Children do love playing video games and watching cartoons - but should they do so? It is important to note that not all games and cartoons are suitable for children. But if you want to allow your kids to watch cartoons and play video games, you should handpick these. Be careful because violent media content causes aggression in children.
Children spend more time on mobiles and computers every day than they spend their time in physical games every week. A lot of parents are in search of a solution to the issue of excessive use of mobile phones and computers by their children.
Disadvantages of Excessive Use of Mobiles and Computers by Children
Excessive screen use in children has many problems; some of which are:
A child which uses screen (for watching cartoons and movies or for playing video games) for half an hour lives in a virtual world for the next several hours.- These children always wait for a magic wand and never accept and face the bitter realities of life. instead of working hard for success, they want and wait for a miracle/ magic to occur.
- These children are fully involved in on-screen activities and become almost senseless about family issues and problems to care which make them selfish. They neither help their siblings in their matters nor offer a helping hand to parents in their daily routine works.
- Children involved in screen activities, always choose the things that glitter. But the fact is that everything that glitters is not gold.
- A family is a unit which means working together through each thick and thin. But mostly it is observed that such type of children is absent from daily collective gatherings such as breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
- Last but the most important point is, children are morally and religiously misguided by almost all major brands of cartoon networks and cartoon series. Most cartoon networks seamlessly introduce Indian culture, customs and slang words. Boyfriend and girlfriend culture is being introduced in our next generation from early childhood.
Solutions
Children screen time may be reduced in the following ways:
- Alternate fun and learning activities may be introduced to kids such as telling moral stories, playing physical games with children and encourage them to play with block building games.
- Make it compulsory for the whole family to have breakfast, lunch and dinner together.
- Parents should also decrease the mobile and computer usage in front of children, to its minimum level.
- Family recreational trips (to the parks, historical places, museums, zoo etc.) should be arranged.
- Daily family readings of Quran-e-Pak, Hadith or any other Islamic book should be mandatory.
- Always show respect to scholars, teachers, elders so that our next generation learn to respect elders.
- Always do positive activities and your children will surely follow your path, as the children learn from your acts and not only from advice.
- You should limit children on screen time by using MS Windows "Parental Control Feature" in the control panel and also limiting their access to mobile phones and tablets through installing kids zone etc applications.
- Please never shout at home especially in front of children, always dialogue with logic.
This is a guest post by:
Mr. Muhammad Abdul Razaq