We know children learn from imitating others. Children also see the world in images and when they play it is a way of processing what they have picked up to make sense of it. We have to leave children's minds free to process and I would say that giving small children too much tv or "screen" time, is a form of child abuse. I agree, it does not set them up for life. Its a major challenge. Blessed are the children who have conscious parents. My son went to the Rudolf Steiner school in Norway and the school asked us to please give them as little tv as possible. They could see that it made a huge difference in their ability to learn and also develop social skills. I just heard recently that France is where parents spend the less time with their children. The parents are on the computer. I work in a toy store and the amount of people that come in and ask for toys that children can play alone with is staggering. We are talking about 3-5 year olds. Its quite upsetting. We have to hope some measures are taken to raise peoples awareness around these issues. You just dont give a child these products at a young age. Let them be children!
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I would too. Don't hit your children but, feeding them terrible food and numbing their minds is fine.
My daughter gets 0 sreen time. She is 20 months today. We took her to the daycare she will start at in September this week for a little tour with a handful of other kids up to 4-5 years. Ours was asking questions and was finding all the numbers on walls, books and posters to count. The other parents looked visibly worried ;)
What I think disturbed them the most is that she would talk to my wife in Finnish and then turn to me and speak English.
We barely teach her but we play and talk a lot together and even though she is more than happy to spend most of he time making up games by herself, when she wants company, she will ask for it and if we offer to play and she is too busy, she says no to us.... I think she will move out at 10 at this rate.
Ahhhh bless her. My son is also bilingual. I spoke Norwegian, the father English. My son spoke early. A lot of reading and singing and no screen time ever in the morning. 30 min in the evening, but very selected, only gentle stuff. I always felt very protective of his mind and soul. Im disturbed by what I see here in France. Parents come in and want educational toys for babies. Not kidding. I tell them, just play and talk with your child, thats education. I tell them that children naturally want to learn. Just be there to answer their questions and show them. Such pressure from the school system. Then its really gone wrong. Education is supposed to be about developing your qualities and to be able to manage on your own in the world so you can contribute in the society. Here they develop sheep. I think its great that you protect your child this way and I also think it is a great inspiration for other parents to share your thoughts. We get tested at parents. Have to assume our role as educators. These new generations come with a natural understanding of computers. Even though my son was protected from a lot of screen time, when he got his game boy, he could have spent all day on that thing and as a teenager the same with the computer. One big danger of letting our children on to these things too early I believe, is that we create serious addictive patterns. I am sharing appartment with a Finn at the moment bu the way. She says Mumi a lot. Haha Enjoy your girl. 20 months, so precious.