When I babysit my toddler cousins today, it sometimes feels like their childhood happens on a different world than ours.
Kids will always be kids, but the rapid growth of technological innovation in our lifetime is never more obvious than when we see the children of today confused about phones with actual buttons. Think about it: the kids of this generation don’t know of a time when you couldn’t connect to the internet if you wanted to use the house phone.
But while the generations may change, parent-child relationships still remain as one of life’s strongest ties.
So here is a celebration of the bond between parent and child over the years, which just proves that some things change, but the things that really matter don’t.
1. Playing Dress Up
When we were younger, playing dress-up with our parents was quite an activity. It’s pretty rare for mom and dad to actually get in the mood for this but if it does come along, it becomes a lot of fun. The choices of things to wear were limited, but imagination reaches far and wide.
A simple headscarf can be a pirate’s bandanna in an exciting seafaring adventure, and a little bit of blue eyeshadow on the cheeks could make you a beautiful fairy princess.
Now, aside from Halloween it’s rarer for parents to deck the kids out in fun little costumes. Instead it’s easier to just whip out your phone and use either Snapchat filters or Snow with your children.
But with the sheer variety that these facial recognition filters provide, it is a lot of fun to see the young ones giggle at the change in their face, all without having to wipe off white face paint for a picture of the munchkins in clown makeup.
2. Taking A Family Picture
Remember what a spectacle it was to take a family picture in the 90’s? Family photographs back in the day usually occurred on a special day such as Chinese New Year or Hari Raya with everyone dressed to the nines.
Eventually after a couple of weeks when the film has been developed, everyone would sit together in the same living room to look at the photos together, reminiscing over the memories when each shot was taken.
But flash-forward to the 21st century and taking pictures is easier than ever. With our fancy smartphones, taking a family picture is just a matter of squishing everyone together into frame.
Someone blinked or made a funny face? Just take another shot.
Even printing the photo is almost instantaneous now. Printers such as HP’s newest offering—the smallest all-in-one Inkjet printer—can even print directly from the mobile phone without needing to connect to the computer first. Its small size means it can fit into even the smallest modern apartment with ease.
3. Movie Time
These days watching anything is simply an issue of a few taps on the iPad, and both kids and parents can enjoy cartoons together anywhere in the world with a WiFi connection.
It is even easy to pause the movie so that your curious child can ask their questions and get some interesting answers without missing the show. In fact, nowadays, if you give your kid an iPad they can spend their time completely engaged without ever touching the television.
Meanwhile back in a simpler time, kids would fight over the remote to watch TV. Watching a family movie together usually means heading out to the store to either rent or buy a VHS tape.
It also meant a lot of waiting as the tape got rewinded, which is usually the chance to engage kids in some conversation about the day they had, or even sneak in some life lessons.
Most families had a pretty healthy collection of Disney movies stocked in their tape drawer. What hasn’t changed? Parents still have at least one movie fully memorised by heart depending on the tastes of their children.
4. Arts & Crafts Time
The classic basics were as follows: food stamping, collages, tie-dying and the always popular colour pencils on paper.
Activities may have been limited back then, but it was a fun way to get your hands dirty together and an opportunity for kids to try and stamp their own identity to their artwork with limited resources.
For a few rare moments the family can completely unwind together, and parents can show off some neat colouring tricks to their kids that they learnt back when they themselves were kids.
Parents and kids can still enjoy most of the crafting activities that were done back in the day, but in today Pinterest offers up some really interesting ideas that are not to be missed.
There are even fun assembling projects that can easily be printed off the internet to cut and paste together with the kids for a one-of-a-kind cool figurine.
5. Saving A Child’s Drawing
For many kids it felt like a badge of honour when parents put their drawings up on the fridge. Back then it was a wonderful system to show how proud Mom is about their kids’ art, especially by placing it somewhere that everyone in the family will see when they raid the fridge for their next meal. Even guests that happened to pop by can see the charming artworks displayed.
But as the years go on, so does technology. We saw the rise of photo-sharing softwares such as Instagram and Snapchat where people share interesting snapshots of their lives. And while the same impulse to display the sweet handiwork is still there, parents can now easily upload the treasured artworks on social media to delight both friends and distant relatives.
It is simple enough to scan the cute handiwork on devices like the HP DeskJet Ink Advantage 3700 Series. This compact printer also scans and, as mentioned earlier, is able to connect to mobile phones for easy uploading on social media.
HP Unveils Its Conveniently Compact Inkjet Printer
This printer may be small, but it packs quite a punch. It does everything you would want an all-in-one printer to do like scanning, printing or copying. HP’s new DeskJet Ink Advantage 3700 Series is also equipped with state-of-the-art mobile solutions that allows for easy printing straight from mobile to printer, available with a simple set-up.
The printer also comes with an app which makes the managing process of printing and scanning tasks all the more convenient, simply through a phone interface.
What’s more, you’ll be able to let your child shine through their artwork as HP’s new scroll scan feature lets you take on more scan jobs while retaining the vibrant colours from the original artwork.
This article was brought to you by HP.
Feature Image Credit: Fotolia & eBay
