How to save children from gadgets

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The fascination of modern children with computers, telephones, electronic means of communication has become just widespread. On the streets, you can often see teenagers walking across the road with their gadgets on and do not even look around, do not see traffic lights, do not hear loud signals from irritated drivers. Only buttons are feverishly poking! Otherwise, they will take it and stop in the middle of the roadway - apparently, the moment of the game is the most exciting, and then they have nothing to do with anything.

Our children have become not our children, the parents say bitterly, and we do not know how to wean them from this electronic scourge. It has taken over the whole world, and we are unable to resist it. To help those who are trying to solve this educational problem, we publish one story - for thought. Young parents talk about their little daughter's first acquaintance with the digital world:

“Masha was a cheerful and calm child from birth: no whims, no disturbing nights, no problems with nutrition. Happiness reigned in our family! She grew curious, she was interested in everything: books, toys, leaves, flowers. My husband and I decided that it was necessary to develop our daughter comprehensively, and - we lost control! They began to "swallow" everything that was served on the Internet under a "developing" sauce. Therefore, very early, at 6-7 months, Masha watched her first cartoon. Noticing how he interested her, we began to turn them on regularly. They reasoned like this: if a child likes it, why not?

By the age of one, Masha had reviewed many Russian and foreign cartoons. I met Luntik, Fixiks, Peppa Pig, and the Carousel TV channel became a dear and beloved one for our family. My daughter wanted to watch it more and more.

At the same time, Masha began to master gadgets. When she was 9 months old, we downloaded all sorts of interesting applications (music, with animal voices) to our smartphone and gave them to our daughter. She quickly mastered virtual games and, at the first opportunity, snatched the phone from our hands.

Then we should stop and think about what we are doing. And why? But no! My husband and I went further. Having decided that the daughter was already ripe for her own gadget, we downloaded all those games to the tablet. Friends and family, coming to visit us, admired how she cleverly copes with him: she herself "develops", and parents have free time.

We sounded the alarm only when her speech development slowed down, sleep disturbances began. Previously, she always fit easily, but now she suddenly began to be capricious, throw tantrums and even fight. In addition, she has interest in other favorite activities has abruptly disappeared: drawing, music, books with pictures … She always needed only a tablet.

Deep down, I guessed why this was happening, but I tried to find an excuse for myself. Then she began to look for an answer in social networks, read the recommendations of doctors and psychologists, studied the experience of her parents. Having summarized all the information received, I was horrified: there was not a single sensible argument in favor of such an "early development" to which my husband and I succumbed. No one! I so wanted to find a middle ground, but children's doctors and experts were unanimous: up to three years - a complete rejection of electronics, and then - strictly limited access and only for educational purposes.

I came across a story about a three-year-old girl with digital addiction. She was not interested in anything, did not play, did not even watch other children. I just sat and looked at one point. And it took a long time before the situation somehow improved. I thought deeply. I remembered how I wore Masha under my heart and dreamed of how we would walk together, talk, be creative, and cook. TV and tablet were not included in my plans at all.

After a frank conversation with myself, I realized that the intentions to give the child "all-round development" hid banal laziness and the principle of convenience. My husband agreed with me, and we decided to change everything. And now the TV is disconnected from the network, the tablet and smartphones are hidden in the closet. They began their new life by having preparatory conversations with their daughter and grandparents. We were ready for hysterics and a long defense. We came up with a whole program for replacing values, so as not to let the child get bored and, as it were, rediscover a living, vibrant world.

On the first day, Masha asked for a tablet a couple of times, sometimes she went to the TV, asked to turn on the cartoon on the computer. But when she heard that the technique did not work, and the cartoons were lost, she was a little capricious, and then she began to look for something else in return, with which we helped her. And a week later, she already forgot to think about cartoons and a tablet.

These are these simple tricks that made the transition painless. To begin with, we replaced cartoons with songs and listened to them together. We bought books about characters from your favorite cartoons. Today, there are music books on sale with song buttons, which at first can replace a computer or tablet for a child. My daughter looked at them and was very happy, recognizing and calling all the heroes by name. A little later, magazines with stickers were added to such books; these pictures can also be moved from place to place.

And here's what we noticed: as soon as we abandoned electronic means, reading became a favorite pastime again … Now we can spend the whole day with books, and our daughter will not be bored. Once we decided to play puppet theater. Dolls can be bought at the store or sewn by yourself. All figurines are small and inexpensive. The stage was a highchair, and the toys were actors. On the go, they came up with a simple plot: from small instructive sketches to repeating politeness phrases. And they played out a mini-performance for no longer than two minutes.

We got the same cartoon, only even better, because here you can touch all the characters and come up with a plot yourself. Masha enthusiastically accepted this idea and now she herself comes up with a script and prepares her own performance: the dolls greet her, find out about each other's affairs, eat, bathe, go to bed.

Soon after the cancellation of gadgets, my daughter developed an interest in audio fairy tales. She enthusiastically listened to "The Bremen Town Musicians" and "The Cat's House", and we learned the musical opera "Moidodyr" by heart and now we can quote any excerpt. All these tales are also in the public domain, listen to them, do not re-listen.

Masha again began to draw and sculpt, paint fairy-tale characters, mastered crayons, paints, felt-tip pens, pencils, plasticine, applications, modeling. We use different materials: clay, dough, kinetic sand. Modeling is another great replacement for cartoons and tablets. A little later we bought a handy children's overhead projector "Firefly" and cassettes with fairy tales and nursery rhymes. They began to watch filmstrips on the wall in the children's room: darkness, bright beautiful pictures, and high-quality voice acting in the background. The child was delighted! Now this is one of our favorite activities.

We began to go for walks more often. In the park, they sat on a bench and watched everything that was happening around. Any bump or leaf can become a reason for a fascinating fairy tale. Once in the very center of the city they found a shell. I wonder how she got there? We have learned to notice these little things.

What was the hardest part of our experiment? Overpower yourself, step over your habit of convenience, change your lifestyle, give up TV and constantly stay on the Internet. And it turned out that living without gadgets is much better

It was so interesting for us to spend time with our daughter, as if we ourselves became curious dreamers-children. And we were no longer drawn to the TV. At first, it was more difficult with smartphones: they limited themselves to answering calls and messages. All the efforts have paid off with interest. In her two years, Masha speaks perfectly, can sing a couple of verses of a song, tell a rhyme or a simple fairy tale, show interest in everything new, with pleasure she learns letters, numbers and notes. She develops a fantasy. She became more independent. We made an unexpected conclusion: those free minutes that parents are looking for, giving their children to be torn apart by gadgets, appeared as if by themselves. And all because the child has learned to occupy himself. And we began to recognize our old daughter - calm, cheerful, positive-minded. Whims and tantrums came to naught.

So the timely refusal of gadgets helped to eradicate our parental laziness, taught us to choose not the easiest way, but the most useful, and gave the joy of communicating with the child. We don't yet know what our relationship with the digital world will be like in the future, but we do know for sure: not dead virtual games should be put into the child's soul, but the living world of nature and normal human values.

And finally, we appeal to parents who also want to protect their children from early digital influence: give it a try! Do not doubt! Just turn off the TV one day and hide the tablet away..

It's never too late to make this decision. That bright, colorful, LIVING world that you open to your child is definitely worth all the efforts. We do not want to impose our point of view. All loving parents wish their child only good and choose for him what they think is right. A year ago my husband and I made our choice and never regretted it …

Prepared by L. Denisova