"I wanted to build something for my 3-year old son that he could understand and use independently"
As a father I can't imagine ever leaving a 3-year-old alone with media so they can be 'independent'. If for no other reason, that's an age and developmental stage where media should be almost nonexistent in their lives.
The way i read the article, was not that the kid is unsupervised, more to give some agency.
The same way you might say to a kid, "pick out the book you want me to read to you off the shelf" this is something like, pick the video we are going to watch together.
Next time you're around children in a library look at those that are glued to their screens versus those reading picture books. Equating them as the same is so hilariously expected from a tech forum tho.
This sort of blanket judgement on media puts quite a lot of pressure on parents that require an electronic babysitter to function. Sure, it's great when you have a support network and a child who can keep themselves busy, but some of us just need Mrs. Rachel, Caillou, Daniel Tiger, etc to sedate/educate our children while we cook/clean/work/etc.
Besides, non-interactive, low-stimulation media with a plot line and simple dialog is not on the same level as giving your child a tablet and letting them have at it.
My real concern with this project is the amount of time the builder spent away from his children. Now I get it that some folks(dads on the spectrum?) might feel their best contribution to their child's development stems from something they build in the lab but your children are only young for such a short period and taking time away from them to build a custom electronic solution seems narrowminded and selfish.
A good book that explains it all is The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes, which came out the same year as this article.
Like many truths, it's actually well-known and frequently discussed in public, but hard to hear amongst all the noise of corporate messaging and decades of bad dietary 'advice' from both public and private institutions.
To paraphrase the Oracle in the Matrix: What's really going to bake your noodle later on is--saturated fat isn't the culprit in CVD either. And that's equally well-supported yet drowned out for the same reasons ('nonfat all the things!').
Ha--totally agree about the 'house full of easy first steps'. I have a few.
But I think it all still applies; the key is to keep taking small steps toward the thing, not just 'keep taking small steps'. You look at a successful small step and (like I wrote) ask 'what's the next step?' that will build on it.
Curious about that book - did it help you? Silly questions, but serious: How much did it help? What, specifically, did you get from it? Asking for a relative who has serious anxiety issues (no, really, it's not me... I have depression, and Burns' "Feeling Good" helped me substantially, specifically by identifying brain-spirals I get into, which lead to depression, and once known can be avoided). I'd love to recommend something good for them. Thanks!
It's not hyperbole to say it changed my life. The most valuable thing I got from it is a good understanding of what's actually happening, and how I can change it. It's such a great, readable, easy-to-understand book (in my opinion). I've given away several copies.
Genuine question to understand - have you tried this approach to build or break any habit for yourself? What were the learnings from it - what worked and what didn't? And how did you tweak the approach for the next habit?
Short answer: yes, I have--walking. I think the main learnings were (a) have faith in absurdly small steps, repeated, and (b) my anxious brain is always looking for the slightest excuse to skip it. No real tweaks, except keep trying to make the step smaller.
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