Techie kids amaze me

I'm pretty sure I wrote about this before, but as I'm reading an article about the best math apps for pre-schoolers...I have some more thoughts on it now that little man will be 3 in a few months. (ugh. did I just say that? almost 3?!)

In this day and age, we can't get away from technology and electronics.  We use it every day, we're surrounded by it; heck, for some of us it's part of our bodies. I remember a few years ago there was this uproar about how we "should" be raising our kids - how they need to put the iPad down and go play outside like the old days.  Well. News Flash! These aren't those times anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I totally limit iPad time. Plus I know for a fact when he's at the sitters during the work week, he's playing and learning the old fashioned way (mostly).  I told her he only should get a short time with the Leap Pad.  Plus, she doesn't like it because he only watches Team Umi Zoomi and doesn't actually play any of the learning games.  I agree.  Thankful for her and her family EVERY DAY.  Little man is in a good place.

That said, I actually am a big advocate of iPad learning.  I sit and interact with him if I can while he's using it.  I point out things and call them out, I ask him to tell me where things are, and he tells me what they are too.  He gets excited when something fun happens on the screen. He gets frustrated when something doesn't work the way he expects it to.  Downtime is movie time.  He loves short films. Actually, he watches far too many movies/tv shows in my opinion.  But I do give him a lot of downtime and that's what he wants to do. Thankfully, they're all age appropriate.

The other day I watched him expertly navigate through pages of apps until he found the one he wanted.  Toca Train.

I watched him as he started the train, stopped the train to pick up a person, select their seat, start the train, pull the train whistle, speed the train up, change the screen view, slow the train down, stop the train to pick up cargo, sort through the cargo, select which cargo he wanted (it was a pumpkin), put the cargo on the train, start the train again, pull the train whistle, change the screen view, stop the train, dropped off someone, picked someone else up, selected their seat, start the train, pull the whistle...and do it all over again. I sat there in silent amazement as I watched him.  It seemed extraordinarily simple to me, the tasks he was doing with the train.  But I slowly realized he was doing a more complex order of tasks.  Something that is simple, but something that isn't necessarily innate and must be learned.  He was processing this quietly, planning out a course of action.

It's not just this one game I realized.  He's been doing that with several other games.  I noticed he's less frustrated now because he understands the different concepts with the different games and can apply them. He amazes me every day.

This is just one observation I've made with the iPad use.  And maybe it's just because he knows how to use the game now, but I marvel at the complexity of our brains and how we learn. I marvel at the beauty of what God and nature have given us.  I marvel at our very being.

Seriously though, I'm totally going to be my mom when he gets older and I do not know how to operate some new fancy technology asking him for help ALL THE TIME.  Man, I hope not.