Extract from ABC News
The first week of school is over in Queensland and another is beginning, but many parents and carers may already feel a little battle-weary as children push back against going to class.
Key points:
- The use of screens during COVID-19's onset led to more screen addiction, researchers say
- Psychologists believe some children use screens excessively as a coping tool
- Experts say children can overcome their addiction with proper support and understanding
Widespread school refusal landed on the national agenda last year and is now the subject of a senate inquiry.
On Friday, the New South Wales Opposition vowed to spend $2.5 million on research into youth screen addictions if elected in March.
One Queensland researcher said there was growing evidence that the overuse of digital devices through the first years of the pandemic may be a major contributor.
University of the Sunshine Coast psychology lecturer and researcher Rachel Sharman said children began using more screens in the first years of COVID-19.
She said children's screen time was an "elephant in the room" that should not be ignored.
"What we absolutely do know was there was an increase in screen time during the pandemic, and that's not just in Australia, that was across the world," Dr Sharman said.
"Common sense tells you that's going to happen. Parents needed to work. People were in desperate situations.
"There's been a lot more screen time and I suppose the potential for some of those kids to become, unfortunately, addicted to those screens."
The condition even has a new name, intensive early screen exposure.
Screen time a coping tool
Clinical psychologist Kathryn Esparza leads Anxiety House on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.
She said if children were particularly attached to their screens, families needed to understand why.
"The more children use screens as a coping tool or avoidance mechanism, the less they're having an opportunity to feel their feels, discuss their feelings with mum and dad and solve their problems," Ms Esparza said.
She said it was understandable that some children did not want to surrender or log off their devices.
"This is about how we actually have to teach children, through parents being educated on better coping tools, better coping mechanisms," Ms Esparza said.
"Then we can start to reduce the reliance on screen time — if it has become a form of coping."
Ramsay Mental Health, a private mental health provider, found that 45 per cent of Australian teenagers aged 17 and under said they used their smartphone almost constantly.
Matthew Shaw, from the company's young persons' program, wrote that while the technology itself was not harmful, excessive use could cause "anxiety, anger, isolation and, in extreme examples, refusing to attend school".
Don't blame the parents, GP says
James Best chairs the Royal Australia College of General Practice's child and young person health group, and is a GP himself.
He believed extra screen time throughout the pandemic, and since, was likely contributing to an increase in school refusals and screen addiction.
But Mr Best said parents did not deserve the blame.
"It's viewed externally as parents just using screens as an electronic babysitter but I see it more the other way," he said.
"It's usually a battle, that parents are trying to get kids away from screens, particularly when it's becoming a problem."
Dr Best urged understanding, especially where social media represented a child's entire friendship group.
"To take away that screen can be very traumatic for the individual child or young person," he said.
TV can be worse than video games
Lisa Mundy from the Australian Institute of Family Studies heads the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, a program that follows 10,000 children from families across the country.
She said gaming was not necessarily the biggest problem.
"We found that for children who have two or more hours of TV a day, two years later they were roughly a third of a year behind their peers in their learning," Dr Mundy said.
"For children who were using an hour or more of computer use, they also had a decline in their academic performance.
"But interestingly, for those kids who were online using video games, there wasn't the link with academic performance."
She said for kids who were addicted to their screens and refusing to go to school, the promise of a screen as a "reward" was not part of their thinking.
What families can do to help their kids
Dr Sharman said for parents and carers with children reluctant to leave their devices, an "extinction process", or putting the tablet on top of a cupboard, had worked for her young daughter.
"We dealt with tantrums, and we dealt with the crying, screaming and carrying on," she said.
But she conceded it would not be so easy for those with older kids.
"If you've got someone who's 16 and they've been addicted to screens for 10 years, you've got a very big uphill battle on your hands," Dr Sharman said.
"What I would be saying to parents is, 'Prevention is so much better than cure'."
Dr Mundy said research suggested too much or too little technology was a problem for children, depending on their age, but finding that middle ground was not an exact science.
"It's really about finding that healthy balance," she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment