Techie Baby

It is NOT that Mama got direct criticism on her stand about Kecil and technology,
And it's NOT that Kecil has her own gadgets either,
But Kecil most definitely seems to have a free access to a lot of Mama's gadgets,
And there is a part of this Mama who always seem to say "Are you crazy?" kind of stuff at this,
So we'll use this chance to hopefully address that voice while also hopefully creating a map into the future regarding our uses of technology.

If we were to point fingers, Mama would freely admit of being responsible for Kecil's techie inclination, by introducing to Kecil the joy of watching Baa on Mama's computer. Honestly, Mama was just so bemused by Kecil's reaction to Baa (she loved it!), and anyway, playing Baa is a pretty effective diversionary tactic when Mama is too tired to play with Kecil at night.
Still... the result was that Kecil was hooked.
And by the age of two, she was pretty used to Mama's computer.

And then of course there was the blog, for which Mama have to provide visual documentation, which means... LOTS of photo session. Uhmm.. not quite a big wonder why Kecil got used to the camera and started wanting to take her own pics, yes?

There was a time when she was actually OK with the camera phone while Mama kept the bigger camera. Those were the days. Nowadays, she's just grabby about anything that Mama does.

VERY grabby, indeed!

While the possessive Mama really would prefer to keep her camera in her hands, thank you very much, Mama the parent was slightly at loss on a proper reasoning to deny Kecil the permission to learn to use it. Saying that the camera is too sophisticated for her does not seem to make sense once Kecil showed that she managed to find the shutter release button all on her own through copying Mama in action.
Even saying that the camera is too heavy is no longer true (see photo above).

It so does not help that Kecil can look like THIS when she's campaigning for something that she wants:

Coupled with quite a few decent shots, like these and those below, let's just say this Mama ran out of arguments and give Kecil some chance under very close supervision, that is.
Oh, and the admonition "And for goodness sake, don't. Ever. Drop. The camera. Yes?"

Kecil's love affair with various gadgets was also fueled by her gadget-loving clan. Check out Kecil playing with her Eyang's iPad and her Tante's nifty camera (I think Kecil secretly thinks the camera should belong to her since it fits her hands so nicely!)

This Mama believes that even a young child is already her own person, with her own opinion, wants and needs. Children often understand so much more than they are being given credit for, and you'll be surprised on how reasoning your decisions with them can often result in a much better compromise than simply enforcing your will by using your position as a parent.

This Mama had given Kecil access to Mama's gadgets with the condition that Kecil really knows what she was doing and will not willfully damage the said gadgets. Also Kecil is only allowed access under close supervision, with consequences for not following rules.

With regards to computers, this Mama is inclined to think of it as a wonderful tool, one that can be so useful for learning as well as entertainment. While Kecil definitely gets her daily fix of Baa, we also often browse Google Image for visual trips of animals, fruits, etc. There are also times when we play just using TextEdit to familiarize her with alphabets using fun colors (it helps that choosing color on the said program was also visualized using crayon colors rather than the usual color wheel).
Not to forget that Kecil had seen the usefulness of computers in keeping in touch with her extended family using Skype.

Technology would continue to evolve as we move forward into the future. Rather than shunning technology, this Mama is more into embracing technology. Likelihood is that we would continue in the same thread of letting Kecil explore the various gadgets around the house while keeping a close watch nearby. Hopefully her explorations would also inspire her parents to continue moving forward, keeping up with the latest innovation (not same as keeping up with the Joneses, mind you), both in the interest of keeping ourselves up to date, as well as keeping up with the Little One.

This Mama can see soon enough into the future where Kecil would be able to find her own way on the internet, browsing YouTube, having her own Facebook account (not for another 10 years, actually!), even writing her own blog! We would definitely like her to be able to do all these, but more importantly, benefit from them, rather than becoming a victim of fads.
These are the things that we will keep in mind as we move forward.

Added 25/08/11:
After all, it's been a while since she did this:

 
How about you? What is your stand on your Little Ones and technology? Do you let them perch on top of your printer as well? Apparently it's the latest trend ;p