How to Ensure Screen Time Doesn’t Negatively Impact Your Child’s Health
In today’s digital age, screens are often an essential part of our daily lives. However, parents need to be mindful of the potential health impact of excessive screen time on their children. Dr. Laurel Williams at Baylor College of Medicine offers some tips for parents to ensure their children use smartphones and tablets in a responsible and healthy manner.
Monitor Your Child’s Behavior Towards Screens
Rather than imposing arbitrary limits on screen time, Dr. Williams suggests that parents should focus on their child’s behavior towards their screens. If they are spending too much time on their devices, they might exhibit signs such as not talking to anyone at home, feeling anxious or unhappy, or lacking physical activity. Parents must keep a close eye on their child’s screen activity and intervene when they sense that their child’s use is becoming problematic.
Encourage Physical Activity and Enrichment
Children’s screen habits often coincide with decreased physical activity, which can have a negative impact on both their physical and mental health. To remedy this, parents should encourage their children to be active and seek out enriching activities such as summer camps, after-school sports, and educational programs. Children from low-income families, who cannot afford such activities, should access free online tools and educational games to keep them engaged and enriched.
Find Age-Appropriate Educational Material
Not all screen time is created equal. While some screen activities are beneficial, others may be meaningless or harmful. Dr. Williams suggests that parents should look for subscription-based educational games and free online tools that promote a safe and educational environment for their children. Parents who cannot send their children to summer camps or after-school programs should access school resources to find appropriate apps or websites that align with their child’s educational goals and interests.
Show Interest in Your Child’s Screen-Based Activities
Parents should show an active interest in their child’s screen-based activities to encourage them to continue learning and growing while also monitoring their screen time. Children often want to show their parents what they have learned and achieved, and they expect their parents to be proud of them. By taking an interest in their activities, parents not only keep a close eye on their child’s screen habits but also foster stronger relationships with their children.
Watch Out for Bullying and Negative Content
The internet is an enormous playground where children may encounter bullies, trolls, and negative content. Parents should look for warning signs of this type of behavior and take action to protect their children. Using parental controls can limit your child’s access to harmful materials, but it is also critical to discuss online safety and appropriate behavior with them. Additionally, parents must monitor their child’s browsing history and apps to identify any red flags or potential safety concerns.
The Dangers of Screen Time on Children’s Mental and Physical Health
According to the American Heart Association, children who engage in excessive screen time have a higher risk of obesity, high blood pressure, and poor sleep quality. Further studies indicate that screen time can impact children’s behavioral, emotional, and cognitive development. Children who spend too much time on screens are more likely to have poor attention span, decreased cognitive abilities, and the inability to recognize facial expressions.
Dr. Williams emphasizes that social media can be particularly harmful to children, especially girls. Social media sites promote curated images that do not reflect reality, leading to anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. Additionally, anonymity allows people to behave worse online than they typically would in face-to-face interactions, which children may find difficult to comprehend.
Speaking with your child about the potential harm that excessive screen time can cause is critical. It is also essential to make sure your child has a healthy balance between screen time and other activities.
Conclusion
As digital natives, our children are exposed to screens more often than we were growing up. While screens can be beneficial and educational, they can also be detrimental to children’s physical, behavioral, and emotional development. With some mindfulness and guidance from parents, children can use screens to learn and grow in healthy and socially appropriate ways. Encouraging physical activity, monitoring behavior towards screens, and boosting enrichment opportunities are just a few of the ways parents can ensure their child’s screen time is healthy and productive.
In conclusion, proper screen time usage is essential to support our children’s mental and physical health and well-being. Parents must balance screen time with other activities, monitor their child’s behavior towards screens, and ensure they access proper age-based educational tools and content. With proper guidance and monitoring, children can enjoy a healthy balance between screen time and other activities that nurtures their holistic development.
—————————————————-
| Article | Link |
|---|---|
| UK Artful Impressions | Premiere Etsy Store |
| Sponsored Content | View |
| 90’s Rock Band Review | View |
| Ted Lasso’s MacBook Guide | View |
| Nature’s Secret to More Energy | View |
| Ancient Recipe for Weight Loss | View |
| MacBook Air i3 vs i5 | View |
| You Need a VPN in 2023 – Liberty Shield | View |
By Cara Murez
HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, June 5, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Summer vacation has begun for some families, and screen use may already seem like too much.
A psychiatrist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston offers some tips to make sure smartphones and tablets are used well and not overused.
Dr. Laurel Williams, a professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, said that no arbitrary number of hours spent online indicates addiction. She suggests that parents should focus on their children’s behavior towards their phone. If something seems different or problematic, that could be a warning sign of too much screen time.
“It could be that your child doesn’t talk to anyone at home, talks less, always spends time in their room, or feels anxious or unhappy about what they see or do online,” Williams said in a university news release.
Kids tend to be less physically active when they’re abusing their devices, whether it’s watching TV, playing video games or browsing social media.
They should be active and also looking for some enrichment to make sure they are ready for their studies in the fall.
Poorer kids who can’t afford summer enrichment programs often black out during recess and take longer to catch up at the start of the school year, Williams noted.
Some may not have many options other than turning to their screen for entertainment.
“If your child is engaging in meaningless activities, that could be an academic problem. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to spend time on your phone, but make sure your screen activity isn’t causing any harm,” she said.
Williams suggests finding free online tools to play or subscription-based educational games.
Parents who are unable to send their children to activities should access school resources for information on apps or websites that promote a safe educational environment for children, he said.
Also, show interest in your child’s educational games so they’ll be encouraged to continue while monitoring their progress, recommends Williams.
“Children often want to show you what they have done, they want you to be proud of them. If you don’t show interest or don’t check to see if they’ve done it, don’t be surprised if your child loses interest,” Williams said.
It is important to keep track of your child’s screen activity, with an eye out for bullying and negative content. Kids may not realize that people are more unpleasant when they are anonymous or may not understand the subtle cues and lack of consequences for being mean online. Using parental controls helps, but it’s still important to look at history, Williams said.
“There is clear evidence that social media can cause anxiety, depression and eating problems, especially in girls. They see curated images of people who aren’t real, so it really taps into that teenage stage that (they) want to belong to,” Williams said.
More information
Worried about your child’s screen use? Common Sense Media has a guide for parental controls.
SOURCE: Baylor College of Medicine, press release, June 1, 2023
https://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20230605/does-your-kid-need-a-summer-vacation-from-smartphones?src=RSS_PUBLIC
—————————————————-