Does your child use the iPad? Here are some do's and don't's

Do you ever wonder how easy your life has become in this digital age? So even when traditional toys may fail to entertain your toddlers there are some new age distractions available.

All you have to do is handover an iPad with some amazing child special apps to your little ones. Well if something has its positives, it has its negatives too. Here are some do’s and don’ts that you need to keep in mind before giving an iPad to your child.

Do’s

• Make sure to block all the adult websites or put a password to restrict access to the Internet depending on how old your child is and what all he/she is ready to see. You can also customize your restrictions by going into the general settings.
• If you want your child to use a particular app something like “Endless Reader” but don’t want them to have an option of making an exit to do something else, you need to enable “guided access”. It can simply be done by going into the accessibility section of the general settings in your iPad.
• Switching on the privacy for your private data is also very important as some of the sites directly get an access to your accounts like facebook/ twitter/ linked in etc. Usually your camera directly allows you to post pictures on your facebook or any website might request access to your twitter account to post tweets on your behalf. To avoid any of that, you need to use the privacy settings very carefully.
• Its necessary to put password to your e-mails and contact list so that your child doesn’t delete or revert to something, which is not required.
• Download various plays, poems and dramas so that your kid can learn alphabets and improve his/her vocabulary as well as math skills. Having some easy puzzles can also be useful as your kid will effectively start using his/her brain and will be able to concentrate on things in a better way, as he/she gets older.
• Its mandatory to put a strong hard case cover on your iPad and also put temper glass screen guard. This will prevent any kind of damage even when the children mishandled the iPad. Also, make sure the cover does not have sharp edges as it may hurt the children.

Don’ts

• According to the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP), you should never let your child use an iPad for more than two hours a day and if your child is younger than two, avoid giving the iPad to him/her.
• Make it a point to not give your child an iPad if he/she has not participated in other activities such as jogging in the garden, reading a poem out of a book or playing with toys.
• Do not keep an iPad in your baby’s bedroom, as the screen of an iPad is stimulating and can interfere with sleep.
• Excess use of an iPad between the age group of 3 and 4 might not have any problem in swiping a screen but have trouble understanding the real space and possesses little or no dexterity in their fingers. Children can also become depressed, create anxiety and other mental illness if they are unable to find solutions or if the battery of an iPad is dying.
• Its important that your children only use an iPad to listen to music or play games as overexposure to some technologies or finding answers of everything on google might affect their memories to the point that they don’t even get a hang of writing their exams.
• Teaching your child everything from an iPad’s technology is always unsustainable, as they are not getting to physically see it, experience it or do experiment with the stuff that they can do by running in the garden or playing any outdoor sport.
• It’s advisable to give a skip to your gadgets once in a while. Every time your phone beeps, you shouldn’t go look for your phone because you are the one who is setting up the wrong precedence for your children. If you stay occupied with your phone or an iPad, your children will surely learn to do the same which will affect their mental as well as physical growth.

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