Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Digital Dementia

Allie with a screen version of herself. According to those below, this is not a good idea

Will she now have delayed development and decreased ability to self-regulate since she looked on the forbidden screen?

Is she now at risk for obesity, aggression, attachment disorder, and my favorite, digital dementia because I let her gurgle at her own image?
Recently an excerpt from the Huffington Post has been making the rounds on Facebook on
10 Reasons Why Heldheld  Devices Should Be Banned for Children under the Age of 12. Google it, if interested or read my Facebook wall.

This isn't just one person's opinion but a joint recommendation from both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian Society of Pediatrics. Their guidelines are very stringent and almost impossible to follow. No TV at all until 3 and then only an hour a day; no held-held devices at all until 13 and then 2 hours total (that includes TV watching and video games). The consequences seem dire as I wrote on the captions above. But since iPads and iPhones and their ilk have only been around a few years, have they really observed 'the sky falling down?' Are 5 year olds different from 5 year olds just a few years back? They say that this will be the first generation that won't out-live their parents mainly due to obesity due to inactivity.

Yep those devices are addicting. I now spend less time reading versus playing around on my iPad. Are kids more sensitive to the radiation given off? Even if you won't let them look at the screen, will your wifi fry their brains? When I was a kid, my mother let me fingerpaint, a messy activity. Now I let the kids paint on a screen with their fingertips: no mess. They can put together puzzles and play matching games and I don't need to stockpile boxes of toys for that. I do have a supply of wooden puzzles for the preschoolers. I do have a books and I do read to them. Yesterday I must have sung for hours to keep Allie happy. But I guess it is all food for thought.

It is dark within my house as the windows are being protected from the roofers. A very loud process. Our front is full of trucks. Presumable everything will be done by the end of the day. We are taking a break from our baby sitting of Allie. Julie is working from home one of he days and her sister will come in for another day. We have just one more day left of watching her. Yesterday was warm enough to take her on walks when she was fussy but still it is exhausting entertaining a cranky 6 month old. We feel so relieved when she goes down for a nap.

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