Younger generations are completely immersed in technology. While many adults can recall childhoods without computers in the home, today’s children are surrounded by smartphones, PCs, and tablets. This digital culture is inescapable. While your children’s interest in gadgets can help them hone their tech skills, it can also take a toll on their physical and emotional wellbeing. Youngsters need to get a certain amount of physical exercise and sleep each day, and their mobile use could be negatively impacting these behaviors. Take a look at these ways to limit your children’s mobile tech use.
Parental Restriction Settings
Many smartphone and tablet operating systems have built in parental controls to keep your children from unauthorized activities. For example, you can switch off purchasing capabilities, so that you don’t get a surprise credit card bill for in-app game feature purchases. Parents can also set limits on the content ratings their children can access, preventing them from downloading and viewing explicit content. Restriction settings can also be applied to privacy features, so that children cannot enable location, photo, and other types of data sharing. Most of these parental controls can be disabled with a simple pin number, so that adults can switch these limitations off while they’re using a device.
Time Limits
Some parents find it very difficult to pull their children away from a screen and get them outdoors. Time management will become very important when you’re trying to teach your children about healthy behaviors and lifestyles. Consider using technology time as an incentive once your children, which they can receive after they complete their chores and outdoor play. Set timers so that you’ll be alerted once they’ve spent the maximum amount of time in front of a screen. Keep certain areas device-free, such as the dinner table. This will help your children learn that there is a time and place for tech use.
Educational Apps
Take a look at how your children are using your mobile devices. There are a number of entertaining apps that are extremely educational. Why not put their recreational time to good use and help them learn new things while they unwind with a mobile game. Interactive books, language game apps, and science tutorials are just a few examples of education apps on the market for children.
Children are becoming increasingly adept at using iPads and other tablets. Since they are being raised in a tech-oriented culture, it’s no surprise to see them excelling with mobile devices. However, make sure to set usage restrictions so that your children don’t neglect healthy behaviors such as exercise and sleep.
Originally posted on July 16, 2014 @ 11:38 am
