After a busy academic year, the much-anticipated semester break has begun. Semester break is not only an opportunity for children to have fun and rest, but also a chance to learn how to spend quality time. Stating that parents can give their children daily responsibilities such as tidying their rooms, brushing their teeth, etc. during this period, experts suggested that parents should plan a work list that they can do together with their children.
Specialist Clinical Psychologist Aynur Sayım from Üsküdar University NP Feneryolu Medical Center made suggestions to families about the semester break.
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"For children, the holiday period is not only a time when they plan to do what they miss, but also a period when children can be taught how to spend free time more effectively," said Aynur Sayım, emphasizing that the semester break should be evaluated well, "During the holiday, we all think of taking a break from our routine work, resting ourselves and having fun; but of course, this has a limit framework."
Holidays are a good opportunity to learn how to spend quality time
Noting that holidays are a good opportunity to learn how to use time efficiently, Uzmanm. Clinical Psychologist Aynur Sayım,
"If the child has learned to manage his/her time well, this attitude will be reflected in his/her activities and events during the holidays, how he/she spends time with his/her friends, how much time he/she spends with his/her friends and how much time he/she spends with himself/herself. With regard to the internal discipline we teach our children, we must first teach them to make good use of their free time. Parents should guide their children in this regard. Being able to manage our time well allows us to use it wisely and get efficient and productive results. A satisfying vacation will make us happy, feel valued and rested. Of course, for the child, a vacation is a more flexible period of time in which he/she is free and able to rest, rather than being in a planned and regimented environment for a semester. The guidance of parents should come into play on how the child will spend the vacation."
Plan a "to-do list" with your child
Sayım stated that a work list can be planned for children, which they can do with their families or on their own initiative, and said, "Planning daily activities a day in advance also teaches them to set goals and act towards the goal. This is actually a teaching and learning process. Friend choices and learning communication techniques are of the same nature."
Aynur Sayım listed her suggestions for the semester break as follows:
Do not put pressure on your child
It is important for families to help children plan their activities without too much intervention, without high expectations, and by allowing them to rest and have fun. Of course, families should supervise the friends they choose and the environments they are in during the holidays, but it is important to act carefully without putting too much pressure on them. During the holiday period, it will be useful to include short lesson repetitions and reading hours in the daily plans in order not to forget the information children have learned during the semester and to prepare for the new academic year.
Assign daily responsibilities
It would be useful to emphasize that giving children daily responsibilities such as tidying their rooms, brushing their teeth and directing them to favorite activities such as sports, chess and drama will contribute to their physical and social development.
Beware of game addiction!
"The screen occupies an important place in all of our lives, but to the extent necessary, it is undoubtedly indispensable in terms of improving our quality of life, communication, education and training, and easy access to information; but its addictive use reduces the social sharing of children and young people, even everyone, and can lead to inward orientation, a tendency towards a virtual world, lack of real problem-solving skills, attention and concentration, and therefore slowness in learning speed and deterioration in social relations," Aynur Sayım said,
"We cannot ignore the emotional discharge aspect of games. When used to a mild degree, it can be useful for the child to discharge feelings of anger and aggression, but excessive tendency to such games and always choosing such games may also indicate an existing psychiatric condition."
Wanting to play games means "I need you"
Pointing out that children who spend most of their time in front of the screen cannot socialize, Sayım said, "They cannot establish adequate and healthy communication with their family and environment, so their language development, social development, motor development, in short, their development in all areas slows down or regresses. Our children want to play games with us and they usually express this. Some parents do not like to play, refuse this request or pass it by. However, the child wants to say 'I need you, I want to build a relationship with you, this is how we can improve our relationship'. For this reason, we want parents to include playing games with their children during family playtimes and also during one-on-one time with the child, and we use play in our work both in information gathering and in psychotherapy.
Virtual environment creates social relationship difficulties
Expert Clinical Psychologist Aynur Sayım said, "When computer games are selected correctly and used sufficiently, they can be enriching in terms of causing the child-young person to gain experiences such as responses to sound, light, motion stimuli, problem solving, experiencing different ways to achieve the goal; but if this is the only way the child communicates with other people, that is, if it is constantly in a virtual environment, then there is a danger that social relationship difficulties may occur or may occur."
"Social phobia" occurs in children who turn to the digital environment!
"In many cases of social phobia, we see that children prefer this way of communication. The child may turn to computer games because they cannot behave comfortably in society, in groups and hide themselves, because their communication skills are limited. He builds a virtual world for himself. When this situation becomes addictive, there are cases of children who only need to eat and go to the toilet and never leave the computer. In this way, they exist in the virtual world and feel that they exist. In recent years, both children and parents spend a lot of time playing computer games. Parents may perceive playing computer games together as spending quality time together. This has many drawbacks. A child who spends most of his/her time in front of the computer cannot socialize and cannot establish adequate and healthy communication with the family and the environment. Providing materials and guidance to the child for art activities, cut-and-paste, origami, play dough, model making, coloring, painting, etc. will be supportive.
Are parents the cause of computer addiction?
Modeling is also an important issue here. If the mother, father, family members are more interested in computers and phones, the reason for the child's computer addiction can be easily explained when we consider that children learn by modeling their parents in their personality development. If there is weak discipline in the family, if there is such modeling, if there is emotional neglect of the child, if the family breathes comfortably while the child spends time on the computer at home, these children are more at risk."
