The foundation phase of a child’s life is crucial for their overall development and growth. It is during this phase that children are most receptive to learning and forming habits that will shape their future behaviour. Installing good habits early on can have a lasting impact on their character, discipline, and success in life. By teaching children, values such as honesty, kindness, responsibility, and perseverance, we are setting them up for a lifetime of positive habits and behaviours.
The risks of not instilling these online habits from a young age are the following:
We run the risk of exposing them to master manipulators, who now have access to AI technology, meaning their net can be cast even wider. They can be left vulnerable and gullible to predators and scammers.
Children can unintentionally share sensitive personal information online or engage in risky behaviours, such as downloading malware or interacting with strangers, putting their privacy and security at risk.
By not setting boundaries, they can get lost in the digital world we created and forget how to connect in person and battle to develop empathy.
What they experience could affect their sleep and physical and mental development. Resulting in major issues as they grow up understanding nonverbal communication, showing empathy, and managing conflict, leading to difficulties in forming meaningful relationships offline.
What is seen, cannot be unseen. This can have a massive impact on a child’s psyche, not everyone is kind and has good intentions online.
Misinformation could incorrectly form their perceptions on topics and forever change the way they see the world. The influence of much older external influencers and their behaviours can also affect the way they feel they need to behave.
Excessive screen time during the developmental stages can impact their cognitive, social, and emotional development, potentially leading to delays in language, empathy development, and problem-solving skills. Imagination play and interaction with other kids is essential to their growth and understanding of the world both online and offline.
Children are influenced by their surroundings and the people in their lives. As parents, we have the responsibility of teaching our children good habits and helping them to develop a healthy lifestyle. Just like making sure your child is water-safe, with swimming lessons, we need to empower them with the confidence to talk, say no, block and report. As adults, we know that habits can be hard to break, by addressing bad habits and misconceptions at an early age by replacing them with positive habits that support our goals will set children up for success throughout life. Teaching and modelling healthy digital habits play a vital part in our children’s growth and development.
Each Codey adventure takes approximately 20 minutes, call the entire experience 2 hours, this is a great way to get started, but it on average takes more than 2 months before a new behaviour becomes a habit. We, parents and schools must continue the conversation, and implement the boundaries long after the adventure has ended. It will be the difference in their teens!
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