Some people believe that giving their child a tablet at a young age helps them grasp on to technological skills at a young age, making them proficient in other areas. According to a report written by Ofcom, 51% of households allow their children to use tablets. While some argue that tablets help enhance a child’s brain at a young age, it can also cause extreme damage to their overall development and critical thinking. Technology can be a great tool if used in moderation, but parents are starting to use technology as a form of discipline to try and get their child to quiet down or to stop creating chaos within the household.
This is a problem because the more frequent a child uses technology to cope with bad behavior, the more frequent they will cause issues so that they can get more screen time. This disciplinary action will result in more frequent outbursts of bad behavior if the child understands they will get more screen time the more often they behave badly.
Other research studies show that allowing a young child to use a tablet is forcing them to grow up too fast. There is anything and everything out there on the web with little to no credibility or monitoring of websites. This can cause children to become exposed to unhealthy things at a young age including inappropriate language, outfits and behavior that is shown online.
Some would argue that giving a child a tablet prepares them for what’s to come in the real-world one day. A lot of what we do is revolved around technology, so providing a child with a tablet will give them a “jump-start” on their learning enhancement for the future.
So, what’s my take on this? I think it would be beneficial for the development of a child’s learning to wait to use a tablet for educational purposes until they reach grade school. I think if a child is using technology in an educational environment with educators that understand the risks, then with moderation, students should be allowed to use them.
I believe there is a huge gap between using technology as a form of distraction or coping mechanism in replacement of disciplinary actions in contrast to using technology to help enhance one’s learning abilities in a more efficient way.
With anything in life, all things intended to be meant for good can also be used for evil, and there is no exception when it comes to technology. If a child is limited to an hour of screen time a day for educational purposes, I say go ahead. If a parent is using technology to entertain their child without putting in a lot of effort themselves to build a relationship with them, that is when this becomes a much larger problem. To say the least, technology is a great tool to use if used correctly and with careful observation and moderation. Aside from that, I believe a child’s brain needs time to develop without technology so that a child may learn to communicate and live without the temptation of addiction to form at such a young age.
