On my high horse about toddlers and electronics

“My 2 year old can turn on the TV and put in a DVD all by herself!”

“My 3 year old is playing Minecraft!”

“I let my 4 year old watch videos and play games on my iPhone!”

Whoop-de-fuckin’-do.  My 3 year old does not do these things.  And I’ll tell you why.

First and foremost, it’s because she’s fucking 3.  She’s got around 100 years to fiddle around with electronics and burn her retinas with whatever kind of screen she chooses.

She already watches what I consider to be a high amount of TV: usually 2-3 episodes of whatever Nick Jr./Sprout/PBS show she’s into that day while dinner is being made.  Weekends are worse.  But she must always ask politely before we’ll turn anything on for her.  Spongebob is not an option and occasional Dora/Diego are only allowed on the little TV on the opposite side of the house from the kitchen where I can’t hear them shouting.

She has a little handheld touchscreen computer thingy (it’s some Playskool thing but she calls it her “DS”) but she’s not attached to it and really only picks it up if it’s right in front of her and she doesn’t have anything better to do.  She can work that thing’s deep menus pretty impressively to get to her favorite storybook or puzzle game.  I half explained how to use it and she took it from there.

That’s exactly what I want her to do.  She can’t quite grasp the computer mouse yet but I bet she could probably figure out what buttons to push to turn the TV on if she tried.  I want her to explore, experiment, and learn things on her own.  I’m not going to sit down and give her a tutorial on our two different remotes and remote-less stereo receiver.  But if I wake up one Saturday morning to find her happily watching Yo Gabba Gabba all by herself, I’m going to give her a ton of praise for working it out and then send her into the toy room or backyard.

I’m kinda glad our current TV setup is complicated, though.