When Your Child Prefers the App to the Blocks

Screens are easy to choose

An app gives instant feedback. Blocks ask the child to invent the game. Given a tired afternoon, most humans of any age pick the easier option. This is not a moral failing.

Check the shelf first

Is there anything out that your child can start without help? A shelf with three familiar activities gets chosen more often than a basket of lovely things on a high shelf.

Offer company, not variety

"I will sit with you and build" is more persuasive than a new toy. Most screen preference at four is really a request for an adult who is not doing five other things.

Keep a clear boundary

If the rule is one activity before dinner, hold it without a lecture. Boundaries that come with speeches feel like arguments, and arguments are interesting.

Watch what they do after

If your child takes the colour ideas from the app to the crayons, the app is feeding play, not replacing it. That is the sign to relax.

Do not ban it to prove a point

A banned app becomes the most interesting object in the house. Keep it ordinary.