It’s being found that children don’t have the hand strength necessary to hold a pencil.

Because of technology.

From TheGuardian.com:

Children struggle to hold pencils due to too much tech, doctors say

by Amelia Hill

Children need opportunities to develop hand strength and dexterity needed to hold pencils

Children are increasingly finding it hard to hold pens and pencils because of an excessive use of technology, senior paediatric doctors have warned.

An overuse of touchscreen phones and tablets is preventing children’s finger muscles from developing sufficiently to enable them to hold a pencil correctly, they say.

“Children are not coming into school with the hand strength and dexterity they had 10 years ago,” said Sally Payne, the head paediatric occupational therapist at the Heart of England foundation NHS Trust. “Children coming into school are being given a pencil but are increasingly not being able to hold it because they don’t have the fundamental movement skills.

Read that again: in a mere ten years, the manual dexterity of children has deteriorated to the point of being challenged to hold a basic writing instrument.

Payne said the nature of play had changed. “It’s easier to give a child an iPad than encouraging them to do muscle-building play such as building blocks, cutting and sticking, or pulling toys and ropes. Because of this, they’re not developing the underlying foundation skills they need to grip and hold a pencil.”

Not only is technology rewiring the brains of our children, it’s diminishing their capability to physically and properly manipulate the world around them.

Why is no one talking about this?

I’ll tell you why. Because technology has been used for too long by lazy parents who throw a device in front of a child in order to occupy them.

So that the parents can themselves do something else.

Something other than watch and monitor their kids.

BZ