Tablet Toddlers & Math Apps

tablettoddler

While writing Born Reading: Bringing Up Bookworms in a Digital Age, I consulted with Craig Sender, creator of the great Tablets Toddlers blog.

Craig wrote about Born Reading recently, so I caught up with him to find out more about his current thoughts on kids and devices. He told me:

“I loved this piece in The New York Times by Farhad Manjoo about not feeling guilty about using your smartphone while parenting in which a father finds a way to spend time with his preschooler and still get his work done.”

Sender continued: “As a father of a seven-and-a-half and four-and-a-half year old, a full-time PR executive and part-time adjunct professor, I could totally relate. Technology, specifically devices such as the iPhone and iPad, has actually made me MORE attentive as a parent. Sure, I might have my head buried in my phone for a minute or two at my kids’ school play, for example. But by having this device, it ALLOWS me to be at my kids play when otherwise I’d be tethered to a desk.”

Craig recommended a few math oriented apps that he enjoys with his kids:

“My seven-year-old daughter and I have been spending quality screen time together playing several educational apps, Hungry Fish, Math Bingo, and Sushi Monster. Independently, both my kids are addicted to Minecraft. It’s pretty cool watching them connect virtual worlds and verbally talk each other through problems/solutions.”

Finally, here is an excerpt from Manjoo’s article:

Every few months, there is a new article voicing concerns about how we’re all being terrible parents because we just can’t stop staring at our phones. Parental smartphone addiction has also been a rising worry among child-development scholars. The concern is justified; smartphones are changing how we relate to other human beings, so it’s reasonable to worry about how they’ll affect parenting. But we rarely consider how, by liberating us from the office, smartphones have greatly expanded the opportunity for certain kinds of workers to increase their involvement in their children’s lives.

What do you think?

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