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Parents need to give their kids more responsibilities like walking to school, a psychologist specialising in kids’ neuroscience says.
Parents wanting to prepare their children for the modern world need to let their kids get out and explore it — sometimes without them.
That is the message visiting psychologist and TED talker Kathryn Berkett shared with Taranaki parents and teachers at her latest public talk this month.
Parents were conscientious around their kids’ physical safety, but needed to be more aware of the dangers that lurk online, the Wellington-based psychologist said.
Developing resilience
Allowing your kids to go to the neighbourhood park, walk to school on their own and play outside uninterrupted were simple ways to increase resilience, she said.
“Resilience is only grown through experiencing tolerable stress.
“Which means kids need to tolerably lose, they need to get teased and experience the frustration of not getting a certificate.”
Berkett spoke at a Raising Resilient Children evening for New Plymouth parents at Mangorei School last week, and held sessions with teachers from the region.
It goes against parents natural instincts to allow their children to experience hurts and disappointments, but kids need these experiences to cope as they grow, she said.
“It hurts us, but our kids are not being resilient,” Berkett said. “They’re getting angry, anxious and frustrated because they can’t regulate their emotions.
“We’re seeing a significant increase in our inability to regulate our emotions.”
Berkett has a TEDx talk, The Neuroscience of Device Zombies, which delves into the effects of a device on the developing brain, the dopamine hits — and the stresses.
The brain’s reward centre lights up from using devices and social media, but is negatively impacted through sudden and ongoing high levels of stress.
She referred to American social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt who linked increases in anxiety to excessive social media use in kids and teenagers.
“Social media and device use activates the stress response but it happens way bigger and way faster,” Berkett said. “You’re not having the normal increase in stress.”
Her antidote: “Get them off the phone.”
Kids learn from making mistakes and they need to be able to do this in a controlled and supported way, Berkett said. Read more
- Michelle Robinson is a Columnist at Taranaki Daily News.
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