In a strange incident, a three-year-old kid has been taken to a counselling centre in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh by his mother as the kid was addicted to the mobile phone, reports Times of India.
Reportedly, the mother of the kid brought her three-year-old son to Mann Kaksh, a counselling centre at Bareilly district hospital and complained that her child was suffering from bed-wetting (enuresis) and needed help.
However, it turned out that he was not going to the toilet because he did not want to leave the phone even for even a few minutes. The three-year-old toddler spent around eight hours daily watching animation shows ‘Doraemon’ and ‘Motu Patlu’.
In last two months alone, Mann Kaksh has received 39 cases of children addicted to mobile phones, most of them belonging to the age group of 10 to 18 years, growing up in a virtual world of social media and video games.
Speaking to Times of India, Dr Ashish Kumar, a psychiatrist at the district hospital said that in the majority of the cases, it came to light that parents provide mobile to their children at an early age to keep the kids busy so that their own work is not affected. This later becomes a cause of addiction and bad behaviour among children.
Ashish Kumar also added that mobile addiction leads to other diseases among youngsters, too. “Many young people end up spending long hours on phones to cope up with anxiety and depression. A few of them become more frustrated as they start comparing their lives with others on social media. The long hours on mobile disturb their sleep. They all are inter-connected,” said Kumar.
On the three-year-old boy’s counselling, Khush Ada, a clinical psychologist at Mann Kaksh, said, “In the case of three-year-old addicted to phone, his mother would handover mobile to her child while performing household chores. Even when he came for a therapy session, he didn’t let his parents talk to us till he got the phone.”
Reportedly, most parents who visit the counselling centre complain of study-related problems and headache among children. However, after going through case history, they learn that the root cause is mobile addiction.
According to Khush Ada, children spend hours on their phones browsing social media sites and playing games and they start living in a virtual world and ignoring studies and sleep. “If a phone is taken away from them, they become agitated. We conduct counselling of both parents and the child for a digital detox,” added Ada.
Chief medical officer Dr Vineet Shukla added that parents should restrict the use of phones among children. To keep children engaged, parents should make them play with blocks or in the open, said Shukla.
For deaddiction, a counsellor suggested that young people should uninstall apps or games on which they spend maximum time or change the colour code of phone as black and white so that they “stop enjoying games”. Young people can also keep their phones far away from their beds before going to sleep so that they don’t touch it if they wake up in the middle of the night, the counsellor added.
