When we think of kids and technology, we typically either think of it as a bad thing, or we think of technology as something to use to pacify children when they are particularly fussy. Few would say they have a positive association of those two things in their mind.
However, one dad is doing what he can to change those perceptions and show that children can have positive relationships with technology.
Matt Bateman describes himself as a “philosopher,” “husband,” and “father” in his X bio. He recently shared a thread detailing how he allows his four-year-old to use an iPad.
: Mom Worried After Her 3-Year-Old Says He Doesn’t Love His Dad — ‘They Just Don’t Jive’
“We gave four-year-old an iPad and set it up to offer her three affordances,” he wrote. “Take pictures, type in notes (and) text with a handful of people (family, a couple of family friends).”
“The last one is the big hit,” he shared. “And it is amazing. It is immensely developmentally valuable.”
Bateman said that texting is so exciting for his daughter for two reasons, “a software keyboard, which is (a) tool that makes writing short messages much easier for children, akin to a Montessori movable alphabet,” and “a very real motivational context: communicating with someone she knows.”
“She will sit and figure out how to compose messages for an hour or two and carefully parse incoming messages from the day,” he said. “She will also compose words and short sentences as a sort of school exercise if you set it up perfectly.”
Bateman’s posts are interspersed with screenshots of his daughter’s adorable misspelled texts to everyone from her grandfather and mother to another four-year-old she is friends with.
“Finally I will say, it is a positive introduction to the internet, to the digital age of communication,” he explained. “The digital world is an important and exciting part of her present and future world. Messages with family/friends allow her to experience what it is and what it affords her.”
: Teacher Reveals That Kids Today Learn The Alphabet Song Completely Differently Than We Did
Bateman thinks his child is having a supremely positive experience with her iPad privileges. However, he also noted that there are many who would be hesitant to allow their child to do the same thing.
“People hem and haw over ‘screen time,’ and I understand why,” he said. “But I think it’s a bad concept, partly because it blocks you from fully appreciating the value of the sort of thing I am describing here. This has nothing important in common with braindead Cocomelon YouTube shorts.”
He further acknowledged, “‘Let children text message a few people right at the beginning of their literacy journey’ is, having seen it play out, such an obvious, unadulterated win. But almost no one does it. And when I share this story people usually have a mixed reaction: ‘cool’ plus ‘screens meh.’”
Much more research exists regarding how screen time harms children than how it helps them. However, it does seem that experts might back up what Bateman said, at least to a certain degree.
The National Institutes of Health shared a Canadian study on children and screen time. The authors of the study acknowledged, “Early evidence suggests that interactive media, specifically applications that involve contingent responses from an adult (i.e., timely reactions to what a child says or does), can help children retain taught information.”
Surely, Bateman’s daughter’s texting with adults falls into this category, as they are interacting with and responding to her in real time.
While drawbacks to screen time for children do exist, it’s possible that allowing it in small doses could benefit children and impact their development for the better. We just have to be willing to experiment, as Bateman was.
: Mom Admits To Her Husband That They Spend $50K A Year On Their Daughter’s Dance Costumes — “That’s The Price Of A Nice Car’
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news and human interest topics.
