Alternatives To Screens For Boys, Girls And Adolescents
The child’s brain is nourished by different experiences that begin to have an impact on its development from the uterine environment. Every experience, environmental change, diet, stimulation environment and, especially, sensory information that the child experiences throughout his or her life history, will generate an imprint for better or worse on the creation and organization of your brain, especially in the first 3 years of life. Therefore, it is very important to keep in mind that the stimulation that we and the environment offer our children will build different neural circuits that will be activated throughout life.
In summer, boys and girls usually have a lot of free time, and it is easy for them to invest it in front of the screens New technologies can be a good educational tool for children from 7 or 8 years old, as long as they are used appropriately, in the amount of time and context.
But the digital overstimulation It is also not suitable for the brain, especially at an early age. Exposing children to screens with an excessive amount of stimuli would not allow the brain to process them in an adequate way, causing this to hinder the correct development of different cognitive areas in the future (attention, memory, language, etc…). The brain would seek the same threshold of stimuli to which it has been exposed, which could lead to restlessness and emotional regulation difficulties in the future.
We must keep in mind that the best alternative for our children to stop looking at screens is our quantity and quality time with them. The emotional and not just physical presence of fathers and mothers with their sons and daughters It is what will make it possible for them to leave technologies aside.
Offering alternatives to screens to improve their development
What activities can we do with our sons and daughters this summer to stimulate their brains and avoid screens?
1. Physical exercise
Sport generates an improvement in the brain functioning of boys and girls More specifically, scientists say that team sports prevent the risk of developing anxiety, depression, attention difficulties, isolation or social problems. Likewise, a recent study shows that aerobic exercise of a certain intensity, such as swimming, improves mood and enhances learning and memory.
2. Contact with nature
According to several studies, an immersive experience in nature by minors benefits emotional well-being and academic and cognitive performance.
3. Board games and crafts
Doing artistic activities as a family or playing games such as cards, chess, logic or cooperative games will stimulate the sensory, motor and cognitive areas of your brain, in addition to generating an emotional imprint on our children, of that time shared with us which will last in your memory.
4. Free play with peers
This promotes good development of social skills, as well as enhancing associative play among other areas, cognitive flexibility (by having to constantly readapt to the evolution and rules of the game) or tolerance for frustration (if they are caught in the game of tag, they must stay still and wait to be saved, they cannot start the game again by pressing “Start”). ” as happens in video games).
5. Let them get bored
Let the children get bored makes the boy or girl have to find his or her own motivation and thus facilitate the creation of new rules, structures or variables, thus enhancing curiosity and creativity in minors.
This summer we can create the best recipe for our sons and daughters, which contains the following ingredients: a lot of affection, nature play and physical exercise, with a pinch of boredom.
Author: Anabel De La Cruz Sánchez, Health Psychologist at Vitaliza.
