During the initial induction phase, we were ever grateful to the iPad. Hats off to Steve Jobs for inventing one of the most addictive devices for kids! The instant audio-visual entertainment from apps was hard to beat. She would spend hours on Osmo apps (tangram, numbers, word, coding), ABCmouse.com, and several gaming, cooking and other apps. But continued hours with iPad = iMad = iSad = iBad. Breaking this was key to better sleep, mobility, and well-being.
Our oncologist noted that, “The American Pediatric Association recommends not more than 2-3 hours of iPad or TV for kids this age”.
Wow, we were at the opposite extreme — our daughter was probably without the iPad for that time during the day!! That was her way of coping with the trauma and stress of being stuck at the hospital for a month…
And she wasn’t alone. Every time I took a stroll in the hospital, or saw other kids, they too seemed hooked to a smartphone or screen…
How were we going to wean her off the iPad?
As mama bear in Berenstain Bears puts it, “When you want to remove a bad habit, start by introducing good habits”. But unlike the bear family, rules wouldn’t work in this case. Instead, we tried a combination of rewards and doing fun activities together. As she was watching her iPad, I would sit by her and start coloring something funny, read an interesting book, or play puzzles like word hunt or tangram. Nothing worked the first few times… I kept trying to draw her into the activity — “what hairdo do you think we should draw for this princess?”, “what color do you think we should use?”, “could you help me with this word?”, “hmm, I can’t seem to find this word in the word hunt”, “I wonder how to make this tangram shape”… Eventually, she would join in the activity and take over the art, or puzzle, or read the book by herself 🙂
We also incentivized her with stickers and jewels for selecting good activities over iPad or TV. This paid off quite well, as described in this post. By the end of the consolidation phase, our kid was spending <3 hours/day on the iPad, choosing from a wide range of fun activities, and much happier.