Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school screen time/following his lead?

My 3.5 year old son does nothing by halves. He is always in the grip of some kind of extreme passion. First it was musical instruments - he memorized all major orchestral instruments, including their parts and variations, at age 2.5 (random dinner table remark at that age: "Piccolo trumpets have 4 piston valves, but trumpets only have 3".) He was using screen time to see the instruments demonstrated and learn how they play. Later, baseball became an obsession and he watched a lot of game clips on the Ipad. Soon he understood all the rules of baseball. Next came a solar system obsession. This one was more book-based, but he also used a an app called "solar walk" to get a better visual and spatial sense of the solar system.

Now, his obsession is an online game called Letterpress. It's more for adults, so he picked it up from my DH. Now DS(3) wants to play it nonstop. You have a grid of 25 random letters and you try to make the longest words possible, while also capturing territory in certain areas of the grid. So, both vocabulary and strategy come into play. DS is totally fascinated. Over the course of two months, he has gone from playing just a few simple words (aka "sun") he happened to know, to memorizing several large words such as "nonsteroidal" and "listeners." He has also become quite adept at spelling 3-5 letter words phonetically, as well as lengthening words by adding prefixes and suffixes. This has gone along with him starting to really read as well. So he's clearly learning a lot. But I feel bad that we're letting him have so much screen time and may be allowing him to neglect other areas of his development. He has been playing this game for maybe 2 hours a day (and he's only home, on weekdays, for about 5 hours).

I think that when it comes to young children, maybe especially young gifted children, it's good to follow their lead when it comes to what they're interested in learning. But when it involves an excessive amount of screentime, does this still apply? I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on this.

ITA with Portia - you need to determine what works for each child. I also believe it's ok to insert your own family values into decisions about screen time - while it's a wonderful tool for learning, it's not the only way to learn, and I'd be very cautious about assuming he's learning "more" via screen than he is when he's interacting with his parents or out on a walk, etc. I'm guessing there's a good likelihood that he still enjoys time with his parents If so, maybe one way to handle weekdays that both allows him to follow his passion as well as help alleviate concerns about too much screen time would be to let him have an hour before dinner time, and after dinner time spend some one-on-one child/parent time - could be reading together, could be playing, could be anything.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I think when it comes to screen time, it's important to differentiate between passive and active screen time. Passive screen time is when the person is in "receive only" mode (e.g., watching a movie, a YouTube video). Active screen time is when the person is engaged (e.g., playing a video game, using an app, on a Skype call with friends). There are studies that indicate that the brain processes these two types of screen time very differently.

I agree with polarbear that mixing it up and providing a variety of experiences, both in front of the screen and away from it, is beneficial. And I think that following a child's lead by subject matter (gifted or not) makes everyone's lives easier. As long as you temper that with health and well being in mind... so maybe don't feed ice cream to your kid for dinner on a regular basis.

Emigee,

This is something we regularly discuss. DS4 is very adept at electronics and loves his games, particularly puzzle games. He learns from them, but at what cost? I think it's easy to get sucked into the, "But it's educational!" kind of thinking, and we certainly have been there. But kids learn from everything they do, regardless of whether or not we view it as educational. Here are some things we consider when deciding on balanced screen time:

1. What would he otherwise be doing? Coloring? Building? Having a discussion with another person? Riding a bike? Squishing play dough? Daydreaming? Solving his own boredom? Sitting in the sunny window and noting how his skin feels warm in the light, but cook in the dark? These are all important things.
2. What is his attitude like after screen time? If its poor, is he spending too much time not in touch with his needs? This one is important for us because he has a way of getting hyper focused.
3. What is it doing to his eyes? Kids would normally be looking all around, from here to there. What about his body? Kids would normally be bouncing, running, climbing, rolling, fort building, etc.

My personal opinion is that screen time should not be everyday, nor should it take up a large amount of time. I recommend breaking it up. Maybe 20 minutes three times a day, tops. Or perhaps more time on the weekends, but less during the week. Two hours a day seems like a lot to me, no matter the educational content.

I hope that helps! I know it's a tough subject since there is no concrete answer.

That's how I think about it too. DD4 leaves the house at 8:30am and gets home at around 5:30pm. That leaves 2.5 hrs to relax, eat dinner, get ready for bed. If she wants to watch videos or play games on her ipad in between that other stuff, I have no problem. I don't even care if it's educational or not, so long as it's age-appropriate.

Of course, more often than not she wants to kick a soccer ball up the hallway, but if she wanted to spend all that time on a screen, I wouldn't care. After a long day, I like to veg out too.

While children may vary and you know your child best, in general, screen time provides different "rewards" than interaction and activities in real life.

Some have compared computer screen time to the behavior conditioning of Skinner's box.

Maintaining a balance of interests and skills may be the key to determining an optimal or maximum amount of screen time.

I agree with this.

There is so much junk online these days and to sit one's child in front of "educational" media without first vetting it is not going to go out well. ("Go out well" to quote my DS)

That's interesting that your son still has an affinity for learning from screens. I also had assumed my son would get more book-oriented as he grows older (and learns to read better). May I ask how one would distinguish addictive vs. obsessive behavior when it comes to screen time?

Thanks, Polarbear. No, we definitely don't assume he's learning more via screentime than any other activity. It's just that this particular activity at this particular moment in his development seems to be meeting some need of his (I think figuring out basic English spelling patterns and learning to read). It's also a very social activity for him because he loves to play with a parent, or even watch us play. Even when playing alone he'll be in the same room narrating his game play by play ("Mom, I played the word "watermelons" and now I'm ahead 15 to 4! Wasn't that a great play?") Still, we have ended up going with pretty much what you suggested - he now plays for about 45 minutes before dinner and then all screens are turned off for the rest of the day. Weekends are another story, though...

Seattle Sunshine, I think these are all excellent considerations, especially when managing long-term screen time policies. I guess my question was more geared toward what I think will be a short-term burst. DS has always gotten sucked into obsessive interests of one kind or another and will pursue them until he's suddenly "done" and moves onto something else. This usually takes 3 months or so and he gets some really in-depth knowledge of whatever it is. (In this case, I think he's learning to read and write.) The only reason I'm willing to tolerate as much screen time as he has had recently is because I think this is one of those interests, and it will burn itself out soon enough. We'll see...in the meantime, we have ratcheted down how much time he plays on weekdays.

I am a bit of a luddite but DD did not watch tv at all until she was 4. She received her first device at nine and we do not more than an hour a day, ever. Children learn best through interaction with their environment. Playing with parents and siblings, going on walks, visiting a local park or museum are all better ways for a three year old to learn than via an iPad screen.

Yes, I agree with what you're saying when referring to watching TV or even just doodling around on an Ipad, but that's not what he's doing. His "screen time" is 100% active (no passive stuff like TV) and often very social, since he likes to play with family members. He's very purposeful about it - he will learn to read/spell new words from the environment or books/magazines, remember them, and then play them next time he has a chance. So it actually integrates quite well with our museum trips, etc. To me, it doesn't seem much different from a kid getting obsessed with, say, chess, except that this particular game doesn't have a non-screen equivalent.

We've employed a token reward system that determines screen time. Earning 4 tokens = a show or 20 min of gaming time. 8 tokens = a movie or documentary. 12 tokens can be used for a special outing (bouncy house, carousel etc.) or playdate. Of course, you could customize token numbers/time limits.

We give tokens for positive behaviors (no taking away tokens, as they are only positive reinforcement).

This system has worked really well for us. Also, a good way to get yourself to focus on positive behaviors. It helps build a child's executive function (delaying gratification). And it's not up to you as a parent to limit the screen time, it gives the control over to the child to earn and save up for screen time.

DD3.5 has been having screen time, since pretty early. But highly regulated and moderated and we used to watch and sing with her. During her toddler days, she watched quite a few age-appropriate rhymes and animated songs with us. At 19 months, she could sing (pretty clearly) more than two lines of several rhymes. And she was speaking in compound sentences by 21 months.

Now at 3Y9M, she’s highly selective on what she watches on TV or what she plays on iPad – she will ignore them if we tune into something she’s not interested in. So she is kind of self-regulating herself when it comes to screen time. We follow her lead.

She craves for variety and challenge – so she’s automatically bored of screen-time beyond a limit and wants to move on to something “more interesting”.

Her current obsession is Dinosaurs and she watches the Amazon Original “Dino Dana”, which has suddenly reignited her Dinosaur obsession.

The series is meant for older kids, but she has already memorized the story of each of the 13 episodes and names every dinosaur that appears in every episode. And that includes names like Deinosuchus, Brachiosaurus, Incisivosaurus pronounced with precision. She wakes in the middle of the night and sleepily talks about Futalognkosaurus. (She’s generally a very light sleeper and finds it hard to calm herself down into a sleep, as her mind is nearly overstimulated ALL the time.)

"Visually Intense" seems to be her criteria for learning stimulation. Be it on TV, iPad or books.

She loves spending time on books which are visually intense (and tends to show less interest on other books). Her current book obsession (in case you didn’t already guess) - National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book of Dinosaurs. It’s very visual, lots of amazing images, and (of course) it’s about Dinosaurs.

An update on our particular situation: DS (now 4) has continued to be obsessed with this particular game, but is basically uninterested in other forms of "screen time." We've decided not to worry about the fact that the game he likes takes place on a screen. It will translate very well to either Scrabble or chess (it has both verbal and spatial elements), so it's probably building the foundation for years of healthy gaming! He plays mostly against his dad and me at this point, or against one of the bot players. He can beat me fairly often now, but has yet to beat his dad (who introduced him to it in the first place). I find myself justifying my losses: "Well, he HAS spent an hour or more each day practicing for the past 7 months, and I only started playing because he wanted me to!" But then I have to reason back to myself: "But he is FOUR, and you are not only a grownup, but a grownup with a PhD in a verbally heavy field." Yikes!

We do limit his time on the game (he can play between daycare and dinner time, which ends up maxing out at an hour a day, but considerably more on weekends), but it's more so that he will be a well-rounded person than because of concerns about screens specifically.

As a side note, he did teach himself to read/write by playing this game. He was reading basic CVC words and lots of sight words (mostly those to do with things that interested him, like names of months/days, planets and their moons, etc) at the time he started playing at age 3.5. Now he can easily handle 2nd-3rd grade level books and can read any text he happens to find in his environment around town.

What's the game, Emigee?

Lazymum - It is Letterpress. I believe it's only an iphone/ipad game at this point.

CallMeJo - I really like the token idea, especially that it keeps the focus on positive behavior and gives the child a chance to build some executive skills. We may try this out with our older child, who does have a tendency to want to watch more videos than are good for her.

Kish - I love hearing about your DD and what she is doing! A lot of what you are saying reminds me of my son (I remember when he used to wake up and sleepily murmur to me about trombones, a previous obsession). I think some kids just naturally self-regulate with screen time and work it into their other interests quite seamlessly. Hopefully it will last as they get older.

Thanks! We'll check it out

I just came across this thread and thought I'd update. So much for this being a "burning out" passion - 8 months later and he's still going strong and still improving rapidly. He now plays at the level of a skilled adult. He has recruited several adult family members to play with him (which is kind of a fun thing to be able to do with long-distance family members!), and he is a really tough opponent. I now consider myself lucky if I can win half of my games with him. I looked at his game-collected stats the other day, and he has now beaten more than 130 unique opponents and played over 7,000 unique words! It's been quite amazing to see how rapidly his skills have grown.

In terms of my original concern about screen time, we've settled into some routines around when he is allowed to play that allow us to be comfortable that he's not spending too much time on it.

Here's a book about screen time that may be of interest:

Glow Kids: How screen addition is hijacking our kids - and how to break the trance
by Nicholas Kardaras
Copyright 2016

Had a major clash with DD12 about this on Monday.

School has been hard socially and so coming home she has been ruminating and reliving the traumas of not really fitting in every evening afterwards. She would procrastinate and have enormous difficulty in foccussing. Her distraction would be the internet - mindless pap almost every bit of it.

She was really rude to her mother Monday night - this had been festering for weeks - hours of screaming, hair pulling and crying later she was able to talk calmly about everything.

We suspended her screen time privileges. What a difference - a week AoPS alg ii bookworm plus online problems including the written one done in <5 hours!

Still wondering how to reintroduce screen time...

Allow half an hour per day for a week or two, then check results. Adjust upward to an hour if no issues, and revert to 30 mins/day if any adverse effects surface. Screen time is a privilege that has to be earned through good behaviour. Glad you addressed the issue head-on.

Not to be indelicate, but a spurt of overemotional drama from a DD12 may be related to not just to screen time, but possibly also to gender-specific monthly hormonal fluctuations, which in turn can be impacted by the daily dietary intake and exercise. Unfortunately, moms may suffer the brunt of DD12s' hormonal-induced tension. My thought would be to tuck this idea away in the back of your mind and see if a calendar pattern emerges... then consider being prepared to offer a bit of pampering for 2 or 3 days if needed... taking a walk together, reading to her, bringing her a pillow, having on hand a few of her favorite comfort foods. Eventually help DD12 to see that you have prepared in advance to support her through these fluctuations, and help her to see how she can play a role in this (for example, helping to grocery shop for favorite comfort foods). With this support and understanding she may quickly learn to anticipate the monthly fluctuations and manage them with grace and aplomb.

Wrt 'gender specific hormonal changes' I think it may be a contributor but the main issue according to what a psychiatrist friend told me which was further backed up by Untangled is that the brain undergoes some major renovation work during this period in her life.

This reorg literally goes from the ground up - starting with the Amygdala (emotional control unit) and moves up and forward culminating in the frontal cortex in the early twenties.

I am far from politically correct (preferring a rational explanation over a feel good one every time) and I will admit that my first reaction had been 'hormones' but I think that the brain reorg is backed by hard empirical science and is a better fitting explanation.

I totally agree that if there is not a repeating monthly pattern (which can generally be influenced/improved by dietary and exercise choices), then the described behavior may be related to adolescent changes which affect both genders.

For anyone looking for more information, here is one source: Maturation of the adolescent brain, by National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health (NIH).

My main point was that while screen time may be a trigger, there may be underlying factors: screen time may not be the root cause of the behavior.