Lots of playtime spent on tablets = less time learning to use hands for what hands have always been used for. Just saying.

Right, Jeoffry! On our 9-hour drive this summer, I had my 1 year-old and 3 year-old complete macrame and needlepoint projects and perfect their calligraphic handwriting while in their carseats, instead of playing with a silly tablet.

Next week, I will teach them how to whittle a stick using a sharp knife and change the oil on my car. Now that would be 'handy'!

True that the tablets can take away from time for arts and crafts. In my house, we are heavy users of both tech and other stuff. The best way to keep the kids in the craft mode is to buy lots of craft materials, glue guns, coloring things (paints, markers, etc), sewing machines, fabrics and stuffing materials, and then set up a space for all of that stuff. I cornered off a part of my basement for a crafts studio with wall length bench, work table and Expedit from Ikea filled with cubbies full of craft things. My daughter has been an arts and craft fanatic since she was old enough to pick up a crayon. Now, at 16, she makes full use of the studio. But she also likes to dally on her macbook air and is in the process of sketching out her first gypsy caravan. We are going to have to move out of the basement for that.
If your kid sees something he/she likes, challenge them to make it. Start with Halloween costumes. They will have hours and hours of fun if they have the right materials.

Jeoffry has clearly never spent time on a long car trip or in a long waiting area with small children. Might want to dial back the smugness a notch or twelve, hon, since if you knew anything about kids, you'd know how naive your comment is. Just saying.

Denizenof20540, you are so funny!

Khinnj, sounds like you have struck a wonderful balance.

Kimberlyrose, my parents never had a car. As a small child on cross-country train trips and in waiting rooms, I was well provided with coloring books, dot-to-dot books, puzzle books, and other inexpensive but time-occupying activities. My own children, in the prehistoric days before tablets, were well able to amuse themselves with books, soft toys, looking out the window, and making up imaginary dialogues with each other during long car trips.

It continues to concern me that the ubiquity of technological devices allows everyone, of all ages, to neglect time-honored skills. Again, I do respect the balance that Khinnj has achieved.

When some of my nieces and nephews were younger, I got a couple of those old fashioned looking car bingo cards. The kids loved looking out the window to find things like "silo" and train track signs. It kept them engaged, didn't drive their mother crazy, and was low tech. I also kept drawing paper and pens for plane trips which again they loved creating things. But this was before touch technology. Still, I think kids should be engaged in old fashioned tactile things to inspire.

Just checking in (this is one of my favorite sites) and see the new post about 30 DIY projects for the upcoming 3-day weekend, all of which are accomplished by the use of real live hands! and skills!

Recycleg, I like your use of language: "old fashioned tactile things" -- that nails it.

Surprised that you didn't cover apps that try and combine creativity and screen time. There are some great ones like Pirate Scribblebeards Treasure by Kidoodle and Toontastic by Launchpad Toys. These are a good choice if your kid is into the iPad but you want more than just mindless casual games

Michelangelocaparo, I don't deny that many apps foster creativity. Long may they prosper. My concern is with the abandonment of the human body for activities that take place only in the mind. Not that I'm knocking mental nourishment -- far from it! To paraphrase the well-known slogan: it's terrible to waste a perfectly good mind, but it's also terrible to waste perfectly good hands by stunting their physical activity during children's developmental years, when they have a matchless opportunity to learn by experience the wonderful things that hands can do.

My 5 year old is obsessed with Kingdom Rush and Spy v. Spy (from ye ole MAD magazine!).

We play outside, ride bikes, do arts and crafts, and play apps and video games in our house. My children, much like my husband and I, enjoy doing different things at different times. No one thing will entertain us all the time.

On a long road trip, what hands have always been used for is tormenting siblings. Less time learning to do that is a good thing, in my book.

My kids love Martha Steward craft studio. Our rule, ride over 2 hours, they get the tablet. Less than that = books/drawing/playing etc.

I travel internationally for work a lot and always have schlepped my family along - since my eldest was two months old. My children have flown from NYC to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Zurich -- the list goes on -- all sans screentime. Long taxi rides to the airport, long wait times at gates, long flights, long connections... They have books, legos, snacks, window views, their parents, other children or passengars who initiate interactions, and their imaginations. I actually loaded up my ipad with apps on our most recent trip, thinking that surely if everyone else does it.. But no situation ever called for electronic distraction -- two 8+hr flights (one overnight, one morning/afternoon) and a five hour mid-day train ride. Perhaps it would be harder if we did provide access to screens but that which they do not know to request, does not get requested. I think there are some really fantatic education apps out there and I think my children would grow up just fine if that was a tool in our arsenal we employed during "boring" times in our family life. Just fine. We just never used it in the past, and now that they are older (two and a half and four) they seem to have developed their own arsenal. I'll say this: who knows if it is nurture or nature (probably both) but they are both very verbal, very outgoing children. They kind of 'make their own apps' out of their environment. Yesterday we took a two hour bus ride from NYC to the Jersey shore. We got to Port Authority an hour early to get a front seat on the bus (best views). I distracted them with a 'pretzel party' and the two year old strolled around, offering pretzels to the other people waiting in line. Teenagers popped out ear phones and put away *their* iphones to interact with him, mocking high manners, taking a single pretzel out of his bag, asking him his name, his age. On the bus, my four year old called out things he say: track excavators, backhoes, tanker trucks.. His voice was loud and clear and someone shhhhed him, but the bus driver said in a stong voice, "Shhh youself! My helper needs to speak up so I can hear him over the engine!" Then he asked my son what we were about to drive over. "A trestle brige," he replied, his eyes glowing with the idea that he was the bus driver's helper. These are the moments that for me, define the very essense of childhood: the long slow letting go as our children learn to navigate their world without us. Being able to witness that earned independence, in vignettes like this one with the bus driver, represent the privilege of parenthood.