Kids and Mobile Phones: Friends or Enemies?

If you’re in search of parenting tips to curb your child’s mobile screen time, then you have landed on the correct page.

Giving your mobile phones to your child can be of great peace to you at the moment but does more harm in the future than good. Example: It’s a saver on a long car ride or when you’re in line at the supermarket especially when your child is cranky.  Think about this, is letting him play Temple Run, or even doing a WhatsApp video call with Grandma, getting them addicted? You may at times feel the need to provide your children with a cell phone at an early age but have you ever pondered upon how ready they are for this responsibility? 

Let’s understand this with a small example:

Just imagine if every morning your bedroom door flies open, and your children sprint in saying, “Can we play games? Mamma, can we watch a movie?” 

And you are stunned that your morning has No “good morning,” no “Good Morning hugs,” no cuddles. Sometimes, you may get frustrated that my kids are so grabbed to these little electronic devices, mobile phones. 

Parenting tips to reduce social media usage for kids

Well, you are not alone in this journey. Most people, not only adults but also teens and kids, spend hours and hours on mobile devices. We ourselves try hard to restrict our own phone use, but at times, we succumb to fail. 

So how do you help your child balance their time to play on mobile devices without it dominating their lives? 

1. Be their role model:

To begin with, parents act as the first role model for every child. They look up to you for inspiration and guidance from as early as 6 months. It is essential for you and other family members to set good examples for your kids to learn the importance of family time. If your child sees your family members maximum time on the mobile phone, don’t be surprised to see them also doing the same. Due to this over-competitive world we are in, most parents are working and have scanty time for their children. Hence we recommend starting small like: being offline during dinner time, having a long Sunday brunch, or playing a family board game together can do wonders to eliminate the idea of mobile phones destroying family life. 

2. Get Active:

Make sure your toddlers do something active frequently. Active in the sense, that outdoor activities are highly recommended. Even if it’s just climbing up 1-floor stairs every half an hour, as their bodies need to move, in order to get tired. So help them to be in the habit of being regularly active. It’s best to break up screen time rather than allowing your kids to sit there for hours and hours.

3. Encourage activity-based learning:

Conducting fun activities whilst learning is one of the most effective parenting tips to follow to help kids reduce mobile phone addiction. Kids usually tend to switch to gadgets for fun and entertainment. Don’t make this mistake buy buying expensive toys, as they will lose their charm in a few days. Then why does a mobile phone game hook them soo much? This is because the mobile game has something challenging in it at every new level. So, why not introduce intellectual games to your children to maintain entertainment and learning at the same time? Example: crosswords, puzzles and pictorial quizzes. 

4. Limit media interactions:

You should take out limited media time even when it comes to learning online. Additionally, try to have a mix of all media while learning. Sometimes an audio clip is enough to understand a concept whereas sometimes a video will work wonders.  However, the length of such videos should be limited and can be escaped slowly when your baby has finished learning the same.

Pro parenting tips: Fix a day and time in the week, say Saturday afternoon, to invite your kid’s friends over for lunch. Ask all of them to keep their phones aside in a basket for the entire time that they are together. Moments later, you will find them chatting, cracking jokes, talking about their childhood, and playing fun games! This will take their eyes off the screen, providing them rest and making memories to cherish for a lifetime with their friends!

Conclusion

Hopefully, these parenting tips have helped you a lot. Additionally, you may want to also go through how to handle a stubborn child. At Harshad Valia International School we believe that children are the cutest god’s creation who needs love, attention, and care. They are not fully grown to differentiate between good and bad things. This is a parent’s responsibility to stop the attraction of their babies toward technology and try to indulge them in various other games and activities which can sharpen their minds and thinking abilities.