Screens and our children | Tools for parents

Cellules will be prohibited in schools from the start of the school year, Quebec announced on Thursday. A decision welcomed by the psychoeducator Sarah Hamel and the speech therapist Julie Parent, who have just launched Screens and our children. In their book, the two specialists fly over the impacts – mostly negative – of cellular and other screens in the 0 to 18 year olds. In a benevolent tone and with humor, they offer tools to families who wish to modify their habits. Interview.

The first part of the book is devoted to the impacts of screens on the development of children aged 0 to 18. You popularize many search results. Can you summarize the observation that comes out?

Julie Parent : The literature is clear in relation to the fact that there are impacts according to exposure to screens, intensity, frequency, child age on language spheres, on the development of communication, on the parent-child relationship … what does the screens? It isolates children and it limits social interactions.

Sarah Hamel: In the book, we explain what are the favorable conditions to support the optimal development of a child. The screens, it comes to swallow the precious time. Free game is one of the main drivers of development. But children are less and less exposed to it.

J. P. : There is also the question of access to books and the pleasure of reading. We know that from generation to generation, people read less and less and like to read less and less. That has an impact on language and even on the intellectual potential of people. What we want is to give time to our children so that they can do these activities which are healthy for their development.

Do you see a good eye for the prohibition of cellular at school from the start of the school year?

S. H. : 100 %, even if in our book, we have an approach to reducing misdeeds and not abstinence. We think that it is impossible to develop healthy habits with something we are never exposed to. It is correct that teens can be exposed to screens. But so that they can develop healthy habits, there must be a notion of supervision. This is something that is not possible at school. Often young people will use the devices during breaks and meal periods. At these times, the supervisor is not able to supervise the use of screens throughout the gang. In this context, we have no choice but to protect our children’s brains. We cannot ask them to make the right choices, because they do not have the maturity necessary to make these good choices.

J. P. : And even having the necessary maturity … We are adults and we must find strategies to self -regulate.

The cell phone is so addictive!

At home, what are the first gestures to do if you want to change your habits?

S. H : We offer to go smoothly. We do not suggest boring everything in the changes. We are very nuanced. We offer lots of potential solutions, for example to choose the content type. If we decide to use the screens because we have the toupet in the toupet, if we choose content which is of better quality, which is less overloading for the brain, we reduce the harms.

J. P. : It is also our own use that we have to look at first. What is our relationship with this object? It is well documented that children will learn by mimicry. The use of the parent of his cell phone will be predictive of the one that his children will make of it later.

Parents sometimes have to deal with their child’s crises when they take the tablet or turn off television. To help them, in particular you offer an intervention technique: emotional weather forecast. What is it?

S. H. : It is a technique that is really to be applied to all sauces. As much as I am anti-technical in life, because it is rare that a technique is, it is one size fits allthis one is the exception that confirms the rule. Most parents are good to tell the child what will happen. “In five minutes, we will close the TV. We announce what will happen outside the child’s body. Me, I invite the parents to go a mark further and prevent the child from what could happen inside his body. “It might hurt you.” It is the equivalent of giving a small emotional vaccine. We give a microdosis of the emotion that the child could live. Once he will be faced with this emotion, he will have had time to prepare. Even unpleasant things, when it is predictable, it’s easier to take.

The data impact data is worrying. As you indicate in the book, read all this information can be confronted. For what ?

J. P. : It is normal that it generates emotions that are confronting: guilt, anxiety. When you feel guilty, it is that there is perhaps something that we would like who happens differently to align with our values. In the second part of the book, we accompany parents so that they find their own formula. We are not here to say what to do. We sow seeds and we ask questions of reflection.

The remarks were abbreviated and condensed for clarity and conciseness.