Are Today’s Children Overly Stimulated? – Being Parents

Parents are increasingly concerned with the development of their children so that none of their potential is wasted. However, there is a dangerous tendency towards creating over-stimulated children. We analyze the risks of this model and the means to prevent it.

Children today are often confronted with many activities of all kinds. On the one hand, the students: attend classes, do their homework and participate in extracurricular activities. On the other hand, there are also distractions, such as cell phones, tablets and computers as well as video games.

Over-stimulated children are those who are hardly allowed to choose what they want. Parents see them as fragile beings, who need someone to do everything in their power so that they do not get bored or miss out on development opportunities.

Thus, the child grows – or even is born – in an environment in which he is constantly stimulated. Parents claim to have children who are self-sufficient and independent, able to make their own decisions. But is this the right way to educate them?

This form of parenting is more than discouraged. Its negative effects are far more numerous than the positive ones, if there are any. Over-stimulated children are the fruit of demanding parents who have not given way to the child’s freedom.

Over-stimulated children: the negative consequences

• Intolerance of loneliness.
• Inability to wait or be consistent.
• You cannot get over his boredom, he has no creativity.
• Brain exhaustion, which leads to a decrease in cognitive abilities.
• Narcissistic attitudes, caused by the misuse of new technologies.

In addition, overly stimulated children may stop playing outdoor games. This is because everything is happening at a too “natural” pace; that is, it goes slower than anything they see on screens, where the stimuli are dynamic and constant. Not to mention, either, stopping to read a book, at least, or a story.

Is early stimulation useful?

In principle, this method of stimulation in the first months of life has been used in children with different problems. For example, people with autism, Down’s syndrome or cerebral palsy.

However, later they began to be used also in children without these problems. The goal, they say, is to improve their abilities through certain cognitive and motor exercises. These benefits have never been proven in healthy children.

In fact, subjecting them to these unnecessary tasks can lead to an aversion to similar activities that could be positive. In addition, they could be the cause of attention or concentration problems. The reason is that they are very demanding on the mental level. It is therefore not good to expose children to this stress in an unwarranted manner.

Tips for not raising overly stimulated children

1. Let them go outside

Children need to spend time outdoors. At home, despite a large number of activities, they will not develop their senses as they would outdoors. Give them the opportunity to explore, discover new things and use their imaginations.

2. Remove them from screens and pay attention to content

Playing with electronic devices is not inherently bad. The problem with these devices is that they do not allow the child to develop his imagination: they offer him everything that is created.

Then it is convenient to give ordinary toys to the little ones for playtime. Even though they seem ordinary and not very entertaining, it is a challenge for them to find different uses. It’s something that’s a lot of fun too.

Besides, it is also very important for parents to monitor what their children are watching on TV or on the Internet. Cartoons today are full of colors and animation that overload their minds. Far from resting, it produces even more mental stress.

3. Encourage conversation

This comes in handy at several times of the day when, perhaps unknowingly, this habit is breaking down. For example, when eating, turn off the television and create a habit of interacting with your family.

Since children are a reflection of their parents’ behavior, you should logically show them the way. You can read them a story at night. This, in addition to strengthening their attention span, strengthens their imagination and creates a bond of union with their parents.

4. Don’t overload them with activities

In an effort to bring out the best in their children, parents today are doing too much for their over-excited and over-stimulated children. In what way? By signing them up for English lessons, soccer, piano, yoga, karate and whatever else they would like to do.

Thus, the children hardly have any free time. They don’t know how to be bored or find ways to be entertained because, literally, they never had time to learn it.

In this sense, there is no doubt that the best is to let them research their own activities and develop their abilities in the most natural way possible.