In such a digital age, it can be hard to forget about Polaroids and what’s changed since our children are now growing up on devices. Although there’s a familiarity of various things from the “yester” years, many children may not understand or feel as connected to items or people without these hand-held mementos.
Photo Albums
Remember growing up, and having your parents flip through the old photo albums to show you growing up? They may have even included extended family and vacations, pets, and other fun activities. This was the easiest way to see our growing phases and friends and family that may no longer be with us. This also has been fading to near non-existent through the last few generations. Instead, they can easily peruse their phones or tablets for more recent photos or even social media for flashbacks.
But using only digital media for kids can make it difficult to see reality as it really is. Too many photos can be edited and include fictional characters, as well as movies. Having real, printed photos of family and friends can help your child strengthen their familial bonds better. Digital photos can often give children a less real, concrete awareness of what they are looking at, since so much of what they see and watch online is usually fiction-based.
Creating Memories
If you don’t have many (or any) photo albums to share with your growing children, now’s the time to start making some! Whether you want to make an album of your child now or simply of random memories or trips, scroll through your current pictures and see which ones would work best. You can easily print them out at most stores, as well as buying an album. You can even have your child help select the pictures and what album to keep them stored in!
If you want to start right now with real photos, then start thinking about what you can incorporate into a photo album, or even scrapbook. If you recently adopted a puppy for your child, start printing out some of those pictures for the album. If you’re planning on a trip soon, be sure to include those into a scrapbook that your children can help decorate and relive those memories.
By including your children, they can have double the fun of photo albums – being able to select and make the albums, and then revisiting the photo albums or scrapbooks whenever they want!
Kate Kyzivat