Major parenting mistakes in raising children: Mistake № 2
Error № 2: TV, computer and audio-visual devices
For most adults, a working TV is not only a hobby , but also a background for many household chores, a source of topics for communication and broadening horizons. A good comparison is that of television with alcohol: there is much debate about the benefits or harms of alcohol for adults, but the use of alcohol by children should certainly not be allowed. For some reason, things are the same with television: whether you see the benefits or harms of watching TV , television is detrimental to children's development .
Up to the age of six, children have a specific absorbing mind, their brains work differently than adults. This benefits them from the ability to receive vast amounts of information about human culture and the world around them in a very short time. Everything that is repeated or provokes intense emotions even once, becomes part of the child's personality and is literally sealed in their brain. The fast pace of assimilation of information is achieved at the expense of the fact that it is not sorted, systematized and evaluated as it occurs in adults .
In addition, at this age, children are just beginning to build their personality in all its complexity, which is why many functions of the mature psyche simply can not work. In order to tolerate moral judgments , they need to have defined the basic principles of morality and have learned to make chains of logical reasoning .
And in order to follow moral principles, they must develop a desire to act conscientiously and to train their will . In order to be able to separate the important from the insignificant, the typical from the accidental, the characteristic from the concomitant, a colossal experience of early impressions and the ability to categorize is needed, which experience continues to develop and improve at school age .
Television looks completely different to a child - even if you don't allow him to watch adult movies and shows . What is repeated most often? Advertising . Is the child able to consider it irrelevant or additional to the transmission? No.
To properly assess the impact of children's advertising , imagine that you are an alien who, like Mila Jovovich in the film "The Fifth Element", watches many hours of video to get an idea of his countrymen. How would you think about life if the most common messages about it are ads?
Advertising constantly exploits the topics of sex and violence , constantly broadcasts the idea: you are inferior , you are not happy, you are worse than others , so you have to buy the advertised product. Advertising aimed at children draws them into the consumer race so early that they can no longer recognize anything else.
If you think this is unnecessary dramatization, turn around and look in your child 's toy box . Are there many unbranded items? Dolls that are not characters from children's movies , constructors that are not decorated with images of the same characters? What is depicted (and why exactly) on pencil boxes , T-shirts, backpacks, toothbrushes, furniture? What do the treats you are asked to buy look like? Children far from this post-product turmoil exist. And these are almost always children isolated from advertising at an early age .
Most children's series and movies are extremely dubious in terms of moral models. Moreover, a number of technical approaches that facilitate the production of such films - for example, recurring scenes - train clip thinking .
But everything written so far is the lesser evil. There is a reason why even good children's movies, shows and video games are harmful to children , especially up to three years old . The thing is that the usefulness of any video series, even interactive, is based not only on its content, but also on a certain competence of the brain that perceives it. We first learn to act in reality , interpret the impression of the retina and all the senses , and unconsciously learn to model reality based on these signals.
We can predict how far an object is, what shape it is , how we have to move to pick it up or touch it, how fast and where it will move if it moves, and so on. In no other way than through our own experience can we learn to do this great work of reasoning. The child will not be able to learn to walk if he only watches a video with walking children, or playing in an interactive walker game . To think and understand it will be learned only by acting independently in real conditions.
Only a person who has gained enough experience from his own modeling of reality can fully use models from the surrounding world for educational purposes (and every picture, audio, video, game, book are models). And if he is not ready to perceive pictures or books , the child will simply lose interest in them and do something that will allow him to learn to accept such generalizations. In the case of audiovisual technology , something completely different is happening. The child falls into a trance-like state in which he seems carried away , his attention is absorbed and he does not look for a suitable activity , does nothing to become better prepared for productive use of reality models. Thus, what could be useful becomes poison .
Creating a diverse virtual world for a child is much easier than a real, more or less rich and safe environment . The child , frozen in front of the tablet or the screen , does not get tired of others with boiling activity. He does not ask for help in finding new activities , he does not take risks, inventing newer and newer types of physical activity , he does not try to do what he does not succeed in, and he does not make mistakes in the course of these attempts. It does not leak, does not spill, does not stain, does not make noise, does not use things improperly. He does not learn to love and communicate , does not acquire active speech , does not train his nervous system to model, predict and understand the world around him, does not develop fully.
Special attention should be paid to augmented reality technologies , which disorient the child in understanding reality. There are videos on the web showing the reaction of the little ones to the camera 's image editor . The creators probably thought they were creating a selection of fun moments . But the videos show very well that children react with great fear to any change in their reflection or the image of their parents - whether something scary or cute appears. Children are afraid of the very inexplicable fact of metamorphosis, which destroys their confidence that they have already achieved some competence in understanding and predicting the world around them.
Error analysis
Wrong decision : to allow the child to watch what you watch on TV , to include preschool children in children's films , relying on the developmental effect of television shows and interactive programs.
Short-term effect : the child is busy watching or playing .
Consequences : the child misses important opportunities for development , which are feasible only in active independent activity in real conditions. It absorbs dubious ethical and aesthetic stereotypes. Stimulates aggression , overloads the visual channel of perception.
The right decision : to increase your own pedagogical competence , which will allow to create conditions in which the child will be able to act, experiment, play and develop, partly independently , partly with your help. Create a home that is comfortable and safe for the child and all family members .
Plan family life so that there is time for parents to communicate with their children . To develop and encourage the independence of children in everyday life. This reduces parental workload and at the same time gives children a life experience of independent activity in real life, which they then use for self-improvement in various aspects: from fine and gross motor skills to vocabulary and extensive knowledge of the world around.
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