Mumbai: In addition to students, parents too have received ‘holiday homework’ this year which is to be followed during their child’s school vacation. The assignment? Watching cartoons and animation shows that their children watch to better understand the content their kids consume and decide whether it is appropriate for children.
The move comes after several teachers noticed behavioural changes in children, who began attending physical classes in February after two years of online classes. Not only were some children, especially in the pre-primary and primary sections, showing off accents, but many were also back answering teachers and seen bullying other children in their classes.
Taking matters into their hands, a handful of schools in the city shot out circulars to parents to bring their attention to the issue and encouraged them to watch cartoons and animated shows that their children watch to understand what is encouraging children to behave in this particular manner.
“Much of the content on OTT platforms can be controlled by opting for parental locks. However, this too doesn’t help because, at present, the content available for children itself is very crass and illogical,” said Swati Popat Vats, president, Podar Education Network.
The Podar group runs several schools across the country, including Podar Jumbo Kids, a chain of pre-schools.
“So many cartoon shows dubbed in Hindi use very crass language whereas other international animated shows portray children as villains in some cases, and it is very easy to see that such content is bringing changes in our children too,” she added.
The circular sent to parents of the Podar Jumbo schools in May this year encouraged them to “co-view” shows with their children.
“We’ve told them that they can’t just stop children from viewing such shows, but instead take time to explain to them why such shows are not appropriate and slowly wean them off such shows,” added Vats, who is also president of the Early Childhood Association for Primary Education and Research (ECA-APER).
Education institutes that completely shut down in March 2020 following the nationwide lockdown managed to reopen starting in October 2021. After a brief shutdown in January, schools once again reopened to hybrid classes starting January 24, 2022.
“In February itself, as soon as schools reopened for physical classes, we received complaints from teachers of students misbehaving. We immediately got our school counsellors to look into the matter who soon realised that this stems from the cartoon shows children watch these days,” said Kavita Agarwal, director, DG Khetan International School, Malad.
The institute decided to write to all parents, and ask them to ensure better control of content viewed by their children.
City-based psychologist Seema Hingorrany told HT that in the last two months, she has been approached by parents seeking help with similar concerns. “There are cases of students refusing to eat unless they are allowed to watch a certain show and in other cases, children have back answering authoritative figures including parents and teachers. Most of this is stemming from the various cartoon shows that they watch,” said Hingorrany.
Not just a control over the content watched by the children, but she suggests parents to encourage children for outdoor activities over watching TV/iPad or phones.
“During the lockdown, parents were overworked and didn’t realise how their decision to hand over a phone or iPad to children to keep them busy has now turned into an obsession. My advice is to engage children in physical activities and slowly wean them off the dependence on TV or phones, especially in the evenings,” she added.
“The aim is to put a stop to this growing dependence on technology by children to avoid any long-term effects,” added Hingorrany.
School counsellors too have been asked to conduct workshops with teachers and students once schools reopen. “While parents can do their bit at home by monitoring the content their children view, teachers too can highlight the wrongs of viewing and imitating cartoon characters. Children view teachers as their idols, and that makes it easy to interact with and understand the concern when it comes directly from teachers,” said Sweta Singha, a certified children’s counsellor who at present works with three different city schools, including a pre-school.
