Monitor your Child’s screentime

Nowadays, screen time has been a major source of affecting children’s health. From babies to small children, everybody is hooked on mobile phones or television as a source of entertainment. Children from the age group of 6 years and above are seen wearing spectacles. Wearing spectacles at such a young age is not a good thing for their lives. The eyes are an essential part of the body and they should be taken care of right from a young age.

Screen Time for a Toddler:

If you are willing to introduce your toddler to screens, it should be one hour per day. Make sure that your toddler eats without seeing any type of screen, be it a television or mobile phone. Once they get addicted to screens while eating food, it will be very difficult for you as a parent to protect their eyes. It has also been said that while eating food, our focus should only be on the food and nothing else. There are a lot of scientific reasons behind this statement and this goes for everyone, from toddlers to adults.

Screen Time and Child’s Behavior:

You will be amazed to know that these two things are interlinked together. Whatever your child is seeing in that one hour, he/she is learning to behave like that. If your child watches action and angry videos, he/she will end up acting grumpy and angry all the time. If your child watches some misappropriate content on a mobile phone, it will affect their mental health and the development of the brain. When your child is spending their one hour in front of the screen, make sure that they learn something meaningful from which they learn something as well.

The Concept of Zero Screen Time:

Zero Screen time refers to no screen time for your toddlers and young children. As a parent, if you are planning this for your kids, it is the best option. Divert your child’s attention to other important tasks like learning, and playing indoors and outdoors. They will learn more by listening to and seeing you. The best advantage of this concept is that your kids will learn to eat without screens and they will spend their free time doing something else irrespective of watching videos on mobile phones. After a certain age, you can start with minimal screen time for your kids.  

How long should a child have screen time?

The number of hours your child spends on screen should be minimal and it should not cause any strain on his/her eyes. According to a recent study done by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry,

• It should be limited to video chatting for toddlers until 18 months of age.
• Between 18 to 24 months, screen time should be limited to watching educational programs on television for 1 hour.
• Between 2-4 years, kids can watch cartoons for 1 hour only.
• For 6 and 6+ years, kids should be motivated for more outdoor activities and sports

How to set up screen time for toddlers?

Setting up screen time for toddlers is an easy task provided they don’t have a habit of watching screens during their free time or while eating food. Nowadays, almost all tech devices come with parental controls and screen time locks. You can easily set this up for your kids. While the parental controls and screen time locks are active, they will automatically shut down when the screen time is finished. You can decide the number of hours as per your choice being a parent. Also, make sure that while your kids are watching mobile phones or television, the device is at a safe distance from their eyes. In this way, there will be less strain on their eyes and fortunately, they will not require spectacles at a very young age.

The adverse effect of increased screen time on eyes:

Increased screen time can make your eyes dry and irritated. A toddler when faced with this situation, will rub his eyes a lot till the dryness is gone but that rubbing part is not good. The increased dryness and irritation can make your eyes weak and your child will have to wear spectacles after a certain point. With increased screen time comes less absorption of daylight. Well, natural daylight is essential for the developing eyes. Your child’s sleep can also be affected by increased screen time. What they watch on the screen can affect them from having a peaceful night’s sleep in their beds. Sitting for one hour continuously without a break can also make the child and his eyes tired. They will become lazy and will not have the energy to do anything further.  

Increased screen time and Mental Health:

At a growing stage, a child’s brain tries to gather as much information as it can which is why children are always curious and asks numerous questions. As a parent, you do not want your child to see inappropriate things on television or mobile phones. Always tell them that you are there for your children and if they see or did anything wrong by mistake, you will help them in rectification and make them understand. If a child learned bad things at a young age, it will have an everlasting impact on his brain and his mental health. It will be difficult for him to recover.

Conclusion:                                                               

Increased screen time is always harmful to toddlers and young children. It is the duty of the parents to make sure that their child watches the screen for a limited period of time. Effective and learning screen time will also help in a child’s brain development and he will learn good things. There are various online learning sources like mobile applications which teach a lot of values to kids like sharing and identification of learning. Protect your child’s eyes from this excessive time and he/she will only thank you when they grow up.