Weaning Children Off of Electronic Media

Article by Ashwita Goel, Reiki Master

The dangers of letting children use electronic media are numerous. Not only do they make children addicts and prevent children from developing healthy coping patterns, but they also impair creativity, learning ability, and cognitive functioning, desensitize the children to violence and create behavioral problems. Having said all that, I’ve found many parents struggling with weaning their children off of electronic media. Many children even refuse to eat unless distracted by an exciting video.

Now here’s the thing: Not only is it essential to take children off of electronic media, but it is also actually quite easy! In my parenting group, I found that every single parent found huge changes when electronic media was permanently banned in the house. A lot of parents in the group reported that many problems like fussy eating, tantrums, etc all disappeared after media was removed completely. Eating habits of children changed as well, and they started gravitating more towards healthier foods.

The first 7 years of a child is when the root chakra develops. Electronic media damages this development permanently, and it can take decades to bring about a balance to counter this underdevelopment. It is highly essential for the child to learn in a non-electronic environment to develop robust mental health.

Prioritize Your Daily Practice

Children act like sponges energetically, so whatever negative energy you carry will affect them either directly through disease or indirectly through behavioral problems. As a parent, you need to keep your own energies clear first so that your child is not picking up your dirty energies. Daily Reiki self-healing for a minimum of 35 minutes, covering all chakras in the front as well as back, is a must if you truly want to be a good parent to your child. There are no short-cuts, and please don’t try to substitute tools for practice, like trying to use crystals etc. By trying to use short-cuts you teach your own child that it is not worth investing in, and also teach the child to look for quick-fixes in life instead of doing what is right. Regular Reiki self-healing helps you remain connected to yourself as well as creates a better connection with your child, and also improves the energy levels at home.

Prepare the Child

Talking to the child before any transition is very important. Talking to the child and tell the child how dangerous electronic media is, how it damages the brain and how companies are using it to brainwash children (you have no idea how rampant this is. Cartoons are loaded with negative hypnotic programming) Give it a week to 10 days, talk about this everyday casually, not trying to ram it into her head. Read up on these topics and share the info with her on a daily basis. DO NOT try to drill this information into her head, just share it like an interesting piece of information that is captivating you. If you try to manipulate your child, she will know, she will resent you for it and it will not work.

Lead by Example

If you spend time with electronic media in front of the child, stop that first. Use your phone or watch TV programs only when the child is not at home or asleep. This part is essential.

Give it Time

Maybe after a week, you can tell that you can see how true this information you are finding this to be and that you want to minimize it in your life, and in the family in general. Maybe you can allow for some minimum TV/cartoon time every week, say half an hour or something and settle at that. You can also explain to her the concept of addiction withdrawal and that she might experience some symptoms and that it is OK and you are by her side.

Reiki Can Help

Reiki can facilitate this process to make the transition easier for you as well as your child. It should take only about a month for the transformation. If you find that you are addicted to electronic media yourself, heal your relationship with electronic media first. Imagine all your favorite gadgets in front of you and draw all the symbols mentally on these gadgets. Request Reiki to heal your relationship with them. Also, request Reiki to help you cope with the void which you are trying to fill with these gadgets.

Heal your relationship with your child. We tend to use distraction to get children to do what we want. While in a few circumstances this is OK, like when the child is in immense pain, in most instances this damages the child and tells it that it is not worth your time. This leads to tantrums and eating problems because that is the only way to get your attention. Spend some time daily after your self-healing, sending healing to your child to heal the connection between you two.

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Having learned Meditation as a child, Ashwita incorporated Reiki into her life during her early teens. After a decade of witnessing the magic Reiki, she felt compelled to take up Reiki professionally, and ended her corporate career in 2007, taking up Reiki full-time. She eventually incorporated EFT, hypnotherapy and past life therapy into her work. Apart from her healing work, she teaches Reiki and meditation, and her book ‘Healing Through Reiki’ is available on Amazon. She holds regular full moon and new moon meditations at @AshwitaGoel. Her website is www.reiki-bangalore.com and her blog www.ashwita.com