You can involve the child in alternative activities and keep him engaged, suggests rediffGURU Aruna Agarwal, a child and parenting counsellor.
Is your child addicted to smartphones from a young age?
Is she or he struggling to communicate or study at school?
Do you worry about your child's behaviour at home or in a public place?
rediffGURU Aruna Agarwal offers some solutions.
She is a child psychologist and behaviour therapist with over 20 years of experience.
Aruna focuses on children between the ages of two to ten years who face challenges related to behaviour, language development or attention issues and providing them with the right life skills.
Mukesh: Hello Arunaji, my child is 2 years and 6 months old.
We feel he is gradually attracted by the mobile screen.
How to control it?
What is the maximum time to give him screen time including TV?
You can involve the child in alternative activities and keep him engaged.
There can be various sensory activities like sand play, water play, etc, which will be equally or more reinforcing and this will help you to reduce the screen time.
Ideally, avoid giving screen time; it should not be more than 15 to 20 minutes in a day.
Anonymous: Hello Anu, I have a 5-year-old boy who started talking very late around 4 years age.
He is now in nursery class learning the alphabet and numbers but he developed the skill of solving double/triple digit numbers addition and multiplication on his own.
His teacher is also confused about how he can solve addition and small multiplication by himself without counting only thinking and answering in seconds.
He is also physically not strong like 5 year boy. Kindly help regarding his behaviour.
He has good cognitive skills and hence he can grasp his academic concepts well.
The delay in another milestone can be due to various reasons.
If there is any sort of help required to take care of developmental delays, you should start working on it with early intervention by consulting a child psychologist or developmental paediatrician.
It will require proper assessment.
Flora: Hello. My son is addicted to screens in the form of videos, web series or games.
I tried many things like making him understand or giving him treats if he reduced screen time or sometimes scolding but nothing is working.
He is like habitual and whenever he gets chance he just grabs a mobile, tab or the remote of television.
Please guide me on how to change his habit. I am really worried as this is affecting his health and study. Thank you in advance.
Coming out of screen addiction is hard but, with consistency and resilience, it can be done.
You can take note of the total amount of time your son spends using the screen.
After this, try to reduce it little by little each day or two and praise his effort when he does so.
Motivate your child to have some fun times with you by going for walks and participating in some sort of games together.
Keep the process gradual so that it will not be overwhelming for both of you.
- You can post your questions for rediffGURU Aruna Agarwal HERE.
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