The Importance of Interaction During Screen Time
Nowadays, gadgets become an important part of our daily life, including in parenting practice. Parents often give their children entertainment screen time from a young age, despite the negative side effects that could hinder their development such as sleep disturbances, weight problems, mood disorders, and lack of physical activity.
Quoted from the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, the following tips could be a guide to the use of screen time for children based on their age:
- Avoid screen time for children under 18 months except for video calls.
- For children aged 18-24 months, limit screen time to watching quality educational programs only with parents guidance.
- For ages 2-5 years, limit screen time to 1 hour on weekdays and 3 hours on holidays.
- For ages 6 and over, encourage children to adopt healthy habits and limit activities that involve screens.
- Turn off all gadgets during mealtimes and family activities.
- Avoid screen time to stop their crying or tantrums, or using gadgets without supervision.
- Turn off the gadgets and keep them away from their room 30-60 minutes before bedtime.
During screen time, you can talk to your children about what they saw. You can emphasize good behaviors such as cooperation, friendship, and caring for others. You can develop the story again from the show they just watched, and ask the child to imagine or imagine himself being a part of that story.
When children learn new things such as letters, numbers, colors, and object labels through videos, make sure parents also provide stimulation in the real world. For example, by asking the child to name the color, number, or other characteristics of objects around the child. Likewise, when children recognize letters. Parents can invite their children to play Treasure Hunt to look for objects with certain letter prefixes around the house.
It is difficult to avoid gadgets nowadays, but children still need social interactions that are critical for their brain development. Hence, parents guidance and interaction during screen time is crucial. Screen time is predominantly a one way interaction, in which children watch the screen passively. With parent interaction during screen time, children will get more stimulus to develop their sensory skills and imagination. Interaction with parents also encourages children to have more skill in communication and support their socio-emotional ability. Healthy and positive screen time is possible with appropriate guidance and consistency.
Source:
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 2020. Screen Time and Children. Available at:
https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/Children-And-Watching-TV-054.aspx [Accessed 15 May 2020]
screen time, gadget
Pre-school 2 Years - 4 Years / 2 Tahun - 4 Tahun (Balita) / Parenting / Pola Asuh / Family / Keluarga / The Importance of Interaction During Screen Time
Comments
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Personalized book to trigger the imagination and curiosity to discover the wonders of our wonderful Indonesia. The food, music, fashion, language, landscape and the culture. They all never fail to amaze us. What better legacy can we pass on for Indonesia than by instilling nationalism to the future generation of this part of the planet called heaven on earth.
