Raising a kid in the tech culture

My daughter is growing up in a very technological age. Both my husband and I love techie stuff and therefore she's been exposed to it every since she was a tiny baby. While I did my best to shelter her from the television, I quickly gave it up because whenever we went over to a relative's house the TV was on 24/7. So instead of alienating our relatives, we embraced the television. Something we think about time and time again, but don't really regret doing. She's learned a lot about the world around her from the television shows and can quickly identify many things while we're out and about and see it in real life.

By the time my daughter was a year and a half we had an iPad. We might have had it before then, but right now my pregnant brain won't let me think about specific dates. She would watch her tv shows on there when we made several long road trips and occasionally when we were going out to eat on the road, we'd sneak it along for her to distract her. She quickly figured out how to turn it on, unlock it and scroll past the apps she didn't use to the ones that interested her the most. I put educational apps on there to help her learn letters, numbers, colors, reasoning skills...etc. I think it's been a great educational tool.

One thing that has been a negative about this culture of technology is that she's learning that she doesn't need to wait to get anything. She has any tv show she wants readily available on Netflix and can switch from game to game by a flick of her little fingers. It's something that is becoming more and more real as she gets older, this lack of patience. So.. I am finding new ways of curbing that.

She seems to LOVE DVD's and I'm learning to love them again too. With a DVD, it's one show (maybe multiple episodes) or one movie and she has to make a decision to pick it and watch it. There's no second guessing, once it's in the DVD player that's it. We only have a few little kids DVD's but that's about to change. I think I'm going to shift from using Netflix and just use the DVD's most of the time when we want to watch a show. That way she sees an end to things, it's not a continuous choice.

Another thing I've almost refused to do is to buy books for her on the iPad. My daughter LOVES paper books and I do too. I am growing my library of kid books every day. She goes to the shelf every night before bed and chooses the books she wants us to read to her and we do. There's just nothing like the feel of paper between your fingers. I know it's becoming a relic this day in age and I will teach her more about ebooks from using the iPad once in a while, but ebooks for her won't be the norm. It teaches her that there's an end to the book as well and teaches her to take care of things.

I also plan on having her help me cook food more often after we move. I think the act of making something and then waiting for it to finish is very rewarding and teaches a great amount of patience. It also teaches that being patient is rewarded with something nice. (Typically... I might not bake from scratch with her anytime soon, I am a horrible baker)

So it may seem backwards to go back to DVD's and to use actual books, but I want to instill in my daughter values that aren't taught in this tech generation while still keeping her exposed to the technology so she's not behind when it comes time for her to go out and use it. It's quite a different parenting battle than our parents had to deal with, but with some planning, I think I might be up for the battle. :)