Conversations with young children can be charming, annoying, or simply baffling. However, new research suggests that they are also essential. Researchers from Harvard University found a direct link between the development in children of the parts of the brain which deal with language and the number of conversations they have with adults.

It may seem obvious that talking to children helps them learn to talk, but there’s more to it. What was important, the researchers found, was turn-taking. In other words, this is not just about lecturing kids, or nodding and humming while they ramble on, but listening, responding, and encouraging them to listen and respond in return. It means getting down to their level physically, making eye contact, and really engaging with them.

It can be difficult, in our busy lives, to sit down and have a chat with kids when their interests and concerns might be so different from ours. One journalist from the Guardian, reporting on this news, described listening to his three-year-old as “like being caught in a feedback loop of all David Thewlis’s conspiracy theory rants from Naked, played simultaneously at full volume inside a metal dustbin.” Children are all different too. Some never seem to shut up, while others may prefer to sit in silence with a book.

However, there is an additional challenge which was not faced by previous generations: the prevalence of screens. Where a family might once have sat together over dinner and discussed their day, they may now all sit around each looking at their own phone or gadgets.

It can be easy to think, if kids are occupied and content, and are using “educational” apps, that everything is fine. However, as this new research demonstrates, no device can ever replace human interaction. In my days working in early years development, a speech therapist told me about an “epidemic” of language delay in the area. “But there’s not an epidemic of physiological problems,” she went on. “It’s down to parenting by screen.”

As in many areas of life, the challenges are greater for parents in Beijing’s international community. As well as the difficulty of finding time in this hectic metropolis, many of us rely on ayis to provide daycare; and however loving they are to their charges, they often have little English, and can’t provide that crucial conversation.

Sharing conversation with children is not just about brain development. It’s a matter of showing them respect, and earning their respect in turn. It’s a way of finding out what’s happening in their lives and in their minds, and heading off problems before they become serious. And it can be fun; kids often have a hilarious sense of humor.

So next time you’re sitting down to eat, put away your smartphone and ask your kids how their day has been. You might just be surprised at the results.

Photo: Adobe Creative Cloud

In our technically developed times we can’t imagine life without gadgets anymore. Even though Beijing restriction policy makes it hard to access Facebook and the phrase “Google it” would be more fair to be changed to “bing it”, still we can’t make a step without phone-in-hand.

App developers were the first who understood the phone’s integration into life, and there is wide variety of family-oriented apps that would lighten life for Beijingers.

Family Organizer

This is the app that brings together all your family plans in one place: from hiking to the Great Wall to grocery shopping at Apple Gourmet to the dumplings recipe you tapped out while talking to friends. So far, the creators of Family Organizer offer sharing calendar, to-do list, journal, shopping, recipes, and photos. All the reviews say that it’s almost perfect – however, there’s no feature for sharing the app across devises, which makes it a bit uncompleted. Free, available in the app store and Google play.

Mom’s Daily Planner App

This is the app from another developer but with pretty similar features. The app is designed in pink colors, making it look pretty nice and appealing to those inclined to the color. One of the pros of Mom’s Daily Planner App is that it connects to Wallet, enabling you to plan and manage your budget with simply organized pictures. For an extra $5.99 in the app store you can get access to some premium features – such as sharing it with other devices.

Cozi Family Organizer

This one recently got a lot of awards, as the system enables to share all important information within your family circle. This way you can always put an alert for your child, to, for example, wear a mask if the pollution level will get too high, or correct the items in lists in real-time – which is really practical. The notification and online editing features make this app outstanding. The sour spoon here is that the subscription for this app will cost $19.99 to $29.99 on app store and Google play markets.

Hub Family Organizer

In the Hub, you can add events to a sharing calendar, so that none of you will forget about city or school events and project deadlines. Hub Family Organizer also has a chat for family members and a photo section. The design comes in a simple and blue design, reminiscent of careless non-VPN days. The app is not free: subscription will cost $4.99 per month or $49.99 for a year. Find it in the app store and Google play.

Family Calendar

This app looks pretty much like all the above: syncing to-do lists, calendars and grocery plans. However, the minimalistic white design and no extra cost features make it one of our favorites. All family photos from the Forbidden City and the World Park walks can be kept together, and even if one of you will occasionally loose pictures or an important note, it’d always be available from another device. App store and Google play both have available downloads.

Checklist Parent: Mom and Dad Family Calendar

The idea of this app is a bit different from all others: it is dedicated to help parents find some free time just for themselves. Here you can find ready to-do lists and just try to follow them, noticing by the same time (as the developers say) how your own life becomes more colorful and organized. There are ready plans for many family-related occasions, such as travel packing, birthday celebration, cleaning, or even baby showers, which should definitely save some time and nerves. These list will cost $0.99-5.99 each though from the app store.

Photos: kirov-portal.ru; app store.  

In anticipation of my departure from Beijing this summer, I’ve been slowly getting rid of things through expat forums, clothing swaps, and donation drives. Clothes, bikes, household appliances, books, and craft supplies have all found willing recipients, but I’ve been stumped about what to do with old devices.

A Baidu search turned up Aihuishou (“love recycling”), a Shanghai-based customer-to-business platform for selling old mobile phones and other personal devices. Founded by two Fudan University graduates, the site has been profiled on chinadialogue and received C series funding from the US.

The premise seems simple enough. Users o to the website, type their device brand and model into the search bar, answer some questions about the state of the device, and make an appointment to either drop it off in person at one of Aihuishou’s service points or have an employee come over and assess it in person.

The obvious drawback is that the website is only in Chinese, but the interface looks very easy to use and Aihuishou reportedly offers higher buyback prices than competing services and street vendors. Even if you have limited language skills, it should be simple enough to get through with the help of someone who can read Chinese.

Let’s say you want to resell an iPhone 5. On the front page, click on the Apple logo or click on the dropdown menu labeled 旧机回收 (“old device recycling” jiuji huishou):

“Mobile phone” (手机回收 shouji huishou) is the second option in the dropdown list.

You can also type the device brand and model straight into the search bar:

Once you find the right device, you’ll get a series of diagnostic questions to assess the resale value of the phone:

The questions are different for each device. In this case, they include where the iPhone 5 was bought, storage capacity, serial number group, and warranty status.

The next page assesses for any damages or malfunctions: whether the phone turns on and off normally, whether the battery works normally, whether the Wi-Fi has any issues, etc.

The last page continues along the same vein and asks about the phone’s casing, screen, and repair history.

The first thing you’ll see on the next page is the estimated resale value of the phone – in this case RMB 530 – followed by a list of service options.

There are three options: go to one of Aihuishou’s service points (there will be a map of Beijing with a list of locations), have a service agent come to your house, or send the devices through kuaidi.

Once the devices have been assessed and, if applicable, the estimate price readjusted, Aihuishou will give you the money through WeChat Wallet, bank transfer, or in cash.

Note that you get an extra RMB 30 if you show up in person at a service point and an extra RMB 5 if you choose to get paid through WeChat Wallet.

Both in-person resales and house calls require an appointment. The transaction can only go through if the total resale value of the device(s) amounts to at least RMB 50, so this is the perfect time to get rid of your whole family’s e-waste in one fell swoop.

Sijia Chen is a contributing editor at beijingkids and a freelance writer specializing in parenting, education, travel, environment, and culture. Her work has appeared in Travel + Leisure, The Independent, Midnight Poutine, Rover Arts, and more. Follow her on Twitter at @sijiawrites or email her at sijiachen@beijing-kids.com.

Visuals: Screenshots by Sijia Chen, main photo by Zak Mensah (Flickr)