Play a little

Why don't you Blink a little…Pause a little…Dance a little…Play a little.

Recently while ordering food online (yes from an app; weird) my thoughts wondered towards the generation of young children growing up in today's day and age, that is all very much technologically driven. 

When I was a child I remember only receiving an hour of viewing time on the television on a Saturday morning, and then I was quickly chased out the lounge to play outside in the garden or in my bedroom with my toys.

I have encountered many children and many of them seem to be lacking in core strength, imagination, good speech, and many other things:

Some true stories:

1.  Recently in the classroom I placed in front of each child a blank paper as well as a tray of a variety of paint colours; I then told them to use their imaginations and paint anything they wanted to paint; cars, animals, a home, people, flowers anything. What I got back was a room full of wide eyes staring blankly right back at me. “Teacher Tara what do you mean, and what must we paint?”… “Anything!”.
2.  I also recently heard of some children in another class trying to build a puzzle by sliding the pieces into each other as you would on a tablet; the poor child got frustrated and started to cry as they did not understand why they couldn’t do it.
3. And then there’s the jungle gym; many children are weak or are fearful to climb the equipment, due to fears and low muscle development.

You see the sad reality is that many children spend a large amount of time playing on a tablet or, with their eyes glued to the television set, for a lot longer than an hour. I’m not disagreeing with the fact that being able to use technology well in today’s society is vital however;  many children are losing the skill of innovation, imagination and great muscle development, due to extended sitting time.

How do technological devices hamper your childs’ development ?

•   Muscle development- low muscle tone from limited movement
• Memory- children are able to access information through google, phone contacts and Facebook profiles; literally never needing to rely upon their own memory.
• Imagination- the long periods of time spent on technology where stories and games are created and told to your children means that they never need to access or use their own brains to create or play. 
• Hearing strength- this is hampered as well as damaged by long periods of time spent using headphones with sound being pumped directly into their ears, and not being filtered through the ears natural filters.
• Eyesight- eyesight strength is weakened because eye movement is limited when one is staring for long periods of time at a bright screen.
• Speech- this development is often slowed because children spend too much time sitting and not speaking, and often the television set becomes their language tutor.

Our brains were created quite marvelously with a left and right hemisphere.

Left Hemisphere	Right Hemisphere
Logical organisation	Process information holistically as a big picture
Analysis of information	Creative hemisphere
Processing information sequentially	Spatial or non-verbal abilities.
Language or Verbal Hemisphere

How can I help my child?

Muscle Development:

·         Playing with playdough

·         Climbing jungle gym equipment

·         Riding bicycle

·         Playing outdoors; with balls, bats, trees, mud; anything and everything (obviously the younger the child, supervision is a must)

Memory: Remembering and Learning:

·         Important cell phone numbers off by heart (Mother and Father)

·         Their birthday date

·         Name of their school

·         Home address

·         Learning to count

·         Memory card games; like match, where once you've looked at the card you must then turn it over and remember where or what it was.

·         There are so many but lastly allow your children to ask you questions instead of google.

Imagination:

·         Drawing

·         Painting

·         Reading or being read to

·         Playing with toys; dolls, Lego, dress up

Eyesight:

·         Reading books (not off a tablet); go shopping for books together, or take a trip to the library.

·         Play with a ball, throwing it to each other (this is good for tracking)

·         Play with toy cars; hoops and anything else that can move after being pushed or thrown.

·         Writing and drawing with a pen and paper

Speech:

·         Talk to your children in the car

·         Turn off the TV during dinner time

·         Sit around the dinner table or breakfast table together, allow the conversation to flow.

All these activities encourage the usage of both the left and right brain hemispheres.

Lastly, use Pinterest for ideas (yes the internet  J ), look for things that you and your child can do together. Also if you are working and you don’t have time to spend with your child/children doesn’t mean they need to sit in front of the TV, encourage them to go play with their toys, inside or outside…just get them PLAYING.

Yours truly

Teacher Tara.

“While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.”

― Angela Schwindt

Ps:  would love to hear from you, let me know what you would like me to write about, ask me any questions you like.