Things to think about before buying the kids an iPad

Screen time, no screen time, some screen time: responsibly honoring the malleability of kids' minds and spirits.

Whether or not to let kids plug in, and for how long, is a perennial issue of debate.

It’s one I’ve wrestled from the time I became a parent up to this very morning, when both my sons are curled on the couch watching cartoons on DVD because one of them is really sick.

Should I make the healthy kid get up and go do some work on his math book or practice reading aloud?


Should I be sitting down and reading aloud to them both instead of parking them in front of How to Train Your Dragon, which was the only thing my moaning, feverish, vomiting boy wanted when he woke up this morning?

"iPotty for iPad = high tech toilet training." Photo courtesy See-ming Lee via Flickr Creative Commons.

“iPotty for iPad = high tech toilet training.” Photo courtesy See-ming Lee via Flickr Creative Commons.

Maybe it seems silly for me even to worry about these kinds of things. I am pretty sure I got to watch TV all day when I was home sick (still have a soft spot for Bob Barker and Price is Right because of those days of Jell-O, ginger ale, and chicken noodle soup…) but parenting has got a little more complicated since those days.

(Besides the questionable amount of screen time, he Jello-O has red dye #40, the ginger ale has high fructose corn syrup, the chicken noodle soup has too much sodium, plus, gluten! Oy! Obviously, my mother didn’t know that all these things were irrevocably destroying children back in 1988, since I never developed any food allergies, hyperactivity, insulin resistance, or…anything, really.)

But back to my main point (and I do have one.) Anyone who has children, or, for that matter, has been a child, which would seem to cover the majority of the population, knows that kids have an astonishing ability to soak up knowledge.

I was discussing this recently with a fellow ex-pat who is also a parent of a very young child, who, as a toddler barely out of diapers, is essentially tri-lingual. She has begun stringing words into sentences, and it is beautiful to behold.


She’s not even my kid, but watching her astonishing — and yet, typical –progress is, to me, as beautiful and remarkable as gazing through a telescope. The human mind is a vast and beautiful thing. I think we too often forget this.

“Our brains are deteriorating even as hers is expanding. Encouraging, no?” I said to the little girl’s father, and we joked about the neuronal connections and natural, non-pathological deterioration of our own mental capacities, which perhaps are not aided by the gin-and-tonics we ex-pats enjoy.

 (Hey. Tonic water contains quinine. Quinine is an anti-malarial. We’re in a malarial zone. It’s practically medicinal, okay?)

Recently I have been re-listening to (and immensely enjoying) the audiobook version of Ann Patchett’s new collection of nonfiction essays. This is the Story of a Happy Marriage.

Not least among the pleasures of the book is Patchett’s largely positive view of her twelve years of Catholic school and her continuing, warm, caring relationships with some of the nuns who taught her to read and write. While I’m the last person to advocate burying stories of religious abuse, I’m also a big fan of celebrated those religious folks who do so much good in this world.

In one section, Patchett, who is childless by choice, writes:

“I believe the brain is as soft and malleable as bread dough when we’re young. I am grateful for every class trip to the symphony I went on and curse any night I was allowed to watch The Brady Bunch, because all of it stuck. […] Think about this before you let your child have an iPad.”


When we think about the formation of our children’s hearts and minds, and the people we hope that they’ll grow up to be, it’s worth considering the astonishing retentive capacities of their minds.

But such debates about “screen time” and whatnot often have a quasi-religious overtone, with the ‘sinners’ being those who let their kids spend endless hours in front of the TV or iPad or smartphones, and the ‘saints’ being those who never resort to TV, not even when the kids are sick and there is 3 feet of snow on the ground for the Nth @&*$ing week in a row.

Surely, though, there is a middle way. If you’ve found one, would you share in the comments?

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