In her column (mostly about life with a small child - in fact I think it’s called something like Republic of Parenthood) in the Guardian this morning Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett wrote about television programmes for small children. Specifically she expressed her dislike for a character in Postman Pat, a peevish spoilt chid called Bill Thompson. I fully sympathise with her amazement at how seriously we take the characters in children’s TV series. If you watch a fair amount of a series you begin to analyse the characters. Over the last year I have watched a good deal of Octonauts. My small grandson and ai have learnt a lot about the world under the sea. And I watch a character called Kwazii, a sort of cockney cat who talks a lot about his pirate ancestors. I have become convinced that Kwazii has ADHD. He finds it hard to sit still, zooms around at great speed and would undoubtedly be very annoying to have in your classroom. On the whole, though, the series is quite entertaining and probably more educational than Postman Pat. In fact there’s quite a lot of decent stuff for kids on TV.
I also read this morning that it is estimated that one in five children aged 7 to 16 have mental health problems. In many cases the schools are simply not equipped to deal with the problems as there is no spare money for mental health support teams. One in five means that in a small primary school of maybe 200 children they could have up to 40 children with problems. Why does it happen? My son puts a lot of it down to children’s isolation during lockdown. And this article expresses the belief that children have a shorter attention span since Covid.
I’m not totally convinced. There’s a bit of me that believes that the current cohort of children has been exposed too young to too much social media and often watch inappropriate stuff, no matter how careful their parents are to control it. Not necessarily pornography but shows that involve characters with anti-social attitudes. Our 3 year old grandson can surf stuff on his “tabby” and even though what he can access on child version of the tablet is limited I am still suspicious of possible gender stereotyping and reinforcement of competitive attitudes that are not always kind and inclusive.
Having said that, both he and his six-year old sister - who watches ‘girly’ series with an emphasis on fashion as well as playing Minecraft - indulge in very good imaginative play together. The fact that both our small grandchildren have their own tablets disturbs me though. I don’t like children to be glued to a small screen for too long and when they come to me I try organise and encourage other activities. The sunshine helps. And so yesterday we all three went off on a long walk and spent the best part of an hour playing in the sand in the park. My anti-technology-for-children is not a new thing. When our children were small we chose not have television in the house. They had to read books and play imaginatively.
Here’s a link to an article about a town in Ireland that has taken a communal decision to ban smartphones for young children. It must be easier to resist the pressure to give your 11-12 year old a smartphone if all the parents in your area are in agreement on the matter.
And here’s a link to an article where a parent (and teacher) explains why her son will not be given a smartphone anytime soon.
There you go.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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