The Deets

We went with the multi-channel approach at my house. A computer should be in a public enough place that if the child wants to play computer games, they can ask questions and interact while gaming. I wrote my daughter a game that allowed her to push letters and see the letter, hear the letter, see a picture that starts with the letter, and hear the word - using our recorded voices. She loved it - was playing it quite a bit while she was two. If she watches t.v. we always turned subtitles on. She still asks for them whenever she’s watching a movie. Yesterday, while home for MLK, she watched a show on Netflix. She’s a fan of the iPod.

None of those things interferes with interacting with other children and adults - we push that all the time as well. School, gymnastics, friends. And none of it has interferred with her language skills - she reads and talks like an eight year old, not a four year old (I did the volunteer reading program at Garlough for years, so I know).

Websites aren’t a problem, and I believe they’re helpful, particularly if it’s -16F. But they’re only helpful if the parents are engaged, monitor use, and content, and hang out and interact with the child while they’re playing on the machine - pretty much like every activity a kid engages in.