I didn’t notice the habit at first.

A few extra minutes of screen time here, a tired afternoon there. Raahima would sit quietly, absorbed in whatever was moving in front of her, and I would get a little breathing room.

A bright screen could buy temporary peace.

I began to wonder about that peace when I watched her being read to.

She becomes quiet then, too, but the quiet feels different. A book opens. The reader slows over a sentence or changes her voice for a character. Sometimes there is a pause before the page turns.

Raahima watches.

She leans in occasionally, though not always with her body. Sometimes I notice it only in her eyes. Something has caught her attention, and she is waiting to see what comes next.

Her mother reads slowly. If a line seems to catch Raahima, she may repeat it. Finishing the book quickly does not matter.

Dr. Maryam has her own way of reading to her. Different voice, different rhythm. Raahima knows nothing about degrees, research or professional qualifications, of course. She knows something much simpler: when the person beside her is paying attention.

I had underestimated that.

I had also been giving her more screen time than I was comfortable admitting. It was convenient, especially when I was tired or wanted her occupied for a while. Nothing terrible seemed to happen. She watched. I carried on with whatever I was doing.

Maryam raised the issue with me more than once.

She did not turn it into an argument. She simply kept reminding me that screen time was not as harmless as I was treating it. I listened, agreed with much of what she said, and then slipped back into the same habit.

It is surprisingly easy to agree with someone and change nothing.

A short video about children’s brain development eventually made me look more closely at what I was doing. There was nothing frightening in it. What bothered me was how ordinary the advice sounded.

I recognised my own behaviour.

Screens had begun filling moments that did not really need filling. I had started treating a quiet child as an occupied child, and an occupied child as a satisfied one.

Watching Raahima with a book made that assumption harder to maintain.

Her stillness while listening is active. Her face changes. Her eyes move between the page and the person reading. A familiar phrase sometimes produces a reaction before the sentence has even finished.

The book matters, certainly. But I began to understand that the book was only part of what she was responding to.

Someone was there with her.

I notice another version of this with Salar.

He is older, and his curiosity comes out differently. A story can stop because he wants to ask something. Perhaps a word bothers him, or an idea has reminded him of something else. The interruption becomes part of the reading.

At one time I might have thought the important thing was getting him back to the story.

Now I am less sure.

Perhaps the interruption is part of the story too.

That has changed the way I think about the familiar argument over books and screens. I no longer think the useful question is simply which medium wins.

Technology remains part of our family life. We use it for work, learning and ordinary communication. I have no desire to pretend that children can or should grow up in a world without it.

What I had overlooked was what a device can sometimes replace.

A few minutes of my attention.

A conversation that might have wandered somewhere unexpected.

The pause after a sentence when a child looks up.

These moments are difficult to measure, which may be why they are easy to surrender. Nothing dramatic happens when I sit beside Raahima with a book. She does not suddenly demonstrate a new skill. There is no progress bar telling me that the time was useful.

We simply sit together.

I read. She listens for a while. Sometimes her attention wanders, and sometimes mine probably does too.

That is ordinary life with a child.

But I now think differently about those ordinary minutes.

I once saw the screen mainly as something that kept Raahima occupied. I was looking at what it gave me: a little quiet, a little convenience.

I had not paid enough attention to what my presence might be giving her.

I am trying to pay attention now.