For Christmas, toy manufacturers will offer a range of digital tablets designed for children from the ...

18 months. Friday, June 29, the Chinese company VTech has presented its offer, Storio 2, designed for 3-9 years, on sale in September, and a "baby shelf" for use by toddlers and marketed in late October. Manufactur ers Lexibook, LeapFrog, Oregon Scientific also all in the hold oversupply. Because children are seduced by this object acquires a growing number of parents : 1.5 million tablets were sold in France in 2011, that figure could reach three million in 2012, according to research firm GFK. "The market shelves for childr en might, himself, reaching 500,000 units sold in 2012, practically the same as products for adults in 2010 " , says Sylvie Bannelier , Director of China Electr onics Wholesale Product Development at VTech. A sample of 300 mothers of children aged 1 to 6 years were interviewed in May by the Institute of moms, specialist studies in pregnant women, mothers and childr en. Of the 56.7% of women who owned a smartphone and a tablet 18.9%, 85% said th eir child was attracted by their unit and 80.2% of them that used it. More than half - 57.9% - of them had already downloaded applications for children. That are small when they have a touchscreen in hand? Mainly games (74.9%), but t hey also look for pictures (70.6%), doing coloring, drawing (57.8%), watching vi deos (52.6%), listening to music (49.2%). Less numerous are those who make educa tional exercises (33.6%), much less those who read (14.6%). If they let their children use these media, mothers are not all favorable. Prima rily by the fear that they do fall and do damage them, because they consider ina ppropriate content, or for fear that the child spends hours in front of a screen . Michael Stora, psychologist and psychoanalyst, founder of the Observatory of dig ital worlds, believes that, properly used, the object of real interest in learni ng: "For children, which allows up power in the Learning is the valuation. But i n video games , there is a staging of the awards. Video games also confront the fact of losing , and it is through this that the child will be like to win espec ially between 1 and 6 years age group where the child feels omnipotent. " The touch screen also allows the small to "manipulate an image, information to a ppropriate" , says Stora. Unlike other specialists, as the psychiatrist Serge Ti sseron , which considers "harmful" use of the cheap tablet pc for kids before 3 years, M.Stora believes that there is no danger that children play with images, but it is important to have the game and educational content. "The child loves t o play by "trial and error", where is the error that will enable it to understan d where the correct answer, while in school, very often the wrong answer is puni shed " , he says. The cheap Tablet PC can also fill in a form of separation between the child and his parents, he says . "But the tablet should not replace the mother. This is no t a nanny digital but a cheap Android 4.0 tablet. " M me Bannelier, for its part , advises parents to limit the use of these objects at half an hour a day.