Life without Mobile Games

Ever since cellphone was snatched away from my children, they started doing other things instead of being absorbed with games and anything to do with mobile games.

I don’t see a problem with my daughter because she is willing to write and scribble. And she knows how to hold a pen.

I am worried about my second son. He was the main reason why we decided to totally stop their access to mobile phones. He was very addicted to games that all he could do in a single day would be to play games.

It was quite hard during the early stage of taking the phone from him. He kept crying, then pleading. He even went on strike. But we kept firm with our decision. NO PHONE TIME for them.

He isn’t fond of writing. Well, he writes but only out of compliance. He writes his name then that’s it. Sometimes, we just let him write whatever comes to his mind just so he will write.

Why is it so hard to teach one’s OWN child? I now understand why some parents let others handle their children.

Anyway, since the children are no longer allowed to play games on mobile phone, my second son, restless, went around looking for things to do. Then there he met his new gadget. Hahaha. He was so amazed by how numbers appeared on the screen of the calculator.

At least he knew how to order numbers from 1 to 10.

He showed to me the above with pride. And I thought better to write about it this topic. And I took a picture of what he has inputted on the calculator.

Since he doesn’t like to write with pencil or pen, I reluctantly let him do his stuff and he went on exploring the calculator. Asking something about the other functions he sees on the calculator.

I always keep the calculator near me. Anytime, I use it for my calculations, academic or personal. At first, I kept scolding him, telling him to put the thing down. It might fall, might get broken, and might get damaged.

But after a while, I realized I could use the calculator as a means to test if he is learning something or not. One of the things I confirmed he knew is ordering numbers. At least… I thought.

Then a while back I was practicing my timings and lines for my video recording which I will be doing tonight after everybody goes to bed. My son came to me and I thought of letting him be amazed by the ICT tools I am using.

I opened a new Microsoft PowerPoint and typed his name then random things I could think of. I inserted our pictures on the slides. Then I told him to get ready because we will be recording.

While we were recording, he was identifying letters. He pointed at some letters of the words I wrote saying that those letters are found in his name.

We went on recording random stuffs and then we exported the PowerPoint as a video. We then played it and he kept smiling to himself.

I accepted that it may not be that smooth tutoring him but there is always hope in his learnings. I can just be creative in order to teach him.

But really, doing all these just for the love of the kid. There were those times, I really didn’t mind teaching them. Because of the pressures of my job. But now I have a clearer mind. What of just a few minutes of my time each day? For the kids. Right?

I learned to enjoy my time with them and really, it is blissful. If we know how to condition our body and mind.

Honestly, they started using mobile phones when I used it as a technique to have more time for my work. But I realized I was guilty of doing it the wrong way. It was our fault as parents to begin with.

Hubby and I let them use phones which isn’t supposed to be. So I hope it is not too late to correct ourselves.

It felt so much better after deciding to keep the phone away from my children. I think it is the best decision I made so far. It was hard during the early stage but we kept firm with our decision.

As of this time that I am writing this, the children are content sitting on the cradle… Watching television and playing with each other at the same time. Occasionally, hubby nags us to write A, B, C and 1, 2, 3.