Screens have become a normal part of all our lives but if you feel they are stopping your toddler from being active, toddler football club Leighton Buzzard will help.
Gone are the days when a screen was just a child watching cartoons after school. Now we have smartphones, tablets and laptops. Your child can have access to a screen throughout the day – before school, on the drive to school, during school, after school and before bedtime.
Screens in of themselves are not bad and they can actually be a big help with learning and they are, of course, fun. But, children need to have limits when it comes to them and one of the biggest reasons for this is so they stay active.
Within this article, we are going to look at how bringing your toddler to our football club Leighton Buzzard will help to get them off screens and back to being active.
Learn more about our Leighton Buzzard football clubs
How Screens Affect Toddlers
Research commissioned by the UK government found that 98% of 2 year olds were watching screens for, on average, 2 hours a day. The research also found that toddlers who were on screens for the most amount of time – around 5 hours – had a limited vocabulary and were twice as likely to have emotional and behavioural problems, compared with those who spent the least time on screens.
The World Health Organisation recommends that children under 2 years old should have no screen time at all. And children aged 2-4 years old should only have a maximum of one hour.
How Toddler Football Club Leighton Buzzard Will Help
If you are wanting to limit your toddlers screen time, you will need to find something to do with them that is fun and engaging. Football is a great alternative to screen time.
Gets Them Active
The most obvious way that football will help your toddler is that it will get them off screens and get them active. Active play holds huge benefits for your child. It helps with their cognitive development, their motor skills, their social skills, improves focus and helps with their emotional regulation.
Toddlers should be active for at least 180 minutes (3 hours) but the more the better. The 180 minutes can include light activity like standing up but it should also include more energetic activity like skipping or attending a football club.
Helps Them To Find A Balance
Attending a football club will give your toddler something to look forward to that doesn’t involve a screen. Having an activity outside of screens will help to develop a balance between screens and active, no screen play.
Screens can offer a lot of educational material that will benefit your toddler but it is really important to strike a good balance. Take them to a football club, to the park to play, on a walk etc. and then allow an hour of screen time, either watching a show they enjoy or playing an educational game.
Helps Them To Sleep Better
Screens have what is known as ‘blue light’. Blue light is a short wavelength type of light that promotes alertness and performance. It also suppresses the production of melatonin, a hormone that promotes feelings of sleepiness. So, too much blue light, particularly at night/before bed, can have detrimental effects on our sleep. In children it can be even worse as children can be more sensitive to light and have large pupils. Research has shown that blue light can suppress the production of melatonin twice as much in children as in adults.
Getting your toddler off screens and doing something active, like coming to a football club, will help them to sleep better which will be a win for everyone.
Your Child Ready For Toddler Football Club Leighton Buzzard?
Bringing your toddler to football will help to get them off screens. It will do this by giving them an active way of having fun and helping to create some balance between screens and active play. Getting them off screen and into football will also help them to sleep better which will be a big plus for them and for you.
We have a variety of football clubs in the Leighton Buzzard area, all of which are easily accessible in the car or on foot.
If you would like to bring your child to our Leighton Buzzard football club, please find your nearest one here.