Hello everyone! I am again so sorry I haven't written in literally a month to the day. I have been so busy with another shift bid, looking for another job and had an interview etc. that I haven't focused in on writing. I must say however I did not skimp on the research for articles and topics and there are many that I would like to share with you. I would also like to remind my readers that I am not a health professional but that this is my opinion on many health topics and from personal experiences.
I'm going to write this month's post about parenting vs influences of media and technology. Now keep in mind I am not a parent however, I am an aunt, I am a sister, I am someone who has assisted in raising my own siblings with a mentally ill parent from a very young age. Therefore my opinion is based on my time spent being around children and personal experiences growing up and how I was personally raised compared to what I see in society now and the research and articles found and presented to you in this post thus far.
I'm going to start with children and technology and video games. This article titled "10 Reasons Why Handheld Devices Should be Banned for Children Under the Age of 12" I agree with. In fact I see some of these examples in the children I have interacted with or even seen on the bus. Children the age of 2 or even 1 in a stroller ,crying for attention or because of another issue, being handed their mother's phone to sooth them or even the parent being addicted to the technology where they are ignoring the crying child. Neither is good. We are teaching them that technology and hand held devices etc. are the way to calm yourself or be ignored. That the parent doesn't care. It actually frustrates me. I want children to play, outdoors play. I want to see children supervised and playing with toys that utilize and fuel the imagination to create! We are also using technology as babysitters. We say "here's the tv" and leave me alone to do my work. Now I realize there are a lot of working parents out there and I don't hold anything against them or single parents for that matter that are tired and have long days of work etc. However, spending time with your child is crucial. They are influenced very early and this influence needs to be by you in a positive light. Another article I found about a study on children and video games causing aggression is interesting to note as well. In fact not only aggression but also obesity. We are finding more and more children are being allowed at a young age to be seeing things they should not be seeing. Why are we encouraging violence? We then wonder why our children are bullies when we allow them to play games such as Grand Theft Auto with high violence and crime. I have personally seen this with my one nephew whom his primary parent and grandparents had to take that access away in any shape or form, whether it be him playing the game or even just walking in on dad and the uncles playing, it had to be prevented. Why? Because of his further aggression towards his own sister, his views on people and women more specifically were being influenced in a negative way and they saw the results. The results of removing that influence was a positive one and now he is much calmer in the way he treats people.
To address the obesity issue, we find that children are not being active. We ask why they can't keep still and though some would like to argue that no child at a very young age of say, 4 years old, could ever stay still, and this may be true, however I recall a time in my youth that there was nap time, play time, outdoors time and I didn't learn my math until grade one and even in grade one there was still outdoor recess of a half hour and an hour lunch. Now there is none of that. Kindergarten is learning math and numbers and your alphabet and trying to read certain words along with writing your own name. Topics that were done in grade 8 are done now in grade 4 or 5 and kids are expected to sit longer in the classroom twitching and bored to death and wanting to go outside and do stuff with their imagination, meanwhile their imaginations are being stifled by the need to retain pointless information at a very early age. The article I found entitled "Why Children Fidget: And What Can We Do About It?" explains further. The longer they have inactivity, well we all know what happens when adults sit for too long, we gain weight because we're not active. Sitting is the new disease and so why are we passing this onto our children? It's inherited not by genes but by actions. On another note I'd also like to point out that reading is good and should be encouraged more so than video games to use the imagination. I'd like to have everyone take a look over an article from some time ago about a lecture one of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman, had done about "Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming".
As for bullying and children "Bullying in childhood linked to poorer health in middle age" was an interesting article I found. I don't know that I believe all of it as it was only based in one country, however I can say that those I have met that are middle age or coming close to who have been bullied do seem to have poorer health. I believe that this is due to the fact that we tend to then have lower self esteem and don't take care of ourselves as much as we'd like, even considering ourselves not a priority. It is not only in men but also in women that we could apply these long term repercussions. Bullying even among adults is becoming more and more common with social media outlets such as facebook and twitter. Even in the media among celebrities we find this, a recent example is Rihanna vs TLC. Admittedly TLC did sell sex in a different way for the times and so therefore are a tad hypocritical however they make a good point that you don't need to uncover yourself like Rihanna or even the rising to fame Miley Cyrus. I totally agree that showing off your body in such a manner is not the way to go and not showing young women or even men a good example. I'd like to say that I much prefer someone like Stevie Nicks who covers it up and has always been a woman of mystery as a role model. In the end though we hear about all this who's slamming who and who's saying who's fat and who's thin. What example are we setting for our children with all this? And don't forget that our children also hear how we talk about others even when we think they aren't listening. They pick up on our every move and sound.
I highly encourage any child that I'm around to use their imagination and be active. My one nephew I am so proud of. Though he has his tv time at home etc. he is very active in sports and using his imagination and he is the youngest of his family, being only 4. He knows how to play alone and when he's over he even plays with my "stuffies" and creates adventures for them. I even went out and bought some new toys such as dinosaurs, puzzles and other creative items to keep him busy. He loves being outside and playing ball and let me tell you being that he is so active, you can't help but be active yourself and want to interact. Sometime we joke and say "can we bottle all that energy?". I would much rather he do these things rather than play video games or be insistent that he watches TV all the time other than perhaps on a rainy day. But those those that we would watch too, again they would be interactive and learning programs that encourage the imagination. This is how it should be, this is how I remember my childhood. I remember being in the outdoors, or even in my room creating.
Children are our future and without encouraging imagination and creation we are becoming stagnant, becoming robots in a society that controls and wants us to become drone workers. Keep in mind that books like Divergent and films such as Wall-e are really not that far off of reality. It's scary but it's true and we have to wake up. I may not have children myself but my nieces and nephews are still my future and what will it be like for them truly in 20 or 40 or even 70 years from now? What will it be for their children? What are we preparing them for and what are we leaving behind as legacy?
There you have it folks! That is this weeks topics. I invite everyone to join in and comment for further discussion as I do every time I write. Please post here or if you're one of the few that see it through my facebook page then feel free to post there also. I also ask again that if any of my readers have topics you would like to have discussed feel free also to post and suggest. Have a good week/month and until next time!
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