According to the Center of the Developing Child of Harvard University, during early childhood, more than one million new neural connections are established every second. Therefore, the stimuli that children receive at that stage are so important: they will influence their development and academic performance in the future.

Even the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that every year, more than 200 million boys and girls under 5-years old fail to achieve their maximum cognitive and social development.

How can you strengthen your baby’s development? You can begin by boosting your baby’s psychomotor skills, this is the ability to coordinate the thought about that movement with the capability to carry it out, and it includes two faculties: being able to move and moving at will.

• Boxies recommends the following activities that will drive your baby’s development:

  • Playing with blocks or boxes: Eye-hand coordination is the ability to manipulate objects, whether assembling pieces or piling up blocks or boxes. This activity —which implies putting something on or inside another box— is an excellent way to kickstart your baby’s development.
  • Helping your baby to identify objects: Using illustrated cards, children can start to identify their environment, and they can also strengthen their language.
  • Grouping elements with your baby: Classification starts with similarities, this is how connections are established, including belonging and inclusion.
  • Identifying colors and shapes: The range of shapes and colors that you show your children are essential for the sensitive development that they will have with the world that surrounds them. Show them photographs, color, and illustrated cards and explain to them each one of them.
  .

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SOURCES: Building Your Baby’s Brain. A Parent’s Guide to the First Five Years, Diane Trister Dodge and Cate Heroman, Teaching Stategies, Washington D.C.; National Library of Medicine (USA); Center on the Developing Child – Harvard University; and the World Health Organization.

It is late. You are at work, and your baby is at home; you have no time to go to the supermarket, and you must return home to help your older child with his primary school homework. Years ago, this was a nightmare, because it implied moving from one place to another and carrying out other tasks; however, technology has completely changed this situation, this is a reality for almost 50% of Mexican moms, older than 15. They have jobs, and they contribute to the financial support of their families.

Technology and moms should not be enemies.

 By using apps, you can do your supermarket shopping in minutes from your living room while checking with your older child the homework.

That one that you researched together, and that you are now both typing in a word processor, or you can even return home after work, to play with your baby.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), one out of three internet users in the world is underage, and that implies that the knowledge parents should have about electronic devices is essential. We, as parents, must get more involved and use the technology in our favor!

Advantages for you:

• Organize your daily activities, using schedule apps to organize yourself better.
• Arrange meetings with people in other cities or countries, using virtual options such as Skype or Hangouts.
• Keep an eye on your home from your vacation location, using different apps.
• Control your expenses and keep up to date on your payments.

Advantages for your children:

• You will know for sure what your children are up to because videoconference technology shortens the distance.
• Do not waste your time doing household chores —such as going to the supermarket or cleaning. Using apps, you can arrange to have groceries delivered to your door or hire cleaning services that can take care of different household chores. Now you can spend quality time with your children.
• You can play together, interactively, boosting their cognitive development using appropriate educational apps.

Today’s children are digital natives. According to Marc Prensky —the American expert on education who coined the term in 2001—they are those minors who can understand the language of technology, computers, and the internet. They were born and have grown in a technological world.

“Children are the most important thing for our society. They are the future, and we must be able to prepare them. Technologies play a fundamental role in this,” he said during the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE).

As a consequence of the popularization of mobile devices, children have access to technology at all times. Therefore, you have to take advantage of it to boost their learning process.

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SOURCES: ‘The State of the World’s Children 2017: Children in a Digital World’, UNICEF; Asociación de Internet México; and Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI).

Did you know that 90% of the brain connections develop during the first five years of the life of a human being?

According to the Center for Neuroscience and Society of the University of Pennsylvania, children’s experiences influence the development of their brains. Until the age of four, the cognitive stimulation provided by their parents is a critical factor for the development of several parts of the cerebral cortex.

Researches have shown that the support, care, and stimulation that children receive at that age can have repercussions on the way they perceive and understand reality, and therefore, in their academic performance during their teenage years. Stimulating your baby from day one is very important, as you can see.

Early stimulation includes all types of activities that promote children’s development through physical contact and games created to strengthen and develop, in a suitable and timely manner, their potential as human beings.

Its main benefits include:
Brain development: Improves the intellectual, physical, and emotional functions of the brain.


Autonomy generation: They are independent of early childhood and have the confidence to interact with other people.


Communication improvement: Children easily integrate into the environment.


Strengthening motricity: Exercises improve children’s motor coordination —walking, crawling, jumping, and running.


Creativity promotion: Children are more open when solving problems, and they usually search for answers “outside the box.”


Early stimulation is based on activities such as games, songs, and stories. According to the Center on the Developing Child of Harvard University, our motivation to identify elements of the world that surround us starts from infancy, and it has repercussions in adulthood. They recommend:
Arousing children’s curiosity: children explore objects and enjoy how they surprise them.
Looking for elements that your child can interact with: toys and blocks can support your child’s development and encourage their creativity.
Challenging your child: use each toy to pose a different challenge; children can lose their interests in games that are too easy.
Encouraging your child to solve problems: there are games —even in electronic devices— that help to increase the children’s knowledge about their environment and push them to solve problems since early childhood.
Search for the best games and tools for your children’s development. As the years go by, you will notice the advantages of early stimulation

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SOURCES: Center on the Developing Child – Harvard University; National Health Service (UK); Unicef; American Academy of Pediatrics; and Developing Brains, John Oates, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, and Mark H. Johnson, Bernard van Leer Foundation, Milton Keynes (UK).

Although this debate topic is not necessarily harmful, it is fundamentally a new way to understand the world, and it only requires some care.

The American Association of Pediatrics (AAP) advises against allowing children under 2-years old to use tablets, cell phones, computers, and TVs by themselves. They suggest that parents should always be there when they use them. After that age, children can be allowed to use games and apps that promote their cognitive development without adult supervision.

Technology should not replace human interactions or use as a tool to distract the babies while their parents are busy; it should be a medium through which they can establish a connection with the world. The AAP also recommends avoiding at all costs using playing with tablets, computers, and cell phones as a reward because baby tech has more important uses than being just entertainment.

Another important recommendation is to avoid considering technology as a reference to reality. Think of how, for adults, it is not the same holding a videoconference than talking to someone close to us over a cup of coffee.

In her book, Technology and Digital Media in the Early Years, Luisa Cotto, an educator with an MA in Teaching Technology, mentions that the point is not to keep children apart from technology, because they have been immersed in it since the day they were born. The parents’ task is to teach them to make good use of it and to endeavor to monitor how they use it continually.

Likewise, the author addresses that parents should seek to use technology as a complement to their children’s interests.

 Be there when their children use tablets or cell phones, ask them what they are doing, be creative, connect the device that their children are using to real life, seek age-appropriate apps, and set an excellent example of how to use technology.

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SOURCES: American Academy of Pediatrics; and Digital Media in the Early Years by Luisa Cotto, Ed. Routledge, NewYork, 2015.

It’s increasingly common to see children spending time with a cell phone that they could use for other purposes. Therefore, parents should establish clear limits.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (APP) makes the following recommendations:

Less than two years:

At this age, children explore everything around them. Their minds learn from their interaction and contact with their parents. Therefore, the use of tablets and cell phones must have strict limits, and one parent should always be around to interact together with their children with the various apps and videogame available.

2-5 years:

Children of 2 or more years old already understand words better, and they can listen and participate in adult conversations. Experts recommend that children interact with Mobile devices for a maximum of one hour. Choose interactive, non-violent, and educational games that allow children to learn and have fun.

Using computers, smartphones, or mobile devices longer than the recommended limit involves some risks: children will sleep less, or they will be overstimulated. Some consequences include:

Bad behavior: Children may be scared or confused by the content they consume. At some point, they may even try to imitate their favorite characters.

Delayed socialization: As children have less interaction with their brothers and parents, their relationship skills also diminish, which prevents the establishment of immediate coexistence bonds.

Boxies’ apps take your children to an imaginary world, based on virtual reality and contents specially created for them. They increase their vocabulary through songs, and they strengthen and show the technological advantages of virtual reality through moving illustrations.

SOURCES: National Library of Medicine (USA); and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

What to Look for in Apps that Claim to Boost Your Children’s Development?

Family activities have been increasingly monopolized by technology. Even children already have a natural access to augmented reality and technology as a whole. Although much has been written about the advantages and disadvantages of using technology, there are options that allow using devices with a positive impact.

According to experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the ‘secret’ of learning lays in the kind of experiences that children get through technology and they can have access to those experiences from apps in mobile devices.

Apps are a type of software that is installed in smartphones or tablets and which can use the equipment’s features (such as the camera or GPS) to solve problems.

There is an increasing number of educational apps focused on e-learning (learning online), known as mobile learning. These tools enable personalized learning and encourage interaction with other family members. These guidelines will help you to choose the best app to download:

• They should include logic and reasoning games. Without involving number-related skills, these apps can be the first step in the development of certain concepts (such as grouping objects).
• They should help memory. They include color or object identification objectives, interactive memory games or animal identification games.
• They should strengthen language. Download apps that include age-appropriate songs or stories. Interact with your children as they repeat words and they increase their vocabulary.
• They should teach a language. Apps can be a path to learning another language. The use of mobile devices allows children to start learning basic vocabulary.
•  

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SOURCES: Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT), 14 Estudio sobre los Hábitos de los Usuarios de Internet en México 2018 of Asociación de Internet en México.

Technology is part of family activities.   

There’s a lot of information about the advantages and disadvantages of using technology; there are options that allow using devices with a positive impact.

According to experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the ‘secret’ of learning lays in the kind of experiences that children get through technology, and they can have access to those experiences from apps in mobile devices.

Apps are a type of software install in smartphones or tablets and which can use the equipment’s features (such as the camera or GPS) to solve problems.

There is an increasing number of educational apps focused on e-learning (learning online), known as mobile learning. These tools enable personalized learning and encourage interaction with other family members. These guidelines will help you to choose the best app to download:

• They should include logic and reasoning games. Without involving number-related skills, these apps can be the first step in the development of specific concepts (such as grouping objects).
• They should help memory, include color or object identification objectives, interactive memory games, or animal identification games.
• They should strengthen the language. Download apps that include age-appropriate songs or stories. Interact with your children as they repeat words, and they increase their vocabulary.
• They should teach a language. Apps can be a path to learning another language. The use of mobile devices allows children to start learning basic vocabulary.

#BOXIESTIP

SOURCES: Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT), 14 Estudio sobre los Hábitos de los Usuarios de Internet en México 2018 of Asociación de Internet en México.

Today, the world is different from what it was decades ago. Digital technology has transformed the world, as well as childhood. One out of three internet users worldwide is a child, and young people are more connected than other age groups, according to The State of the World’s Children 2017 report published by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).

According to Unicef, one-hundred million children used the Internet for the first time from 2012 to 2017. Children are increasingly connected through smartphones or tablets. Therefore, parents should be aware of the pros and cons:

Advantages

• Children have access to more knowledge: In years gone by, children learned using books, but now they can become familiar and learn about the same subjects using interactive resources! Augmented Reality builds on the physical world and allows us to interact with the virtual world.
• Children become interested in learning more languages: When they hold a smartphone or tablet in their hands, children have access to educational content from various countries and their interest in understanding that content will encourage them to learn other languages. Even if they have not taken actual lessons, your children will surely identify some words in other languages.
• Technology drives children’s learning: Apps help children to develop sensory skills, they promote cognitive development, and they strengthen motor coordination.
• The technology generates self-confidence as children overcome new challenges: Have you noticed that when they play games that are suitable for their age, the problems that they overcome promote their confidence? These will be reflected in the way they behave at home or school.

Disadvantages:

• Children’s isolation: If parents do not take care of children when they interact with technology, they begin to stay apart and lock themselves up in private spaces to play or watch videos on mobile devices.
• Access to unsuitable content: Although big companies like Facebook and YouTube have reinforced their child protection policies launching versions of their apps that are suitable for children, the fact is that appropriate content filters are not the standard yet. Children are exposed to apps and content that do not contribute to their development.
• Using a device as a ‘nanny’: Some parents use methods as a tool to calm down their children. The provide them with devices but do not monitor them. As a consequence, children are deprived of contact with others, and their behavior is not self-regulated.
• Sleep disorders: the overstimulation caused by devices does not contribute to healthy sleep. Lack of sleep can impact concentration, behavior, eating, and overall health.

Technology encourages the development of the sensory skills of children.

Despite the risks, if you are with your children, and you monitor them when they use technology, it becomes a tool that supports their development. Meanwhile, Unicef identifies four benefits of new technologies:

1. They improve the quality of education.
2. They provide tools and information that allows them to seek new solutions to their problems.
3. A new economy with more professional options for young people.
4. A better way to address emergencies.

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SOURCES: Center on the Developing Child — Harvard University; National Library of Medicine (USA); Thieme Publishers; and the American Academy of Pediatrics.