I don't want this blog to be too much of a rant against technology invading our kids' lives. I mean, we love our devices and they are here to stay. So it's time to create some balance. After all, it's in the sub-head. This post is to celebrate what Martha Stewart calls "Good Things". Talking about positive ways all this technology enriches and improves our kids' lives and even our own.
Unanimously, my kids would say "Angry Birds" makes their life a whole lot better. It's their Good Thing. And I know my husband loves it when a boring meeting is interrupted by a quick text or e-mail photo of the kids doing something cute. Something the iphone makes incredibly easy to do.
As boring as it sounds, my first vote goes to wikipedia, or wikipanion which is one of many nifty free apps in my iphone arsenal. I love the fact that my kids' insatiable curiosity about just about anything can be honored and indulged just about anywhere. We can just "look it up!" While one could say it makes us lazy or will lead to entitled people who just "have to know", I cannot help but think it further encourages their thinking and questioning and curiosity.
Those of you who know my kids (or any kids for that matter), know they can be relentlessly curious. At age four, my older one always said, "I NEED to know, mom!," whenever I tried to put his frequent and often complex questions on hold. Most often it was while I was driving, so at least I could say we can "look it up once we are home." Now that he is eight, I just toss the phone to the back seat and tell him to "look it up". Just kidding. We're not at that stage. Yet.
How about you (my fledgling group of readers)? How does technology enrich your family life? Entertainment? Information? Communications? One friend, whose husband frequently travels to Japan and elsewhere, uses FaceTime so he can have video conversations with their kids. That definitely sounds like a Good Thing.
How about you? What are your favorites?
Yes, yes we, too, love being able to look up answers to all kinds of kid questions by iphone. We found the average life span of a chicken the other day... Another fun thing with computer is to look up lyrics to songs. My kids sometimes come home singing a song they learned in school but can't quite remember the lyrics. We looked up "This Land Is Your Land" recently and had a grand time singing it. Oh and we do love YouTube - a picture is worth a thousand words and a video, maybe more. Ever seen the amazing Kapla wooden block tower demolitions set to classical music on Youtube? Great entertainment! And by the way... average life span of the chicken? about 7 years. One smart mommy :)
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