Toddlers and technology… This is one area you can’t avoid if you are a parent in 2019 – how do you want your child to interact with technology? I didn’t think that I would have to deal with such so early in my daughter’s life, I thought maybe when she was a bit older, but here we are. By technology in this instance I am referring to phones and tablets because this is what she is exposed to mostly.

Starting young
From when she could my daughter would take any phone and press the home button. She was fascinated with this thing that I was always using. As time went on and as her skills improved to where she is now where she can pretty much do a lot of things on the phone that it catches me by surprise at most times.

If you can’t beat them, join them
For her 2nd birthday she got an iPad. This might seem a bit extreme, but hear me out. By that time we were already “fighting” for my phone because she’d always cry for it when I used it. It got to the point where I would hide my phone all the time because I couldn’t use it in her presence. This appliesd to everyone elses phone who is in the house.

iPad usage
On her iPad, I firstly made sure to only download kid-friendly apps and also block her from being able download anything. Currently the only things she does is watch YouTube Kids, draw, listen to her playlist on Spotify and take photos on Snapchat.

Limiting screentime
Currently we’re not limiting screen time because she’s not at school and I feel like she might get bored at home in the afternoons. Luckily she is very outdoorsy so she gets bored of her iPad at times and wants to play outside, take walks or mess around in my flowerbed. When she is aways on weekends she doesn’t travel with it so at those times she gets to be without it.

Some of the positives that have come from Mpilo being on her iPad is that she is learning sooo much: colours, shapes, counting, the works! She can currently count to 10 in Swahili, lol! And she knows a number of day to day Swahili words.

This is one of the conundrums that really emphasise that there is a lack of a manual to parenting, each to their own and we take each day as it comes.

What is your take on toddlers and technology