Whenever we tell parents that their 18 month old or less than 18 month old toddlers have no business watching the screen, there is always a fight to it, I shared this in our TIP Facebook group recently and it created so much buzz with tons  parents leaving comments like “Do what works for you “, “it’s working in my home”, “screen makes my children really smart” etc.

The first time I shared that children do not learn the skills they need to thrive in the 21st century on screen, the counter reactions were epic.

I am excited because, in today’s blog post, we\’ll be bringing an end to the argument on “Screentime, Addiction, How much is too much, and how much should children older than 18 months be exposed to?

Patricia Kuhl; one of the world’s leading brain scientists runs experiments with more than 4,000 babies each year and she records that; “What we’ve discovered is that little babies, under a year old, do not learn from machines, even if you show them captivating videos, the difference in learning is extraordinary. You get genius learning from a live human being, and you get zero learning from a machine.”

Now, this is what happens, it may appear that the child is learning from the screen but it\’s all an illusion and will eventually affect this child in the future in many ways. Are there positive effects of children under the age of 2 or 3 being on screen? Maybe there are but the negative effects far outweigh the positive. Many times, when parents are busy they use screens as babysitters but don\’t realize that babies can learn to entertain themselves and adopt that as a way to entertain themselves.

So how much is too much?

The American Academy of Pediatrics discourages media use, screen ( laptops, phones, tablets, T.V cartoons e.g. coco melon, Jim Jam, Ben 10, etc. ) by children younger than 2 and recommends limiting older children\’s screen time to no more than one or two hours a day. When your child is above 2 years then you can do structured screen time. It can be 1 hour per day till the child gets to the age of 6 then you can be adjusting. Pertaining to screen time, you must go through what has been recommended in the table below.

A study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2018 indicates that older children who spent more than two hours a day on screen-time activities scored lower on language and thinking tests, and some children with more than seven hours a day of screen time experienced thinning of the brain’s cortex, the area of the brain related to critical thinking and reasoning.

What are the risks associated with screen time without regulation?

1 . Short Attention Span :

Screens hijack attention spans. For children to be successful, they need to learn how to concentrate and focus. That ability starts to develop during their earliest years when their brains are more sensitive to the environments around them. For a brain to develop and grow, it needs essential stimuli from the outside world. More importantly, they need time to process those stimuli. While reading storybooks out loud gives children time to process words, images, and voices, the constant absorption of on-screen images and messages affects their attention span and focus.

2 .Lack of critical thinking and problem-solving skills :

When you rely on using screens to distract a child from a problem rather than having them figure it out and learn to resolve it themselves, you kill their ability to think and solve a problem on their own. Most times parents use screens to pacify their children..like using a favorite song to distract a young child who has just fallen and scraped their knee; this might look okay but having the parent comfort and cuddle with the child and talk to them is better. This can also make the brain less empathic because there is no human connection in the process of feelings.

Using screen time to distract young children who are having trouble sharing a toy will not help them learn how to share and take turns in the future, although it may be a quick fix in the short term.

3 . Lack of empathy
Research has shown that screen time inhibits young children’s ability to read faces and learn social skills, two key factors needed to develop empathy. Face-to-face interactions are the only way young children learn to understand non-verbal cues and interpret them. “Until babies develop language,” says Charles Nelson, a Harvard neuroscientist who studies the impact of neglect on children’s brains, “all communication is non-verbal, so they depend heavily on looking at a face and deriving meaning from that face. Is this person happy with me, or are they upset at me?” That two-way interaction between children and adult caregivers is critically important for brain development.

Exposure to screens reduces babies’ ability to read human emotions and control their frustration. It also detracts from activities that help boost their brain power, like playing and interacting with other children.

4 . Irregular Sleep : The more time spent watching on a screen, the more likely children are to have trouble falling asleep or have an irregular sleep schedule. Sleep loss can lead to fatigue and increased snacking.

As humans, our circadian rhythms and our production of melatonin — the sleep hormone — kicks in when the sun sets. But the blue light from screens inhibits melatonin, which can delay sleep. And watching TV or playing video games also keeps our brains and bodies more alert and activated and less ready for sleep. (Tablets and smartphones will suppress the melatonin more than TVs because the screen, and that blue light, is closer to the face.) According to one study, infants 6 to 12 months old who were exposed to screens in the evening showed significantly shorter nighttime sleep than those who had no evening screen exposure.

5 . Behavioural issues

Children over 18 months who spend more than two hours a day watching TV, playing video games, or using a computer or smartphone are more likely to have emotional, social, and attention problems. Also, exposure to video games is linked with an increased possibility of attention problems in children.

•Possible Autism (recent studies have proof of early screen time / excessive screen causing autism…)

6 . Voilence :
Too much exposure to violence through media can desensitize children to violence. As a result, children might learn to accept violent behavior as a normal way to solve problems.

7 . Less time for play :
Excessive screen time leaves less time for active, creative play. And play is what brings about creativity. Also higher rates of suicide has being linked to insufficient play. Children are spending more time in sedentary activity by using screens and less time in creative, active play that their bodies NEED to thrive and develop.

8 . Delayed Speech :
Research shows that talking with children in a reciprocal dialogue is extremely important for language development and social interaction. It’s that back-and-forth “conversation,” sharing facial expressions and reacting to the other person — in real life, rather than “passive” listening or one-way interaction with a screen — that improves language and communication skills in young children.

9 . Lack of real learning :
Studies have shown that children under 2 learn less from a video than when learning from another person, and it appears that although children will watch the TV screen by 6 months, understanding the content does not generally occur until after age 2. It’s not that they won’t be captivated by what’s on the screen, but they’re not learning from it.

10 . Poor Language development:
This expands rapidly between 1½ to 3 years of age, and studies have shown that children learn language best when engaging and interacting with adults who are talking and playing with them. There is also some evidence that children who watch a lot of television during the early elementary school years perform less well on reading tests and may show deficits in attention.

11 . Obesity:
The more TV and video your child watches, the greater his or her risk is of becoming overweight. Having a TV or other electronics in a child\’s bedroom increases this risk as well. Children can also develop an appetite for junk food promoted in ads, as well as overeat while watching on electronics.

Parenting abhors vacuum. There\’s what we call replacement and that\’s what we do in TIP Academy. So when you take away the screen, you have to find what to replace it with. It\’s not about buying books and puzzles but it\’s all about what you do with them. It won\’t be a smooth sail when you take away the screen but the positive results you\’ll get will be rewarding.

JOIN THE WAITLIST FOR THE INNER CIRCLE HERE

One of the things I did in my new book, \”Raising the independent thinking child” is to outline solutions on how parents can take away screen and create healthy alternatives for screen addiction. This blog post was also an excerpt from my upcoming book “Raising The Independent thinking child”.

PRE-ORDER is Finally Here

We opened preorder links only about 1hour ago and we currently have over 50 copies already paid for. If you have read my works, you will know that you are up for another parenting mind shift. We have some perks for the first 500 parents who get to preorder.

We will be giving them the LOVE YOUR CHILD MORE Workbook FREE worth #5,000

Access to a MasterClass on “Raising An Independent thinking Child” worth #20,000

As soon as we hit 500 orders, we will take away these bonuses. I am sure we Will be 50% gone in 24 hours because only parents in the academy are enough to buy the first 2,000 copies. PREORDER NOW, to get all the perks attached.

Preorder HERE :
http://bit.ly/TIPBooksPreorder