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Comment by derwiki | Hacker News Reader

While this sounds intriguing, I still don't feel great about shoving a screen in front of my two year old--especially when she already seems to be starting to learn to read from books with us. It makes me feel a bit like a Luddite, but I know she'll be hooked on digital devices soon enough.

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I fully respect this guy's method but I'm with you on the screen avoidance. Something always feels off about that.

My son was reading / doing arithmetic by the time he turned three and we did it screenless. All I ever did was point to everything I was reading while I was reading it.

And for whatever it's worth as a parent of a kid way above his grade level doing math and reading I highly suspect that it's not that important ultimately. I just feel like teaching them stuff is more fun for me personally than listening to them watch paw patrol.

A screen is just a tool. It’s up to the parent how they will use this tool - for education, or just for keeping the kid busy. A child does not know that you can watch cartoons on your mobile until you show it to them. Until this point a mobile screen can be whatever you want it to be.

Well there's the screen part of it, but for me it's the idea of having a 2 year old drill and memorize facts every day. I'm sure many kids will enjoy the attention they receive from their parents for doing it. But this age is all about imaginative and pretend play, exploration, and learning by interacting with the world and others.

Why is it all about imaginative and pretend play? That was only a phenomenon for maybe fifty years of human history. Prior to that it was about learning survival skills or work skills.

What makes you think that young children haven't been pretend playing since the dawn of humanity? It's part of how children develop theory of mind and empathy, by walking through different roles and imagining how that person might behave. It's also how they process and internalize previous events. They'll reenact an event over and over.

Rough and tumble play is also thought to have some importance in child development, and it isn't limited to humans.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/imhj.21676 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01497...

The trade off, I think, is that using a device allows for audio and video, which may be more compelling to kids than books.

Personally I think I would start with paper cards and then switch to a screen (Anki) after a couple years.

There are good screens and bad screens.

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