Why You Should Encourage Your Child to Swap an iPhone for a Skateboard
by Natasha Christou Digital Marketing ConsultantChildren are currently
being ‘trapped’ indoors by smartphones, tablets, videogames, and television.
With the growing advancements of new electronic devices and the early age at
which kids are now introduced to digital gadgets, it seems that playing
outdoors or engaging with offline activities are gradually dying out.
Even around the world,
interaction between children doesn’t seem to be a priority anymore, making it
more and more difficult to persuade kids to ditch their digital devices and
spend time interacting with other people.
The UK government released a study in 2016, conducted over two years with the aim
to identify visits to the natural environment by children. The study revealed
that over 10% of children in England hadn’t played out in a natural environment
such as a park, beach or a garden for over 12 months.
During November 2019, the Guardian reported in an article that a Common Sense Media had
found that 53% of kids in the US had their own smartphone by age 11 and 69% by
age 12.
Alongside several studies reiterating how harmful smartphone usage can
be on a children’s intellectual growth, social interaction abilities, and
overall wellbeing, it can be overwhelming for a parent to find alternative ways
to keep kids busy.
Fortunately, there are
lots of different activities that children can engage with, including ones that
require the supervision of an adult. Among these are gardening, indoor and
outdoor sports that are proven to be beneficial for children’s health, mind
development, and enhancement of inter-personal skills.
For instance, skateboarding
is a sport that combines such skills. This popular sport is known to offer several
benefits including burning calories, improving physical
resistance, increasing body flexibility, and teaching precision and
coordination.
This piece aims to
hopefully simplify the task of getting your child off their iPhone, putting
their trainers on and going outside with a skateboard
instead. Let’s take a look at things that can encourage your child to take such
step.
New friends
Taking up skateboarding
is a great opportunity to make new friends. In a world where making virtual
friends seems to be easier than real life friends, you could help your child
understand that going skateboarding will be beneficial for his social life too.
He will be able to enjoy real human interaction with other children and these
could become close friends even outside of skateboarding.
Meeting new friends at
the skatepark will also mean finding friends that share your child’s similar
interests.
Personalise your skateboard
If your child starts
skateboarding as their new hobby, your child could enjoy getting creative too.
One of the most fun things about this sport is that you get to choose your
favourite board and design it to fit your taste. Beginner skateboarders often get offered access to a buying guide which includes options to
customise your first skateboard with your preferred designs, wheels, deck, and
other parts.
Gain a new skill
Skateboarding is a
sport that offers many physical and mental benefits. If you are a parent
searching for non-digital ways to entertain you kids, then you’ll be happy to
know that skateboarding isn’t just fun — it’s a sport that can help your child
develop new skills and skateboarding tricks.
Become passionate
We all know practice
makes perfect right? In this case, practice will help your child find a new
passion. Once a child gets used to an activity they enjoy, kids are more likely
to become dedicated to it and, as they improve their skills, it can develop
into a passion of their own.
Parent-child time together
If your child chooses
skateboarding over a smartphone, then you’ll most likely be happy to take him
to the skate park while you’re walking the dog
and enjoy watching them progress.
It’s quite scary to
think that parents are potentially unaware of most of the online activities
that their children engage with each day. When a kid spends hours browsing the
internet or watching YouTube videos, there is no real-time interaction with
their parent, which can deteriorate their relationship.
For parents, you also
have the assurance that sports like skateboarding can be safer than the
internet. There is one such thing a child could do at the skate park, which is
skating and making new friends while you keep an eye on him. However, the
internet is full of inappropriate and harmful content that you might not be
able to protect your child from.
Despite the
ever-growing concerns about the amount of time children are spending on
electronic devices nowadays, it’s good to know that there is hope for many
parents to persuade their kids and to encourage them into offline activities
and sports that can be beneficial not just now but also for their future.
Sponsor Ads
Created on Mar 20th 2020 05:47. Viewed 790 times.