Will YOUR toddler need treatment for iPad addiction?

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I love my iPad but are you using them as electric babysitters?

It seems that some toddlers play with iPads nearly half of their waking day and this is leading to withdrawal tantrums of an extreme kind!

As a former Deputy Head I also worry about their ability to concentrate on any one task – flitting from one thing to another. I find I get jittery if I’m on my iPad flitting from one article to another so what will a toddler allowed to spend hours on it do to their brain development, their language development and their social interaction?

Maybe we do need parenting advice to teach parents of the dangers and the importance of putting boundaries round “screenagers” from toddler to teen.

Unfortunately in the UK parents don’t like being guided in their parenting – they see it as a failure if they ask for advice – Parenting Classes is the last taboo which I’m trying to change !

In the meantime – what the video and make your own mind up.

Here is an article I read from CNET by Chris Matyszczyk.

“I understand that one of the main joys of parenting a toddler involves keeping the little one amused.

Amused, as in quiet.

Ever since the iPad came along, with its bright colors and infinite range of games and pictures, it has seemed like an ideal tool to keep baby happy. This happiness, however, is one that baby does not want to ever, ever stop. So much so that some toddlers are now said to be iPad addicts.

This curiously adult affliction seems to involve baby undergoing seven aspects of demented ranting, should her iPad be taken away.

As the Telegraph reports, a novel strain of therapy involves easing the strain that little children feel when their gadget is not at hand.

There are examples of toddlers being engrossed in their tablets for up to 4 hours a day. This might not seem like much, until one realizes that many of the very youngest are only awake 10 hours a day.

The Sunday Mirror reported on a case of a 4-year-old who, it claimed, is Britain’s youngest iPad addict. It quoted psychiatrist Dr. Richard ­Graham who runs the Capio Nightingale Clinic in London. The clinic specializes in digital detox, weaning the dependent off their gadgets.

Graham, to whom the 4-year-old was referred by her mother, said that he believes such an addiction is common and not unlike alcoholism or drug dependency.
“Although at this stage her use isn’t a sufficient concern to warrant in-patient care, it would be if her addiction continues to the age of 11, when she has access to other platforms like ­smartphones and the internet,” said Graham.

Graham thinks it might be a good idea for internet use advice to be a core element of ante-natal classes.

Perhaps this all begins with mimicry. The children see their parents’ deep involvement in their machines and want to do the same.

The machines themselves are vastly enjoyable. Indeed, visit any bar or restaurant and see supposedly adult humans seemingly unable to focus on anything but screens.

Psychologists worry that when toddlers grow up they won’t be able to have normal, human interactions with their contemporaries.

Read more here

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