Skip to main content

Digital kids

Every morning when my "digital kids" woke up, they insisted on watching "videos".This routine turned into a habit. Sometimes they used to be so much engrossed in their newly discovered entertainment source that for the time being, they forgot what was happening around them. Initially, I participated in those moments of joy but gradually realised that they were getting addicted to not only videos but had started exploring more options in device with their little fingers. This alerted me of long term consequences and how that could lead to exposure to social media in an early age when they should be really spending their leisure time in various physical activities. I decided to limit the usage of digital media although not restricting them completely but how?😕
Digital kids | Flykiddz

DIGITAL KIDS

I talked to many parents about their experience on how to deal with this emerging trend of kids. Although the opinions varied some universal facts came to light like:
  • It leads to sleep disturbances.
  • It hampers learning. 
  • Excessive screening time may lead to academic lags.  
  • It restricts their imagination and thinking.
  • It may lead to weight gain because children keep sitting in one place.
  • Lack of movement of body parts; slows down the development of eye-hand coordination and affects eyes. 
  • Kids are more concerned about being accepted by social media.
  • Sometimes they blindly follow what is viral in media.
  • There is always a fear of cyberbullying, exposure to prohibited and illegal content be it in writing or images or videos.
I pondered a lot and concluded that we should not stop children from exploring but we, as parents, can set a limit to that. The most significant aspect is to talk to them what they think. Let us discuss and share our fears and thoughts with them because their participation is must in every action we initiate for them to make things work in a successful manner. Let them know that every day there is an explosion of new technology and we have to pick and choose good and bad content. 

                                       Tips to follow a positive approach

Updating ourselves:  Kids are more internet savvy than we as parents. So we should first update ourselves with technology to guide our children appropriately.

Work together:  We can always chalk out a plan, incorporating our kids, which works best for them. Figure it out, draw it using pen and paper and practice it.

Show parental controls:  Take a lead when figuring out a plan. Monitoring is a must. Tell them to respect their academics. Let them know that technology is crucial for them but how they use matters. It is also important to explain to children why they should have screen time limits. Our role as mentors is also to teach children to be responsible consumers of technology understanding its appropriate and inappropriate uses.
Even Apple CEO Tim Cook admitted that technology should not be overused. In an event he said to teenagers"measure your impact on humanity not in likes, but in the lives you touch; not in popularity, but in the people you serve".
Companies like Apple offer features for parental controls. Apple boasts of  "creating powerful products that inspire, entertain, and educate children while also helping parents protect them online by offering intuitive parental controls built right into the operating system". 

Spend quality time with children on screen:  Let us make learning interactive-learn from children and vice versa share whatever knowledge we have acquired, discuss with them what they see. Parents should try to spend some time together watching T.V. or even funny videos. We should encourage kids to explore unknown but with a check on the content.

Spend quality time with children away from the screen:  We should spend quality time with children away from digital devices too-taking them to walks, outing, picnic, engaging them in regular physical activities-playing outdoor games, pursuing yoga, going to the park, meeting people in person, encouraging them to participate in offscreen events and competitions like musical events environmental activities, dance, storytelling and painting competitions. Learning an instrument or any creativity will keep them busy off screen. It would also expose them to diverse arts and gain practical experience.The focus should be on Experiential learning. 


Make them use technology for  growth:  Let them be aware of  how they can use technology to help others or for a good cause, to teach underprivileged, to develop educational apps which may benefit them and others. We can always motivate them to learn the art of using digital devices to take good photographs, to make video clips; in nutshell to teach them friendly use of digital mediums.




I have been following these few basic steps and am confident that many parents or guardians have better ideas to guide kids.😊

 Let us check ourselves in which category we fall?
  1. "Yes" to digital kids
  2. "Yes" to digital kids with monitoring
  3. "No" to digital kids
I cheer up "Yes" to digital kids with monitoring.🙌
Please provide your feedback in the comment section below.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is the role of theatre in school education? | Theatre for children

A big bang.....what was it? sound from a theatre for children..... when I entered the auditorium, a musical performance was underway on the song of Justin Timberlake "can't stop the feeling". Another epic performance was ongoing in a hall attached to the auditorium. In the courtyard, Street theatre(nukkar Natak) was in progress on child labour which instantly made me recall the acclaimed movie "Stanley ka Dabba."Action, movement and excitement were unstoppable. Variety of costumes, masks, make up artists, sound engineers added to the liveliness of the environment. I stood in a corner recalling how during childhood even small roles in school plays and dance dramas would always keep us electrified to spare no efforts in rehearsals. The theatre is not arrested in time. Originating from Greece, it has stood the test of time and come a long way to the improvisational theatre to the novel concept of online theatre. It was on World theatre day,27 March, I ha
7 comments
Read more

How can I counsel my child?

In dictionary language "counselling" is advice by an expert about a particular problem. During some of the other phase of life, there is a time when kids need counselling and parents often consult specialists to handle the situation. The question arises Can parents counsel their child themselves?/"How can I counsel my child?"  Are we competent enough to deal with the issues bothering our child?  Though we may not be expert in each and every matter we are the first teachers of our child and who knows our child more than we do. We as parents can be the first counsellors. Nevertheless, counsellors are highly trained  people  and well equipped with updated techniques but as parents, we can give first try to counsel our child unless the situation is alarming . How can I counsel my child?  How can I counsel my child ?   The phrase "my child" is significant because it is difficult to counsel our kids as they are familiar to us. They may be hesitant to open
3 comments
Read more

Experiential learning in schools

Experiential Learning in schools is freehand learning experience through self doing and active participation. It involves learning through creative arts, music, organised games, playful methods, going to field trips etc. This kind of self-exploration is nothing but self-discovery and self-awareness for children.  The trial and error method develops logical thinking and aims at continuous improvement in eye-hand coordination and observation skills. The children are assigned such tasks in school which are outside traditional classroom settings.    Experiential learning in schools  The process  involves the following steps: Mentors asking kids how to do a particular task or how to improve upon the tasks already done. This wakes up the thought process of children. They build their own concepts and strategy and implement them to the task in hand. In such learning, the kids experience both success and failure alike because the challenges are immense. They think aloud if trapp
Post a Comment
Read more