Tip 74: Seeing her photos online can stop her crying

There are a few ways to make Haruka instantly stop crying. One way is to offer some nice sweets, cakes or ice cream. But that's a no no according to mummy so as not to spoil her teeth. Daddy rationalizes that its baby teeth anyway but mummy is very strict in not having any tooth decay on Haruka. To avoid being banned from the bedroom, I comply. The second way is to let Haruka play my cell phone. There is a used and old cell phone that I let her play everyday. Since Haruka received phone calls from her granddad and grandmum, she has been amused to use the phone in case voices calling her name would start again. But Haruka knows that this cell phone that she plays is not functioning. When she cries, I let her play my working cell phone instead. If she is in a very bad mood and touching my cell phone alone does not help, I will turn on videos of her that I have saved on this cell phone. Seeing and hearing herself sing on the phone will immediately stop her crocodile tears. Previously, when Haruka was 3 months old, she would be intrigued by a voice recording alone, but now she needs to both see and hear something interesting. My blog is another thing that can capture her attention. Seeing the different photos on this blog, I would say "hey can you see your Bow, wow dog. Is that pretty Haruka and handsome daddy".

Babies under 1 year old can already respond to cartoon shows, TV commercials of delicious food and dancing people, amusing videos on phones and familiar photos on blogs. Its amazing that this generation of kids and babies are so different from 1-2 generations ago when TV, cellphones and the Internet/computer were not in existence yet. The word multimedia was not even coined then. What would be the psychological and social impact of such media to children? In my opinion, these media can make children independent from their parents and that's what we should avoid. Letting them watch and be amused by themselves and leave them alone is a no no. Instead, use these media as a last resort to spend some time with the child. Last resort because there are better ways for babies and children to learn such as playing with baby toys creatively, reading baby books and crawling around to observe their environment better. Yes, baby can still learn a lot from watching the TV commercials or childrens' program of kids running, jumping, dancing and singing but that can wait. There is a whole wealth of information to be obtained by the baby exploring and just playing with simple things around her surroundings. How she moves about, falls down, reach for things will ensure she has good motor skills and have a good understanding of her environment and space. That's so much better than learning to sing when she can't yet. So Haruka, you can only use the computer with parental guidance now until you are XX years old.... hmmm when can she start?