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Playing Baby Computer Games - The New Parent-child Tradition?
By Emma Rath, Fri Dec 9th
Imagine cuddling up with your small child to look at a picturebook together that is interactive, musical, responsive and talksto you? This is the experience that people are having who are engaged inthat relatively new pastime – playing with babies. JumpStart’s Knowledge Adventure calls it “lapware”, KiddiesGames’ logo is “Hop on the lap and tap”, and Sesame Street’s“Baby and Me” opens with an animation of a baby monster hoppingonto the lap of a Daddy monster to play the computer. Playingcomputer games with your baby is being promoted as a funactivity that a child and their caregiver can share together.And rightly so, because whatever the activity, physical, lovingcloseness is an important ingredient that infants need forhealthy intellectual, emotional and physical development.
Reading a bedtime story to a small eager child is a tradition inmany homes. As the children get older, this may be replaced bywatching TV together. Our parents’ families listened to theradio together. Playing on the computer with a small child maybecome a new type of family tradition. Home computers andinternet are making their way into more and more homes. Someparents use the computer in their work and are delighted toshare the computer for a fun activity with their kids. Otherparents want to make sure their children become computerliterate. Well-designed, interactive, educational computer gamesengage small children as much as the television and are moreeducational than TV because they incite the child to interactand think, rather than passively watch and listen. These are thereasons for the increasing popularity of toddler computersoftware. Although a relatively small industry, software forinfants has been cited as being a very fast growing industry. What type of computer software is available for babies, toddlersand preschoolers? There are free games on websites and there aredownload and CDROM software that you can buy. Most software forthis age group is games, but computer story books also exist.Wonderful websites that offer free games of which many aresuitable for preschoolers (preschoolers are able to do directedclicking with the mouse) are: http://www.sesamestreet.org/sesamestreet http://www.noggin.comhttp://www.cbc.ca/kidscbc http://www.abc.net.au/children/gameshttp://www.meddybemps.com Great free sites for babies (whose skills tend to be morelimited to banging the keyboard) are: http://www.kiddiesgames.com http://www.toddletoons.com CDROM or download software that you buy is usually better thanfree internet games. The games are usually superior (moregraphics, more music, more involved games for older kids) andthe software takes over the entire screen, which is moreappropriate for very young children who click anywhere andeverywhere on the screen. Some of the well-known producers are: Reader Rabbit software from http://www.learningcompany.comJumpStart software from http://www.knowledgeadventure.comFisher-Price software from http://www.knowledgeadventure.comSesame Street software from http://www.encoresoftware.com orhttp://www.amazon.com http://www.babywow.com Computer game softwares for this age group make conscientiousefforts to be suitably educational. To judge their effectivenessfor your child, try them out with your child. If your childfinds that it’s fun, then it’s probably educational. For a baby,fun usually means that the game
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