Pango

Do You Want Your Kids to be Raised by Disney?

During a meet up with a couple of moms of small children at a park yesterday, they talked about how difficult it is to limit their children’s screen-time these days, especially when both parents are working and daycare is not a preferred option.

Mom 1: “I don’t want my boy to be raised by Disney!”
Mom 2: “My boy watches three Disney movies a day…”

It got me thinking. Too much screen-time for kids is an issue, yet even more of an issue is the quality of what they are consuming. These moms were on to something. Are kids' minds merely being entertained or are their minds being enriched and expanded?

It seems like just yesterday when my children were little like theirs. They hardly had any screen time. While I was homeschooling my kids, my son, who was four, would be in his room playing with Legos and listening to Susan Wise Bauer’s Story of the World audiobooks for hours EVERYDAY. https://welltrainedmind.com/c/history-geography/jim-weiss-history/?v=7516fd43adaa

To our surprise, he became a knowledgeable historian and a great storyteller. He was able to inform us about when and how the Chinese invented gunpowder, entertain us with the romance between Cleopatra and Mark Antony, describe to us how Caesar Nero did nothing to stop Rome from burning, and educate us on how WWI and WWII began, and all this before he “officially” started homeschooling.

So don’t let your children waste their precious minds and time merely being entertained. Pique their curiosity with fascinating stories, get their minds engaged with ideas that expand their awareness and that sharpen their critical thinking abilities. Set a limit to their screen-time, and be creative and innovative about providing alternatives.