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

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