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Playing computer games for babies: the new tradition between parents and children?

Imagine snuggling up with your young child to look at a picture book together that is interactive, musical, responsive and talks to you?

This is the experience that people who engage in that relatively new hobby have: playing computer games with babies.

JumpStart’s Knowledge Adventure calls it “lapware,” Kiddies Games’ logo is “Hop on the lap and tap,” and Sesame Street’s “Baby and Me” begins with an animation of a baby monster jumping onto a baby monster’s lap. dad to play the computer. Playing computer games with your baby is promoted as a fun activity that a child and her caregiver can share together. And with good reason, because whatever the activity, physical and loving closeness is an important ingredient that babies need for healthy intellectual, emotional, and physical development.

Reading a bedtime story to an anxious toddler is a tradition in many homes. As the children get older, this can be replaced by watching television together. Our parents’ families listened to the radio together. Playing computer games with a young child can become a new kind of family tradition. Personal computers and the Internet are making their way into more and more homes. Some parents use the computer at work and are happy to share the computer for a fun activity with their children. Other parents want to make sure their children are computer literate. Well-designed, interactive, educational computer games engage young children as much as television and are more educational than television because they encourage the child to interact and think rather than passively watch and listen. These are the reasons for the growing popularity of computer programs for young children. Although it is a relatively small industry, it has been said that baby software is a very fast growing industry.

What kind of computer software is available for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers? There are free games on websites, and there are downloadable software and CDROMs that you can buy. Most software for this age group is games, but there are also computer storybooks. Wonderful websites that offer free games, many of which are suitable for preschoolers (preschoolers can do targeted mouse clicking) are:

[http://www.sesamestreet.org/sesamestreet]

http://www.noggin.com

http://www.cbc.ca/kidscbc

http://www.abc.net.au/children/games

http://www.meddybemps.com

Great free sites for babies (whose skills tend to be more limited to typing) are:

http://www.kiddiesgames.com

http://www.toddletoons.com

The CDROM or download software you buy is often better than free games on the Internet. The games are usually superior (more graphics, more music, more complicated games for older kids) and the software takes up the entire screen, which is more appropriate for very young children who click anywhere on the screen. Some of the known producers are:

Reader Rabbit software from http://www.learningcompany.com

JumpStart software from http://www.knowledgeadventure.com

Fisher-Price Software from http://www.knowledgeadventure.com

Sesame Street software from http://www.encoresoftware.com or http://www.amazon.com

[http://www.babywow.com]

Computer game software for this age group conscientiously strives to be appropriately educational. To judge their effectiveness for your child, try them out with your child. If your child finds it fun, then it’s probably educational. For a baby, fun usually means that the game responds in some way to random keystrokes and mouse clicks, and that the game continues in a positive way even when the baby receives no input. A preschooler will need more challenges or more educational content, but the game should be designed to always be fun, positively reactive, and self-resolving when the child doesn’t get the right answer. At this age, it is more important that computer games contribute positively to self-esteem than it is to conscientiously correct incorrect answers on educational concepts that the child will master when he is older anyway. The KiddiesGames.com software is meticulous in adhering to these rules.

What types of skills are learned by playing computer games for young children? Obviously, computer programs are not suitable for practicing gross motor skills or even fine motor skills. However, there are many types of educational concepts that computer games can help a child master, including shapes, sounds, cause and effect, identifying and naming things (such as objects and colors), building vocabulary, language concepts, letter and number shapes, counting, pattern recognition, detail observation, and word construction. At KiddiesGames, we strive to offer games for young children that are out of the ordinary, such as exposure to foreign languages ​​and practicing positions on the phone to dial emergencies. The reactivity and interactivity of computer programs is, of course, higher than that of books, and may be higher than that of toys, especially in the area of ​​language. Baby computer games are also cited as excellent resources for children with special educational needs, because these games are simple, playful, brightly colored, patient, controlled by the child, and allow the child to make things happen.

An official recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics at http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics%3B107/2/423 is “Dissuade children under 2 years of age from watching television and encourage them to be more interactive. activities that promote proper brain development, such as talking, playing, singing, and reading together.” This has been taken as advice to avoid exposing those young children to the computer. However, well-designed children’s software actually encourages those great “talking, playing, singing and reading together” activities. By carrying out the play activities proposed by the computer game, the caregiver receives a framework or script to carry out these “talk, play, sing and read” activities with the child. Experts now say that while baby computer games shouldn’t replace toys, blocks, and books and shouldn’t be used as an electronic babysitter, they are another valid toy resource. For example, a summer 2004 bulletin from the Hawaii State Department of Health at [http://www.hawaii.gov/health/family-child-health/eis/summer2004] encourage playing with lapware. The emphasis is not on acquiring measurable skills or getting the answers right, but rather on open exploration by the child, which is another way of saying “having fun.” Children are programmed to learn and practice what they have learned by playing and having fun.

Playing computer games with your young child is not yet a family tradition. However, it is a nice sharing activity that is becoming more and more popular.

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