like safari animals, or classical music, or shapes and numbers, hoping that they will learn these things.  And whereas child development is a gradual process, buying or downloading appeals to our desire for an “educational” quick fix, ergo its vast popularity.

Unfortunately, for young babies screens simply don’t work well, if at all.  Cute and jazzy as they may be, they lack the ability to read baby’s social and emotional cues and respond in a truly interactive, loving way.  Thus, while appearing engaged, babies largely sit and stare, developmental engine idling.  Marketers are on to this critique and now apply the term “interactive” to newer stuff like touch screens that flash and make noises, but this is a feeble surrogate for a real, caring, multi-sensorial human.

Interactive?

Interactive!

This point can not be stressed enough: to develop to their fullest potential, babies need loving humans who engage with them consistently in the real world.  Parents are a child’s first teachers.  There is no better nor more critical education.

Babies and young children learn to talk by talking.  Analog mammals that they are, it is how they evolved, and evolution takes a really long time, regardless of incentives offered by Disney.  Babies love to talk.  They need to talk.  Talking involves a complex interplay of verbal and nonverbal cues – facial expressions, emotion, reaction – which no media can offer.   And hearing and engaging in everyday conversation with their grownups is how babies learn useful words – dog, ball, Mama/Dada, spoon, unplugged – ones they will remember.  Even if they did learn from screens, unless their family is exceedingly adventurous, what use do they have for safari words?  Wind instruments?  Spanish when no one at home speaks Spanish?

The multi-billion dollar “smart baby” industry is a brilliant, profitable problem created to remedy a perfect solution.  Talking to babies as a means to learn language did not need to be fixed by Baby Einstein.

Perfect. Priceless.

As is commonly observed, babies listen before they can say.  Thus, language development begins by being talked to.  The power of talking to babies has been illustrated via a number of studies, notably researchers Hart & Risley, who in a 1995 study found a huge, unsettling disparity in the number of words heard per hour by children in welfare, working-class, and professional households.   This added up to an estimated 30 million more words heard by age 3 by children from professional families than those in poverty.   Predictably, this correlates strongly with IQ, literacy, and academic performance, creating a vicious cycle.

Of note in the context of this post for those thinking a daily dose of Eebee or Elmo is the remedy: “TV talk not only didn’t help, it was detrimental.”  Only words shared by caregivers promoted language.  This highlights the fact that screen-based media tends to interfere with – and replace – parent-child interaction.  Parents and other caregivers feel a false sense of security while their child is watching Doc McStuffins or using a “learning app,” and feel less compelled to simply talk to them (correcting behavior excepted).  And as with all screen media, “hearing words” is not the same as being spoken to.  One engages the child, the other doesn’t.  One is a path to healthy development, the other largely passes time.

Recent studies suggest that a major reason for this disparity is that many parents, especially lower socioeconomic households, do not realize how important talking to their children is.  It seems too simple.  The swirl of misleading marketing increases misconception, as does misinformation from peers and other dubious sources, creating pressure for children to “learn” via electronic media.   Ironically, this is increasingly common in higher socioeconomic households, where technology is piled on to give children a “learning” edge (and keep them occupied).  Thus, a challenge for pediatricians, grandparents, and “old-school” advocates is to overcome this media storm with reassurance that simple unplugged time together is not only cheaper and less anxiety-provoking, but best.

A recent New York Times article describes an exciting “Talk to Your Baby” initiative being launched in Providence RI, designed to address socioeconomic language inequities.   In essence, parents are being coached to do just that – consistently talk to their babies – via sharing simple everyday activities, and then monitoring their progress.  There is hope that the simplicity of the desired behavior and low price tag, coupled with evidence that it works, will prove more effective than other, more complex interventions.  Whether through shared books, answering questions, or simply describing what a parent is doing during their regular day – tying shoes, cooking pancakes, making the bed – all of those words add up to great things.  Let’s hope so.

Talk to me!

For the rest of us not living in Providence, let’s join the movement towards simplicity and learning through real-world experience during the first three years.  Three cheers for unplugging, snuggling up with real books, and wandering outside with a blanket to play in the yard (a beach for lucky ones), with a ball, a pet, or a box – and talking about them!

Thank you for reading – and happy Screen Free Week!  Share your thoughts!

Tablets.

I was recently forwarded a link to a wonderful experiment featured on ABC’s Nightline  - Generation iPad: Could Device Hurt Toddler’s Development? - conducted by researchers at the Barnard Center for Toddler Development, a playful place to work.   A group of children age 3-5 were provided with iPads in the center’s playroom, and in turn their parents tried to get their attention.  Most were enchanted by the devices and difficult to rouse, oblivious to  grownups, traditional toys, and each other.  This observation is akin to prior studies of the distracting effect of digital content on parent-child engagement, including background TV, videos, and e-readers.   Interestingly, there was one girl in the experiment who took no interest in the iPad whatsoever despite multiple offers, preferring dolls and a play kitchen – no doubt, a gene awaits discovery.

Interlude: it’s  important to note that children age 3-5 aren’t technically toddlers, but the findings here are  readily extended to them.

After a silent, screen-swiping span, the iPads were taken away, with varying degrees of protest.  The social awakening was striking, as the cohort began interacting verbally and physically, engaging their imaginations.  Like an entirely different species, they sought out grownups and one another, role playing, communicating, creating “food” out of blocks, and more.

“See how much their vocabulary has gone up?” lead researcher Dr. Tovah Klein noted.

It was a veritable modeling shoot for Baby Unplugged:

Coming Summer, 2013!

In a word, the children were social.  Human, even.

Once the digital pause button was released in favor of unplugged options, the childrens’ brains resumed the deep-rooted process of assimilating and interacting with the world around them, aka playing and learning.  Clearly, iPads were distracting – technophilic bloggers might claim “educationally” so – but developmental concerns are highlighted via what these children were distracted from:

Parents.
Emotions.
Their own imagination.
Each other.

This begs the question – is this a good thing?  It’s a weighty list, one that should give us second thoughts about reflexively handing over our iPhone as a fussiness/boredom remedy.   True, digital media holds educational potential – Angry Birds as a physics tutorial is often cited – but in a very limited, 2-D, solitary context.

I often cite the pediatric mantra “children are not small grownups,” and it  applies here.  Grownups may not need  the things digital media distracts us from – we may be tired of emotions and other people - but children do.  Engaging with the real world is an integral, hard-wired aspect of their development, laying the mental, physical, and spiritual foundation to stay healthy and happy.

Digital media and devices will eventually be a big part of all children’s lives, of course.  The genie is out of that bottle (as my devoting hours of screen time to this blog attests).  But to maximize healthy use, the real world must come first.  The first three years are ideal, during dynamic stages of development when children don’t even realize they are missing anything by staying screen-free (which they aren’t).   Thus, they benefit from immersion in a world of grownups, emotions, open-ended questions, sense of wonder, and other children, where critical skills are learned in a playful, organic, focused way.

Few skills are more important than self-calming, i.e. coping with disappointment, separation, and “boredom.”  In the experiment cited above, Dr. Klein stressed allowing young children to entertain themselves without the aid of devices, which short-circuit the developmental process.  Whether putting themselves to sleep, making up games, browsing up a book, or simply sitting quietly with their thoughts, children who develop psychic resourcefulness are more likely to use screen media in a balanced, creative way – inventing instead of consuming a-la Steve Jobs (who was a baby unplugged), or maybe not needing it at all!

One final observation for parents, illuminated by the spooky spell that digital devices cast.  The utter disregard the majority of distracted children showed for their grownups – familiar to any of us who have conducted such experiments in cars, living rooms, or (please, no) restaurants – illustrates how increasingly easy it is to outsource ourselves.  We must resist!  Parenting is far too important, complex, rewarding, powerful, and fun to ever be outsourced to a device, no matter how “educational” it claims to be.  We must embrace and defend our hard-won, evolutionary status as teacher- and soother-in-chief and put technology in its proper place, especially during those first three, habit-forming years:

In a drawer, unplugged.

Hooray for that!

Share your thoughts and experiences!  What’s the best way to introduce media in a balanced way?    Thank you for reading!

Formally speaking, the “toddler” stage spans from roughly 1-2 years old.  It is a time of explosive growth, when children begin to develop powerful new skills that help them become more independent and make their own choices.  Thus, two major themes:

Theme #1: independence.

Theme #2: choices.

If toddlerhood were a holiday, it would be the 4th of July: celebration, fireworks, and all about independence.  Children usually learn to walk as toddlers (i.e. toddling), increasing their mobility and ability to pursue their passions.  Verbal language begins to emerge here, too (the first 5-10 words at age 1), and then explodes.  This allows toddlers to communicate needs and wants, describe their world, and interact with loved ones in a new way.  Evidencing their developmental workload, toddlers also learn to feed and dress themselves, play with increasingly complex toys, and use crayons, each dependent on advancing fine motor skills and an expert pincer grasp, which emerges around 9 months.

The daunting toddler curriculum is rooted in the need to thrive in the real world – a critical foundation predating Sesame Street and the iTunes app store.  Their heavy workload requires focus and practice, making gadget-based quizzes and flashcards unnecessary, distracting, and stressful for parent and toddler alike.  Despite marketing claims, “educational” media directed at toddlers misses the point of toddlerhood entirely: developing a foundation of basic, real-world skills.  Screen media serves mostly as an anesthetic or pacifier – tempting during this intense time, but adding nothing of value.  This is why the AAP discourages screen-based media until after age 2 (and I extend to 3), allowing toddler and near-toddler challenges to be addressed.

The world is a learning lab for toddlers.  Whether stacking blocks, sipping from a way-too-full cup, or trying to describe what the dog is doing, parents know well the oft-runny-nosed, beaming grin of success and tearful collapse of defeat.  Both shape confidence and self-esteem.  Consistent reinforcement and constructive feedback are critical, but frustration is common and normal –  the wellspring of tantrums, notorious “NOs,” and “terrible twos.”  Thus, it is important to be specific and firm while avoiding shame, as toddlers and their emerging skills are fragile and highly sensitive.

agony of defeat

thrill of victory

Whereas infants are fairly passive – i.e. fed when hungry, changed when stinky – toddlers develop their own ideas about what they want and when.  Nurturing this drive and requisite skills requires patience, love, deep breathing, and limits.  An artful method is to offer choices that are acceptable to the parent but the toddler in fact makes, i.e. “Do you want to read the manatee book or the hippo one, red shirt or blue…?”  Choices should also be limited, i.e. not “What do you want to eat?” but “Do you want grapes or an apple?”   Thus, no matter the choice, the toddler feels empowered, confidence grows, everyone wins, and peace reigns.

Though marketers work mightily to complicate toddler play and learning - and sell their products - I strongly believe that “old-school” activities and toys are not only nostalgic and good, but optimal.  These include store-bought things like blocks and peg boards, as well as repurposed ones like cardboard boxes, readily adapted to the evolving toddler skill set.  Boxes are veritable learning labs – open-ended, child-centered – where a toddler might first shake and pound on them (acoustics), then fill and dump (physics), then scribble in increasingly detailed ways (fine art), then make pretend cars and robots (engineering), then start their own business!  Thus, the old joke that a toddler likes the box better than the gift that came in it is rooted in developmental science – they crave this kind of exploration!

riding in a box car!

Other examples of fun, developmentally-robust activities for toddlers are  subjects of my Baby Unplugged books (pardon unabashed plug): Ball, Book, Beach, Yard, Pets, and the forthcoming Blocks and Wet.  All are true to the 90:10 Best Toy Principle - 90% child, 10% toy – which electronic toys and media tend to get backwards.  All promote a virtuous cycle of learning, where the activity inspires skill development and creativity, which inspires more complex play, which inspires more development and creativity, and so on.  Benefits accrue in 4 critical developmental areas, largely incompatible with screen-based media at this age: motor, language, social, emotional.

Emotional development is worth extra mention, as it is notorious in toddlers, earning them their outlaw status.  Nurturing a healthy, confident, self-soothing toddler requires patience and consistency, keeping choices and independence in mind.  This can be hard, especially with ever-present temptation of “educational,” screen-based options.  Resist them.  Though not as outwardly fragile, toddlers need as much nurturing and attention as they did as infants.  Healthy development is far too important be outsourced to cartoon characters or “interactive” devices – it requires real, caring people, as it always has.  The investment is worth its weight in meltdowns, paying lifelong dividends.

toddlers are cute, too!

Like early childhood itself, the toddler stage is intense, wonderful, and fleeting.  Spending engaged, screen-free playtime together is not only the best way to promote healthy development and learning, it is the best way to show a toddler that they are valued and loved.  So take a deep breath, unplug, take pictures, and have fun!

Share your thoughts, toddler tales, and experiences!  It’s great to hear from you!

Foreboding, indeed.

That is not my intent, though the phantoms above are, unfortunately, real.  The true mission of Baby Unplugged is not to frighten, nor transfuse boluses of guilt into parental veins, but to inspire.  To focus not on bad things that can happen with excessive screen time, but great things that happen in its absence.   To celebrate the wonders residing in the real  world during those first, fleeting, precious three years.  It’s about passion for playtime, rapture of a walk in the park, the sweet smell flowers (and dirt, and dogs…), and most of all – pure love between parents and babies, manifest through intimate, primary, kissy, huggy, multi-sensory life.

Baby Unplugged is Valentine’s Day.

I compare screen-free early childhood to Cupid Camp because in my opinion there is no way to better show a child that they are loved than through spending quality, intimate time with them.  There is also no span more critical for consistent showing than the first three years, when children are growing and developing the fastest – where literally every moment matters.

Unplugged activities are not just nostalgia, they are catalysts for this connection.  They are baby love potions.  The secret ingredient is paying attention, which means tuning out ever-more-pervasive digital distraction.

And so, we greet each day armed with  Cupid’s arrows: Sharing a book.  Daydreaming hand in hand during a walk outside, turning over rocks and blowing kisses at butterflies and rolly-pollys.  Savoring the sunset at the beach building a sand castle, pointing at pelicans, or feeling the tickle of the tide on tiny toes.  Melting into a pile of giggles licked by a beloved dog.  Rolling a ball back and forth.  Hosting a tea party at a cardboard box table.  Cuddling up in a fuzzy blanket.  There is nothing – nothing – in the digital world that even comes close.  Indeed, digital media is marketed to replace them.  And enchant though it does, it can neither feel nor share anything.   It will never be human.  This is why I dedicate much of my life to helping it stay in its place.

And so, in this, my shortest-ever blog post, I wish all of you a wonderful, sweet, and memorable February 14.  Have fun!

Thank you for reading.  As always, your comments are welcome.

Read on.

Babies are curious, perceptive people, born to engage a brand new world.  In nature, this fascination with novelty is termed biophilia, inspiring wee explorers to squeal at birds, turn over rocks, and smile/goo at friendly human faces.  In the world of play, toys, blocks, and other objects inspire similar engagement, fueling the dynamic early learning process.  With every generation, though, the brand new world seems to expand: from analog things like the sky and moon, water, birds, animals, faces, and cardboard boxes, to TV shows and Mom’s/Dad’s iPad.  Unfortunately, the latter are so seductive they can hijack biophilia, reprogramming it into i-ophilia and diverting baby to ScreenLand.

Most screen time advocacy and research efforts (and resistance thereof) are rightly centered on direct screen time, i.e. when a child is actively watching, pardon the oxymoron.  This is where the “no screen time under 2″ and “less than 2 hours for older children” party-pooping from the AAP comes from.

Alas, there has been a screen time Snuffalupagus in the room, foreshadowed earlier.   It turns out that indirect viewing – aka what grownups, older kids, and often no one at all is watching – makes up the majority for young children.  A 2012 study in the journal Pediatrics was the first to quantify this – and even the authors were shocked by the findings.

The trend is for gradual increase in direct viewing as children get older and choose their own media, while indirect screen time falls.  Given well-publicized warnings about screen time in the baby/toddler population, it seems nutty that they would have the highest background TV exposure.  Here’s why: parents don’t count it as screen time.  Seeking release from the isolation and boredom of caring for a young child, they watch their own shows, leave the TV on as background noise, or surf YouTube and Facebook as their infant pretends to be absently jawing a pacifier.  Regardless, the rationale goes: since babies don’t understand what they are watching, background viewing has no effect on them.

Unfortunately, it does – a byproduct of hijacked biophilia.  Remember: human children are attracted to what seems most novel.  Thus, the addictive allure of flashing, morphing, noisy, seemingly alive video screens.  Interestingly, the greatest effects seem to be on babies/toddlers and adolescents (neo-baby/toddlers).  In addition to enhanced risks of excessive direct screen time (obesity, poor self-regulation), documented effects in include reduced duration and quality of toy play (see previous fine motor skills post), diminished parent-child interaction, and decreased vocalization, conversation, and vocabulary.  Instead of the real toys, people, and interaction they are hard-wired to seek, children are distracted, yet inadequately stimulated, by screens.  The consequence is impaired development and learning.

Given that cited studies concern the effects of old-world TV exposure, many follow-up questions emerge.  Is new media better?  Worse?  What about content?  If screens located in specific rooms are distracting, what about portable devices that Mom, Dad, and siblings are increasingly glued to, including during meals, in cars, yards, and even at the playground, which until recently were out of reach?  Given that babies are attracted to whatever seems most novel, it stands to reason that portable devices and the content they stream will be even more distracting than TV – especially since caregivers are so distracted by them.

How will we convey that the real world and unplugged time together matter?

Children model what they see.  Those who grow up in houses that value reading, tend to be the most zealous readers.  Those whose families spend a lot of time outdoors tend to enjoy exploring there.   Those who grow up surrounded by blaring TVs and/or with families compulsively glued to screens, tend to compulsively consume screen media – and read less books, go outside less, interact less with family, and tend to be overweight, distractible, depressed, and in academic trouble.

And so, as with the Golden Rule and other noble behavior, it behooves us to set a good example and unplug ourselves, our TVs, and our devices while young children are around.  My refrain: the first three years are both critical and fleeting.  This is the ideal time for media detox.  AAP guidelines back me up here, too, encouraging parents and caregivers alike to be good role models and to provide healthy, hands-on, developmentally robust alternatives like Books, Balls, Pets, Snow (if we ever see it again), and Boxes.  It’s worth it!

Thank you for reading.  Share your ideas and experiences – let’s get a conversation going…after we go play!

Since they were made of charcoal/mammoth scat and used for cave scribbling, babies have adored crayons.  This classic love affair begins as soon as they are able to purposefully clutch them in their chubby fists, starting as young as 9-12 months.  Scribbles advance in precision, from horizontal to vertical around 18 months, to all over the place around 21 months.  At age 2, budding artist/engineers start to put it all together, combining definitive strokes with scribbles, until around 30 months when they can draw a circle.  This is when a new kind of magic begins – inspiring refrigerator magnet-affixed retrospectives and shoeboxes bulging with masterpieces – creating basic faces and objects like simple cars and flowers by age 3.  This is also when children can hold their crayons in a proper, grownup grip – which, importantly, must be taught and does not generally arise spontaneously through play.

I watched my patient’s crayon technique, which was in fact delayed – a tight fist, scribbling all over the place.  I discussed his activities at home with his mother, who said that he mostly enjoys gross motor activities like running around, roughhousing with his brothers, and screen time, notably SpongeBob.  That said, she was very interested in improving his skills prior to starting school.  Rather than refer right away, we agreed to try some changes at home, emphasizing fine motor practice. This was a family of very modest means, so advising them to go out and buy the latest, greatest, hands-on toys was of limited utility, so we discussed emphasizing relatively inexpensive, old-fashioned, hands-on activities like stacking cups and blocks, decorating boxes, and yes, lots of crayons.  We discussed the importance of doing these together, to maximize engagement and positive feedback.  His mother expressed a sense of epiphany:

“I thought all kids just knew how to do this stuff.”

The notion of iconic, “old-school” baby pastimes like scribbling, stacking, and turning pages as critical learned skills requiring practice is relatively new, or so it seems to me.  In the pre-digital era when the only activities available for young children were hands-on involving 3 dimensions and real people, such skills did evolve naturally through play – kids just knew how to do this stuff.  This fuels today’s perception that such basic skills are automatic, making “educational” media seem advanced, a brain-boosting turbocharger.  Unfortunately, basic skills are not automatic.  In any era, children must practice to master them, even if the best practice is hands-on play.  This includes learning how to hold and use real crayons, skills not practiced in the multitude of alluring, “educational” crayon apps.

I recently read an article in Parenting Magazine, “Swipeout,” on the surface questioning the role of technology in early learning but then careening into an app-based approach.  One statistic of note is that the Toddler/Preschooler category is the most popular in the education section of the iTunes store, with over 550,000 listings (500,000 more in Android), and no quality control mechanism other than parent reviews, which tend to focus on how entertained/subdued the child is using them.  A particularly dismaying sidebar read “Earn your preschool Ph.D.” defining an app-based curriculum for babies and young children for logic (Cut the Rope), Physics (Angry Birds), English (Grover), Fashion Design (big-eyed girl with fave dresses), and Visual Arts (a strange looking tiger).  It also declares a blurring of online and offline worlds (apparently blurry is the new normal), implying that parents are wise fortify their ever-younger children their RDA of digital.

In my opinion, such blurring mostly makes their worlds blurry.

There is a dark side of the screen time moon – more difficult to see, though with equal gravity (pardon the weighty metaphor).  Much time and debate is spent regarding too-bright, negative direct effects of screen time – distracting, passive, violent content, encourages snacking, etc – while some of the most worrisome involve neglect of real world skill development and engaged parenting.   This neglect is fueled by a one-two punch of misleading “educational” claims (as in certain Parenting articles) and misconceptions that “old school” skills come automatically, where in reality they need to be learned during critical developmental stages, the notion of “education” defined by how well these stages are embraced.  Thus, fine motor development as described above with crayons – also applying to stacking, turning pages, and lacing/tying – must be anchored in the real world, with consistent access to proper tools, time, and people.  Only when these foundations are in place are young children prepared to explore new challenges, including passive media, apps, and Ph.D.s.

A child first learns to scribble, then draw a circle, then draw mom and dad showing off their grownup grip – and then, after their art opening by the refrigerator, poke around on mom and dad’s iPad.   Ditto sitting on mom or dad’s lap for a story, then drooling on it, then holding it, then pointing, then turning real pages – then poking and blogging.

Hopefully, with an engaged parent and some new, old ideas, my patient will make good progress by the time I see him for follow up.  Duly inspired, as I haven’t added one for awhile, an excellent, old-school fine motor/conceptual activity from our friends at Productive Parenting:

My intention today – and for the past few weeks – was to write a post about background TV but I have been…distracted.

Irony abounds.

Speaking of distracted – did anyone get a tablet computer for the holidays?   Our college-age daughter did, and she loves it.  Our youngest got some low-tech geodes, and she loves them.  The gyst of this post will be that there is an age to love each.

I read recently that, spurred by feedback from parents about their children’s passion for their Kindle Fires, Amazon.com has rolled out FreeTime Unlimited (the name is poetic and telling) targeted to ages 3-8, described by Bloomberg Business Week as “part streaming media generator, part content-vetting baby sitter.”   For a flat monthly fee, children are given ad lib access to a trove of content from Disney, Nickelodeon, et al, along with popular “educational” apps, “interactive” e-books, and video games.  The hope is that this will not only make parents happy, but secure a devoted generation of customers for Amazon in the ultra-competitive tablet space.  Safety/health concerns are allayed by filtering features, allowing parents to set limits on time, purchasing, and content, narrowing choices to thousands and keeping porn and violence away.  Thus, parental oversight is outsourced to the device itself, trusting that a glitch does not arise exposing Baby Junior to Hottie Birdz XXX or Summer Camp Party Massacre.

Psychology professor Sandra Calvert rationalizes it thus: “When (children) touch a tablet, it responds contingently.  In that sense, it’s far superior to a television that you’d sit and watch, and it’s much easier to operate than a traditional computer.”

I translate this as: “Our kids are becoming so desensitized to human/real world interaction that sitting and poking a tablet seems friendly and healthy; and tablets invite children too young to be using computers to use them.”

The pitch is hard for parents to resist: low price, unlimited oft-”educational” content, high-tech oversight, freedom, quiet, freedom…

Melissa Perenson senior editor of of PCWorld echoes this siren song in a rave about the forthcoming Nabi Jr.: “When your kids see you using a tablet, of course they want to use one, too. Thank goodness there are some tablets out there tailored to them, so they can share the experience—without begging for time on your own device.”

I translate this as: “Since children are just miniature grownups, we should give them everything of ours that they want, so they don’t bother us while we update Facebook and fantasy football, as long as the packaging is kiddish and cute and says it will make them smart like us.”

Please – resist.   Repeat the refrain:

• Parenting can not be outsourced to any device. 
• Just because the technology exists and children like it does not make it a good idea for them.
• Children are not small grownups and have no business using grownup things.
• Children are real world- and real people-craving creatures.  They have really good imaginations on their own.
• It’s OK, indeed critical, for children to learn to cope with limited entertainment choices.  They don’t need unlimited content for one low price, which fuels inattention and fitfulness.
• Instead of our children emulating us and our devices, we should emulate them more often and unplug!

(pause to breathe and insert image of Dr. John by his wagon)

I am amazed, distracted even, by the dizzying acceptance of tablets by the market.  Remember when so many of us scoffed: “who needs that?  We’ve got phones.  We’ve got books.  Who picked the unfortunate name iPad?  And I’d never give one to a kid….”   And look at us now.  Can we imagine life without them?

Tablets are yet another store-bought solution to a problem of our own making, fueled by content overload and misplaced fears about skill development.  In an evolutionary blink of an eye, children are unable to entertain themselves, need devices and Disney to learn, and parents are woefully 1.0.  Or so we are led to believe.

Not so.  The term “go play”  - the one that inspired the founders of Apple and Google, among others – exemplifies thousands of media choices, with no time limit required.  Go play - with a box, a ball, a pile of sand, a pet – puts the child in control, generating their own educational content with help from those who love them.  Parental oversight is important, decreasing as children get older and less prone to stick beads up their noses, but such is the irreplaceable role of parenting.   If we weren’t supposed to spend time with our children, Mother Nature wouldn’t have made them cute.

As for parental down time, patience: the more practice children have playing in the real world, the better they get at it, and the less oversight is needed.  Kids actually can make their own fun.  Occasional video treats (after age 3) aren’t going to hurt them, but the more practice kids have harnessing their own resources, the less prone to tantrums and parental harassment they will be, and the less electronic media in any form will be desired.

In closing, with flu season upon us – resist tablet fever.  Cure thyself.  Immunize your kids by saying no as long as possible.  Children have no need for tablets – TV in a portable, pokable package.  They are a solution for a problem invented by a generation consumed by electronic media and beset by educational anxieties.  We must let our children be children during childhood – go play, gaze at the sky, share a book – building a sturdy foundation of real-world human skills before being enveloped by the digital world.

It’s worth the wait.  Thank you for reading – your thoughts and insights are welcome.

Now, another important, related criterion: Togetherness.

A problematic paradox of technology for babies and young children is that as annoying and parental-insanity-inducing at it is (pause to reflect)…

(Here’s a funny link from Babble for Most Annoying Baby Toys, BTW).

…it’s so enchanting it often makes grownups and reality seem boring by comparison.  SEEM is the major qualifier here, as for babies, nothing gets brain cells crackling better than real people who love and play with them.  Screen media is akin to anesthesia: little ones engage with it, but don’t get much out of it other than pain-free passage of time.  It creates a flashy, sing-song, intoxicating barrier between kids and their grownups that we often don’t even notice due to its sinister, cartoony magic.  Thus, it’s important for grownups to exercise their decision-making and willpower wisely and resist purchase of popular products that seem cool and “smart” and stick to old-school, low-tech stuff like real books, blocks, and other hands-on, multi-sensory toys.   There’s a lot of great, well-crafted stuff out there – probably in grandma’s attic!

And so, when shopping or looking for ways to spend a day, it is important to pick toys and activities that aren’t so amazing or enchanting they steal the show.  Instead, pick ones that encourage interactive time TOGETHER.

Much has been written about the negative health effects of screen time on young children, as though exposure is akin to mercury or radiation, but one key aspect is its interference with grownup-child interaction.  This effect is more akin to a nutritional deficiency than a toxin.  Grownups are a child’s first teacher, doctor, farmer, psychologist, everything, and are as vital and irreplaceable as oxygen or water.  We’re Vitamin P!

Parents can greatly minimize health risks e-media exposure pose, even for little ones.  A 2010 study by Mendelsohn, et al, in the journal Infant Child Development showed this moderating effect on language development in 6 month-olds regularly exposed to screen media (yes, that’s young!).   Those with the most family verbal interaction – i.e. talking about shows during viewing – tended to have the least negative effect on language development (not other cognitive or motor skills) at 14 months old.   This affirms that a major problem with screen time for this age is that it steals critical human interaction.  Togetherness matters – a lot.

Teach me what’s on, Dad!

So is this is a Get Out of Unplugged Jail free card?  Regarding language acquisition, screen time is ok as long as a grownup actively participates?

This depends on one’s definition of jail.  Unfortunately, other studies have found that verbal interactions with young children during electronic media use are modest to absent.  One by the same authors found verbal interactions in less than 25% of exposures.  This is consistent with our fondness of freedom – to do our own thing, and from consistent Wiggling/Barney commentary.  Thus, the typical scenario: toddler on sofa glued to Elmo while parents drink coffee and/or do chores, silence in the backseat as kids bond with SpongeBob, baby admired from afar poking iPad.

The common denominator is: scant togetherness, missed developmental opportunities, and risks to health. Despite our best intentions, real people and the analog world just aren’t super-compatible with digital devices and programs.   We tend to view our interaction as akin to interrupting grownups (“let them be, it’s their favorite show, they’re happy…”).  But young children NEED to be interrupted if they are to see any benefit.  Are we willing to do this consistently?  Do we want these songs and images stuck in our heads?

My advice, and the core mission of Baby Unplugged, is that it’s far easier, more natural, and optimal to stay anchored in the real world for those first few years.   Thus, we build a sturdy foundation of engagement, trust, self-confidence, and basic skills.  This is when kids need grownups most intimately, and don’t know that intoxicating screen media even exists as a competitor for their attention.  Why spend hours per week providing color commentary for Sesame Street or Blue’s Clues when we can go for a walk, share a story, or marvel at what children can do with simple, analog materials?   Old-school experiences are tried-and-true catalysts for this critical, fleeting time together - ideal for healthy development, lifelong memories, and fun!

Share your thoughts and ideas on how to spend a (holi)day!   Thanks for reading!

As the store gets busier, we field many questions about best gifts for young children.  Increasingly, this involves a balancing act (or tug-o-war) between classics grandparents love and alluring, high-tech ware like Furby (he’s back!), tablets for ever-younger kids, baby e-books, etc.   It’s truly a swirl out there, and with the vast amount of magic dust sprinkled by Disney, Apple, et al, it’s often hard to make the case for old-school, unplugged stuff like blocks, books with pages, and boxes.

One reason (among many) I focus on the under-three crowd is that it’s far easier to make the case that old-school is best.  Reasons include solid science, American Association of Pediatrics guidelines (backed by science), basic skill development, and a more right-brained, visceral desire to preserve a precious way of life.  This latter rationale is perhaps the most powerful of all, even more so than health promotion.   It’s rooted in multi-sensory memory: flashes from the past of sitting on a grandparent’s lap sharing a story, wandering in a yard that seemed a vast wilderness, building a box fort, snuggling with a beloved pet, forming a band with stuffed animals, pots, and pans.

An interesting experiment: think back to time spent with technology and compare to analog early memories.  As much as we liked it (and I was quite an Atari fan), we don’t remember the screen-based stuff nearly as deeply.  We fondly remember the friends we played with, but not so much the media itself.  This is even more stark for young children: they’ll treasure blankets, pets, and parents, but not so much ABCs on the iPhone.  This is a byproduct of our basic, closeness-craving humanity: technology doesn’t affect us on the same level.

And so, in addition to the screen-free under three challenge, a simple criterion for gift giving: The Photo Principle.  Is the gift likely to inspire photographs?  The corollary Memory Principle: will playing with it be worth remembering (not in the flash card sense)?   As with our own, most treasured memories, hands-on, multi-sensory things tend to be: block towers, costumes, beloved pets, and/or things that get super-messy.   One of our daughter’s favorites was a shoebox full of plastic soap holders to open and inspect.  And the best gift of all: spending time with real people who love you.

Compare to oft-expensive, high-tech gifts being promoted.   Though marketing makes them seem exciting and “must-have,” are they really?  Is a toddler gazing at an iPad photo-worthy?  Poking a tablet?  Playing video games?  Watching TV in their bedroom?  A freaked-out response to newly “interactive” Furby might be a great shot, for sure, but is this a beloved companion for the first few years?  We might look back and recall hours of iPad enchantment, but mostly hazy observation of how sedated we/they were.

In a surreal twist, there is emerging evidence that excessive screen time can actually impair memory (tried remembering a phone number lately?), making treasured recollection even more difficult.  Will we Google our childhoods?

Another simplifying principle to consider is that until parents show them, under-threes don’t even know that the high-tech stuff exists and don’t particularly care.   The longer you can keep them in Messy, Free-Play Analog Land, the better.  It’s worth it!

Most of all, a central theme for holiday shopping should be to reflect on how lucky we are to have these amazing, little humans to spend time with.  I hope that you have a wonderful season, brimming with photos and unplugged memories to treasure forever.  Share some of your favorites!

Happy holidays!

Happy Holidays!

Most of us know Goodnight Moon, the children’s classic picture book written by Margaret Wise Brown in 1947, which has sold over 60 million copies and been a bedtime ritual for generations.  Goodnight Moon is an example of a perfect children’s book – pacing, language, illustrations.  It’s the kind of book that begs you to cuddle up, adopt soothing tones, and turn real pages, surrounded by stuffed animals.

Goodnight Moon is also a perfect example of something that does not need to be re-imagined or enhanced (Weird Al can use all the help he can get).

However, for reasons obscure, likely rooted in humankind’s fascination with shiny things and content providers’ fascination with selling them, Harper Collins decided with much fanfare to transform it into an “interactive” app.

From the NYT release (blogger’s notes added): ”Along with narration (i.e. a computer voice replacing that of parents) and a piano soundtrack, the digital version will feature a ‘magnifying glass’ technology that will let children search for hidden objects (see prior post on distracting enhanced e-books for young children. Hidden objects?  Did the quiet old bunny lady leave a stash of carrots under the bed?). There will also be a way to personalize individual versions of the book through doodles and photographs (In Tommy’s great blue room there was an iPhone, and a big monster balloon, and look, there’s Tommy!…).”

As with almost all screen-based media marketed to children, educational gets major billing: “Two educational add-ons, a Goodnight Moon alphabet book and a counting book, are also available for purchase.”

And from the developer: “It has been an absolute delight to re-imagine Goodnight Moon as a fully interactive app.”

Finally, this book, beloved for generations that’s sold over 60 million copies, is re-imagined and fully interactive.  Imagine how many copies would have sold if it hadn’t been so quiet and cuddly.  Mom, dad, and grandparents were so 1.0!

Before heading to the iTunes store to buy, ponder the term “interactive.”  Very recently, and increasingly, via a process of technological eminent domain, e-media has lay claim to the notion of interactive, as though we humans are unable to interact with analog people, places, and things – notably books.  Every major media company has an interactive division: Disney Interactive.  Harper Collins Interactive.  There are no interactive divisions for traditional experiences: backyard/playground interactive, dogs interactive, blocks interactive, family interactive.  Thus, interactive becomes a screen-based notion.

That said, it is important to remember that robust interaction with traditional, analog things is exactly what children under three need, with developmental consequences if not afforded ample opportunity.  Children learn and develop optimally when they, not the media or devices we buy them, provide the interactivity.  Thus, unplugged is best.

The marketing strategy is clear: apps and screen-based stuff get the cool interactive tag, while analog stuff that actually helps kids learn and find their place in the world is left in the retro toy box.  Past posts have highlighted the use of educational to sell dubious things for young children.  Interactive is a variation, or upgrade, of this strategy.

Example – faded poster in the library: Read a book!

Cool Interactive, Enhanced Version: Reading made magical!

A screen-based definition of interactive is extremely limiting, and a fallacy.  No doubt, children love to poke and swipe screens, and are enchanted by them.  However, the degree of interactivity is defined by the software developer, with a limited range of responses – Head for the space ship, Buzz!  Balloon begins with B! –  and limited to sight and sound.  No warmth or exploration beyond the digital border.  This is why young children don’t learn much from screen-based media, and face potential learning and other health problems with excessive use.

In a wonderful show of irony, Steve Jobs once said that a measure of innovation isn’t what to add, but what to leave out.  This explains the brilliance of children’s books perfectly.  Old-school classics like Goodnight Moon provide exactly what a young child needs precisely because they are simple, a solitary object limited to a cover and real pages to turn.  Their power resides not in hidden objects, background music, or the ability to add doodles or photos, but as catalysts inspiring the child to provide (and exercise) their own imagination and someone to share it with them.  Children simply do not need nor benefit from the other “interactive” features.

Regular children’s books – to varying degrees in accordance with quality, of course – are incredibly interactive, in a subtle, perfect way.  The attempt to make them “more interactive” by computerizing them makes them less interactive, the story sharing experience reduced to poking the screen to see – not share or imagine – what happens next…and then switch to Angry Birds.  Thus, when story time or bedtime beckons, turn off the iPad and grab the tattered old version from your old-school childhood bookshelf – and interact!

Final quiz – which of these seems more interactive:

Baby Learn Nature™ app

Thank you for reading – share your thoughts on this important issue!
Or just post some Fall photos!