Kids and Buttons

The whole "kids understanding gadgets with buttons" thing is amazing to us. When Alana was 3, she wanted to play with the XBox, so I'd put Oddworld on and walk Stranger (the main character) toward the screen so she could see his face (which she found fascinating), and then give her the controller so she could walk him around. At that point, she didn't really get it. Last night, though, within about 5 mins our 4-year-old daughter and her 3-year-old cousin were playing Wii Sports bowling (and beating us). We stopped into a toystore the other day, and our 18-mo old walked around the store trying to manipulate every toy on the two shelves he could reach to see if it had buttons that produced any novel result. Spending any time at all with little kids (or with me ) makes it clear that a need for novel stimulation is part of the human condition--sensory deprivation can really mess with people if it goes too long. It's no wonder that solitary confinement can be so effective--same deal for timeouts in the corner. I remember seeing details of studies on infant perception that measured how interesting babies found things by how long they looked at them. Very quickly kids get bored and lose interest unless the stimulation changes in some way. See Mom? I did listen to *some* lectures!