Parenting—ask any parent, and they’ll all agree its not easy. There is no rule book, no guidelines, no magic 8 ball to tell you if you are doing something right or not. And now, more than ever before, we have a new resource at our fingertips to soothe/quiet/distract our little ones—the iPhone. Or iPad. Or any smart device for that matter. We are trying our best–but in 30 years from now, are we going to have the hindsight that would have told us that this is not right for our littlest ones?
Ages 0-3 are the most impactful years for emotional connection and bonding. Babies and toddlers are “sponges”, the “biggest discoverers". Is screen time—big or small—good for them? Are we missing out on giving them reasons to wait, be patient, learn, connect-- because we are pacifying them for the moment? Some are saying its the biggest experiment in social history–a big experiment on our little ones. Never before has a generation been born into a technology shift like the one we have today. What do we do about it?
Our family took the course of no screen time at all in the early childhood years. Our experience has been that our children can focus on things at greater lengths and are more imaginative and engaged in their activities. Books and stories are a huge part of our lives. Not that the kids never got their hands on one of our phones but for the most part we were and still are very low on any kind of screen time. Our kids are 7 and 10 years and we have no regrets taking this course. There are numerous sources of info out there regarding screen time and effects on children which one could research. I’m a strong supporter of minimal screen time for kids and believe we as adults could use much less of it as well.
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indeed!
our youngest need eye contact… facial contact… with real, live humans…they need to hear the nuance of real human voices… they need the touch of people
If you ask me, resist the urge to give a child any screen. They don’t need it. My 9 year old had never touched an iPad except for school and she marvels about how her peers have visible tantrums when taken away at normal transition periods at school.
The way I see it is screens do not encourage creativity or learning… the dopamine receptor changes affecting emotional regulation are evidence enough to say why risk this?
Kids in their 20’s are saying they regret dependence on technology to socialize so why introduce this so soon…