Not many years ago, when the first phones began to sell and it was rare to see someone with a cell phone in hand, talking on the phone, there was a joke that said "How does a condom look like a cell phone? they cover a cocoon. " We told him, and we were funny, because seeing someone talk on the street with a phone seemed ridiculous. This time passed (now the ridiculous and funny thing is to take pictures with a stick, but calm, it will pass and be as normal) and now it seems that the weird and ridiculous is the one without a mobile phone.
It is so normalized, it is so usual, that it is perfectly normal to see people walking crestfallen, looking at the screen of their mobile and it is perfectly normal to see children, also crestfallen, hooked to their parents' mobile, to the point that one no longer knows if the mobile is from the father or the child. They spend so much time in front that one begins to think that they will soon be abducted by the screen. They spend so much time in front of us that we are raising children who are refusing to go outside to play. They spend so much time that we have to do something so they don't spend so much time. That's why today we explain how to manage the use of mobile phones to make our children normal children and no walking ghosts, as we are already many adults (you step on shit and you don't realize until you get home and that damn smell comes to you).
Armando, technology is there, man, it's inevitable
Can we prevent them from using the screens? No, we can not. We have grown with them, also, with television, with video. If books were criticized in our childhood, because there were children who did not peel their noses from the pages. We have grown and all of this has been added to computers, mobiles and tablets. They are already part of our life and are already part, and will be, of the lives of our children, forming a new way of leisure and even a new way of communicating.
Now, that there is a new way of doing many things does not mean that it should be the only way, and that is what many parents and many children do not seem very clear about. The screens are not negative per seBut if they are abused, if children abuse them, what the experts are already warning will happen and that it is so logical that it falls under its own weight: children will grow up with social and emotional disabilities. Add sedentary lifestyle, add not talking face to face with people, add not to use paper, pencils and pens, other manipulation games, free play, running, jumping and a great etc., Y the problem will be fat. Very fat Already, I have gone to the extreme. The current situation is not so bad, but be careful, we are on the road.
We are on the road because, as I say at the beginning of the entry, it begins to be customary to see the children crestfallen, with their eyes glued to the screen of the mobile or the tablet, without interacting with either the father or the mother or With the people around.
How to control or manage the use of mobile by our children
If we want to prevent what I comment happen. If we want to avoid the end of canned leisure drugs, if we want communication between our children and us to go beyond the "dad, leave me the phone" and the "do not go over, leave me without battery", we must do something . Something to prevent it and, if we already have the problem before us, something to solve it. What to do about it? Let's see it below:
- Use Parental Control Apps: the first thing, since they are going to take our mobile or a tablet, is to have the peace of mind that they won't see something we don't want them to see. For this it is useful to have installed a parental control application that allows them to use only what we want them to touch. The Apple system, iOS, has the possibility of making restrictions on the configuration of its terminals, preventing them from opening Safari, YouTube, etc., and that they can install or uninstall programs, among other things. To these options we can add some application, such as ParentKit, where you can create a profile for each child, with the applications that you can open and even the possibility of adding a schedule (you can play from this hour to this other). The downside is to pay an annual fee of € 39'99. We also have Qustodio, a free web browser that removes the possibility of using Safari and allows children to navigate safely. If you have Android, we have Kids Place, which creates an ecosystem for children only on mobile. Something like if we gave them a children's mobile, by lending them ours. There they have their applications and everything they can touch, but not what we don't want them to touch. There is also Qustodio, which curiously has many negative scores of the children, the result of the anger of being limited in navigation.
- Put a certain time?: another option, if there is no application that controls it, is to set a specific time for the mobile, in plan you have half an hour and when it is eight o'clock it is over. It may work with some children, but it is usually a failure. It is usually because parents have moments of great rectitude, but also moments of more laxity, and when we are tired we do not always want to take the opposite of our children, that at eight o'clock they tell us to "come, a little longer." In addition, at the level of psychology, it is not very appropriate, because what we tend to limit and prohibit is usually precisely what most attracts the attention of children. By this rule of three, time with mobile or tablet should never be a prize. Many parents have it as such "when you finish all your homework, you can play the tablet for half an hour, and if you do it very well, one hour." Homework, according to that phrase, is a boring obligation and the tablet fun. And not only a boring obligation, but they become the means to achieve the other. They are no longer to learn or for the motivation to know more, but to get, later, spend more time in front of the screen.
- Be the perfect example: both in the mobile issue, as in any life issue, children learn from what they see, and morally we have no authority to tell our children that they use the mobile too much if we use it too much. Already, I know, we are the parents and we have the paternal authority, but this will last shortly. If they always see us in front of the mobile, sooner or later they will end up the same (badly).
- Do not install more children's games: I know that leaving your mobile phone so they don't bother, shut up and be controlled is very comfortable on many occasions. It is so comfortable that when we see that the games they have are not very funny, we fall into the trap of entering the application store and downloading new games and applications. We do it to continue offering them that leisure that they like so much and so that they remain undisturbed, quiet and controlled, but deep down it is negative and, as parents, questionable at the pedagogical level. We are saying that leisure should come from other sources and that our relationship with them should improve, so it makes no sense that they have a lot of games available and that, in addition, we are installing more and more. If we do the opposite, if we do not install more, the mobile will be controlled over time, because they grow and end up getting bored of what they have already seen.
- Offer them alternatives: the biggest reason why children end up stuck to the screens is boredom, or lack of stimuli. That is, if there is nothing better to do, they throw themselves at easy leisure. There is no point in limiting time or forbidding them if when that time runs out they find nothing more fun to do. That's why sometimes we have to offer alternatives. Children, as a general rule, always prefer to spend time with us, play with us, share games, space and dialogue, rather than intrude on a screen. They always prefer it, unless we are so boring or so uncommunicative that they find us impossible and, decidedly, they end up preferring to be alone than in our company (This I just said is very, very hard, but it happens). Well, look for alternatives, games, offer to spend some time with them, take them to the street, to the park, to play, pick up a ball, read a book with them. Do you really think of anything better than leaving them the mobile so they are calm?
And with this I finish: Do you really think of nothing better to do with them than to give them your mobile so they are quiet and calm and do not disturb others? Wouldn't that be a good time to talk about the things you have done today, what you could do over the weekend or a time when you explain fantastic stories? Wouldn't that be a good time to take advantage and explain that you are in a public place and that they shouldn't bother you? That is called educating, explaining how they should live in society, letting them know what is right and what is not.
Give them the mobile? Yes, it works too. Press the "On" of the mobile and, at the same time, press the "Off" of the child.
