In today’s day and age wherein mobile and smartphones are reigning all our lives, children aren’t left behind in this race too! Most of the kids today are addicted to mobiles and prefer spending time with their gadgets rather than playing outdoors or interacting with other kids! This situation has been so bad, that there are rehab centres now to help these kids addicted to mobiles, get over their addiction, and lead a normal life!
Most of the families today are of nuclear structure with just the parents and a kid. Rarely does a family have more than one sibling. And even if there are a few kids in the house, the parents are too busy in meeting the various demands of today’s world — and therefore get their kids mobiles and tabs in order to keep them busy. And most of the times, you do succeed in it. But are you doing it right? Is your kid watching the right thing in the gadget you have provided them?
How to save your kid from mobile addiction?
Most of the times when you give your children a device, they’ll end up watching YouTube videos in it. And this isn’t wrong because there are lots of good videos for kids on the app which can actually benefit your kid’s learning process. But, when they constantly watch the same for hours, you have a rising problem here. If you aren’t alert and not stopping your kid on time, you’ll have to face the serious consequences of kids being too adamant, their frequent mood swings, weird tantrums, unrealistic demands and even extreme changes in behavioural pattern like violence, etc. And believe us, controlling this in a kid can make you go nuts! That’s why we have listed some of the ways below through which you can stop your kids from being YouTube or internet zombies and turn into better students, children and citizens eventually.
- Dedicate some of your time to them — We know no one is too free to spend the entire day playing football with a kid and reading those stories for hours! But these are your kids, and you love them dearly; we understand you are working hard to brighten their future, but they need you now! And if you are too busy earning pennies and not paying attention to them, they are bound to search that bond in those videos. And who knows, they’ll turn envious of the kids enjoying the parental love and rebel. Ensure paying attention to what they say, take care of their needs personally. Be with them especially during the meal times and sleeping times and take a brief summary of their daily activities without fail.
- Enrol them in a day care centre – As we said most of the kids are the only child of their parents and hence don’t know much about real humans other than those they see in those videos. They can turn introverts if you aren’t letting them mingle with other kids! And what’s a better way for this than enrolling them at Magical Years, a childcare centre in Glen Eden! These childcare centres pay close attention to your kids, and help them explore and learn new things. What’s more, your kids will meet lots of kids of different ages and know what’s socialising at a young age.
- Take them to the relatives — Even though families are smaller nowadays, you still have relatives far and wide. Ensure your kids are meeting their grandparents at least on weekends or once a month. This would give them a chance to come out of their shell and even get some extra love from them.
- Bond them with art — Art is beautiful and contagious! If you think your child has any type of artistic inclination in them, keep them motivated to nurture it. This would help them break the relationship with the gadget and pursue their interests. if they aren’t involved in art, help them discover their hobbies and let them get involved in something they truly enjoy.
- Reader and reading — Reading is one habit that’ll always benefit your kid and help them get over with the youtube addiction. Once they fall in love with words and pages, they won’t be interested in videos at all. Start with short bedtime stories and let them climb the ladder on their own. And soon they’ll find a new interest and for the better.
All these ways are pretty easy and won’t even tax you much of your time and effort. But as a result, they can save your kids’ life getting dominated by YouTube videos and mobile addiction!
