Psychologist: Gadgets can help stimulate children’s growth

He said learning through the device has its advantages, one of which is to hone children’s vocabulary or English vocabulary if parents speak Indonesian more at home.

Besides that, it can also repeat what children have learned at school with unlimited access and more interactive stimuli.

“Information in the device is not limited as a learning tool that is sensory or sensory, we get a lot of input from visuals, audio, moving images for those who are lazy to learn and so it can make children more motivated to learn because the stimulus given is more interactive,” said Saskhya .

One of the founders of the Three Generations psychology consulting service, he reminds parents to give their children a device to play or study when they are two years old and above. Because the age of two and under still requires focus which is built with direct interaction. Meanwhile, for the age of 18 months, you are only allowed to use a device for video call under parental supervision.

“Why was it only given at 18 months and that was it video call and for the new two years you can play games and others because indeed the human ability to concentrate and capture social interaction is two years and below still has to be direct,” he said.

Apart from that, it is also necessary to pay attention to when giving gadgets that are not allowed, for example when eating or before going to bed so that children don’t overdo it over stimulation that makes it difficult to sleep.

One way to prevent children from being passive while playing on a device is for parents to keep in touch with their child by retelling what they see on the device. Besides that, you can also do crafts or experiments between parents and children while watching videos from their gadgets.

But it still has to be balanced with other activities outside of gadgets such as sports or other activities that are a favorite of children.

“As busy as parents are, at least a day, they can spend 15-20 minutes doing what activities the child likes directly, so sometimes the ideas come from him, we will follow what he wants to do,” said Saskhya.

Children who are dependent on gadgets, said Saskhya, usually have developmental delays such as speaking ability, concentration, besides that minimal patience skills due to fast-paced gadget technology, and tantrums after using the device.

Limit your child’s use of gadgets at certain hours to help them build a disciplinary routine so they don’t go ‘too much’ using their gadgets.

This news has been published on Antaranews.com with the title: Psychologists say gadgets can help stimulate children’s growth