Addiction to tablets
(or a hard pill to swallow)
If I was going to give
Mini-Me a tablet at Christmas, it would have been packaged in a
blister pack and said “Calpol” on the box. The one she actually
got (not from me but from her abroad-dwelling father who promised it
to her way back in May) seems to precipitate headaches rather
alleviate them.
Take the other day:
Mini-Me was supposed to be getting ready for her Saturday morning
activity while I was getting ready for work. Was she getting ready?
Was she heck! She was on the tablet playing one of these games she
had downloaded. I'm not sure if it was “Temple Run” (which
involves following a desperate figure running around an ancient
building seemingly looking for the loo) or “Subway Surfer” (
which worryingly involves graffiti and possibly trains). Either way,
she knew it was an inappropriate time to be playing. This, as well as
other infractions varying from not giving me school letters (causing
my non-payment of school lunch money - quel embarrassment!) to
READING when she was supposed to be HELPING caused this paragon of
self-control and inner peace to blow her top.
“How are you going to
manage at secondary school” I ranted, “if you cannot do what you
are supposed to do without being reminded?” Maybe it was my fault
for being too soft on her all these years. Historically, I have never
been very good at punishment. This is partly down to being a sufferer
of acute “OCAF” (only child absent father) guilt syndrome, and
partly because her misdemeanours never seem grave enough to warrant
it. (Can you really tell a child off for reading??) Which led me to
my good cop bad cop dilemma (being the only cop in the house, it's
sort of a dual role, actually). It was time for bad cop to pipe up.
“I'm taking your
tablet away now because I need you to understand that when you don't
do what you are supposed to do (i.e. listen to me), or when you do
what you are not supposed to do (i.e. play games on the tablet at the
wrong time), there is a consequence. I think I haven't done this
before so it's about time I started.” This virtual admission on my
part that her repeated transgressions were indirectly my fault, had a
completely neutral effect: “I think that's a good idea, mummy,
because I don't want to be the kind of person who gets addicted to
games on the tablet. And anyway, I have managed perfectly well
without it all these years.”
I thought telling her
to use a book instead of the interweb for her science research
homework would annoy her but no, not at all. Ladies and gentlemen, I
give you The Punishment That's Not a Punishment At All.
So I have changed tack.
Incentives are the way forward. On Mini-Me's birthday wishlist was a
pack of 20 Staedler Triplus felt tips that lots of her friends have.
They have a triangular barrel and don't dry out if you leave the top
off but they are about 1000% more expensive than a pack from the
poundshop. Did I get them for her? Yes! Have I given them to her? NO.
As I write I am hatching a cunning plan: I'm going to give her the
empty box as incentive to earn one to two pens a day (starting with
black, then brown, then grey, beige...) IF she does everything she's
supposed to WITHOUT me having to nag.
So at a rate of 1.5
pens a day, that gives me around 2 weeks turn her into a reformed
Mini-Me who makes her bed, does all her homework on time, and
practices her instruments every day as well as anything else I deem
essential to her personal growth (par exemple: emptying the washing
machine and hanging the clothes to dry). In the mean time, I'm going
to do my own research into installing parental controls on the gadget
to make it a bit harder for her to go google-eyed.
Assuming, of course,
that I can remember where I hid it.
For more Life on the
Edge with Angelina (including the results of her parental control -
both human and gadget,) visit mynotesfromtheedge.blogspot.com.
Angelina runs Sing and Sign award-winning baby signing classes in
Harrow, Bushey and Rickmansworth. More info at www.singandsign.com.
