Friday, February 18, 2011

The age of technology and judgement

Would you like to know what the first thing I hear when I get downstairs with my 3 year old is every morning? I know, your thinking "good morning mom", or "hi mommy I love you" or something endearing like that right? Nope. "Mom I wanna play the blues clues game on your puter". *slaps face* I could've had a v8. 3 years old and he navigates the nick jr website like a champ, and plays his, yes HIS iPod touch with utter ease (something his grandfather cant even figure out how to turn on by the way). Now here is where your thinking, here she goes, shes going to ramble on about how technology is ruining our children and blah blah right? Wrong again. You know what else my 3 year old can do? Say his ABC's, count to 20, say his full name and what street he lives on, throw a football better than I can, build a tower that would stop a train with a set of legos, and even read and spell certain small words like cat and dog. Every game he plays on my computer teaches him something new, and he surprises me every day with something else new he has learned. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating violent video games or letting your child zone out in front of a computer screen or TV screen all day, but lets face it, kids learn crap from technology. Its the facts dude. On the website I frequent called Cafe Mom, I see whom I dub "sancti mommies" (I will use this phrase alot) who claim things like "I only let my child have one hour of computer time a day" or tv time or "they can only have their cell phones or iPods for one hour after dinner". GREAT. Good for you. Want a cookie? I let my child play on my computer all the time, watch as much TV as he wants, and his iPod goes everywhere with him, and guess what? he STILL plays outside, reads books, and plays with his Thomas the train wooden railway set and his ten thousand Mr potato head pieces, just like any other kid does. Ladies and gentlemen, here is what it boils down too. Its the age of technology baby, deal with it! If you don't wanna let your kid play the computer all the time great! Good for you! Props and kudos and *sings* all that jazz. Just like everything else in life, we live and learn as we grow. Okay ill give you that twenty years ago our parents played with sticks and rocks and made tree houses in the backyard, and were extremely happy doing so, but can you deny that the more recent generations are well... quite simply, smarter? Maybe we've allowed them to also become LAZIER, but their brains are little sponges. They just SOAK in what we give them!! When you hear a mother say that her child is playing a game on the computer, don't scoff... that very child may very well be learning the foundations of what they need to know to cure cancer, or AIDS, or to discover life on other planets!

3 comments:

  1. Very True, Pearlann was doing all that before 3 as well. Computers teach MANY things!

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  2. I agree, I also have to admit that (being almost 49) I was one of those rock and stick playing children in the back yard. Did we have fun? &%@$ yes we did, we didn't even have a color tv. Poor deprived little souls that we were, but we had a blast anyway.
    My own children didn't have as much technology in their up-bringing, mainly because it didn't really exist too much. But they did ok, at least they can read and write and all that other 'needed' stuff we need in our daily lives.
    I hope I'll still be around 30-40 yrs from now to see what else is on the horizon.

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