SONAL DOGRA & COLONEL SATISH SINGH LALOTRA
Moral values are like invisible benchmarks left by centuries of human interactions often honed on the anvil of societal propriety guiding an individual right from his days of infancy till his grave i.e. ‘Womb to tomb’. The ‘Gold standard’ of conductance of an individual cannot be more important than his days of formative years whether at home or at school. Moral values are standards that help an individual choose between good and bad. With a fair amount of morality being subjective, moral values tend to find their meaning open to interpretation in the general scheme of things. Teaching kids moral values is one of the most important responsibilities one can have as a parent. For children to act morally, they need to know what’s the right thing to do in situations which require explicit guidance. They should be trained to care about it and most importantly get enough practice to act appropriately. The way your kids choose to treat others is critical to being on the either side of morality factor. Nowadays there are too many news reports/stories of children committing suicide due to cruel behavior of other kids towards them. There are too many kids posting mean comments on social media. Too many kids are avoiding activities due to bullying. How do you guide your kids when it comes to treating others right?
One way to help your children internalize these characteristics is to notice their behaviour. When you see your child being responsible, honest, or showing compassion, comment on it. For example, if your child attempts to comfort a child who is hurt, you can say “That’s kind of you to help him.” Preschoolers learn by interacting with the world around them. They need to be physically active – to run, climb, and swing on the playground and to have creative outlets like drawing or dress-up. Time spent with screens (like a TV, tablet, or smartphone) can be an opportunity to reinforce learning and promote creativity. But too much screen time can have unhealthy side effects. For this reason, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends limiting the amount of time that preschoolers spend in front of a screen. It is good advice, but in today’s world, it can be tough to keep kids away from all the TVs, tablets, computers, smartphones, and gaming systems they will see. However, we as parents, educators can take a few steps to keep time spent with screens as productive as possible.
Basically it’s a “How Much Is Too Much?” Concept….
Preschoolers ages 2 to 5 should have no more than 1 hour of screen time each day. The exception to this rule is video chatting with grandparents or other family friends, which is considered quality time interacting with others. Not all screen time is created equal. For example, you and your child playing an interactive phonics or numbers game on a tablet or watching high-quality educational programming together is good screen time. Keeping the TV on all day for “background noise” or letting your preschooler watch your favorite shows with you are examples of bad screen time. Use screen time as a chance to interact with your child and teach lessons about the world. Do not let your child spend time alone just staring at a screen. The same parenting rules apply to screen time as to anything else — set a good example, establish limits, and talk with your child about it.
To make your preschooler’s screen time more productive, some inputs as under could be useful:
- Be with young kids during screen time and interact with them. That can mean playing an educational game with your child or talking about something you see together in an age-appropriate TV show or video.
- Research games and apps before getting them for your child. There are thousands of apps and games that claim to be educational, but not all of them are. Search online to see which ones educators and doctors consider the best.
- Schedule plenty of non-screen time into your child’s day. Unstructured playtime is important for building creativity, so young children should have time to play away from screens every day. Family meals and bedtimes are also important times to put the screens away and interact with your child.
- Keep devices with screens out of your child’s bedroom after bedtime, and do not allow a TV in your child’s bedroom.
Though screen time is not recommended for children under 18 months old, the AAP does make one exception: video calls. Video chatting with friends and relatives is recognized as “quality time interacting with others”. Toddlers are not ready to use apps on their own, but with help from adults, they can be introduced to the idea of sharing, taking turns, and using technology to encourage movement and gross-motor skills. For example:
- Use video conferencing apps to connect toddlers with far-away family and friends.
- Arrange a “video playdate” between your children and their friends.
- Introduce the idea of taking turns by showing toddlers that only one finger at a time can control a tablet or smartphone.
- Join children in a dance party with the help of kid-friendly music apps.
- Help toddlers use a dance choreography app, to coordinate their own dance routine, and then follow along in real life.
Technology milestones for preschoolers:
Imaginative play and emerging creativity are a key part of preschoolers’ development. Contrary to popular belief, screen time does not have to stifle creativity. It is really important to have conversations with kids about what we can use technology for: to create videos, to take photographs, and then put our own creative spin on them.
There is a lot of talk about what skills are going to be necessary in the workforce. Though no one can predict exactly how technology will continue to expand; creativity, collaboration, problem-solving skills, and coding abilities will serve kids well as they grow older. All these skills should be developed in grade-schoolers. This is also a time to encourage children’s emerging literacy.
Elementary school is the perfect time to use technology to enhance these skills using techniques like these:
- Present kids with programmable robot games wherein no screens needed, since kids will learn directional programming through movement.
- Use drag-and-drop apps, to introduce the basics of coding and build literacy skills by introducing high-frequency words.
- Offer interactive e-books or videos with captions to capture kids’ curiosity and promote early literacy.
Preteens are digital natives who may be even more comfortable with technology than the adults and teachers educating them! They might have their own smartphones and be on the cusp of using social media, but that does not mean you can stop using technology in an educational way. For example: Ignite children’s love of learning by encouraging them to research their natural interests and hobbies using resources like videos, websites, and e-books. Continue supporting children’s creativity with programs that allow them to make their own music or draw their own comic books. Increase children’s geographical awareness and spatial reasoning skills with help from online interactive maps. Your 7 or 9-year-old doesn’t need coding lessons to succeed in life. No investor will be fighting at your doorstep to buy his/her app. They need to go out and interact with real kids and not “smartphones”. Computer Programming isn’t just about syntax it’s about problem solving and ethics; which you do not learn online. You learn it in the real world solving your day to day problems. Eventually using all that wisdom that you have gained and applying it to solve computer problems. A 7-year-old will be better off understanding basic human qualities of honesty, integrity, compassion, respect, and love for all, than you trying to make him a computer genius at that age!
A lot of young kids, who are exposed to technology without exposure to ethics, might think its okay to hack someone’s online account for money or develop computer malware – softwares that can be used by someone to steal data/cause havoc. There are a lot of black-hat hacking groups that start in North Korea and Russia, because in such countries kids pick up tech pretty early in schools and don’t have a chance to focus on ethics or legal aspects of things.All in all technology in the hands of young impressionable minds without its attendant dangers grilled into them can backfire in ways which may be incomprehensible for both the children and their parents. Here comes the all-encompassing role of invisible benchmarks in the form of moral values or morality which are not programmable by the best of software available in the world, but programmed by us elders into the psyche of our progenies for their future.
(Sonal Dogra is an eminent educationist and Colonel Satish Singh Lalotra is a retired army officer)
