10 days as a single parent - Day 1
If you follow my Twitter stream, you probably caught the fact that I am playing mum to my 9 year old cousin for 10 days. Being essentially homeless before I pack my suitcase and begin an around the world trip next month, the offer of a house in my old hood 5 mins from the city was just too tempting, even if the offer did come with a 9 year old only child in tow. To make the most of it, I’ve decided to turn it into an experiment on how she interacts with and reacts to technology.
So Tuesday morning we waved goodbye to Mum and Dad and began what is sure to be an eye opener. In the beginning she was on her best behaviour and I could tell she was not very relaxed. I pulled out my iPhone and started watching Maru videos on YouTube with her. Nothing like a good cat video to break the ice! While we had 2 computers in the room, the iPhone was the perfect device because it was something only the two of us could watch so it became a shared moment, like I was letting her in on a secret.
9 is an interesting age. Old enough to do things for herself and yet not old enough to think “what’s next?” She gets totally mesmerised by the tv and will stare at it for minutes, letting whatever she was doing go by the wayside until you snap her out of it, and even so, snapping her out of it is no mean feat. It doesn’t matter what is on and I haven’t been able to pinpoint if it’s anything in particular the piques her attention like that, but it is like she goes into a trance. I have never seen anything like it and quite frankly, it’s a little scary that the tv can affect her so dramatically.
She has an iPod Touch and a computer and uses them both in equal amounts, mostly to play games. Her favourite games are anything with sounds. She always has the sound on, no matter how repetitive and annoying it is. She will snack on the games, playing them for a few minutes then switching to something else. When she focuses on a device, she loses track of everything else around her, so keeping her moving in the morning is a struggle when she gets so easily distracted. I wonder if her inability to multitask is connected to the fact that she is an only child and has never had a sibling to bounce off and keep her on her toes…just a thought.
