What moms want: Peace of mind

MANILA, Philippines - My seven-year-old child spends almost five hours in front of the computer, I must confess that I like these precious hours because I could catch up with my cleaning minus the small feet running here and there. But while enjoying my moment of silence scrubbing the kitchen floor, I can’t help but look over her shoulders to check what makes her transfixed on her computer screen.  

Sometimes, I could catch her chatting with her friends on Facebook. Yes! I don’t know how in the world a minor created an account, but she told me that her friends had their own and she recently got an invitation from her teacher to be a “friend.” It just occurred to me that even teachers couldn’t dissuade their students from joining the social network, and the least they could do is to go undercover to monitor their activities and the people their students associate with. 

Then one day, I caught her answering a multiplication problem online. What the heck! Those numerical problems are almost the same as the cards that I flash on her face, and the points that she earn online are nothing compared with the sweet treats I give her as a reward. But the kind of reception that I usually get is 10 minutes of her concentration, and that computer game, all of her free time.

I know that gone are the days when children were crazy about street games, which sometimes I am thankful for because I know how hard it is to yank a child out in the middle of a tumbang preso or Chinese garter games. In fact, a study shows that even preschoolers use the computer at an average of 28 minutes daily, and the amount of time spent increases as they age. These online games and social networking sites appear as a threat to my child’s concentration on her studies, interpersonal relationships, and safety. 

To gain peace of mind, I pretended to be interested in what my daughter is doing. She has entered this site called Sqwishland cramped with other kids’ avatars with pets following them everywhere. Then I noticed that there’s an avatar named MODJuicyFruit leading the children to a game resembling a street game, only it is online. I learned at the latter part of the game that she was the moderator when she tried to warn a naughty avatar. To be honest, I didn’t notice the time flying fast as my daughter and I helped each other in playing the mini games such as color identification, matching games, and math games. Then she told me that the reward she likes next time for getting a high score in the math exam is a Sqwishland capsule toy. She said that she needed to complete a quest inside Sqwishland and a code from the toy was needed. Maybe that is the same capsule toy my friend (who happens to be a teacher in the US) was talking about. According to her, the rewards that she is giving out now are not stars stamped on the child’s wrist but small toys costing not more than a quarter of a dollar.

After exploring the online game my daughter introduced, I realized that because of the dimensions, colors, and its interactive nature, online games are a natural teacher.

The repeated practice is a great mind exercise, while the rewards children get after a skillful play are a good motivation for them to complete a task and focus on a specific goal, such as beating the highest scorer or finding the clues hidden in that virtual world. 

I used to be a strong critic of online games because I thought it promoted alienation among children as they spend hours playing on the computer. There was even a study that some children use virtual games as a venue to escape abusive parents, siblings, and classmates. But online games for kids, such as Sqwishland, promote sociability and improved interpretive skills by chatting safely with other kids and learning clues from the emoticons used by their online playmates. Another good thing about it is that they could have friends across the world without the need to divulge their personal information. 

I still believe that the traditional learning and socializing technique are good because they had been tested, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that technology prompts me to Esc or delete some of the old ways. The challenge now is for modern moms to strike a happy balance between the two.