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CHILD'S PLAY

High tech can do wonders for your child’s development – but not at the expense of actual parenting.

Text: DON TAPSCOTT

APR

Twenty years ago when I bought a baby shower gift, clerks would ask if it was for a boy or a girl. Today clerks ask if the newborn uses a PC or a Mac. This is not a good development.

I appreciate that parents want to help their kids achieve their full intellectual potential. Many parents used to save to buy a good encyclopedia for the home. Although expensive, it was viewed correctly as a wise investment in the child’s future. Today parents shun encyclopedias in favour of multimedia computers with broadband Internet. It’s the right decision for the time. For schoolchildren, anything an encyclopedia can do the Internet can do better. Technology trumps paper.

But as society becomes increasingly competitive, parents are anxious to start their kids’ intellectual development at ever-younger ages. Although there is no supporting evidence, many moms and dads believe that children who are more advanced when they begin school will have a more successful academic career. So now it’s not good enough to know colours, numbers and the alphabet when entering grade one. Parents want their offspring to be good readers and know their multiplication tables as well.

But rather than spending time with their children, reading books and playing, many parents apply the technology-trumps-paper theory. Sales are soaring for videos, DVDs and software aimed at children as young as six months. Parents think that since stimulation is good for a child, multimedia stimulation must be better.

The hottest seller in the toddler tutorial market is the not-so-subtly titled Baby Einstein line of products. The company was started in 1997 by American mom Julie Aigner-Clark, who believed there would be a demand for videos aimed at infants that emphasized art, classical music, language and poetry. She shot the first video in her home, and sales took off. She sold the company in 2001 to Walt Disney for a rumoured US$25-million.

The Baby Einstein Company emphasizes that the DVDs are best watched by children and parents together. The technology is a tool to aid parent-child interaction. But the reality is that many harried parents use videos or computer games as a parenting substitute rather than a supplement. Plonk junior in front of the TV or computer, and mom or dad are free to do other tasks.

The Kaiser Family Foundation in the United States released a study last October entitled "Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and Preschoolers." The study found an astounding 25 percent of children under age two have a television in their bedroom. On any given day, two-thirds of children under two will use a screen media (TV, video game or computer) for an average of just over two hours. The study also found that children who have a TV in their bedroom or who live in "heavy" TV households spend significantly more time watching television than other children do and less time reading or playing outside. "It’s not just teenagers who are wired up and tuned in; it’s babies in diapers as well," said the study’s lead author. A co-author added: "Where previous generations were introduced to media through print, this generation’s pathway is electronic."

We’re going to pay a heavy price for this. No matter how well-meaning or pressed for time parents may be, technology cannot replace the intellectual and emotional nourishment an infant draws from parental contact.

In commenting on the Kaiser study, a Harvard child-development researcher emphasized that the first two years of life are when a child’s brain establishes critical neural tracks. And physical stimulation plays a key role in making this happen. "[Children] should be spending time with siblings, with parents, with mud. They should not be spending time with the television."

That doesn’t mean there’s no role for technology in an infant’s development. Toy manufacturers are coming out with tried-and-true products with enhanced multimedia features. The LeapStart Learning Table is a great educational toy that entertains baby with songs, melodies and sounds from real instruments and lots of things to spin, roll, slide, open and close. The interactive activity table reacts to the child’s actions and plays learning songs about the alphabet, counting, shapes or colours.

The Internet is a fabulous resource for games and crafts that parents can participate in with their children. There are also discussion groups where parents can seek the advice of other moms and dads about issues that worry them.

But there is a time and place for everything. A nine-month-old baby should be playing with mom or dad or siblings. Or blocks. Not a keyboard and a mouse. [ ]

ADD YOUR COMMENTS > dtapscott@enroutemag.net

APR