3 Daily Habits That Are Making Your Child Less Intelligent: A Wake-up Call for Parents

Mobile Phone Addiction

We can easily observe that most children in public places such as restaurants and cafes will at least once want to play with their phones, and many are given phones by their parents to play with. According to a survey of parents and children in Chinese cities, about 2/3 of children use mobile phones and iPads.

Many people think that children playing on their phones will reduce noise in public places and make it easier for parents to care for them. But in fact, children using phones too often will affect their eyesight, neck spine, physical health, and even mental health.

American strategic thinker Zbigniew Brzezinski once proposed a famous theory – “The Fun Theory of the Pacifier”. If 20% of the world’s population occupies 80% of the resources, there will eventually be class conflict. To avoid conflict of interest between classes, the best way is to design a large number of entertainment activities for the people there to fill their lives, divert their attention and dissatisfaction, and at the same time allow them to gradually adapt and accept their current living environment.

That is to put a “pacifier” in the mouths of 80% of the people and use gamification, entertainment, mechanisms, and cheap happiness to make them lose the ability to think, gradually lose their passion and fighting spirit, and the ability to think deeply to solve dissatisfaction. And this “pacifier” is a mobile phone!

In another experiment, out of 100 children, 50 were completely phone-free and 50 were phone-obsessed. Ten years later, only 2 out of the 50 phone-obsessed children were accepted into university, while all 50 of the phone-free children were accepted, with 16 of them receiving full scholarships.

Psychologist Adam Alt said: “Entertainment products such as games and short videos are like stimulants and can be addictive if you’re not careful.”

Phone addiction provides instant gratification but is not beneficial for long-term brain development.

Short videos and games are “low-level pleasures” that children can get without using their brains; they only need to move their fingers, and phones can continuously create one climax after another in the brain, causing children to continuously experience instant gratification.

In this continuous stimulation, the function of the prefrontal lobe of the brain gradually decreases, and some neural connections are broken and gradually disappear. We will find that children addicted to phones have difficulty concentrating on reading and concentrating for long periods. When they don’t have a phone in their hand, they start fidgeting, becoming anxious, and even flying into a rage.

Mobile phones make children immersed in shallow happiness and lose the ability to think deeply. Children with developing brains will exhibit negative behaviors such as underdeveloped brains, irritability, loss of control, emotional sensitivity, and stress.

Lack of Exercise

Professor Yang Ye of the Beijing University of Sports once said: “The chests of today’s teenagers are getting wider, but their lung capacity is decreasing, they are getting taller but running slower, their weight is increasing but their strength is decreasing, and their intelligence and sensitivity are declining…”

All of this is due to a lack of exercise.

A high school in Chicago once implemented a zero-hour physical education plan, which meant that students would start running and exercising after arriving at school at 7 a.m., and only start when their heart rate reached the highest value or 70% of the maximum oxygen uptake.

The results showed that the classroom atmosphere improved, and memory and concentration improved. By the end of a semester, the children’s reading comprehension had improved by 10% and the number of fights had decreased. When 30% of Americans are obese, only 3% of students in this school are obese.

Lack of exercise affects children’s ability to concentrate.

Australian scientists have also pointed out that children who are physically active at a young age will have better working memory and information processing speed later on.

Exercise can transform children’s brains. Even when the brain has passed its peak development stage, exercise can still make the brain smarter.

Dr. Wendy A. Suzuki of the Center for Neuroscience at New York University points out that exercise can change the anatomy, physiology, and function of the brain. It causes the hippocampus to produce new brain cells and improves memory, creating changes in the prefrontal cortex to improve concentration.

Brain scientist Professor Hong Lan also believes that exercise will stimulate the body to secrete a variety of positive substances and promote intellectual development. Children’s thinking, self-control, endurance, competitiveness, and cooperation will also be improved.

For children who stay at home all day, excess energy cannot be released, the cerebellum cannot be truly stimulated, the cranial nerves are always in a state of fatigue, dizziness, staring, and lack of alertness. If the pressure is too great, it is easy to develop problems.

Not Doing Chores

Many parents raise their children with a protective mindset, thinking that as long as they study, they don’t need to do housework or anything else.

Unfortunately, children raised by parents tend to lose basic living skills, lack passion for life, and complain a lot.

Scholars at Harvard University once conducted a survey and concluded that compared to children who like to do housework and those who don’t, the employment rate after adulthood is 15:1, and the crime rate is 1:10. Children who like to do housework have higher mental health and family happiness indices. Even in terms of academic performance, children who do more housework tend to perform better.

The China Education Science Research Institute once surveyed 20,000 families with primary school students nationwide and found that in families where children do housework, the proportion of children with excellent grades is 27 times higher than in families where children do not do housework.

Children who do housework regularly tend to have better thinking skills.

In addition to cultivating children’s ability to take care of themselves, doing housework also cultivates thinking skills, independent coordination, and makes children smarter.

For example, tidying up things is related to the ability to classify and sequence, performing tasks is related to coordination, logic, and time management abilities, shopping and going to the market involves planning skills, cultivating children’s communication and financial management skills. Even the route taken in the supermarket encourages children to think continuously.

Decorating, cleaning, cooking, mopping, and window cleaning help children become diligent, intelligent, emotionally intelligent, and loving of life.

– Limiting screen time can help children’s brains focus and think deeply.

– Continuing to exercise can activate the brain, making it more energetic and motivated.

– Doing chores regularly can make the brain think positively and improve thinking skills.