Too much of anything brings destruction and tipping off the scale in the wrong side of outcomes. Gadgets in the life of young children aged 2-12 is over rated. It has already disrupted the beautiful practice of reading and book stores in less than 20 years. The rise of Alexa and Siri has given away the keeness children have to come and ask us about life and its curiosities.
We all have collectively created this helpless situation for ourselves and our families. We have allowed a few intelligent and self promoted individuals and companies take away our sensibilities. Instead of feeling helpless or blaming outside of us we need to choose wisely and definitely as one single community.
This will automatically alert the companies and industries to what our new and aware choices are. It also allows us to truly be in control of what is essential for the well being of our family and not for the opinions of people around or some far fetched future based fears.
21st century will face the aftershocks of COVID 19 and all the rapid technological advancements that will be thrusted on us. Our children cannot afford to be at homes simply being “edutained” and playing hunky dory cartoon characters and video games to relax and rest. They need to stay attentive, alive and focused to absorb like a sponge of what is happening in their surroundings to be able to adapt to the rapid changes which is a reality of their lifetime.
The present time will ask of us and our children to move from one income avenue to multiple income streams to sustain the after shocks of this pandemic. If we buy in to the hypothesis that children need to sit in front of screen everyday to learn they will miss out on deeper skills of agility, social intelligence, focus, observation, empathy and most importantly concentration to develop relevant skills so that they can use the tool of technology to their advantage.
They can only witness these when they are alert and they see us enjoying life and not the virtual amusement of technology to the point where they start believing to imitate like us to run away from our tough emotions into our virtual and fragmented world.
Authentic learning for young minds does not lie in brainwashing them to stay outside of themselves. There is a vast resource inside of them waiting to come out at the right time. We must learn to respect the Law of Incubation. You will never witness in nature the energy of comparison and hurry. Nature trust each creation to unfold at their right time.
We as parents adults must re-learn to hold time and allow the lives of our children to unfold at their individual pace. Allow children your young beings to create an authentic resilience to be interdependent on themselves.
If you are reading THIS I am assuming you have experienced the COVID-19 pandemic somewhere across planet earth in some way or the other.
As parents I totally get it! Our concerns are way more than we had hoped for. There is existing uncertainty of our own present time of work / career / finances and then we also have important decisions to be taken for our young children.
And as much as we have gotten over the hangover of deep insights that came as flashes when the lockdown started, many of us find ourselves in dips of what is in store for our family’s future. We all get mortally scared of what are the next steps. This unprecedented time has simply shook us to our deepest fears which we were receiving inside of us for the last decade and more...
It's just that the lockdown jolted all those right in front of us like an ugly sight. As adults we have mastered the art of keeping things under the carpet or just waiting for things to be done by at least a few celebrities over social media platforms and hence we just keep shutting our intuitions down the drain.
I am sharing three broad tips to prevent screen addiction for your children today!
1. Don't Bother About Consistency of Screen Time
If you have a child aged 0-7 and you haven't introduced them to screens. First of all great going 👍. Secondly don't hand over a screen consistently. Notice that this is your habit trigger not of your child to get hooked to screens. Our generation have been used to being "programmed" by the Television! So watch out for some really good things and then spread it over a week or a month instead of every single day.
If your child is aged 7-14 consistency should be maintained yes! But consistency has to be visually communicated to your child. Allow them to see their time table of screen in hard copy not on their gadget. Allow them to tick mark their screen time so that they feel they can anticipate their schedule. Stick to this time slot and do not handover screen around high emotional states.
2. Focus on their PRESENT DAY instead of "FUTURE"
Focusing on the future of our children is one of the favorite pass time of parents. Don't get me wrong 😊. It is fine to have a foresight for your children but making it a moment by moment obsession is what the education and toy industries are making their multi billion dollars especially in the past decade.
Every marketing message is tied down to the future best for your child. But if you notice the Present Moment of your family, it is great. In their present moment young children aged 0-14 simply need simple things like happy parents / love / simple food (not instagramable).
But as adults we have learnt the art of overcomplicating the needs of our family. So I will invite you to stay alive and alert everyday instead of buying "dreams" of far fetch future.
3. Rewire your story of exhaustion
Remember the busy working days before your kids? Oh how busy the full day would look like and then making plans with our friends of a late night drinking session. Then rushing to an early morning meeting and wow we loved it.
But its a very different story we tell ourself post children. We dread the late nights and the work that comes with being a parent and hence we tell ourself the story of "tired and exhausted" to hand over a gadget while we screen binge to take some rest ourself.
Its just that we haven't put enough mind and heart to transition into our role of the new adult! Forget the title of "parent" and "exhaustion" and again live in the present moment.
I am inviting you and your immediate family to experiment the perspective of living in the present moment for your young child. Become aware of the “need” of you to rush out every time to buy a “character toy” promoted on a gadget. Become aware of what are you providing in the present moment of your children. In this moment. The very moment that you just breathed and so did they.
What is happening to their mind, body and spirit today and in the now.
The above is not possible if you and I don’t re-wire ourself to the ever evolving role as parents human beings who are the caretakers of children nature’s beings.
We are creating rather we have already created a cookie cutter generation of young children, young adults, adults and grandparents who are loosing the art of sitting and holding a conversation as a family. We crave to finish up our daily tasks/chores and then go back to our dose of multiple screen entertainment / interaction for the rest of the day.
As they say that technology and evolution is a boon but overuse of the usage of multiple mediums of screen entertainment has become an abuse.
Notice the dance between mobiles ——to laptops ——— to TV ——— to i-pads —————- to kindle ————— to coloring tabs —————- X box———— to Alexa playing music (for the love of this planet!!)
May you see the immense value of your actions as a family unit for the sake of the present quality of your children’s beautiful life beating inside of them - in THIS moment!
Loads of love to your entire family and more
Supriya
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