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Our 4yo son gets zero device time although he does watch a bit more TV then we would like. I have read quite a few things emphasising the importance of kids learning to deal with boredom and also the concerns around the potential future consequences of getting children addicted to endorphins at an early age. That and I see no advantage to it at his age. I would like to get him a Lego Boost set so he can be introduced to coding but I don’t think the benefits outweigh the problems for him at this stage.
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Trent: I totally agree with you. I don't even think there's much advantage for our nine year old, but we had to get her a device because she starts Year 5 this year which is when their mandatory Bring Your Own Device thing starts at school. I don't necessarily agree with it, but since it's a requirement we felt the best thing to do was to lay ground rules from the very start. I've recently been speaking to a man whose 18 year old grandson plays games on his device for 15 hours a day and he becomes enraged at his own family and threatens violence against them if they try to take the games away from him. :/
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Granted, that would be the extreme end of the spectrum. Most people wouldn’t have to worry about their children ending up like that.
It all comes down to your child. I don’t give my child any device time but that’s MY kid and I know him. Other parents would know their own children and what works best for them. So device time can be present and if used correctly, like Lint said can be a very educational tool. I mean, imagine if we’d, as kids, had pretty much the entire database of human knowledge at our fingertips!
We’d probably just have used it to laugh at cat videos :p
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No shit Sherlock.
But hey, don’t let peer reviewed science get in the way of your unfounded, irrational beliefs.
:rolleyes:
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The sad thing is that these articles are only preaching to the choir. Studies show that if anything, they only strengthen the belief of Anti-Vaxxers thanks to a thing called confirmation bias. :(
Still, sharing these articles is useful for convincing people who are unsure. People who are doubters but not yet deniers and are still able to be swayed to the side of reason. That's the best we can do is convince the doubters; sadly there's not much we can do about the deniers... even though denying facts just makes you look like a complete idiot. *sigh*
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Sinnertwin
The funny thing is most of our family were sick over the last two weeks because of a vaccination.
My daughter got her vaccinations that you get at age 4. One of them was an active virus so she developed a mild version of it so her body could learn how to deflect a full blown version. My wife and I hadn't been vaccinated so we caught it from her and were off work for 10 days each.
When the doctor was checking if my wife and I had the virus he took swabs by shoving these 6 inch cotton buds right up our noses! :eek: Hurt like hell! Worst part was he nicked something when doing it to my wife and a bunch of blood came out, which then caused her blood pressure to dramatically drop and she passed out! It was scary as! Took 2 doctors to bring her round. Ironically we had only gone in to get sick notes for our respective works :rolleyes:
My son had the same vaccine at age 4 so the virus never touched him at all. Not so much as a sniffle so it shows they do work.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Sinnertwin
This article and the study it refer to should put a nail in the anti-vax coffin so so speak.
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Badaboom TISH!
It's not at all unusual to exhibit symptoms of sickness after a vaccine. As Trev has correctly pointed out, it is because it's the body's immune system learning how to fight the inactive form of the pathogen that's just been injected into the body. If you think of your white blood cells as soldiers then the sick feeling is because they're undoing grueling combat simulation training. :)
If you ever get the chance, there's a really educational anime series called "Cells At Work." It explains how the body works at a cellular level in a pretty fun and entertaining way, although not suitable for little kids due to the violence and gore scene during an immune response (although IRL it's actually far more violent and gory!). I was introduced to this series by a friend of mine who's a biology teacher and I know a few other bio teachers who encourage their senior students to watch this show if they're struggling to understand concepts of microbiology.
Some of my favourite parts of the show includes:
* Sneezes are shown as being rockets launching.
* Red blood cells all carry boxes labelled O2 or CO2
* All cell types have different uniforms/clothes; white blood cells, Killer T Cells, Helper T Cells, Macrophages, B Cells, Dendrites etc.
* Memory Cells carry have books that document past infections, instructing other cells on how to fight new infections. <---this is where vaccines come into play because while the immune cells are fighting it's these Memory Cells that are "remembering" how to fight.
* All of the body's cells look like people whereas pathogens look like monsters. Infected cells look like zombies.
* When the body is infected everyone feels hot. The body has a fever!
* The stomach is portrayed as a food assembly line, and when the body is infected an alarm is sounded with the entire assembly line being forcibly shut down (and all the worker cells going, "Aawww!") -- loss of appetite!
etc etc.
It's a shame that there isn't a more kid friendly version without all the blood and gore, because it's otherwise quite a fun way to learn about the body. :) The show has even been praised by doctors!