When you're at your wits' end, remember that your primary job is to keep them from killing/permanently injuring themselves, and that they will manage to injure

When you're at your wits' end, remember that your primary job is to keep them from killing/permanently injuring themselves, and that they will manage to injure themselves anyway. You will be amazed at how profoundly stupid they can be about some things (slipping off a chair they fell off of 5 minutes ago) and yet brilliant about others (figuring out how to get a baby gate open). Just being around them, talking to them, letting them "help" cook and clean, and providing some board books that you also read to them (they might not sit still and listen until age 2 or so, don't worry) will set them up for learning the rest in due time. Personally, I kept my 2.5-year-old kid away from video until he was nearly two, then started letting him watch a carefully curated list of downloaded non-violent nature videos on an old laptop when I need him distracted (like when I'm dealing with stuff in the oven). Neither of us watched much TV before he came along, so leaving it off wasn't a sacrifice. We ended up wall-mounting it over the piano we got due to some serious scope-creep on "how high to mount TV the kid is about to pull over on himself". Result? My husband got back into playing the piano, and the kid has gotten mostly past the banging random keys phase into picking one and sticking with it for a few seconds. If he acts up when I stop the video, the laptop gets put away and doesn't come out again for a few days. I do not intentionally let him handle my phone or tablet, and despite that, he knows how to swipe and tap, so I'm not worried about him not being able to use a tablet once/if it's required by the time he starts school. From how he acted the few times he's been exposed to modern child-targeted media (the constant stream of Disney Jr. at his American cousins' house), I will continue to keep that sort of content to being a "not at home" thing. I don't care if he sees it at someone else's house, and I'll probably start bringing him to the movies when I think he can sit still for an hour or so, because he needs to know something about the culture his peers are marinating in.