Gadget Limits

Somewhere around last December, a senior told me about how addicted her children were to her iPad and made her set time limits on how many hours per day she allows her children to use the iPad. I had thought that it was not a problem for me...until two days ago. I came home late at night from a very tiring working day in Penang and upon opening the door, not yet taking off my shoes, my 2 year old son with eyes brightly lit upon seeing me said "Mama, iPad mana?"

That's how he sees me. Mama = iPad. I felt so neglected.

Cute Kai Rooney. Modern childhood?

The next day (yesterday), I woke up with a bad headache and a body ache from Penang's exhaustion. Today's tasks at work only added to that. When I came home from work, again the first thing that he reached out for was not my hand to hold but the iPad I was holding in my hand. His cute little fingers started swiping across the iPad screen and in just a few seconds, he was entranced. He knew how to unlock iPad and iPhones ever since he was 1 year old. At that time, he even had a cute puzzled look on his face when he swiped his finger across the blank tv screen but nothing happened.

While I was just changing from my office attire upstairs, I heard my kids quarrelling downstairs and ended up with both of them crying and wailing. Macam kena dera dasyat sangat. Drama king (Irfan) and queen (Umairah). I rushed downstairs and saw that Mr.H had a scowling look on his face. Turns out the kids were quarrelling over the iPad and so Mr.H decided to hide it.

When they see me and the first thing that pops in their mind is an iPad (mama equals to iPad) and start throwing tantrums for not getting the iPad (or whatever electronic gadgets), you know that a "normalcy" line has been crossed. Despite my iPad being a splendid pacifier (and I tell myself it's a good learning tool just to justify my action), we just had to set a limit. 

We (me & Mr.H) decided that the kids would only be allowed to play with the iPad on weekends, for two hours each. Monday to Friday I'll have to keep the iPad out of their sight. Maybe I'll just keep it at my office and only bring it home on holidays. Depriving myself of my own iPad just to try and set things right. Hope it works. Sigh.