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I would see coloring books as occasional handwriting and fine motor practice for a kid who likes them and totally different from free form art. Many of my concerns about video games relate to the pacing and potential affects on the brain as well as acting as a captivating draw that may prevent a child from learning to deal with boredom or engage in play that requires more skill areas such as sensory, motor skills, etc. Can't say I've got that same concern about coloring books.

Yes, they are totally different from free-form art. They're coloring in someone else's art instead of creating art. In comparison, it's hard to understand how using simulated soldiers some of the time, instead of molded plastic ones, is supposed to be so harmful to imagination.

I actually think there is a difference, at least with kids under 6, I think i feel differently about older kids, but I noticed that with small children who watch a lot of television it structured their imagination much more than books do. Kids being Dora or the cars from cars. It's just not been my experience that kids read Olivia and then incorporate her into imaginary play the way kids who just saw her on tv did. Plus we're have been recent studies showing that very young kids learn by hearing and watching lips so tv is less effective at conveying ideas. Perhaps they get so stupefied because they are trying to figure it out.

I am definitely not in the all electronics is evil camp, more of a moderation believer. And i love my ipad and its apps. But I think it's more problematic when it dominates, in a way I would not say about a kid who only reads. Of course,I am now fighting that battle so i am being a bit of a hypocrite as i yank books away "forcing" my kid to do something physical, I am often saying yes you must put the book down now!

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I don't really see coloring books to have anything to do with art. I wouldn't say a child coloring in a coloring book is making art or experiencing art in any way rather they are most likely having fine motor practice while they wait for the entree to arrive at a restaurant.

It sounds on the other hand like people were suggesting that playing a video game is a way for children to have experiences or develop imagination. As in how would kids have the experience of combat or civilization building without them. My answer is that children for generations have had these experiences by using imagination and by creating with self created stories.

It has also not been my observation that coloring books are an activity that most children engage in for hours. I'm sure there are kids who have, but unlike screens they tend to be a pretty self limited activity for most kids.

Yes, that would be my observation as well. It is pretty obvious from watching play which kids have not spent a lot of time with screens.

Sounds like you have it handled. Guess I wasn't as together. Oh well. They're adults now, or at least two of them are. And they still seek out my company and advice, so I'm good with it all.

If they don't do anything in moderation wouldn't screens be more of a concern rather than less of a concern? I guess I'm not getting the logic for believing that the negatives of screens would apply less to highly gifted kids. If anything it would seem intensity may make it more problematic (though certainly perhaps more desirable for parents).

It would certainly be highly inconvenient to see that and admit it. Coloring involves happily filling in someone else's artwork, and involves putting one's creative imagination on hold while that's done. Why draw when one can color? Here's an interesting experiment to try: take a child who loves to color, buy her a new coloring book, and sit her next to a stack of blank paper and the coloring book, and see which she chooses.

They certainly aren't.

Everything we do involves "having experiences". I don't think anyone was suggesting that playing a battle simulation, for example, would develop imagination; someone suggesting that using creative tools would do so.

I wrote, "I think that these sorts of computer activities can have a lot of aspects of good board games and building sets about them, except that there's the extra aspect of simulation involved, and of course a great deal more of detail." I stand by that. One doesn't get the experience of actually managing a city using wooden blocks the way one does playing Sim City; one doesn't get the same practice in building strategic skills playing with plastic army men that one does in playing a battle simulation.

I suppose that with plastic army men one is forced to imagine more detail because it's not supplied, but that doesn't mean that it's clearly harmful to play with things featuring detail, or we'd all have our children playing with cornhusk dolls in the closest Waldorf academy.

Playing a game is also different from moving dolls around; one involves rules and the other not. That doesn't make me worry about stunting DS6's creativity when we play strategy games. Learning to work within the confines of a rule-based system exercises problem-solving skills.

Children have not had the experience of struggling against an alien race to conquer a galaxy by creating with self created stories; they've imagined someone else doing them. One involves more strategic and tactical problem solving, the other creative writing or imaginative play.

Take my word for it or not, but DS6 is very highly creative. I can't imagine that playing games has stunted his growth, just as you can't imagine that your children's coloring has stunted theirs.

Good point. I guess I need to explain what I meant. When my kids got interested in something, it was never in moderation. When the little one decided dinosaurs were his passion, it was dinosaurs all day every day - everywhere. We were dinosaurs in the car, in the park, during supper, and in all forms of play. This lasted for probably 18 months until he moved on to space. When my older kids decided they liked climbing, they didn't just like it, they trained for hours every week until they were nationally ranked.

It isn't that they don't use the computer in moderation; I simply don't limit it so that it is a tool, not forbidden fruit. When the questions were beyond my capacity for the day (sorry, but it did get there on some days) the computer access allowed them to continue to explore their interests through research, videos, etc.

They are all very physically active and creative. One summer when the youngest was four, he wrote a play, composed the accompanying music and badgered all of us into performing it for him. But he did use the computer to write the play. I didn't limit the time he spent, but when he'd had enough, he got down and did something else.

So when I say my kids didn't do anything in moderation, I don't mean they spent 18 hours a day staring into a screen. I mean they're driven, highly energetic kids who don't take in any endeavor halfway.

I don't understand what you are saying. What would be inconvenient or difficult to admit? They have nothing to do with art, I can't imagine anyone thinks they do.

I'd say for us coloring pages or coloring books were waiting for the entree to arrive at a restaurant. Maybe three hours a year? I can't say I can work up a head of steam about three hours a year of screen time either. I don't think the research suggests that most kids are on screens three hours a year, more like what five or six hours a day.


Rules and strategic play have existed for generations before computers. Surely I'm not the only one who remembers childhood play involving endless hours of rule creation and negotiation.

Screens aren't the same as play in real life. They don't involve using gross motor skills, feeling the weight of objects, experiencing the size of objects in real space, having the sensory experience of objects, interacting and negotiating with real people - reading their facial expressions, etc.


It is odd to me to try to parse it out this way. My experience of kid play both as a parent and as a child is that it involved all of these - imagination, strategy, problem solving, conflict, cooperation, creativity. It is all there in kid play at least in kids who know how to play - something that is disappearing for some kids with more screens.


Funny. I'm not sure where the coloring book obsession is coming from. I don't think it destroys a kid's creativity to color while they wait at a restaurant and if Grandma brings a coloring book a couple of times a year. It is time wasting handwriting practice. I also don't think screens at a restaurant a few times a year or at Grandma's is a big deal either. Of course we know that the real issue is that for most kids it isn't a very rare experience but hours and hours each week.