In new parenting trend, kids being kept screen-free
Aahir, 5, and his sister
Naysa, 10, seem like the perfect children. They listen attentively to stories,
are observant, eat without fuss and sleep on time. “After school, we usually go
to the park to play games and ride the bike,“ says their mother Vidya Seth, who
lives in Mumbai. And when they want to unwind? “Aahir creates things with his
building blocks and magnetic tiles while the older Naysa reads books and
newspapers.“
Vidya does not attribute
her children's way of life to tiger-mom tactics but to the fact that the family
has kept them away from tablets, mobile phones and other screens. “We made a
conscious decision not to entertain our children with on-screen distractions,“
she says.
Bucking the modern-day
parenting trend where cartoons and games make for great nannies, some
tech-cautious parents are refusing to let their kids bathe in the glow of
computers, smartphones and tablets, day and night.
Aloka Mehta says when she
had her first child, she was influenced by other parents and showed her son
nursery rhymes on the iPad when he was two.
“I felt it would make him a
fast learner. Soon I realised he wanted more. If I switched it off after an
hour, he would have a serious meltdown -crying and tantrums. By the time he
turned 4, I stopped all screen time. He now enjoys solving puzzles and crafting
things with his play dough.It's only on Fridays and Sundays that he gets an
hour of screen time,“ says Mehta, who kept her younger son away from screens
from the start.
Many of these parents have
come to learn that their children become apathetic and uninterested when not
plugged in. “I believe a child should get bored and figure out ways to amuse
herself,“ says Natali Asrani, mother to a four-year-old. Technology is a poor
sub stitute for personal in teraction,“ says Asrani, whose husband is a mobile
phone application developer.“Did you know Steve Jobs was a low-tech parent? I
guess tech parents have first-hand knowledge of dangers of too much technology
,“ she says.
Kolkata-based English
teacher Shiladitya Mukhopadhyay adopted a screenfree policy for his children
five years ago, but faced considerable flak. “People ask us why we torture our
children and deprive them of knowledge,“ he says. The decision to go
screen-free meant the working couple had to put in extra effort to keep their
children busy , but he says it was worth it. Now, his five-yearold son spends
hours with books, often reading them to his one-year-old sister too.
Bengaluru-based journalist
and blogger Sandhya Menon ensures that her mobile phone is out of her
children's sight as much as possible, and keeps them engaged with books, games,
and art and craft projects. She believes her screen-free policy has helped them
inculcate long-term habits and personality traits they wouldn't have otherwise.
“They retain a certain innocence I see lost in other children their age,“ says
Menon. “One of the biggest things they have developed is observation, because
they're looking at things around them.“ She says it has encouraged her children
to use their bodies more, whether doing headstands and cartwheels or working
with clay and gardening.
Temper tantrums when
devices were taken away and short attention spans were what prompted Tanaya
Burman, mother to Anamika (11) and Riya (13), to prohibit nonacademic use of
the computer. “As a treat“, she allows them an hour of television on weekends,
though “It's a constant battle now that they're growing up,“ she says.
Honest conversations also
help children understand how screen habits may disconnect them from the real
world. Though her children, aged 9 and 8, make requests to use the internet,
Sandhya, finds it easy to convince them. “I remind them why we do this -so that
they learn to engage with the world.“
According to Dr Samir
Parikh, director, department of mental health and behavioural sciences, Fortis
Healthcare, “Parents need to be role models. If a parent is accustomed to
having a mobile at dinner table, children are likely to emulate it.“
Parents do have to make
changes to their lifestyle. “We moved our television to our bedroom and watch
only after our children are asleep,“ says Vidya, who sometimes finds herself
surreptitiously checking her phone.
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Mohua
Das & Sonam Joshi
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TOI 5NOV17
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