Spotlight on children’s screen time
Parents and education experts wary of guidelines that say children aged 2 to 5 can spend an hour a day on gadgets
Once, parents’ media angst was limited to worrying about how much time their children spent watching cartoons on television.
The digital age, however, has changed all that. Add to TV the plethora of tablets, handheld gadgets and mobile phones, and parental headaches are fast be- coming the stuff of nightmares.
Yet advice from the American Academy of Paediatricians regarding time children spend engaging with digital media was met with scepticism by experts and parents. While the AAP suggests that children less than 18 months old should avoid screen media other than video chat, some experts worry that parents will misinterpret the guidelines. “The good can only happen with parents’ supervision and selection,” said Emirati Khawla Saleh, who works in child safety.
A clinical psychologist in Dubai said it was important for parents to sit down with younger children and make the digital interaction an educational one.
ABU DHABI // Changes to guidelines on screen time for toddlers were met with scepticism from mental health experts and parents.
The American Academy of Paediatrics, whose recommendations are widely followed by psychologists and paediatricians in the UAE, recently announced that children from age two to five can have an hour a day of screen time on gadgets under the supervision of parents.
Within these guidelines, the AAP incorporates the internet, television and tablets in its thinking and said that its recommendations applied only to time spent on entertainment and not on education.
Quoting studies, the AAP said that “emerging evidence shows that at 24 months of age, children can learn words from live video- chatting with a responsive adult or from an interactive touch-screen interface that scaffolds the child to choose the relevant answers”.
Dr Jenny Radesky, lead author of AAP’s policy statement, Media and Young Minds, said: “What’s most important is that parents be their child’s ‘media mentor’. That means teaching them how to use it as a tool to create, connect and learn.” With these new recommendations, AAP has recognised the challenge that media and screen time pose in the digital age.
Dr Nida Hussain, a clinical psychologist at Lighthouse Arabia in Dubai, said that the new recommendation from AAP stemmed from “a lot of media interaction happening now and pressure that everyone should be on it”.
She added: “They don’t look at it from a neurological standpoint. If you think about it from a neuropsychologist’s position, you see that from birth to three years, your brain is developing the quickest.
“If they watch something where a lot is happening, the child gets overstimulated. This can cause the child trouble sleeping.”
If gadgets are to be used, Dr Hussain prefers one-to-one interactions, like when a person in a video is talking to the child. “Just because the AAP have come out with this rule doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Children learn from their environment and from one- to- one interactions,” she said.
Khawla Saleh, a mother of two boys, aged two and six, works in child safety in Abu Dhabi.
“I am concerned parents will misunderstand this and think it means it’s OK to let the kids watch or play on these media outlets when, in reality, that’s not what they’re saying.
“Parents need to understand there is more harm than good from these and the good can only happen with their supervision and selection,” the Emirati said.
“The policy mentions an hour but doesn’t specify how that hour should be spent. I would guess it has to be divided into half an hour or 15-minute sessions during the day.
“I know that as a mother of a two- year- old, the one hour he spends on TV is not good. He is not social after that.”
But Dr David Lee, lead consult- ant clinical psychologist at Camali Clinic in Dubai, supported the AAP recommendation and he said: “There is a need for parents to sit down with younger children and make it an educational activity. “We recommend these methods because when screen time is used effectively for learning, it can be helpful.”
The idea is not to leave a child by themselves watching videos.
Parents are encouraged to be involved and teach the child.
“It’s about reframing the purpose of this technology,” Dr Lee said. “Screen time has to be mon- itored and it should support their cognitive development. TV shows or online games that children can engage with can help in language development.” Dr Lee said the recommendations originated from “a need to recognise that we now live in a digital world”. Emirati mother Sarah Salem said: “I don’t agree with the study. I believe physical activities are much more important for children than electronics.”
Ms Salem monitors her eightyear- old son and six- year- old daughter’s use of technology.