Screen time – oh, screen time. It’s the bane of a parent’s life and the savior of their time. It’s the thing that most parents are judged for the most, too. Some people judge parents for giving their children too much of it and others judge parents for protecting their children from too much exposure to screen time. There are some parents who believe that too much technology is rotting their kids’ brains, teaching them to grow up too fast, and other parents who believe that technology awareness from a young age prevents their children from falling behind.
More often than not these days, people will give their children a screen to use from a very young age. This means that you have toddlers understanding how to work the mechanics of Netflix then they know how to work their way around crayons and coloring pages. The thing is, technology is in our lives and there is no real getting away from that. It’s here to stay and it’s not going anywhere, and by refusing to expose children to technology, it’s actually doing them a disservice. When parents are monitoring technology usage, there is no need to say no to technology when it comes to children. All it will do is ensure that they are behind their peers. Sure, you don’t need to have your children on social media at the age of 7, but understanding the basics is going to help immensely as they get older.
Some children love to use drones to explore, and the mini ones you can find from Dr Drone are perfect for kids who want to see the world from a new view. Some children love fitness watches and families out there have competitions to see who can walk the most steps in a day – keeping their kids fit and healthy without pushing a dieting agenda on them. The point is that technology is helping people the world over – and why wouldn’t you want your children to be a part of that help? There are more and more parents asking if children should be exposed to technology and be able to access it as much as they are right now, and we’ve got ten very good reasons to say yes to the tech and embrace it with your children.
- Visual development is one of the best reasons to introduce children to technology. From the apps and games that enable them to improve their hand-eye coordination to the art apps that give them a sense of color, children can learn to follow an object on a screen and participate in learning games that go beyond “head, shoulders, knees and toes.” It’s a big deal and as a parent, you are in control of whether your children are exposed to that level of development.
- Improving speech is the goal for almost every parent of a toddler. When your child has access to learning apps and even Spotify for learning songs, you will notice a lot of mimicking going on. Children are able to pick up language skills in an instant, and this includes other languages that they may not be exposed to at home. There are apps for multisensory engagement and apps that enable you to link up with the school and work together on your child’s learning. Speech is one thing that some children leave behind for longer, but this level of exposure is going to allow your children the chance to learn something incredible and at a level to which they are most comfortable.
- One of the biggest issues that some parents have is the panic that their child won’t be ready for school. Now, you don’t need your child to be reciting the alphabet and learning the periodic table by the age of three, but you can help to prepare them for their school day by simply allowing them access to educational opportunities to allow them to feel ready. You can help them to recognize letters and numbers, and you can help them to even say and spell their name before they get there, too. Children are little sponges, and technology is going to help you to feed their brains the education that you want them to begin with.
- Capturing the attention of a child isn’t always easy, but with the help of a screen, you can do that. Screen time doesn’t have to be going on for hours on end and you can still encourage messy play and board games. However, with the enhancements of technology, you can encourage children to role-play more. There’s a reason that teenagers love being immersed in The SIMS and other RPGs, it’s because they can socialize and learn skill-building techniques for themselves. When you provide these opportunities, they appreciate it so much more!
- Speaking of socializing, technology allows this far more than any other medium. You can be involved in the socializing that your children and teenagers do online, and you can still protect them from social media and all that comes with that. Exposing your children to save games and apps where they can engage with people that you already know is a good way to start teaching them how to interact safely online. When you take them swimming, you don’t protect them from the water by keeping them out of it. You show them how to navigate and how to swim: this is the same thing.
- It’s so much easier to encourage learning and a love of learning in teenagers with technology. Giving your son or daughter a drone or a GoPro to explore with is a good thing to do if they are chomping at the bit for adventure. There are so many apps out there that encourage kids to learn, and the actual technology itself can do that, too. Who wouldn’t want to play in a virtual escape room from home with VR technology? So many kids benefit from satisfying their curiosities, and technology can help you to do that.
- Interactive screen time is one of the best ways to enable your children to have screen time that builds their skills. From problem-solving to dynamic spatial reasoning, children and teenagers are better able to understand the way that the world works when they build on these skills.
- Problem-solving skills is something that we’ve mentioned a couple of times but imagine the problem is that your children are struggling to release their creativity? You have the power to help. Your teenager who wants to make movies would benefit from a drone, and your child who loves to build online worlds would love RPG games to help them to create. You get to be the person to help your child to foster a love of learning and bring out their creative side – all by helping them to solve their problems.
- Technology enables children to travel without moving. They can see around the world, watch international zoos through webcams and engage with other children in other places. This will help them to expand their horizons and discover what they want from the world, and it’s this that will help your children to develop a love of the world and a thirst to see it.
- Do you want your children to be skilled and educated individuals? Great. The technology you offer them in their lives is going to help them to achieve that. You can help your children to have the opportunities that perhaps you never did, too.
