As a parent and educational leader I have been increasingly aware of screen time, what children are watching and affects on their behaviour. As a parent of an ASD child, i m very aware of the fixations and obsessions that are also prevalent.
Current research suggests that a large volume of younger children are watching scarier, short clips that align with horror and high intensity drama.
Children love to mirror what they watch through play. Mark Le Messurier and Maggie Dent are just a couple of strong advocates within our community who cannot stress enough that what we allow our children to watch, can impact not only on their behaviour, but also the ability to reason and sleep. Please be aware that scenes like Squid Games, Huggy Wuggy, Sirenhead, Cartoon Cat and other such youtube created scenes, may look “fun” but they are having an impact.
“Technology can be beneficial and harmful. The tricky thing for today's parents is how to protect their children and themselves from the harmful aspects, while engaging in technology to enhance communication, education, positive entertainmen
t and the strengthening of human relationships.” Dent, 2019.
What amazes me, is the unwillingness for parents to see the impact on their child's behaviour. And even more, parents of children with ASD or ADHD are allowing their children to watch these due to their's obsessions. Um, what? Aren't we the adults? Haven't we lived in a world that allows for supervision?
The Australian Government censors for a reason. I guess the trouble with youtube is that the responsibility to censor is given to parents.
But as a leader of a school, constantly working with children who are violently hurting one another, I am more than a little concerned that parents are not seeing the danger. I was recently in the UK and saw plush versions of Huggy Wuggy in stores!
What we allow our children to see, cannot be unseen. Our job as parents is to not give in to tantrums when you ask your child to turn youtube off, or that screen time is over.... you are placed in a privileged position to be able to guide and model.
And remember, you are allowed to say No.
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