Kids Player

My daughter’s media player has several tabs now — a general folder of nursery rhymes, hymns, classical pieces and kids’ pop songs; a folder of folk songs I made pictures for myself; a Bible-verse song folder; and a couple of separately purchased audiobook and story collections. On her own device, she picks what she wants by tapping a cover picture, the same as always. That device is Wi-Fi only, though, and it stays home — it isn’t a phone with its own data plan, so it never comes along in the car. The problem was everywhere outside our own Wi-Fi. ...

My daughter got a new set of picture books. Each book came with an audio story and a short song. You had to use a code printed inside the book to unlock them. I have made something similar for her Kids Player three times before. This was the fourth time. It was also the fastest so far. And it had one new, unexpected twist. What I Needed: A New Bookshelf, The Same Old Problems The rest of my daughter’s Kids Player already works the way I want it to: You tap a cover to hear a story. There is no autoplay. There are no algorithms. Nothing plays that she did not choose. This new set of picture books deserved the same treatment. But on the vendor’s own web page, everything was set to video by default. Some of it was okay. It was not what I wanted for everything. ...

My daughter is three. She loves one specific playlist of Korean children’s songs, and she likes it best when it plays from a small JBL Bluetooth speaker tucked under her stroller. We walk the neighborhood for about an hour most evenings. I put on her folder, the first song starts, and we go. Thirty seconds later, my phone screen goes off. One more song plays. Then it stops. I have to unlock the phone, tap the next song, put the phone back in my pocket, and keep walking. A minute later, same thing. ...

My daughter is three. My phone takes about 6,000 photos and videos a year — maybe more. I don’t have 6,000 interesting shots. Most of it is accidental taps, blurry motion, seventeen near-identical photos of the same bread I was about to eat. But somewhere in that pile are the clips I actually care about: her first steps, her laughing at something she found hilarious at the time, moments my wife and I know we’ll want to see again when she’s older. ...

My three-year-old daughter has a favorite show. Baby Shark. She could watch it every day, and often does. Last week, I showed her something new. Fifteen short videos of herself as a baby — the first year of her life, played one after another. She sat still for one hour. Smiling, then laughing out loud, then quiet and focused. She didn’t ask for Baby Shark once. My wife was watching from across the room. She didn’t say much. She didn’t need to. ...

Every parent knows this feeling. You hand your child a tablet to show them one video you picked. One tap later, the app has carried them off somewhere else — loud videos, ads, and “recommended” clips chosen by an algorithm that doesn’t know or care about your child. I didn’t want that for my daughter. I also didn’t want to pay a monthly fee, make another account, or hand my child’s attention to another company. ...