My wife and I have been thinking about getting Eli a Apple iTouch for the holidays. He is always playing Tiny Towers, Angry Birds or Words with Friends on our phones and tablets that it is getting a little annoying. The problem is simple, he is not the most responsible kid on the planet and like most kids his age would simply fling the device on the table or floor when something else catches his eye. In other words, is six years old to young to have such an expensive “toy”.
Eli is extremely smart, even with his development issues. He loves music, sings all the time (He loves Brittney Spears, Adele, Lady GaGa etc) and we enjoy the fact that part of his education is via music. So having an iTouch is a natural progression of him having his own identity, his own music, his own apps etc. I want him to have it, although I don’t want it to overwhelm him. As most of you know any child who has developmental issues such as being on the spectrum of Autism can result in objects becoming a crutch and a mandatory part of the childs existence. Eli loves to make up games associated with the toy of the day, so in this case he loves to lay in bed and ask me ” Dad…what is on the fourteenth floor in Tiny Towers. The abbreviation is IA. I am supposed to guess Izzy Apartments and god forbid I get it wrong (his photographic memory allows him to remember what floor is what, what product is being sold etc).
Half the fun for me is changing the colors of the floors in the Tiny Towers game to see if he notices, which of course he does. Today we had a Tiny Towers blip where I lost a few floors, plenty of people, money and gold coins. Enough to throw Eli for a loop, a temper tantrum an a possible meltdown. Although they are becoming few and far between, his addiction to this game is going to result in an issue with the blip. I wrote support for the game telling them what happened but I am not sure they will respond in time.
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