Hello my enthusiastic readers! I know that you all are reading my post after ages. I had horribly slowed down this year, with only one or two posts and that too I wrote just to keep my blog up and running. Even I feel that I had a downfall in my followers. But I am not so sure about it, since I have not kept any track for a year.
So this year is approaching its farewell and hence I thought a lot about writing something, which I love. Since I am into motherhood now, I am more into finding stuff for my kid so that she can stay away from the Digital Entertainment i.e. Screen Time. But to be honest, in spite of many things, still the screen time is not less. But my daughter eagerly waits for what will be her next session or next play.
To make this work, obviously I have to take help of screen and i.e. Instagram. Though Instagram has a lot of rubbish content, it also helps with ideas for home-sitting parents. At first, I started with craft. I am not at all a craft person but since kids love to do this, I started searching for simple craft. Some crafts were cute and some turned into horrible irritations. So, if you are a parent, and if you want your kids to stay away from the screen, then the first option after their homework and other studies is craft. I stay in India and India has many festivals. So my first craft is always of that particular festival. Now, since it’s Christmas and new year time, I have told my daughter to make greetings for their friends. She zealously searches for new designs on Instagram and YouTube. But here, again the screen time. Screen time did not end here because to make that stuff, me n my kid had to watch that particular video. Basically, I encouraged Digital Entertainment by myself.
I am into social media. I even scroll Linkedin and I do read the professional contents. I do follow a few mompreneurs there and then one day, I came across one post, where I saw that the kid was doing lots of physical activities. The activities were pretty good, but in order to make it work, someone has to be there to make their kid do that activity. As a mom, I can’t make my kid do physical activity alone. Well, any activities, I have to be present there, with her. There were many comments to this post saying one parent has to be free to make this happen. Then one replied that his daughter is into reading and she keeps on reading, claiming that she is not having any screen time.
Well a debate here. Yes, reading is excellent, great, incredible, outstanding. But reading all the time will make your child introverted and boring. Child has to be active and expressive. For that, children should know how to talk and also should know how to fight with their friends. Yes, I make my child read books. But not more than one or two chapters in a day. But wait, I saw that, the man who commented about reading, had actually uploaded her daughter’s photo. The daughter was reading on iPad. So????? screen time again. What’s the use of reading a book, if you are making them read digitally? Yes, his daughter is increasing knowledge, but at what cost?
So scrolling down LinkedIn, recently I came across one mompreneur’s post, who has invested her time as storyteller, saying it is compulsory to keep story reading sessions once in a month, along with kid’s friends and their parents. Well, it’s very hard to find such a group. But I loved this. I don’t know whether I can keep such sessions or not. But I will definitely try this with my kid and one of her friends. The mompreneur even explained how to make it fun. Whatever story we are reading to them, make them draw or make them enact and take their video. In this way, drawing will help in their imagination and enacting will help in their public speaking and will overcome stage fear. This will also make them fall in love with reading.
And what else can you do with your kids at home to avoid screen time? Teach them stitching. I am not saying teach them embroidery, but some basic stitching like running, back stitching etc. For this, you don’t need to buy anything. Take some rough / old cloth and teach on it. Well, I have started this. Yes, my daughter is bored now. Though, I told her that it’s not a one day job but you can do this everyday for 10-15 mins.
Sounds great, right!! But what if I say that all these activities your kid will not do alone. You have to sit with them, then? Well true, Your kid will not do these activities alone. They will sit for like 5 mins and if you are not around them, then they will easily get distracted and also leave the place messy. So what then? Above all these, first teach them to clean their own stuff, to keep their own stuff at its own place. Else you will be the most exasperated person. So no option, you have to sit with your kid in order to keep them away from the screen. But the problem is, the moment I get busy in the kitchen or in some other house work, my daughter starts scrolling Instagram or will watch videos on YouTube.
So is there any solution to this? Well, as such no. All you can do is be strict in their screen time. Some phones do have screen time options. Unfortunately you have to keep your phone and other devices in the kids zone mode. Always keep a password to payment gateway apps. Download some educational games like recognition of flags or sudoku. At Least your kid will play and learn a few things. I always do this, as soon as my daughter is back from school, she finds one motivational quote or good lines about her and one small puzzle to solve on her white board. She willingly solves such puzzles.
So again the same question; What about the screen time? Well, ask yourself first. Are you ready to give up on social media? Are you ready to give up WhatsApp? Are you ready to keep your mobile aside, whenever your kid wants your attention, no matter how urgent work you are doing or some informational video you are watching? Are you ready to switch off the TV, in your me-time, when your kid is watching mobile? If yes, then yes, screen time will drastically reduce and If no, then invest your time with your kid.
Back in the golden days, we didn’t had mobile phones but we had TV and we all grew up watching TV all the time. We all had a whale of a time watching TV i.e. we too had screen time. Nothing has changed. The only change is that now we have different varieties of the screen.
Make Time For Things You Love