Let me start out by saying that I have the cutest kid in the world (and while the little girl with the test tubes is cute, she is not mine but the rest of the images are of my Peanut). If you have kids I am sure that you think the same thing or that you have (or will) at some point, but let me assure you that you are mistaken…it’s my kid. Now on with the post.
I am doing some research on games and pedagogy and with the release of the WiiU and it’s tablet controller I have really been wondering how this was going to play out with the new generation of toddlers (like Pea) who have been playing with touch interface devices since birth (or since they were old enough to guide their little pudgy fingers around). Pea started playing with my touch screen phone well before she was a year old. I found games that blinked or made sounds when you touched characters or colors (regardless of if that was the point of the game) so that she could start understanding cause and effect.
By the time she was 18 months old she had refined her little pincer grasp enough that she grabbed my DS one day and started playing Scribblenauts. Of course she wasn’t writing words, but she was guiding Maxwell (the protagonist) around the screen. She would do this for long periods of time and with looks of great concentration.
It was great for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that we were about 10 months post surgery on her hand and we had lots of work to do with the pincer grasp and mobility and while she did great work with the physical therapist every week she wasn’t nearly as excited to do the work with me every other day. The tiny stylus made her stretch her hand/thumb in some therapeutic ways and she didn’t even complain about it! (NB We still did the regular daily exercises that she hated).
As time went on and we tried out other touch based devices (even the educational game that shall not be named) the DS and the iPod/iPhone remained her favorite. She inherited a hand me down iPod touch from me once I got tired of looking for my iPhone or picking it up only to discover that the battery was dead from someone using the coloring apps or “reading” Dr. Seuss books on it. She did eventually even get her own DS because she was cutting into my Animal Crossing time (that was a bit of an addiction for me, but we’ll save that for another post) and she was coming to an age where is was time for her to start working with numbers and letters more. And while I could hold her attention and work on those letters and numbers on paper for short periods of time there was someone who could get her to work on those much longer than I could…Elmo. That’s when we discovered Seasame Street: Elmo’s A to Z. It even came with a pudgy little Elmo pen to make it easier to write for most children. While Pea only about 2 and a half she was used to the standard stylus by this point, she loved having an “Elmo pen” to play her Elmo game. Elmo made her determined to learn something new, something more about the alphabet. And the same determination that she had when she lead Maxwell around in search of whatever her 18 month old imagination thought that he might be looking for persisted with Elmo. 
All of this is to say that now that she is 4, Pea is well versed in the use of touch interface devices. While she has the most experience with iOS devices and Nintendo handhelds, she has not been phased by new devices like the LeapFrog or the Kindle Fire HD. The biggest issue in switching between operating systems and devices in responsiveness (but I’ll save that for a later rant). So when I saw how Nintendo was using the tablet controller for the WiiU I was intrigued as a parent and a researcher. While Nintendo has been the family friendly console since they released their first one were they drawing in (and drawing on) a new population? One that is used to touch screens and one that can play games a lot early with tough screens than they can with the RSI inducing controllers that come with current gen systems.
And that’s where our experience with the WiiU comes in. The Deluxe came with NintendoLand and Pea helped me pick out some other games as the big box store was has a promotional sale and so we came home with New Super Mario Bros. U, ZombiU, and Sing Party (Pea’s request). Well over a week of WiiU ownership had passed and the only things that we had played were NintendoLand and “Make the Humans”. Now Make the Humans is a Peanut Studios original. It’s the game where Pea makes Miis by the dozens. Yes, I said dozens. She is fascinated with making the damned things (and deleting the ones that displease her by posing on her Mii shelf..she is a heartless dictator). She is angry that there aren’t more clothing choices and she will never play her own Mii in any game that covers up her pink dress, only the other unlucky souls who find themselves repeatedly eaten by giant fish and crashed into walls in their little go-karts.
Last week we had a three day weekend and I relaxed the hour a day screen time rule a little because we did have the new system and Pea was intrigued with learning what she could do with it. Multiple times a day she would walked up to me with a look of pure determination on her face and demand “I wanna make humans”. At first I wasn’t sure if she was just channeling Dr. Frankenstein, but in the end we got it figured out. She spends a lot of time making family, friends, and random strangers.
Interestingly enough, it’s the standard features of the WiiU itself that Pea keeps coming back to and not the games themselves (but we still have a few unopened). If you’ve been thinking about which system to buy for your little one I’d say that the WiiU is a good bet. Not only because it allows them to make humans and drive go-karts with the tablet controller, but also because some games allow you to play solely on the tablet while the TV is tuned to something else (Oh yeah, and because the tablet can be programmed to control both your television and satellite/cable box!). The WiiU is really kid-friendly, but did we expect anything less from Nintendo? I was able to turn off the community functions that concerned me to be sure that Pea didn’t find herself exposed to some jerk showing his penis to the camera and broadcasting it to the Miiverse community and she is able to have her own account where she can create (and destroy) humans to her little heart’s content!
And while I was going to tell you a bit about playing NintendoLand itself with her it seems that that may actually wait for the next post :-). Perhaps by the time I get around to that she and I may have played a bit of New Super Mario Bros. U together. Look out for it!
