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It’s best for the children

Good for Amherst Library Director Amy LaPointe, who recently told selectmen that, based upon the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatricians, she had removed iPADs from the library’s children’s room.

The Academy recommended zero screen time for children under 2, which would seem to be an unnecessary recommendation given what we would hope to be the inherent wisdom of parents, but apparently not.

Thanks to LaPointe’s decision, the only computer in the children’s room is the one that searches the library’s online catalogue.

What we really like, too, is a program that was offered by the library, via Skype, with the author of ” Be the Parent, Please: Stop Banning Seesaws and Start Banning Snapchat.” What a great idea. Seesaws get kids into the fresh air. Snapchat keeps them inside. It should be easy for parents to figure out which is better for their kids, but apparently not, else why the need for a book asking folks to “Be the Parent, Please …”?

LaPointe won praise from the chairman of the board of selectmen but she also deserves praise from parents who might have been a little confused about the screen time debate. Now, they not only have the Academy’s recommendation, but that of their town library director.

Folks like Amy LaPointe should be, and we hope are, leaders in the community when it comes to things having to do with kids. Librarians aren’t just people who catalogue and provide books, they are people who are constantly learning about everything to do with what a library means to a community and what it can and, perhaps more important, should and shouldn’t provide.