Check what games Your child is playing
According to the research by dr. Matilde Irigoyen from Albert Einstein Medical Center, 28% of two-year-olds can control on their own a mobile device without an aid of an adult. That makes it even more important to control the games played by a child and the type of content it has access to. Leaving it on its own may result in situation when it will gain access to materials with the content that is not suitable to its age, it will enter into Internet relations with strangers or it will do micro-payments in games without our knowledge.
Determine maximal time of playing
As American Academy of Pediatrics specifies, a day limit of time which a child should spend on a play with a tablet or a smartphone is 30-120 minutes. Well before handing a device, it is good to specify clearly how long will the game last and when it should be stopped. It will help to avoid a situation when taking away the electronic entertainment results in the outburst of anger. – If we have a problem to be consistent in specifying the time of a play, it is worth to choose from applications that have a mechanism which suggests the necessity of a pause – explains Marek Guzowski, the chairman of Splendid Stories, the producer of application ‘Detective Jolly Head Street of Secret’. – After about 30 minutes of playing, the information appears on the screen that the main hero is tired and needs a rest. This simple functionality enables a child to learn how to use mobile devices in a reasonable way – he adds.
Adjust a game to the age of a child
In order to ensure that a game makes a child happy and is a source of satisfaction resulting from the progress that is made, we have to pay a great attention to the fact whether an application is adjusted to the age group which our bundle of joy belongs to. If the play turns out to be too easy, he or she will soon be bored. The reverse situation – in which the game is too difficult to go through, has unclear content or requires competences which the child at this age doesn’t have yet – will result in discouragement.
Read reviews and opinions
Thousands of applications offered by AppStore or Google PLAY make that choosing a game ideal for a child can be a great challenge. To make this task easier, it is worth getting an opinion from those who have already struggled with a similar problem – parents evaluating applications in Internet stores or sharing their opinions on forums or parental blogs. Their remarks and tips will spare us many troubles and will help to pick up real jewels in the abundance of propositions.
Play with the child
88% of surveyed mothers and fathers declare that playing with a child is a good fun for the entire family and over a half of them take as much delight from it as the child. Offering entertainment apps on a tablet or a smarthphone to young children, therefore it is also worth to build a relationship with a little player, learning about his or her latest interests. All the more that this is also a great opportunity to keep up with new technological developments in a natural way.
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Reda also: Detective Jolly Head Street of Secrets – a new application for children
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