12 years old child seen with grandmother in OPD with the complaints of excessive use of gadget, i.e., mobile phone which she is finding very difficult to restrain him from using.
Another parent brought the child complaining that he sees inappropriate content in online by which he is misbehaving in school and they hear complaints from the school as well.
And many parents say that it’s difficult to control the behavior of getting upset easily, throwing tantrums when they can’t get the gadget to play or not able to being in online. Parents could easily notice these behaviors disappears when they get online they become calmer.
A three-year-old child has brought to Opd with delayed speech and language but she was excellent in using mobile phone says, father.
A teenage boy is more comfortable in his online world, and he would feel anxious, irritated when being in a social group. When an encountering with the social situation he would fidget and leaves the situation, and he feels better when online. He mentioned that online relationships give him more comfort than face to face.
We see not only in the OPD we hear in day to day life many parents saying and it’s hard for them to restrain from using gadgets.
Here are the simple tips for parents to follow:
Set proper time:
Setting adequate time allows parents to keep a track and restrict the amount of time spending on gadgets and don’t let them use after their time is finished.
With that parents can improve the habit of routine which prevents the child from spending more time on screen.
Active supervision:
Children spend most of their time being online and don’t pay much attention to their posture, screen brightness, and screen distance from their eye. Active supervision not only helps the child to maintain proper position at the same time it’s an excellent opportunity to co-engage with your children when they are using screen- it encourages social interactions, bonding, and learning. Sometimes a child can use the internet for seeing adult content, or they click on pop-ups. This practice leads to a lousy impact on a child’s character. This is a most significant problem in the growing world of technology. Don’t just monitor them online – interact with them, so you can understand what they are doing and help them to overcome.
Encourage play time:
Encouraging physical, unstructured and offline play stimulates the brain. These include activities that use physical movements to allow children’s to use their energy and it gives children the chance to develop gross and fine motor skills, learn new things and socialize. It also benefits a child's health. Make offline play a much priority, especially for very young children.
Avoid technology as an emotional pacifier:
Most of the parents use gadgets to distract children for example while feeding, dressing up and traveling. As we all know media can be beneficial in keeping kids calm and entirely, but it should not be the only way they learn to calm down and distract them.
Parents have to help the child how to identify and handle strong emotions, come up with activities to manage boredom, open communication to solve the problem, finding other ways to distract children’s and strategies for challenging feelings.
Educate the children importance of privacy:
Adolescence needs to know that once the content is shared with others, will be able to delete completely. Avoid texting of inappropriate pictures sharing personal details to unknown. The child has to be warned that sex offenders often use social networking, online gaming to contact and exploit children’s.
Encourage face to face communication:
Research has shown that two-way communication with children’s improves language development much more so than passive listening or one-way interaction with a screen.
Encouraging child to talk back in case of language delayed kids. It helps to stimulate the brain by reducing nonverbal communication.
Parents have to set proper time for face to face communication or if necessary by video chat with far-away parent and grandparents.
Be an exemplary:
Children’s are great observers, and they mimic the habits of parents. Limit your use. Find more time to spend with your children by interacting, hugging, playing with them rather than just staying at a screen.
Now a day’s media and digital devices are an integral part of the world today. It will be healthier if we use them moderately and appropriately.
Research has shown that face to face time with family, children, and friends has a significant impact on children’s learning and healthy development. So let’s not get lost in a stream of media and technology.
Dr. Naveen Jayaram
Attending Consultant - Psychiatry
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