Once my husband and I were travelling from Bengaluru to Kochi by train.

Our co-passengers were a family of five – an Indian father, an American mother, two children – a boy around 7 years old, and a 5 year old girl. The fifth family member was their American grandmother. Our
journey together was roughly 3 hrs long. Because we were sitting adjacent to each other, we
couldn’t help but notice how the family spent its time. The father promptly took out his laptop
and got to his work. The mother and grandmother took charge of one child each.

Mom read to her daughter, while granny helped her grandson write a page in his journal. They
had apparently visited a market the previous evening and granny was prodding the details out of
the boy and guiding him on the journal entry. She explained how writing it was important for he
would forget the details in a couple of months and it was important to record the experience.
After each had completed their tasks at hand, the children were swapped. Now granny and grand
daughter played a board game, while the mother son duo got on with some drawing and
colouring.

Once again the swap was made, and after a small snack break, the foursome got on to other
pursuits. Interestingly the boy brought out knitting needles and yarn! Granny and grandson put
their heads together and knitted away. I have never seen anyone in my generation knit! Our
mothers did it, and we wore hand knitted sweaters in our growing years, but none of my peers
did! And here was this American kid, taking on and enjoying a very traditional craft. The other
thing that struck me was that he was breaking stereotypes. How would we react if we saw a man
with knitting needles in his hands?

Long story short, in the entire three hours that we spent together, I never once saw any adult
family member take out their mobile phone. And I most certainly did not see a mobile phone in
the hands of the children! They read, played, drew, did lots of things, but not on their mobiles.

This is in sharp contrast to what I mostly see all around me every day. A child clamouring for
attention? Give her a mobile to make her quiet. Parents want a leisurely afternoon? Keep the
child occupied with a mobile.

Your mobile phones are constantly doing untold harm to your child – physically as well as
mentally. You will find scores of studies on the web that talk of harmful effects of the mobile
phone on your child. It should ring alarm bells, but it doesn’t see to. Our world has become
limited to electronic devices which emit harmful radiation, but we carry on blissfully unaware, or
we choose to ignore.

Time to wake up and smell the coffee!