68% of parents with children under 6 say their kids need a ‘detox’ from technology. Here’s why that’s scary, say experts

A mixture of children and the screen time does not come much without any lack of fears: cognitive delay, executive performance issues, higher rates of depression, anxiety and insomnia are related to leaving small eyes on smartphones, tablets or other screens early and often.

However, the research – as well as the terrible warnings that everyone issued by the American Academy of Psychiatry for Children and Adolescents to the Social Psychology and author Jonathan Hydet, who pleads with the lack of high school smart phones – still ignores them by many parents.

In fact, sixty per cent says that their children have started using technology before they could read, according to the results of an opinion poll in Harris commissioned by Bright Horizons, the National Company for Early Education. Nearly three quarters (73 %) admit that their children can use “toxins” from technology, including 68 % of parents under the age of 6 years.

The screen time recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) says it must be very limited to children under the age of 2, then only if it is displayed with an adult who can speak and teach alongside the program. “Children under the age of 2 years learn and grow when they explore the material world around them. They learn their minds better when they interact and play with parents, siblings, sponsorships and other children and adults.”

For those from 2 to 5, at the same time, the use of the screen should be limited to an hour a day, and it must be mostly (or only) of two -way video conversations or an educational view like Sesame Street.

But according to data from logical media, children are seen under the age of 2 hours a day, while children watch 2-4 for two hours and eight minutes a day.

Why do parents do not want warnings, especially since 49 % say they are interested in their mental health, according to the Breet Horizon report, and 42 % worry about the amount of screen time where their children participate?

It seems that part of this is despair – 55 % of parents said they use screens as a bargaining chickenpox to make their children do business or homework, while a higher percentage (58 %) says that they often depend on screens to keep their children calm while shopping or eating abroad.

Also, psychologist Becky Kennedy, also known as Dr. Becky, told. luckand This is an unknown land. “I do not think that paternity and motherhood came naturally,” she says. “But the idea that paternity and motherhood will be normal in a digital world with all these things available to our children are at best a joke – and in the worst case, a way to make parents feel dismay towards themselves.” She emphasized that parents should not hit them on everything. She explained more whenever we are flooded in our private phones, the more difficult we have to set boundaries for our children.

However, Kennedy, who has a partnership with Haidt to create a guide for parents looking for help with children and screen time, said the possible cost of not setting such limits, “I was never.”

This is why Rachel Robertson, the chief academic official in Bright Horizons, finds the results of the new survey very worrying, and stresses that it is important to “think about playing the long game” when it comes to the development of the child.

The risks with a very severe screen screen for young children

“We are helping these young people to develop the basis they need for the rest of their lives,” Robertson says. “They will be adults in the future. What children now need to develop, in the amazing five years of life, which will prepare them to die for the rest of their lives? Do not add screens to any of this early development – and in fact, they can really detract, and we cannot restore that time.”

For example, Robertson, an early education expert, says if you take your young child to the grocery store and start the distress while sitting in the shopping cart, it may give them a screen as a distraction. “He certainly helps them, at the present time, to calm down. But in the long run, he has missed an opportunity to develop organization’s skills, emotional management, and build their executive job to continue waiting times,” she explained.

She says that providing this matter easily with the screen does not build the basic epistemic and social emotional skills that they need and which they will depend on for the rest of their lives. She says that doing this once or twice is not a big problem, but using a screen as distraction every time in the store “will have a significant growth impact on children.” It also refers to the work of Haidt, which highlights a set of studies that show that anxiety and other social, emotional and mental health issues, especially in adolescents, are linked to the long -term screen use.

A group of science supports that in order to develop cognitive skills, language and other skills, young children need the gradual world experience, as Robertson explains, such as playing with games or interacting with care providers. Watching screens leaves them less available for interaction or hearing words, and increasing the ability of language or cognitive or social delay, found a recent study.

Another study found that the school centers who had more screen time than the APA had had a lower development in part of the language that supports the brain and early literacy skills, while there was the other that the more time he spent watching one -year -old screens, the more they had a delay in communication and solving problems at the age of 2 to 4.

Below, Robertson provides tips on how parents start relying less on devices with their children.

Be intended

One of the problems that Robertson witnessed is what you call “the lack of intention.” When there are built -in screens in grocery vehicles, taxi back and aircraft seats, they say – or even in your hand and you pass at one time and own your child – “You can easily expose your child to an incredible time from the screen time without making deliberate decisions about it. no To be exposed to it. “

She says it takes a little creativity to avoid screens with your little child, she says – such as collecting an interesting set of standards, such as plastic bottles, movement characters, paper and pens, to a bag to keep it in the car. “Then, when you have to wait somewhere, this special bag appears, and you can see the creative things that can happen,” she says. “There is a reason like children like a cardboard box,” she added. “It is very open and creative.”

Another simple trick is the presence of a couple of older old games that you start when needed-“Simon Say”, chasing competition, shape or “I spy” when it is in a supermarket, in the car or in the waiting room, for example. And do not forget the books.

“Children really love repetition, as with the same book again and again,” she says. “They love to be able to start predicting. They are confident. They feel safe from it, and their imagination can explore from that.”

Helping children to use screens for specific purposes

Robertson does not say not to allow your child to use a screen again. But how it is used is important.

Let’s say that you are rushing to cook dinner after a day at work. While involving your child in measuring ingredients is a great way to involve them, it may be too much at the present time. Instead, let them use a screen to find something – to discover a recipe for spaghetti sauce, for example. The task will not only keep them busy while cutting, but it will be useful in answering it.

“Then they are searching while they are very important thinkers, and they use technology for a purpose, and then they can contribute,” she says. “So this is a great use of technology, and I think it allows them to continue to use it – not as an entertainment device, but as a tool. This is what all technology should be: tool.”

This story was originally shown on Fortune.com

2025-03-27 18:03:00