According to one child expert, Dr. Christakis, the
extensive use of video games, computer games, and even fast moving cartoons on
TV could be damaging to a child’s neural development .
He and his researchers have found that these
activities may rewire a very young child’s brain. The result can be that the
child just cannot focus at all on a slower activity like reading or doing
simple tasks at school later on.
There is also some research that suggests the
pre-frontal cortex of the brain may become less active over time if a child is
always on computer games and watching TV. That part of the brain is vital in
helping kids to organize their thoughts especially when it comes to planning or
doing tasks in a certain order.
Reading should not be neglected
Parents should be limiting the time spent on media. It
is impossible and unwise to ban these altogether but kids will need reasonable
limits. Any child up to the age of two or three years old should not be
watching TV at all. But figures in the US show that kids are exposed to the TV screen at a very
tender age.
Reading and storytelling is a great activity for kids
especially if they are more auditory type of learners. But actually most kids
will have a mix of kinaesthetic, auditory and visual learning styles although
one type of these may be dominant.
Storytelling to resolve anger issues.
Parenting experts tell us that we should help kids
verbalize their feelings about anger and other strong emotions. But this is
neither easy nor practicable in many cases. An easier and much more accessible
approach is to use reading or storytelling which outlines what a character does
and how he or she reacts to angry moments
This is exactly what happens in a new kids’ story
which has just been published on Kindle.
The title is Ziger The Tiger Never Gets Angry. The tiger has anger issues
and his mother tries to help by focusing on physical activities and also trying
to verbalize or illustrate his anger.
Children can easily relate to the character in the
story and that is much more memorable than just telling them not be violent or
aggressive but to channel their feelings into much more acceptable activities.
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