How to protect your child from damages to TV, and video games:
First of all, we must know that a child should be treated as a child, and this means that he is not an adult to know well what harms him and what will benefit him, but rather that he must have fun and interesting activities, and this is the nature of childhood.
So how do we deal with this nature.
Here are some steps and activities you can encourage him to do instead of playing video games or watching TV:
1 – Seeking the help of Allah to raise a good child.
2 – The child participates in a variety of activities (Ex. practicing a sport he loves, or learning to hunt, entering into sports or scientific competitions, …) and consistent with his mental and psychological tendencies.
3 – It is necessary to spend some time with the child and discuss the ideas and topics of interest to him and answer the questions that wander his mind.
4 – A weekly time must be devoted to visiting relatives and upholding ties of kinship.
5 – Assigning the child some work at home according to his ability (for example, organizing the home library, arranging his closet, taking care of showing the garden, …).
6 – Allocating a specific time for television and video games, only an hour per day. The choice is either the hour is all video games or half an hour TV and half the video games.
7 – Encourage him to read in the beginning with comics and science fiction, while discussing what he has read after completion.
8 – Give him a reward (it doesn’t have to be financial, he can visit his best friend with you, or go out with the family to a place he prefers for a walk) if he completes writing a summary of what he reads at the end of the week.
9 – Teaching your son the Qur’an, the Sunnah and Islamic culture, it is better for him to have a teacher with him، who is interested in memorizing and teaching him wether in a group class or individual class.
Written by / T. Shadia Whdan
Teacher of Qura’n, Qira’at and Arabic