Early Chidhood Formation

 

Anna and I were at a social function recently where the adults were involved in the occasion and the children were sitting around. 

A mother was trying to engage her daughter by showing her picture books and helping her draw in her drawing book. But as soon as her mother turned her attention to the proceedings of the meeting, her daughter turned to the bag, where she knew the i-pad was kept.  She opened the pouch and settled down to continue the play on the i-pad she was already familiar with. Her mother persuaded her to stay away from the i-pad and even took it away from her, but had to give in to her daughter's wishes for the sake of keeping the peace. 

I hear similar stories from parents every day at my work place. Parents give in to the demands of their child to watch cartoons, surf the you-tube or play on-line games on smart phones or other media platforms. The child is entertained and wants more of it. Parents tell us that they give in to their child's wishes for online-entertainment for the sake of preventing the child from 'tantrum' behaviour. 

The on-line learning provided by schools for older children, during the COVID season, introduced many infants and toddlers to the passive watching of programmes on the internet. Some parents found occupying their child with cartoon-viewing made meal-times easier and quicker. Some others use the media to keep children out of the way when visitors come home or when adults work from home. Having got used to this easy way of entertainment, the pre-school child then insists on it and the parents are forced to oblige.  Infants and toddlers  introduced to cartoon viewing very early in childhood, due to the pressure of circumstances, depend on it for entertainment and parents need to work out creative ways to wean children away from the net-viewing habit.

One of the exercises we introduce to parents of infants and toddlers, who are caught up in the habit of watching cartoons for long periods, is to make them familiar with using toys to engage in learning activities for children. 

It was this, which made the department of Developmental Paediatrics at MOSC Medical College, Kolenchery create a video now available at the link <https://youtu.be/1eONrsUbwkA> for helping parents to set up a 'Child's Corner' in the home, to help children to return to the 'normal childhood' pattern of 'playing and discovering' !

The dictum that was often quoted as a prerequisite for allowing children to watch videos when the internet and television became popular twenty five years  ago, was that children watch the screen, when one of the parents is co-watching with them to supervise the content of what they watched and interpret to them them what corresponded to their level of perception and ability to process at their mental age. 

Now we have moved far away from this convention, so much so the television, or mobile phone has become a third parent, entertained by what the media offers to them. The reduced engagement time of parent with child and the impaired quality of communication have adversely compromised the child development process of pre-school children. 

I see this as the worst threat for child development that I have witnessed during the fifty years of my medical career. 

It is no wonder that forty percent of children visiting the Child Development Centre where I work have impaired development in language skills, communication, social engagement and behaviour. The media has decreased the normal play-based interactive learning of pre-school children. 

To me it is an explosive situation! This indulgent media exposure of children is like a fire that is consuming the house.  I sense this as a call to be awake, alert and active in inviting all those who understand the loss of the child glued to the screen and deprived of play and human contact by the tyranny of the media, to  work towards countering this threat to child development 

It is time, though we may be already late, to work at redeeming the healthy parenting practices that are foundational to the formation and healthy development of children!

M C Mathew (text and photo)