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How To Reduce Kid's Mobile Addiction

By Padmapreetham Mahalingam

Today almost every child is addicted to mobile phones in one form or another. Many kids own a mobile phone, be it for social, family or other reasons, and this has become a growing concern for parents as it makes it difficult to wean children off digital devices. While this technological advancement has provided striking benefits it has made us bear consequential costs as children are becoming mobile phone addicts.

A recent study proves that mobile phone addiction in children does threaten the very fabric of society. Most children are fanatical about electronic gadgets that they become extremely uneasy if they are unable to contact their friends many times in a day.

As well as for making calls, many youngsters are glued to their smart phones either to send millions of text messages to friends each day or to play games, access the internet to use social networking sites and listen to music. This mobile phone addiction has become a trend in young children that when more and more households start buying cell phones or iPads, even toddlers may start getting hooked to these devices. TECHNOLOGY AND CHILDREN: WHAT IS THE RIGHT TIME?

If this trend of child mobile phone addiction increases then very soon children will become incapable of building or maintaining relationships without the help of technological gadgets. Here are some of the tips for the treatment of child mobile addiction.

How To Reduce Kid's Mobile Addiction

Stop playing with devices: Nowadays parents are concerned that kids aged between 10 to 14 years are unable to carry out important activities such as reading and studying since they are obsessed with mobile devices. Usually a child becomes a mobile phone addict after seeing parents playing on mobile phone. If you are looking for ways to treat a child's mobile phone addiction, then as parentsyou need to first set the balance right or it could turn out to be dangerous if kids start showing signs of craving.

Spend time with children: Children always learn from their parents; so if you have your eyes always on the screen, they would assume that nonstop viewing is acceptable behavior. If you are trying to curtail your child's mobile phone addiction, then make sure to put your phone down during meals or when you are trying to spend quality time with your kids.

Get your kids involved in other activities: Get your kids to pick up a hobby that doesn't involve cell phones, smartphones, or iPad. A perfect treatment for your child's mobile addiction is getting them involved in swimming, badminton, tennis, martial arts, golf, gymnastics music or dancing. So make sure to take them for the local events in the community.

Set boundaries and limits: Mobile games hold a special appeal for children. So allow your children to play games on mobile phone but do remind them that there will be a time limit. A child can become a mobile phone addict when you don't enforce rules and set a time limit. Make sure to set a timer when the playtime begins and give periodic warnings like you have 15 minutes or ten minutes left. When it's time up, tell them that you will give them a few minutes time to save the game and wait till they have finished.

These are some of the ways to break a child's mobile phone addiction. And best treatment for child mobile addiction is to allow children to own a mobile phone only when they are 16 years of age.

Story first published: Sunday, February 2, 2014, 0:46 [IST]
Read more about: kids parenting tips