This is a week of worldwide unplugging—a
much-needed break for some at a time when the average smartphone user picks up
his or her device 1,500 times a week.
Screen-Free Week, an annual international event sponsored by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free
Childhood, kicked off Monday and runs through Sunday, May 10. Begun in 1994 as
“TV Turnoff Week,” Screen-Free Week today encourages adults and children alike
to power down all devices, recharge, and reconnect to the vast offline world.
(Note that the focus is on unplugging from all forms of digital entertainment;
using screens for work or homework is forgiven.)
The Web is particularly filled these days with advice
columns, blog posts and tip sheets on how to unplug your children and limit
their screen time, such as this from the Mayo Clinic, this from an Internet addiction specialist, and this, which digs into some neuroscience and explains how those little hits of dopamine keep us
endlessly reaching for our phones.
This wave of advice is only natural at a time when
more kids than ever seem glued to smartphones and tablets. It’s not your
imagination: More than six in 10 kids aged 12 and under owned their own Internet-enabled mobile devices in 2014, according to a report by Ipsos MediaCT—a 250% increase since 2011. In 2014, parents were
“significantly more willing to pay for online content for their children”
compared just to 2013, according to the report.
And today's mobile users are getting younger by the
year. Last year, Common Sense Media, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, released its second large-scale study in two years
on children and media use in the U.S. It found that the percent of children
ages 8 and younger who had used a mobile device nearly doubled between 2011 and
2013, from 38% to 72%.
Among children under 2 years old, 38% had used
a mobile device in 2013, up from just 10% in 2011, according to the study. In just these
two short years, there was a five-fold increase in tablet ownership among
families with kids ages 8 and younger, up from 8% of all families in 2011 to
40% in 2013.
Even babies as young as 6 months old are now
tapping away on smartphones. In a study by pediatric researchers presented
last month, more than a third of parents said their baby had “touched or
scrolled a screen” before turning one. Fifty-two percent said their baby had
watched television on a mobile device.
“We didn’t expect children were using the devices
from the age of six months,” said the study’s author, Dr. Hilda Kabali of the
Einstein Healthcare Network. “Some children were on the screen for as long as
30 minutes.”
This study, which polled parents of young children
in an urban, low-income community, found that a majority of kids were
using smartphones or tablets by the time they reached age 2. Fourteen percent
of one-year-olds were using a mobile device at least one hour a day. By age 2
this number jumped to 26% percent, and by age 4 to 38%.
Many parents know by heart the most recent guidelines on screen time and children from
the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP): No screen time for any child under 2,
and no more than one to two hours for older children. But clearly these
guidelines are not meshing with much of today’s reality.
The Common Sense Media study, titled “Zero to
Eight: Children's Media Use in America, 2013,” found that children under 2
years spent an average of about an hour a day (58 minutes) with screen
media. Two- to 4-year-olds spent an average of about 2 hours a day (1 hour and 58 minutes) with
screens. And that was just in 2013.
The AAP itself, in a resource called “Why to Avoid TV Before Age 2,” states that
“Surveys tell us about 40% of infants are watching some sort of video by age 5
months, and by age 2 the number rises to 90%.” In “Tablets and Smartphones: Not for Babies,” the
organization states, “Unfortunately, when the use of tablets, smartphones,
and computers is added to TV time, it has been estimated that the average
12-month-old is exposed to up to 2 hours of screen time a day.”
Let’s pause for a moment for some math. Two hours a
day equals 730 hours a year—or the equivalent of 30 straight 24-hour days
out of the year spent looking at a screen. And that’s if the child didn’t sleep at
all. Taking out the time a baby or toddler might spend sleeping—let’s say
approximately 12 hours a day—that’s 60 straight 12-hour days of screen
time in a year, or about one-sixth of the child’s year.
I have a very personal interest in these numbers and
in the creep of mobile screens these days into smaller and smaller hands. It comes in the
form of an adorable tiny human who’s running around our home, delighting us
with her hilarious antics and huge, infectious giggle.
The iPad debuted in April 2010. My daughter debuted
the following year—and thus she is part of a brand-new, budding generation of
children born after smartphones, tablets and apps began permeating every
facet of life.
My daughter and her fellow i-Era toddlers entered a
world in which caretakers could hook iPads to their bouncy seats and
strollers—even to their potties. They live at a time when the
company BabyFirst, with its expanding array of
videos, games and apps for babies as young as 6 months old, is reaching 50 million homes through cable TV alone.
Ten years ago a 4-year-old would not have been seen
watching YouTube—it had only just launched in February 2005. Today’s
4-year-olds have an entire YouTube Kids app, just for them—a gigantic
repository of videos that even “preliterate” kids can easily access through a
voice search function.
Even today's toys have gone mobile. Remember those
classic barnyard sets, where you could open the doors and play with the little
figures inside? Well my daughter can have the iPad-added version. It’s part of a whole
line of “Apptivity” toys by Fisher-Price devoted to iPhone and iPad play,
some with a target age of 6 months and up—even “birth & up.” From one product description: “Share the technology
you enjoy every day, with baby… Your device locks securely inside to protect
against baby’s messy dribbles, drool and teething.”
My daughter knows there are screens in her world.
But watching or using them is not part of her daily life or routine. She’s seen
her dad’s iPad. She’s taken pictures with it here and there and also with our
iPod Touch. She knows what taking a video is all about. She knows that my
laptop can produce dazzling, alluring images and videos. We’ve watched a few
short clips on it together—we once watched the “So Long, Farewell” bit from The
Sound of Music, and she’s loved acting it out ever since. This past holiday
season, we all watched A Charlie Brown
Christmas (bless you, Charles M. Schulz) and had
a great time.
But she’s never used an app or video game made for
kids. And our cellphones and devices have never been go-to items for keeping her
busy—we’ve just stuck with old-school toys instead. When she’s around, the TV is
off—and she doesn’t seem to miss it. (Weirdly enough, neither do we.) She’s
made it three and a half years without being interested in our TV set, and
frankly I’d love to ride this wave as long as possible.
I think of screens in my daughter’s life the way I
think of lollipops and cupcakes. She’s seen them. She’s eaten them. She knows
they’re out there. She loves them with a deep and powerful passion that
sometimes borders on fixation. But she doesn't eat them every day, every week,
or every month. They make extremely rare appearances—usually tied to her toddler
friends’ birthday parties or special holiday events. They bring her ridiculous
joy. But in her regular, daily life she is certainly fine without them.
My daughter will have her whole life ahead of her to be
inundated by screens of all kinds. Early childhood is a magical time—a time for
digging and building and climbing and gluing and pouring those same objects out
of a container and putting them back in again over and over and over, just to
see how it all works. There will never be another time like this in my
daughter’s life—I know this. Her early childhood—this, right now—may be the
only chance she’ll ever have to not be reliant on screens and devices as
an important part of each day.
This alone is usually reason enough to keep the screens away as much as possible during these first fleeting years. But in
honor of Screen-Free Week, here are 10 more reasons for keeping my little one
“unplugged” this week, and every week.
1. What we know about early learning.
It is well documented that infants and toddlers
learn best through hands-on playing and face-to-face interaction with other
human beings. During this critical time of extremely rapid brain development,
babies and toddlers learn by using their five senses and by freely moving their
whole bodies to explore the world around them.
Real-world, physical play helps infants and
toddlers develop hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and
visual perception—which the AAP says “can’t be addressed in the same way on a 2-dimensional screen.” Our young brains build in response to the stimuli we
experience from the world around us—which is why the type of stimuli we experience really matters.
Michael Rich, director and founder of the Center on
Media and Child Health (and also known as the “Mediatrician”),
puts it this way:
“What optimizes early brain development is interaction with other people (like
snuggling with a parent or making faces with a sibling), creative,
problem-solving play (like trying to roll a ball), and manipulating the
physical environment (like knocking plastic containers together to see what
noise they make). As sophisticated as they are, screens can't provide any of
these.”
The details in the AAP resources “Why to Avoid TV Before Age 2” and “Tablets and Smartphones: Not for Babies” are
worth looking at. They note that “Infants may stare at the bright colors and
motion on a screen, but their brains are incapable of making sense or meaning
out of all those bizarre pictures. It takes 2 full years for a baby’s brain to
develop to the point where the symbols on a screen come to represent their
equivalents in the real world.”
On the flip side, “Good evidence suggests
that screen viewing before age 2 has lasting negative effects on children’s
language development, reading skills, and shortterm memory. It also contributes
to problems with sleep and attention”—with toddlers who watch more TV being
more likely to have problems paying attention at age 7. “If 'you are what you
eat,' then the brain is what it experiences, and video entertainment is like
mental junk food for babies and toddlers,” the AAP states.
Recently, researchers with Boston University's
School of Medicine zoomed in specifically on young children's use of mobile
devices and interactive media. In a new commentary published in the
journal Pediatrics, they argued that too much use of mobile
media—especially if used to calm and distract children “during mundane tasks,” i.e., as an electronic babysitter—could
be detrimental to the social-emotional development of young children, stunting
their problem-solving skills, self-control mechanisms, and development of
empathy.
2. What we don't know about toddlers and
screens.
Research on how smartphones, tablets and other
mobile devices are affecting young children is truly brand new. As
the Boston University researchers point out in their recent commentary, studies
on interactive media and infants and toddlers under 2 are particularly
scant.
Remember, it was only in 2007 and 2010
respectively that the iPhone and iPad launched, helping propel forward the use
of mobile devices by everyone. Ever since, there’s been an
explosion of apps-for-kids and new kinds of children’s programming created specifically for
mobile. It will take society some time to see the real effects of all of this.
“The impact these mobile devices are having on the
development and behavior of children is still relatively unknown,” the Boston
University researchers wrote.
In the study (found here) they state that “research regarding the impact of this portable and instantly
accessible source of screen time on learning, behavior, and family dynamics has
lagged considerably behind its rate of adoption.”
The researchers stress: “Pediatric guidelines specifically regarding mobile device use by
young children have not yet
been formulated.” (Emphasis mine.) There is nothing beyond the AAP's general guidelines
on children and screen time that more specifically addresses mobile devices. “New
guidance is needed because mobile media differs from television in its multiple
modalities (eg, videos, games, educational apps), interactive capabilities, and
near ubiquity in children’s lives. Recommendations for use by infants,
toddlers, and preschool-aged children are especially crucial, because effects
of screen time are potentially more pronounced in this group.”
That’s enough for me to take a
wait-and-see stance about any real effects mobile media might be having on our
little ones. I don’t want to conduct social experiments on my toddler. I'm
happy to wait and take in whatever new guidelines on mobile device use and
children the experts might develop in time.
3. What a lot of teachers say.
Despite a scarcity of research in this specific area
so far, there's plenty of anecdotal evidence suggesting something may be
happening to our youngest generation of learners in this age of mobile
proliferation.
One day not long ago, a well-respected preschool
teacher in our community began telling me about a marked change she's noticed
in the children she's been teaching in recent years—ever since, in her opinion,
smartphones and other mobile devices started becoming ubiquitous in young kids'
lives.
A seasoned veteran who's worked with 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds
for decades, she described observing that in more and more children today, imaginary
play was becoming much more passive. Active imaginary or “pretend” play, which
requires that children invent their own “play narratives”—i.e., engage in
make-believe using their imaginations—develops important social and emotional
skills, language skills, and thinking skills.
Many
educators argue that when children use video games and apps, they are given “pre-loaded”
play experiences. The narrative is already provided for them. (A good
description of the difference between active imaginary play and playing with
screen media, along with great ideas for fostering imaginary play, can be found here.)
I've heard other preschool teachers discussing the
same thing, concerned by what they see as an alarming trend that's getting
increasing attention at today's teacher conferences.
TRUCE, a national group of educators concerned
about the effect of children's media on children's play and behavior, addresses
what it calls the “escalating misuse and overuse of screen technologies in the
lives of even the very young” in a detailed guide for educators called "Facing the Screen Dilemma." Created
together with the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Alliance for
Children, the guide states: “There’s no question that screen technologies
are drastically changing the lives of children,” and “It’s clear that both the
nature of what children encounter on screens and the amount of time they spend
with screens are vital issues."
The group urges early childhood educators
to make careful, evidence-based decisions when it comes to “how, why,
whether, and when to incorporate screen technologies into their settings.” As
a parent, I take heed as well. TRUCE, which stands for
Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children's Entertainment, has additional guides worth looking at, for
educators and parents alike, on screen media and young kids and how to encourage active play.
4. Potential risks to physical health.
And how about this one: Using multiple devices at
once could be causing the structure of our brains to change, according to
one study.
Maybe my young child wouldn’t be at risk of such
things just yet. But too much screen time has long been linked to other
physical problems, too. “Studies have shown that excessive media use can lead
to attention problems, school difficulties, sleep and eating disorders, and
obesity,” according to the AAP. What's meant by “excessive” here?
Pediatricians often define this as more than two hours of screen time a
day.
We know that sleep problems and the risk of obesity
are longstanding concerns when it comes to kids and screen time, and new
studies continue to provide new information. One published in Pediatrics
this year detailed many ways that sleeping near small-screen devices—tablets,
smartphones and other cellphones with screens—can interfere with children's
sleep.
A new study on obesity and screens finds that
even a low amount of screen time might affect children's weights. Its authors
found an association between watching just one to two hours of TV a day and an
increased likelihood of being overweight and obese in kindergarten and first
grade.
I won't delve deeply here into the complex topic of
cellphone radiation and questions about possible links to cancer, but one quick
overview of research on mobile phones and cancer, from Cancer Research UK, can
be found here. I read its conclusion with interest: “Mobile
phones are a relatively recent invention. So far, studies have indicated that
using these phones for about 10 years is unlikely to cause cancer. But we
cannot be completely sure about their long-term effects. And there have not
been enough studies looking at how mobile phone use could affect the health of
children.”
In a 2013 appeal to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to conduct further research into
cellphone radiation and adopt new standards, the AAP wrote: “Children
are not little adults and are disproportionately impacted by all environmental
exposures, including cell phone radiation. Current FCC standards do not account
for the unique vulnerability and use patterns specific to pregnant women and
children. It is essential that any new standard for cell phones or other
wireless devices be based on protecting the youngest and most vulnerable
populations to ensure they are safeguarded throughout their lifetimes.”
I am not a scientist or medical professional. I’m
not a science or medical writer. I won’t pretend to understand all the ins and
outs of some of these potential risks—particularly when it comes to radiation.
On this one I go with my gut. I'm content to see my daughter sitting on the
floor fiddling with wooden puzzle pieces, blocks, tinker toys, a magnifying
glass, and other analog sources of amusement, knowing no harmful rays are being emitting.
5. Potential risks to mental health.
We don't need studies to tell us some people are
addicted to their devices. But if we want verification, there is plenty to be
found.
Interestingly, a new study from the UK concludes that “the
more you use a smartphone, the higher the risk of becoming addicted.” The
researchers of this study, which classified 13% of its participants as being
addicted to their devices, actually advise that prospective smartphone
buyers be “pre-warned of the potential addictive properties” of the technology.
When it comes to mobile devices, concerns about
potential mental health risks, especially for children, go well beyond
addiction. The Telegraph recently ran a sobering report on children and
mental illness, with one child psychotherapist's take in particular on the
impact of having constant round-the-clock Internet access. Despite a
sensationalistic title—"Are Smartphones Making Our Children Mentally Ill?"—the report raises serious concerns as it explores some
specific challenges that children and young adults of a generation ago—even a
decade ago—were not up against.
Young people today can “access the Internet without
adult supervision in parks, on street, wherever they are, and then they can go
anywhere,” says the psychotherapist, Julie Lynn Evans. “So there are
difficult chat rooms, self-harming websites, anorexia websites, pornography,
and a whole invisible world of dark places. In real life, we travel with our
children. When they are connected via their smartphone to the web, they usually
travel alone.”
The article notes that admissions to child
psychiatric wards in the UK have doubled in the past four years, with the
number of young adults hospitalized for self-harm growing by 70% in the past
decade. While it's unclear if this is in any way related to the rise of mobile
device use among young people, Evans believes there's a connection.
“Something is clearly happening,” she says,
“because I am seeing the evidence in the numbers of depressive, anorexic,
cutting children who come to see me. And it always has something to do with the
computer, the Internet and the smartphone.”
“When they are 15,” Evans says, “you don’t, for
example, let them go to pub, or stay out in the local park at four in morning,
yet they’ll get into much less trouble physically there than they will on their
smartphones on the Internet. I’m not talking about paedophiles preying on them.
I’m talking about anorexia sites and sites where they will be bullied.”
While my own daughter is still too young to be facing
such potential dangers, children of younger and younger ages are now owning their
own Internet-enabled devices—and it may not be long before I start hearing
requests for one. (I have a good friend whose 6-year-old has been begging her for a smartphone.) In 2013, 7% of children 8 years old and under owned their own
tablets—about the same percent of parents who did in 2011,
according to Common Sense Media's 2013 report on kids and media use. These types
of concerns for even young children are here today, and will be tomorrow.
6.
Habits formed during childhood can last a lifetime.
“Screen media can be habit-forming,” states the report “Facing the Screen Dilemma.” “Young children who spend more
time with screens have a harder time turning them off when they get older.”
A Common Sense Media column notes: “Remember that kids quickly
develop routines. If they associate going to restaurants or driving in a car
with playing games on your phone, it will be difficult to transition them out
of this behavior.” This seems like a no-brainer, and yet I still have to remind
myself of this constantly.
Going to restaurants when my daughter was a baby
and younger toddler was certainly tough. There were the rushed and truncated
meals, the sometimes stressful efforts to keep her occupied and calm—not to
mention the huge tips left as apologies for the gigantic mess we always made.
But as she grew and learned to talk and communicate
more, family mealtimes, even in restaurants and diners, became a new kind of
delight. She relishes the social aspect of meals, chatting away about her day
in nursery school, giving running commentary about anything and everything she
sees all around her, asking questions, joking and making up new word games and
songs.
We hope this will keep going throughout her
life—the association with meals and talking, connecting, sharing, and laughing.
It's the kind of habit we want to instill, no matter how much effort it takes.
If we'd conditioned her from the beginning to use screens during meals—at a
time when distracting her with one certainly might have made our own lives a
little easier—I know we would all be missing out today.
7. I think knowing how to entertain yourself
in a line, a waiting room, or a car is an important skill to have.
There are definitely a lot of situations in life
that are potentially boring. But I don’t think handing my daughter a screen to
help her get through them is doing her a service.
I can remember plenty of long car rides when I was
a kid. We did what kids did—look out the window, play games, read, do activity
books, write Mad Libs (back when it was only in paper books you could write in). We'd listen to the radio, sing, chat about this or
that. And we'd learn from doing all these things. I actually liked settling in
with my little book of crosswords during some very long car rides to visit
grandparents several states away. I liked watching the changing scenery
outside.
When I was 5, in the mid-1970s, my family took a
flight from Boston to LA. I don't remember the ride very well, but I imagine my brother
and I did similar kinds of things—activity books and games. I thought of this
recently, on a similar cross-country flight (New York City to LA), where I was
surprised by how well our 3-year-old managed. It was amazing how much time she
killed with a couple of plastic eggs filled with silly puddy and a handful of crayons. There was a screen on the back of the seat right in front of her. She poked
at it some and definitely enjoyed it. But we didn't buy any movies, and
ultimately she seemed much more interested in examining all the new things
around her and looking out at the clouds.
Learning to occupy oneself as a kid in these
situations isn't just useful. It helps develop patience, resourcefulness and
creativity. Little kids are so naturally great at making up their own fun and
games. They have an innate ability to
entertain themselves, and the results can be impressive when we let them.
8. I don’t like the marketing targeted to
kids through various screen media.
I mentioned earlier the new YouTube for Kids app.
Last month, a group of children’s and consumer advocacy groups filed a scathing complaint against it with the Federal Trade Commission
(FTC), urging that the commission investigate whether YouTube's owner, Google,
is violating longstanding laws that protect children who watch TV.
The group claims that the app uses unfair marketing
practices, such as combining commercials and videos in ways that are deceptive
to children, having “branded” channels for toy and other companies, and
endorsing toys, candy and other products through so-called
“user-generated” videos without disclosing the business relationships that the
video makers have with these products’ manufacturers.
“To cite just one example,” the group's press
release states, “Google claims it doesn't accept food and beverage ads but
McDonald's actually has its own channel and the 'content' includes actual Happy
Meal commercials.”
Says Dale Kunkel, Professor of Communication at the
University of Arizona, in the press release: “YouTube Kids is the most
hyper-commercialized media environment for children I have ever seen. Many of
these advertising tactics are considered illegal on television, and it's sad to
see Google trying to get away with using them in digital media.”
I could go on about marketing targeted to kids. But
suffice it to say here, the less my child is marketed to in these types of
ways, through various forms of screen media and “children's programming,” the
better.
9. I don’t believe my toddler will be “left
behind” if she doesn’t start using a smartphone now.
Some argue that learning how to work the latest
technological tools as early as possible in childhood is critical today. I just
don't buy it. And I'm not alone.
“There’s no evidence to support the popular view
that children must start using screen technologies early-on to succeed in a
digital world,” says literature from the Campaign for a Commercial-Free
Childhood. But there is evidence that you can spend your earliest years
without any exposure to handheld screens and mobile devices and still grow up able
to figure out a new iPhone 6.
That evidence is us. Anyone who is reading this did
not manipulate mobile touchscreens or any such thing as a 2-year-old—unless you happen to
be about 8 years old or younger. But many of us grownups today, including those working in
technology fields, feel we’ve been able to “keep up” with the latest in tech as much as we need.
It’s hard to remember sometimes, but smartphones
and tablets did not begin their great and rapid proliferation all that long
ago. (Again, the iPhone only debuted in June 2007, and the iPad just five years ago
last month.) Even kids born 10 years ago—yes, 10 years ago—were
born into a different digital time. Forget about those born 20 years ago, or
30 years ago, or folks like me born more than 40 years back. I made it all the way into high school before ever touching
a “personal” computer. I was 13 when Apple's Macintosh arrived with such drama
into the world. (I'll never forget
this remarkable ad.) It was great, and I loved it, and
it was easy to catch on as an almost-adult. And it's been the same with so many new technologies since.
I have not been “left behind” in today's rapidly
changing world because I didn't use computers as a baby or toddler or have the Internet as a kid. I am not at a disadvantage today because I lived through
30 years of life (yep, 30) without having a cell phone. And I don't think my
life in those 30 years suffered.
I may be sounding a bit old-fogeyish here, but my point is simple: New technologies come along and we learn them. If
we have a solid foundation from our critical, earliest years in “learning how
to learn,” we should be just fine. In 2011, a New York Times piece about
high-tech Silicon Valley employees who sent their own children to a school with no computers or screens drew
a lot of attention. It's still worth reading today what these parents had to
say.
Even Steve Jobs was a low-tech parent, writes
Nick Bilton in a New York Times article from 2014. Jobs wouldn't let his
own teenagers use iPads when they first came out. In 2010 he told Bilton, “They
haven’t used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”
Bilton quotes several other “tech parents” who
limit their children's screen use seemingly even more than other parents do.
CEO of 3D Robotics and former Wired editor Chris Anderson says, “[We] have
seen the dangers of technology firsthand. I’ve seen it in myself, I don’t want
to see that happen to my kids.” If parents steeped in technology in their
professional lives aren't worried about their children “falling behind,” then I
can't be either.
10. Screens haven’t felt necessary.
I mentioned earlier that our digital devices, and
even TV, have never been go-to items when we need to keep our daughter
distracted or occupied, whatever the circumstance. We've used the same old
stuff that's worked forever: pots and pans, nesting boxes, tupperware, wooden
spoons, water-and-floating-things-in-the-sink, play-dough, and books—always books.
In the kitchen refrigerator magnets have absorbed
her attention for countless little chunks of time. In restaurants crayons,
stickers, and paper have worked when she’s gotten antsy. In doctors'
offices she plays with small books or toys of her own if they don't already have
some out. Often it's just her own looking around, singing, game-making, and,
yes, good old conversation that keeps her completely engaged in these
situations.
It's true that it's not easy to get grownup things
done when there's a toddler around who needs constant supervising, help, and
attention. No—this is not going to be easy. And I don’t think people should
expect it to be. We were toddlers too, and we presented the same challenges to
our own parents, but somehow we all lived through it without holding small flashing
screens in our tiny little hands.
Our parents, in whatever ways they did it, did it.
Some probably put their babies and toddlers in front of TVs sometimes—but
probably not all, and we don't really know how often. If you're as old as I am,
there were only about two shows on for a kid to watch when we were 2 years old. And
when they were over, they were over. No 24-hour kids' channels back then.
Before TV (which would be nearly all of human history),
parents and toddlers somehow managed together too.
So I try to remember all of this. It may not be
easy to always keep the screens off and away when the kids are little, but so
many things about parenting aren't easy. At the end of the day, I always think
of how fleeting this time really is. And how much I'll miss it when it's gone.
I love my conversations with my daughter. I love how intense her imagination
is, and the endless new games and ideas she's constantly coming up with. Before
she could talk, I loved all of our playful games and all that time spent smiling and looking into each other's eyes. Each step of the way, I've marveled at her non-stop changes and
never-ending new developments. This week and every week I'll try not to let the
lure of any screens take either of us away from this.
