Technology

Both my Hubby and I were brought up in the era of the computer and my hubby's career started out in I.T.  He works with computers and plays many games on them in his free time, my computer use to demand many hours of attention when we were a couple but this has all now been diverted to little Sophie now she is running about and is an active child.  

Sophie was introduced to computers early on in life, and when she was born she used to lay neatly in my crossed legs, warm and snug and close to me while I tapped away on the computer.  

As she grew and was able to sit she was able to watch and the pretty colours and sounds always got her attention, here she is at 3 and half months sitting and trying to copy us she is even pressing the keyboard.

By the time she was 8 months she got her first computer and she enjoyed mashing buttons and watching the night garden and the CPU was a handy height to pull up on too.  She even started to get a bit cocky and telling daddy what to do.

The I pad came out when she was 10 months old and we were all excited about its arrival and my hubby rushed out to get one looking forward to his new gadget for doing surfing and gaming on, and i was looking forward to it as i could take it anywhere in the house and be entertained surfing, socialising, gaming or reading and its size made it very discrete when i was stuck soothing Sophie at night or trapped in the living room with the endless repeats of Cbeebies it gave me some sanity.  

However what we hadn't thought about was Sophie and her advanced knowledge of computers, she showed enormous aptitude for the tablet and found it really easy to use which surprised us as she was 10 months old.  Then we discovered the enormous amount of baby, toddler and pre school aps there were available, and soon she got a page all to herself of her aps, where as mummy and daddy had half a page of aps each hers grew into 2 pages and sadly daddy lost his grip of owning an I pad and Sophie now rules the I pad, it is hers and she loves it.     

Even though Sophie has access to these advanced toys, computers have not been pushed upon her but there in our house like in many other houses and she has access to them if she chooses.   Some mums may be tutting as they may believe that children should just play with wooden bricks etc at 10 months. I believe we live in an ever evolving world, and there is no harm in opening up minds and brains to technology, after all there are some mums that let their children watch T.V all day.  Before computers were about parents used to worry about their children and televisions making there children brain dead and have square eyes, and I suppose it really depends on what your exposed to.

I believe everything in balance is ok, Sophie still plays in the garden, has a wendy house and pretends to make tea, has toys and books to stimulate her imagination and paints, crayons, musical instruments and crafting for creativity.   So coming soon Sophie will be showing off some of her favourite aps and how she plays with then and how they can stimulate thinking, imagination and creativity.