Just the other weekend my mother and I went to the club to have dinner. As we sat waiting for our soup to arrive we began catching up with the week that had passed by.
I casually happened to look around the adjacent table where again a mother and daughter duo were sitting. The mother must have been in her 30’s and the daughter a teenager. I was surprised to see that as they waited for their food to arrive, both were engaged on their so called “Smart Phones”. Their food arrived and the teenager ate while continuing on the phone, with the mother cribbing at regular intervals that the girl was inseparable with the phone.
Further down two tables I saw a young couple sitting with their three year old daughter. Their food had arrived and the young girl was getting extremely restless and cranky. In order to pacify her, the smart mother opened a YouTube link for the daughter on the tab. The gadget did the trick, the young girl glued her eyes on the tab and the couple enjoyed a peaceful meal. As their meal got over the mother tried taking the tab away from the kid and the kid started throwing massive tantrums. I overheard the father commenting that the toddler was addicted to YouTube.
Both these instances give us some food for thought.
How did these kids, both the teenager and the toddler got hooked on to the smart device?
Was it not the parents who had very causally exposed this monster to their kids?
Do the parents then have a right to complain that their kids have become slaves of technology?
Everyone in our generation knows the harmful affects of these gadgets, still we knowingly introduce our tender minds to these electromagnetic radiations.
It amazes me that most parents while choosing a preschool don’t check for this hazard. They get bowled over by the concept of a smart class and fancy audio visual labs.
Very recently we had a parent arguing with us as to why our playschool in Noida (near sector 77) had no screen time. I bet she graded us as a fossil regarding use of technology (it hardly matters that I am into web n graphic designing too).
It was ironical that I had to actually explain the parent that if as a school we choose not to have any screen time for the kids, it wasn’t a matter of cost cutting but a very conscious decision, as we didn’t want their kids to be exposed to electromagnetic radiations.
As a playschool it is so easy for me to put a new crying child in front of the television with cartoon or rhymes to pacify him/ her. Our playschool however chooses the longer n more difficult path to settle the child. We build a relationship with the child by the childcare expert constantly talking and engaging the child in meaningful and innovative activities.
Indeed it takes our childcare experts a little longer but believe us you are one who benefits from it as your child learns how to build a relationship rather than become a slave of technology & gadgets.
Let’s very consciously take a pledge today and keep away our kids from technology. Sooner or later they are bound to use technology, let’s strive to make is LATER!
-Divya Joshi
