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.