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Helicopter parent app calculates how to plan your child’s day down to the MINUTE to maximize their health and learning – but is it just going a little too far?
- Academics have launched an app to guide parents in activities for their children
- The Healthy Day app helps children with ‘mental, physical and academic results’
- It will focus on factors such as whether a child is getting enough sleep and exercise
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Every parent worries about getting the right balance for their kids.
Are they getting enough sleep? How much exercise do they need? Are they sitting too long in front of a screen?
This month, Australian academics launched an app to the world to guide parents to the ‘just right’ day for their children, helping them understand which combination of activities can best contribute to mental, physical and academic results.
By assessing data from 1,685 children aged 11-12 years from the Australian Child Health CheckPoint study, the Healthy Day app enables hypothetical adjustments to time-use behavior to measure potential impact.
Australian academics have launched a new app, the Healthy Day app, to guide parents through a balance of activities for their children that ‘can best help with mental, physical and academic outcomes’ (stock image)
According to the app, which was developed by the University of South Australia and Murdoch, simple measures such as switching an hour of screen time before a workout can lead to 4.2 percent less body fat, 2.5 percent more well-being and 0.9 percent higher academic performance. Children’s research institute.
“Because every day only has 24 hours, it’s hard to fit everything into the competitive demands of our time,” lead researcher Dot Dumuid told AAP, as she stood at the rink at her daughter’s early morning skating lesson.
“I wish we had the key – that would be great because everyone struggles with it.
“Parents are concerned about getting all this right for their kids. And then, what your kids want to do and what they think is important may not match what you think is important or what the school thinks is important.
“The app is good to play with for different ways of reallocating time and an estimate of how that is expected to affect health.”
In addition to helping parents balance relaxation time, homework and extracurricular obligations for their children, getting the right balance can now improve long-term health prospects, lowering the chances of heart disease, obesity and diabetes, said Dr. dumuid.
‘What our children do with their time affects their health in many ways.
“Some of those things aren’t felt now — like a little bit on the obesity side, but (the problem can) start in childhood and be felt later in life — like diabetes or heart disease.”
The app will focus on whether children are getting enough sleep and exercise, but it will also allow for quiet days in front of the TV screen (stock image)
But despite the name of the app, the balance doesn’t have to be perfect every day.
Sometimes kids — and adults — just have a quiet day with too much screen time and that’s okay.
“There could be a balance in a week or a month. Not every day has to be perfect,” says Dr. Dumuid.
And while watching TV is usually always bad, some of the interactive games and web things they do are actually beneficial for academic performance.
“We want children who are happy and adjusted.”