Media Crazed!!!

I’m not exactly proud of it but sometime ago my son became obsessed with the iPad. I’m sure I’m not the first person who started exposing their child to their iPad with hopes of fifteen minutes of solitude. Well suddenly those fifteen minutes turned into forty-five minutes which led to an hour and a half…well the torture of prying it out of his grubby little hands is so painful that we pass the hour and a half mark most days.

In efforts to curb the negative time spent on the iPad, I have come up with a solution. For one, get him his own educational version of an iPad. If he has a device that doesn’t have Super Mario Brothers on youtube or the ability to watch sports incessantly, maybe he will be forced to play some educational letter games. Second of all, introduce him to our existing Nintendo Wii (that he doesn’t realize we own) and allow him to play one of the many games he watches other people play on youtube. It’s not because I’m jumping for joy for him to play video games. But I think it’s gotta be more constructive than him watching other people play!

After a ton of research, and many returned products of kid versions of “iPads” that were deemed inappropriate, we settled on the Nabi.

I’m in love with this device. There are great games that encourage imagination, problem solving skills, watching age appropriate characters and parental controls. Not to mention it’s all his which he loves!

We also got Super Mario Brothers Super Sluggers game for the Wii. This combines his recent obsession with Mario and his ongoing obsession with baseball. I’m afraid that this seems to be one of those activities that he is already pushing the limit on his exposure time but it keeps him busy in a more constructive way than he had with the iPad.

For the longest time, I was severely against exposure to media and tried to deny it to my kids. I’m still not thrilled about it and work very hard to keep it to a minimum. In our highly media driven society, it’s near impossible. So I’m trying very hard to find ways to give them what they want, and me a break of course, without letting it take over our lives. So far it’s an ongoing battle but the rejuvenation of these tools is giving me bargaining power in behavioral challenges, as well as a break that my constantly exhausted preggers self needs!