R's rue: 03/05/23

Screentime

Phoebe has slept at our house for the past four nights and she is asleep in her cot right now for the fifth night in a row. Her mum has also slept over through the weekend. Phoebe's daddy - Stewart - will be back from France tomorrow afternoon so mummy and daughter's little holiday is almost over.

I guess that most western families face the dilemma of screen-time for little children. Should they have any screentime at all? How should it be rationed? What should they be watching? Does screen-time cause any harm?

Phoebe has two little cousins residing in the suburbs of Perth, Western Australia. They are called Alexander and Florence - never shortened - and for them watching screens is absolutely forbidden. That seems quite harsh but who knows what the best way forward is? Certainly not me - but what I do know is that screens are not going away and they will feature in every child's life as they move into the future.

It was different for me and my generation. Many of us didn't have any screen-time at all because there were no computers or smartphones and television was only just catching on. It's so different now.

Phoebe loves Peppa Pig and Trotro (thanks to Andrew in Melbourne!) as well as Mr Tumble and "Twirlywoos" plus film versions of wonderful children's books by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler - "The Gruffalo", "The Smeds and The Smoos", "The Whale and The Snail", "Superworm" etcetera. It can be hard to drag our little girl away from screen-time. She always wants more and "one more" doesn't usually mean that. As I say, it is something of a dilemma for us and countless others.

Anyway the main purpose of this blogpost is to share three pictures of Phoebe taken in the last week. She continues to grow physically, mentally and emotionally and remains a constant joy. It is getting hard to remember life without her.