Video Killed the Radio Star

"What can I do?" she asked after dinner.

She wanted to go outside and play as the weather was warmish but it was getting later and she needed a bath and she had been up since 6am (ask me how I know)

So, I suggested that she go downstairs into the family room and clean up the big mess she made because if you don't, Dad is going to start donating stuff to the garbageman.

She went downstairs, and then five minutes later came back with her little digital camera and starts to show me what I thought were photos at first.

But I was quickly corrected: "Dad, it's a video!".

I absentmindedly replied that her job was to clean the family room of her toys and not make videos.

She was quick to correct me that she indeed was cleaning the family room and as proof, she recorded a video with her little camera.

"Look!" she said as she handed me the camera

And lo and behold: a very fuzzy video from an ant's perspective of her little socked feet bouncing around and picking up toys. It's a miracle, and I have this on video

I would share the video but it's late and takes way too many steps to get it from the internals of her camera to here in your email so you're just going to have to use your imagination.

This got me thinking:

She's of the "YouTube Generation". Yes, I know millennials will say that they are, but they were born late '90's to early 2000's. Computers were still beige and big and ugly then. They may have caught up in their later years but these little ones were watching videos on a screen before their first birthday cake and they haven't stopped since.

Video is second nature to these kids.

Video is normal and electronics are normal to them.

Her favorite toys are the tablet and this camera. She likes the camera because on school nights she's not allowed the tablet, but nobody said anything about no camera so she's figured this out and is now creating videos and photos and playing games on this cheap digital camera from China (now with extra tarriffs!)

She solved a lot of problems tonight:

1. She turned a chore of cleaning into a fun thing.
2. This showed me she can behave and listen
3. She figured a way around the "no tablet rule"

That's my Girl. Good Job!