‘It is our duty to cut children’s interaction time with gadgets’
Silky Agarwal sent her nine-and-a-halfyear-old son Ansh Jain for the digital detox workshop. “My son, a grade five student at The Millennium School is a very bright student who is addicted as much to reading as he is to his tablet, iPad, mobile and laptop,” she said.
“Digital media is a necessary evil today and we cannot keep our child away from it. But as parents we have a duty to reduce the number of hours a child spends on these,“she said.
“We do not want to deprive Ansh of the advantages of the digital world, but we were always trying to cut down the interaction time. We always first make sure that he has done his yoga and breathing and completed his homework before allowing him to use the phone or laptop and that too for short durations (about 10-15 minutes),” she said.
Agarwal was thrilled with the workshop: “It really worked because Ansh came back super-excited at being able to make so many friends. The yoga session and treasure hunt were really stimulating and finally they had a session where children were asked to create their own games. This was the most enjoyable part of the workshop. I can see that Ansh has become more interactive, talkative and happier and is spending very little time with his digital gizmos,“she said.
‘It was transformative for my son’
Fathima Parveen’s eight-year-old son Abdul Rahman Riaz Ahmad also took part in the workshop. Parveen told Gulf News: “My son is immersed in digital media right from the moment he wakes up.
“First he watches cartoons on his tablet, then he is on Facebook, or in the evening downloads the homework link sent by the school and sits down to work on the device. In effect my son is spending nearly four hours on an assortment of digital gizmos which meant with 8 hours of school, every other waking hour was spent on the digital platform.”
Parveen’s son, like Ansh, has come back a changed student from the digital deaddiction workshop: “It was transformative for my son. He has suddenly discovered his interest in arts and crafts and has also begun playing with friends. He spends about two hours on craft work and that has reduced his time on the phone and laptop. I can see he is much happier and alert now,” she said.