Don't Buy Your Kid A Smartphone

It is getting very common that parents buy iPads or smartphones  for their kids at a very young age. I witness that whenever we dine outside, there surely will be some kids at another table playing games on their iPad while their parents are ‘busy’ eating and chatting with friends and relatives.

I also heard in the news that there is a trend among Taiwanese mothers who like to encourage their kids play around with smartphones just to keep them quiet. As a result, a lot of Taiwanese children as young as three years old are already short sighted and will have to wear glasses. This is indeed shocking!

Like most people today, we also have our smartphones but I seldom encourage my 3 years old to play with it unless in an extraordinary situation. We must come out with a substitute if we do not wish her to play with the phone. So I always give her a choice that is she can either watch cartoon or play with phone. She would choose cartoon if her favourite show is on.

Unlike any other kids, my daughter doesn’t have many toys. Most of her toys were given by her cousin after she was done with it. There are three reasons behind this: 1) I don’t wish to cultivate a materialistic culture in her by keep buying her new toys; 2) I want her to appreciate other healthier games like running around in the park; 3) I simply couldn’t afford buying new toys all the time.

Fortunately here in Australia we have a TV channel (ABC 2) that is dedicated to children programs from 6am to 7pm everyday. It shows educational programs like Mr. Maker, Sesame Street and other cartoons with positive messages for the kids. In fact, my daughter Isabelle learned a lot of her English from these programs. I still remember one day when she was still two years old and I asked her something in Chinese, she gave it a thought for a while and then she looked at me and answered: “I don’t know.” That was a surprise to me and I was touched!

Another good thing about raising kid in Australia is that there are many playgrounds and parks scattered around the neighbourhoods and we can always bring Isabelle there to have some fun in the sun, breathe some fresh air and run around to exercise her body instead of sitting in the house playing video games on smartphones.

  

During the week when I am working, my wife will always bring her to the nearby community library to play puzzles and borrow some books for her bedtime stories. She enjoys doing that because she could also have the opportunity to meet other kids and sometimes she gets to play with them as well. Isabelle is very friendly naturally and she will just approach anyone regardless of their age and race. She will play with them as long as they are not adults. The only problem is not everyone would like to play with her.

I worked full time everyday and I can only play with her after I come back from work. I will have only 3 hours quality time to spend with her, play with her and read her bedtime stories. Weekends we will have more time together and we usually go somewhere to eat and play. As a result she likes outdoor and weekends. The good thing is the weather is not as hot here except summer and we all enjoy being out there under the sun.

When I was in Malaysia last time, I always tried to avoid the sun because the hot and humid weather was not something that I was looking forward to. Most people in Malaysian and Singapore spend their weekends mainly in the shopping malls with the air conditioning turned on full blast. It is not a healthy environment for kids. Firstly, they are always in an artificial environment and not out there in nature. Secondly, they are exposed to the materialistic work at a very young age with all the branded outlets you have in the malls.

If we keep doing certain things constantly we will improve over time. Likewise, if you let your kids play smartphones all the time, they will be expert in video games and be fixated in front of the computer all the time. If you bring them to shopping malls every weekend, they would cultivate a culture of buying stuff for no obvious reasons when they grow up. On the other hand, if you train your kids to enjoy other good stuff of life like nature and human interaction, they may grow up to be better adults. Don’t buy your kid a smartphone simply because it is convenience for you. Think about what they would become.