Category: Parenting

Electronic devices are beneficial for many things, but one thing they don’t benefit is your child’s development. Unfortunately, many parents use electronics as virtual babysitters, so we need to shed more light on the problem. Phones, tablets and computers have proven to be dangerous devices for the growing mind of a child.

Let’s discuss the dangers of too much screen exposure and some tips for reducing your child’s screen time this upcoming school year.

How Does Screen Time Affect Kids?

According to the CDC, kids between the ages of 8 and 18 spend over seven hours a day staring at screens. Those seven-plus hours primarily consist of watching videos, playing games and scrolling through social media, with little verbal interaction.

Medical professionals have linked excessive screen time to many troubling issues:

• Lower quality of sleep
• Headaches
• Eye strain
• Shortened attention spans
• Decreased cognitive function
• Increased anxiety and depression
• Decline in academic performance
• Social and emotional impairment
• Obesity from a sedentary lifestyle

No parent wants their children to suffer from these ailments. Here are seven thoughtful ways to reduce your child’s screen time and keep them safe.

Tips to Reduce Your Child’s Screen Time

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends minimal to no screen time in children under 24 months. Between ages 2 and 5, screen time should be no more than an hour a day. You get the idea: parents need to minimize their children’s screen time as much as possible to ensure proper mental and physical development.

1.  Explain Your Reasoning

Your child might not understand or appreciate your reasons for limiting screen time, but you should explain them anyway. Break down the negative effects of electronics and how the no-screen rule will help them. This discussion should be a dual effort if both parents are in the picture. Getting another close relative involved might also help your child be more receptive.

After a few days of minimal screen time, take note of any behavioral changes. Are they more talkative or playful? Has their academic performance improved? Have they changed their attitudes about the no-screen rule? Keep the discussion going.

2.  Don’t Give Them Personal Devices

The worst thing you can do is buy your child a personal phone or tablet. They will grow attached to the device overnight. Every screen in the house should belong to the parents. Keep the passwords secret so they can’t access the devices without permission. This simple strategy prevents your child from sneaking extra screen time.

You also shouldn’t let your child make any personal accounts. Social media use has been linked to many youth mental health issues, including anxiety, depression and strained peer relationships. Besides, there are far better things your child could be doing than scrolling through TikTok and Instagram.

3.  Take Them Outside

Kids ought to be outside getting into trouble, not inside getting sucked into their phones. If your child starts complaining about the no-screen rule, take them to a playground or on a nature walk. They’ll forget about the electronics in a few minutes and find something else to do.

Children have vivid imaginations. They always come up with ideas to keep themselves entertained. Phones and tablets are too overstimulating in large doses. They give kids dopamine hit after dopamine hit, making them effectively addicted to screens and indifferent to the world outside.

4.  Put Your Electronics in Shared Spaces

You can’t trust your children to make the right decisions by themselves in any other environment, so why leave them alone with unrestricted internet access? During your child’s allotted screen time, make sure the devices remain in the living room and other shared spaces.

Don’t let your kids browse the web without adult supervision. They might make a social media account or stumble upon age-inappropriate content without your knowledge. Once they find something they’re not supposed to see, their curiosity will become harder to contain.

5. Help them Find a Hobby

Hobbies give kids a creative diversion from the use of their phones and tablets.  Many hobbies can become a life long pastimes, including photography, magic, cooking, sculpting, pottery, chess, astronomy, and building rockets with a parent. When they do go back online they can use social media to learn and connect with others who are passionate about similar activities.

6.  Start and End the Day Right

This advice goes for everyone in the house: don’t use any electronics 30 minutes after waking up or 30 minutes before bed. Let your brain power up and shut down instead of triggering a stress response by scrolling through news articles and social media feeds. Your sleep quality and overall mood will both see noticeable improvements.

7.  Coordinate With Parents and Teachers

Your child will be surrounded by screens when they go to school – not the school computers, but other students’ personal phones and tablets. 53% of American kids have their own phones by the age of 11, and that number is only getting higher. You need to coordinate with parents and teachers to make sure your child doesn’t have too much screen time at school.

Ditch the Screens, Enjoy the Real World

Our devices might be entertaining and convenient, but they can be destructive forces on the minds of impressionable children. Ditch the screens this school year and allow your kids to enjoy the real world in all of its beauty. Let their imaginations and personalities shine through instead of getting dulled by screens. Positive change starts today!

About the Author
Ava Roman (she/her) is the Managing Editor of Revivalist, a women’s lifestyle magazine that empowers women to live their most authentic life. When Ava is not writing you’ll find her in a yoga class, advocating for her children or whipping up something delicious in the kitchen!

Your child wants to watch a particular movie or TV show, but you don’t know whether or not it’s appropriate. Or, your child wants to watch something but doesn’t know what. As a parent, you know the media your children enjoy has a significant impact on their physical, emotional and social development. Therefore, you need some way of discovering age-appropriate streaming content.

Recommendations from teachers and other parents can be useful starting points, but you don’t know how other parents raise their kids; you want to make sure the content your child watches conforms to your values and your parenting methods.

Plus, even in the case of good and useful recommendations, teachers and other parents can only recommend so much. You need some way to empower yourself to find the content you and your child can agree on without relying on word-of-mouth or generic reviews. This is where Common Sense Media Steps in.

Common Sense Media’s promise is to provide: “Reviews for what your kids are into (before they get into it.)” Many modern rating tools may contain errors or omit certain scenes you could take offense to. With Common Sense Media’s extensive features, you can find all the information that could interest and concern you as a parent specifically seeking entertainment for your child.

What Is Common Sense Media?

Common Sense Media is a non-profit organization that, since 2003, has been a primary source of guidance for parents on tech and media for kids. They possess the biggest library of age-based, independent reviews and ratings on all material children may watch as well as read, play or learn.

They’ve crafted every review using best practices in child development to isolate the most appropriate viewing (and other) material for every child and every stage of growth and development.

How It Works

All Common Sense reviews are completely unbiased. They never accepts payment or any other considerations in trade for making any decisions about the scores they assign or reviews they write.

Their reviews are all designed based on child developmental criteria determined by some of the country’s top authorities.

Common Sense Plans

When you join their site, you can choose between a free basic account and a paid premium service with additional features.

Common Sense Basic

With the free Basic plan you can explore the essential features of the service without committing to pay for it yet. These include:

• Three reviews each month
• Curated lists and relevant articles
• Ability to post, save and comment on reviews

Common Sense Plus

The paid version of the service, called Common Sense Media Plus, provides several additional enticing features for parents.

Content Preferences

Set content preferences for your child and receive recommendations based on your child’s age, topics of interest and streaming services, among other useful criteria.

Tens-of-Thousands of Reviews

Explore over 30,000 unbiased, detailed and age-based reviews. The summaries tell you what the content contains, including information on:

• Education value
• Positive role models
• Violence and scariness
• Language
• Drinking, drugs and smoking
• Positive messages
• Diverse representation
• Sex, romance and nudity
• Products and purchases

Convenient snapshots of each review provide:

• Cover art – You’ll be able to view the movie’s poster.
• Age-appropriateness – The youngest age for which the content appropriate.
• Rating system – A five-star system giving you a quick glimpse of the content’s assessed quality (1 star – “Don’t bother”; 2 stars – “Disappointing”; 3 stars – “Just fine, solid”; 4 stars – “Really good”; 5 stars – “The best!”).
• Basic stats – Rating, year, length.
• Brief description – Focusing both on what parents need to know about the film or shows characteristics (eg. humor, adventure) and on the gist of the story or plot.
• Selections – A ribbon of accolade for particularly outstanding content with the potential to inspire family discussions, entertain all types of families and provide a lasting, positive social impact.
• Interactive features – Save movies and shows of interest to easily access later when you’re looking for something to watch.
• Rate movies – Give your own two cents about any movie or show you and/or your child have already watched.

You can see a detailed breakdown of Common Sense’s movie reviews, along with examples and explanations on HotDog.com.

Entertainment Guides

Select factors like the character strengths of the protagonist and choose from a wide range of topic filters to receive suggestions of movies and shows meeting those criteria.

Common Sense Media also publishes online articles and useful tips on using various streaming tech and media.

Streaming Services

The website lets you explore movies and shows playing only on the streaming services you own. The catalog includes content from the gamut of services, including:

• Disney+
• HBO Max
• Vudu
• YouTube
• Amazon Video
• Amazon Kids Plus
• Hulu
• Netflix
• Redbox
• DIRECTV STREAM
• IMDb TV
• hoopla
• Kanop
• Tubi
• Crackle

You can even use this feature to help decide if there are new streaming services you’d like to subscribe to because of all of the interesting and appropriate content you discover they offer.

In summary, Common Sense Media Plus offers you:

• Unlimited reviews
• Personalized entertainment guides
• Parental settings – Like favorite topics and content restrictions
• Simple search – Start your search by simply entering in any keyword or phrase that interest you, from title or creator to genre to subject matter to similar content
• Filters – Like by platform or streaming service
• Newsletter- A full (and useful) entertainment guide delivered regularly to your email inbox

Recap

The mission of Common Sense Media is to provide parents with a way to find the content that kids and parents will love, each for their own reasons.

Kids will enjoy movies and shows tailored to their interests, while parents will enjoy the ability to monitor and filter what their children watch in order to match with their children’s age group and their own values and parenting styles. Numerous interactive features help make you an expert in what your child can watch.

In addition to movies and TV shows, their site also rates books, games, podcasts and apps. The organization also runs many related socially conscientious programs in areas like education, advocacy, citizenship and ethnicity.

Common Sense Media tailors its tools not only to parents but to teachers and librarians as well, helping make the increasingly overwhelming barrage of new movies, shows and other content out there accessible–and appropriate–for children and families.

As parents, one of our most important jobs is to teach our children about the world around them. One of the most important aspects of life to teach them is economics. It helps them understand how people use and exchange money and goods and how this affects the world around them. Economics studies how people use scarce resources to satisfy their needs and wants.

There are many different economic principles that we can teach our children. By teaching children about economic principles early on, we can help them make more informed decisions later in life.

1. Scarcity

Children must understand that limited resources are available and that we must choose how to use them. This is a fundamental principle of economics that will help them understand trade-offs and opportunity costs. For example, if a child wants a new toy, they need to understand that they may have to give up something else.  This could mean giving up their weekly allowance or doing extra chores around the house.  By understanding opportunity cost, children can learn to make more informed choices about how to use limited resources. This is an essential life skill in a world where resources are becoming increasingly scarce.

2. Supply and Demand

One of the most basic principles is supply and demand. This principle states that the price of a good or service is determined by the amount of supply and the amount of demand. The price will go up when there is a high demand for a product but a low supply. On the other hand, when there is a low demand for a product but a high supply, the product price will go down.  By understanding this principle, children can learn to make informed decisions about what to buy and when to buy it. They can also understand why prices fluctuate and how this affects their everyday lives.

3. Specialization and Division of Labor

While specialization is important for an economy to function smoothly, it’s also one of the key issues that should be included in any children economics curriculum. That way, they can understand why some people specialize in certain tasks and why it’s beneficial for everyone involved. In addition, they can learn about the available jobs and how to match their skills with a particular job best. By teaching children about specialization early on, we can help them to be better prepared for the workforce and to make the most of their talents.

4. Incentives

For children to understand the basic principles of economics, it is important to teach them about incentives early on. An incentive motivates an individual to take action, a key economic concept. There are two types of incentives: positive and negative. Positive incentives are rewards that encourage someone to take action, while negative incentives are punishments that discourage someone from taking action. For example, an interest-bearing savings account might be a positive incentive for saving money. In contrast, a negative incentive for spending money might be a high-interest rate on credit cards. Children can learn to make rational financial decisions about their own economic activity by understanding incentives.

5. Trade

Teaching children about trade is important for understanding international relations and commerce. They need to know that people trade because it benefits both parties involved, not just because one party has something the other wants. Teaching children about trade is an important way to prepare them for success in an increasingly connected world. By understanding how trade works, they’ll be better equipped to participate in the global economy and make informed decisions about their lives.

Conclusion

Source

Children need to learn about economic principles at an early age. Doing so will make them better equipped to make sound financial decisions later in life. Teaching children about these concepts will help them better understand money’s role in our lives and how to use it wisely. In addition, it is important to instill a sense of financial responsibility in kids from a young age. Teaching children economics is a valuable exercise that can pay dividends later in their lives.

Parenting comes with an equal number of rewards and challenges, especially if ADHD runs in your family. Children with ADHD often share this neurotype with at least one parent. Sometimes parents are already aware of their diagnosis before they have children. Other times, parents only look into getting a diagnosis when their child receives one.

Since ADHD diagnoses didn’t become common until the 1990s, many people born in the ‘70s and ‘80s aren’t aware they have it until they compare their child’s behavior with their own. This realization can make parenting your ADHD child easier because you understand their challenges and can manage symptoms together.

Symptoms of ADHD in Children and Adults

Though the symptoms of ADHD are often the same in children and adults, they present differently for different age groups. For instance, hyperactivity may manifest in children as a constant urge to jump, play, and run, while adults may simply feel restless and unable to relax. A child’s impulsivity may look like an inability to wait their turn or play quietly, while adults may interrupt others and become easily frustrated.

The best way to manage these symptoms is to do it together. Below are some strategies you can apply to help your child manage their symptoms while handling your own.

Parenting a Child with ADHD for the Parent with ADHD

Accommodate and Manage Your Symptoms

Before you can effectively help your child learn to regulate their ADHD symptoms, you need to devise strategies and methods for managing yours. It’s similar to a flight attendant instructing passengers to put on their oxygen masks before helping their children. If the parent isn’t cared for, they can’t care for their children.

The same principle applies here. Accommodating your needs by storing important items in plain sight and setting an alarm to take your medication not only frees headspace for parenting, but also models to your child that they can do the same thing.

Create Routines

Establishing routines with ADHD can be challenging. However, once you’ve created a routine that works for your lifestyle, your days will go more smoothly. Adhering to a routine creates a kind of muscle memory, enabling you to move through daily tasks without thinking about them too much and allowing executive dysfunction to set in. The idea is to make the routine so rote that you and your child can entertain yourselves with stories, music, and fun discussions without missing a beat. Routines also help establish healthy habits like staying hydrated, eating regularly, and taking ADHD medication on time, if prescribed by your doctor.

Routines also help establish healthy habits like staying hydrated, eating regularly, and taking medication on time.

Reduce Distractions

But don’t go to the extreme with this. While too many distractions can draw you and your child’s focus away from things like schoolwork, too little stimulation could lead to seeking distractions because your brain needs dopamine.

Rather than sitting in silence while doing homework, talk to your child about what helps you focus, and let them choose some things to try. For instance, movies and podcasts may prove too distracting, but rock music or ASMR videos could be just the right amount of stimulation.

Engage in Activities Together

Planned outings or activities at home not only contribute to the holistic development of children, but parents also benefit to their own emotional well-being. Participating in fun endeavors takes parent and child away from the pressures of everyday life, promoting positive emotions and creating lasting memories filled with happiness, laughter, and excitement.

Whether it’s cooking, gardening, listening to music or playing sports, children can acquire new skills and knowledge from their parents’ expertise. Parents can also learn from their children’s unique perspectives and trust in the relationship it strengthened.

Teach and Model Self-Care

While it’s beneficial for children to learn that we sometimes need to do things that aren’t fun or pleasant, it’s equally important to teach and demonstrate optimum self-care—especially for parents and children with ADHD.

ADHD brains often move at lightning speed, skipping from one task to another without a break, putting them at greater risk for panic attacks and burnout. Showing your child that it’s okay to rest—and how to rest effectively with ADHD—gives you a break and teaches them how to care for themselves long-term.

Jenn Walker is a freelance writer, blogger, dog-enthusiast, and avid beachgoer operating out of Southern New Jersey. She writes for Klarity, an online ADHD diagnosis service.