Are you putting your kids on a “Media Diet’?

I want be surprised if you haven’t heard of this yet. As always these new Terms that parents coin for their kids is absolutely brilliant. So really what is Media Diet?

Media Diet is not only ensuring the amount of time your kids spend in front of the screens but also the quality of content that they are consuming.

Parents need to balance three things very carefully: What kids do, how much time they spend doing it, and making age-appropriate content choices. We’ve read about how increased screen time is leading to cases of obesity and parents spend about 11 – 12 hours on their cell phones alone. 

Most parents follow the screen time policy which is 30 mins of TV time in a day or only 1 show a day. Often parents don’t include gaming time or Ipad/phone time in the TV time so effectively our kids end up spending a lot more time. It’s very important to maintain the right balance and not drive your kids and you to extreme of long spells of no TV or too much TV during holidays. I think what also helps is not make TV a babysitter while you can get some free time or finish errands and additionally make it very desirable. The less desirable it is the less will be the attraction to get hooked on.

Also with the amount of reality TV on the rise we need to ensure that every minute of screen time is value adding and contributing to the development of the child.

Research and experts say a couple of things that are worth pondering over:

1. Media today is at the epicentre of communication and our kids are absorbing it in some form or the other.
2. Media can entertain, teach, be desirable and cool, be competitive but is not you. You think and you react while that is programmed. You have values and emotions which is that one void media has yet to fill.

How to follow the Media Diet:

1. Lead by example: Don’t be hooked on to your phone and screens all the time. Make sure there is screen free time when it’s family time or while you are having conversations
2. Eye Contact: Always acknowledge your kids and maintain eye contact. This assures the person across that he or she is important. It will also help when you want your kids to look at you and listen.
3. Set Time limits: This lets your children know that it’s good but needs moderation.
4. Be involved in their screen time: It’s important to watch with them or put things back in play when they are done. This will let them know what they learnt has relevance.
5. Reality and Fiction: A lot of children get scared or cant understand the difference between reality and fiction. It’s very important to explicitly draw that line. The adverse effect of this could be practicing fictional solutions in real life.
6. Dealing with Violence: With movies, TV shows and cartoons all involving some bit of violence kids can become desensitized to it and fail to realize how devastating real-world violence can be.
7. Ask and you shall get Policy: Always get kids to get into the habit of asking for screen time. This way they know there is protocol to be followed and they are being monitored.
8. As kids get older, keep media out of their bedroom. When TVs or computers are in their room, kids spend more time using media, and parents are less involved with their choices.

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