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<p>Babies and toddlers having lots of access to board books promotes reading later. Board books as beloved, familiar objects in a child’s world are extremely important in raising a reader. You want to promote that books are fun, interesting, and full of stories that a caring adult will read to you. Turning the pages and seeing familiar illustrations over and over again and then hearing the same story over and over again are “concepts of print” that babies and toddlers absorb. In fact “constancy of story” is also a concept of print that toddlers learn. This story will be the same tomorrow and next week and next month. </p>
<p>iPad stories and even adaptions of traditional picture books for e-readers are usually NOT the same. Point, click, sound effects, characters in motion and talking. It’s a way different concept. </p>
<p>It is much, much more important that preschoolers learn to love books and stories than any benefits gained from electronic devices. (I do support talking by absent parents and grandparents by Skype.) This is critical to a child’s success in learning to read and liking school.</p>
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<p>Are you kidding? My kids had Pat the Bunny and other books where they had to feel different fabrics or even textures printed onto the pages. Usborne has a whole series of “Touchy Feely” books, and other children’s publishers have books that offer crinkly sounds, scratch-and-sniff smells, and other sensory elements.</p>
<p>And let’s not forget that a lot of kids’ first experience with board books is to put them in their mouths…</p>
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<p>Yep. My Dd was in love with books from an early age. We started reading to her (in our laps) even before she was able to focus on visual stimuli, and she was soon “addicted” to books. 
At one year, she would dump books off the shelf, one by one, and then crawl around, pick them up, open them, dump another. I think the first words she put together were “Read it, read it, read it” and she’d bring over the book she wanted us to read and push it into our hands. (bratty kid!) By two she was “reading” them herself- having memorized the content of the simple ones like Dr. Seuss and Brown Bear. She would take her favorites to bed and look at them until she fell asleep, singing and talking to herself. By three, she really was reading, having made the connections between the letters and sounds and transferring that to new words and new books. By five, she had the reading level of a seventh grader. By seventh grade, she had decided she wanted to be a writer.
The tactile nature of books gives young children an ability to become attached to them in a way that an electronic substitute would not. I have no doubt that my Dd’s relationship with books shaped her development and the consequences of that early relationship are still evident today.
The technological danger when our kids were growing up was too much television. Both of mine would have spent far more hours in front of the tube had we allowed it. No one doubted that too much TV was not good for the very young, but we don’t seem to put that same caution into play when it comes to computers and tablets.</p>
<p>And putting those board books in their mouths is completely developmentally appropriate and in fact an important way infants learn and explore. Lots of our parents get upset when their kids out books in their mouth- our docs tell them that is completely normal and what is expected. So far, no parents have shared stories about tablets being mouthed and enjoyed. :)</p>
<p>Well, you might be surprised how many “drool-proof” cases there are on the market…designed specifically to appeal to young kids.</p>
<p>[11</a> Adorable Kid-Proof Device Cases](<a href=“11 Adorable Kid-Proof Device Cases | Mashable”>11 Adorable Kid-Proof Device Cases | Mashable)</p>
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<p>Perhaps we should remove writing in cursive and reading analogue clocks from our school curricula and replace it with learning about ergonomics?</p>
<p>As long as they wear protective tinfoil headgear there should be no problem.</p>
<p>Seriously, I think it was said above, all things in moderation. There is a big difference in giving your child an electric babysitter for hours at a time and having a tablet be just another source of stimulation. I don’t believe that there is anything inherently wrong with new technologies.</p>
<p>Personal interaction with parents used to be required for toddlers to keep them from causing chaos. You talked to your kid the whole time you were in the grocery store “hey George, look at the tomatoes, should we get the red ones or the yellow ones this week?”. “Well look at that, Mindy-Sue, can you count the bottles on that shelf?”. At least that’s what it took to keep mine happy and engaged.
Now Mom is on her cell phone, driving the cart with one hand while kiddo is playing with the tablet. And no, he’s not skyline with Dad in Iraq.</p>
<p>Then the problem (if there is one) is parents, not the technology. And preschools that force children to sit in little desks and chairs. And schools that eliminate recess and any chance for interaction, and then pile on homework making it even less possible.</p>
<p>For myself, I was the happy beneficiary of benign neglect. (I did have enough to eat.)</p>
<p>“The pediatricians fell for the Dr. Spock thing, too, resulting in tens of thousands of dead children”</p>
<p>"Dr. Spock also said babies shouldn’t be allowed to sleep on their backs (advice that likely caused tens of thousands of childhood deaths.)</p>
<p>Holy cow, mini! Tens of thousands? Have you read “Death of Innocents”? </p>
<p>If you’ve got a double blind study, please share.</p>
<p>Mini, not every parent is you.
Many will use electronics as a babysitter unless told its harmful. It is, just like TV was for the previous generation. Just like “Baby Mozart” videos weren’t better than singing to your kid.
Mine loved their pre-schools with little desks and chairs, D1 was reading Laura Ingles Wilder at 4.</p>
<p>Among our 3 kids we experienced 4 different preschools and none of them required sitting in little desks and chairs. There were little chairs and tables for activities like art, but kids were not forced to sit in them.</p>
<p>“Holy cow, mini! Tens of thousands? Have you read “Death of Innocents”?”</p>
<p>Back in the early 1990s, when researchers of SIDs and early infant deaths discovered the link between stomach sleeping and mortality, public health folks did studies of how many deaths worldwide likely resulted from parents heeding the advice of pediatricians and, specifically, Dr. Spock, without any scientific evidence whatsoever, over a 40-year period. And, yes, sadly, it was in the tens of thousands. </p>
<p>“Mine loved their pre-schools with little desks and chairs,”</p>
<p>I’m sure they did! (And they got away from their parents, too!) About as much as many two-year-olds love their tablets. So?</p>
<p>“Among our 3 kids we experienced 4 different preschools and none of them required sitting in little desks and chairs. There were little chairs and tables for activities like art, but kids were not forced to sit in them.”</p>
<p>You should see the new ones, as pre-schools become semi-requirements in low-income neighborhoods as parents look for work. (You’d be appalled, and rightfully so.)</p>
<p>The SIDS thing is complicated, mini.</p>
<p>When my son was born premature 19 years ago the nurses in the NICU let him and the other preemies sleep on their stomachs. When we finally brought him home, the only way we could get him to sleep soundly in his crib was to put him on his stomach (most of the time he ended up sleeping with us).</p>
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<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/health/18slee.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/health/18slee.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0</a></p>
<p>The article does not say that tablets can hurt a child’s body, nor does it say that children should not use tablets. The article says that some health professionals (without much scientific evidence) are worried that children who spend too much time on tablets may develop muscle weakness and other health problems. But that’s no different than children spending too much time watching TV, playing video games or even too much time reading books or just sitting in their room.</p>
<p>The problem isn’t tablets, it’s that children need to run around and play.</p>
<p>Everyone who buys into the idea that it’s good is really using their kids as lab mice, and by the time some results are in it will be too late for a do over.</p>
<p>All child-rearing has some measure of experimentation with it - you can’t safeguard your kids from everything untested or that there haven’t been long-term studies about.</p>
<p>Also, Dr. Nass (at least from the article) said that there were cognitive impacts on the multitaskers, like organizing information, switching between tasks, and concentrating on just one thing at a time. However, he DIDN’T say that there were any physical or health aspects to this, and these kids were still smart enough to get into and get through Stanford.</p>
<p>A lot of times we social scientists talk about finding a significant difference or not, but that’s less than half the story. Sure, our statistics work out - but what does it mean in real life? What’s the effect size of this relationship, in other words? Are the kids who multitask doing a whole lot worse in cognitive skills than the non-multi-taskers, or is it just 1 or 2 points (which you can detect with a large enough sample-size)? And are there areas in which multi-taskers actually do better? I’m not saying that having your attentions divided 4 ways is good; I’m just saying that this is not enough information to make the statement that “multi-tasking is detrimental.”</p>
<p>The parents who would use the iPad to extremes as a babysitter are the ones who would have used TV to extremes as a babysitter too. It’s not the technology itself.</p>
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<p>Anecdotes != data.</p>
<p>I understand that, emberjed. If you read the article, it gives numerous examples of parents who “defy” the recommendation to put babies on their backs to sleep (more anecdotes:)). And much of the research is correlational, not causal. </p>
<p>[SIDS</a> fatalities decline, but many infants still don?t sleep on their backs - Washington Post](<a href=“http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-05-07/national/35458817_1_marian-willinger-sudden-infant-death-syndrome-sids]SIDS”>http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-05-07/national/35458817_1_marian-willinger-sudden-infant-death-syndrome-sids)</p>
<p>Both of mine were stomach sleepers as infants, 20+ years ago. I’m really glad they missed the rec to sleep on their backs, as getting them to sleep and to stay asleep would have been even harder that it already was. Dd would sleep in my arms anywhere with any amount of disturbance. Put her down-stomach, back or otherwise- and she’d start wailing. Spoiled rotten, I tell you.</p>