Little techie

Little G has developed quite an interest in various electronic and tech equipment over the past 8 months or so. He practically memorizes the Best Buy ads each week, and is more up to date in many areas of technology than we are. He used money he had saved up for years to purchase this little number earlier this fall, and did a great job of taking care of it, till the fateful day when I swiped his pants out of the bathroom the minute he stepped in the shower and...you can probably guess the rest of the story.

With Christmas, various new pieces of technology came along, in various forms, and for the majority of the holidays, we didn't limit the use of them as much as usual. Yesterday morning was the first day back to reality (to some extent, anyway) and that combined with a conversation with a friend on Friday, and an article in the newspaper, led me to do some serious thinking about the whole area and Little G's use of technology. When he came downstairs for the day, I snuggled up with him for a few minutes and talked about some of the positives and negatives and since it wasn't in a moment of discipline or frustration, think that it went over quite well. That was confirmed later that day when he came in and told me he had deleted a lot of games off of his latest device to help decrease the temptation to waste time playing. (Of course he left the most tempting, but still, he was thinking about it and it was a start.)

One of the things we had discussed that morning, was how time spent doing many of those things that children spend a huge quantity of their time doing today - video games, etc. - produce nothing and generally have a negative effect in decreasing the child's ability to entertain themselves, or to think for themselves. Instead of telling him this though, I tried to lead him in figuring that out for himself, which seemed to be somewhat effective.

To be honest, I swing back and forth from wishing we could eliminate all these devices from our lives, to more of the middle ground of using them and teaching the children to use them wisely and carefully. Realizing that they are pretty much here to stay, and that is the world our children are going to live in though, I hope to do the best we can at instilling discernment and wisdom in their use, while we can.

On that note, I should be off the computer and reading the borrowed book that needs to be finished and returned!