Screens are STILL Bad for Your Kids
An article popped up on my news feed the other day that stopped me in my tracks. The media has hit a new low in its biased reporting and its crusade to sway your opinion. The headline is, “Screen Time and Kids: Parents Need to Worry Less About Hours Logged.” Whew! Right? Thank goodness CNN has quelled my fears, and I no longer need to be concerned about the zombification of my children as they attempt to receive an education this fall. Silly me. Here I was taking all the recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics, all the studies published in reputable medical journals citing evidence screen time is harmful to the developing brain, and all my personal experience as a physician and parent seriously. What a relief to know all the symptoms my kids experienced in the spring weren’t attributable to hours in front of a computer. I do wonder what caused the headaches, severe eye strain, insomnia, anxiety, depressive symptoms and inability to concentrate in five children who had never experienced these problems prior to virtual learning. But, nice to know I don’t have to worry about it in the fall, and can chock up all their very real complaints to their imaginations.
Apologies for the sarcasm, but all this would be laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous. I feel like I am in a dystopian novel where the government and the press convince the population of what is bad for them and what is good for them. Any minute now, a Hunger Games may be announced. I have never been a conspiracy theorist, but it is hard not to take pause at what I am reading and what I am hearing from those in power locally, at the state level and federally. When I compare the statements and the media headlines to data, it makes no sense. When you look at the real science, what is currently going on with COVID, and all we now know about the virus, it is impossible to not look for the agenda and the power play. Our children are being sacrificed. Their lives are more at risk during the ride to school than they are from coronavirus. They are, however, at serious risk from callous, misguided, uninformed, decisions.
Masks work. The kids and the teachers will be wearing them. Children will be screened, and parents will not be sending kids with symptoms to school. The teachers I know want to go back to the classroom, because they are smart, educated people who can interpret the facts. The unions are fighting it every step, using scare tactics and disseminating incorrect information. The teacher is not at greater risk in the classroom than he or she has been in a grocery store or at a family party this summer. Doctors and nurses take care of very sick, very contagious people indoors, at close quarters, and are protecting themselves effectively with masks. Why are we allowing the rhetoric to be teachers are more at risk from a far less likely to be contagious population who will be wearing masks? It makes no sense at all, and it sickens me our kids and their education are being used as pawns in whatever game is being played by the adults.
Do not be fooled by the headlines, and dive deep into unbiased, good information any time you are confused or scared (try the second or third page of a Google search which isn’t controlled by those with an agenda and deep pockets.) Make no mistake, virtual learning is physically and emotionally harmful for kids, and those lobbying for stay-at-home are endangering the welfare of your child.
