With back to school upon us, quite a few parents will be left at home with just their youngest tots. So, now is as good a time as any to take a closer look at the relationship between parents, kids, and technology.
Most of the older folks from the pre-technology era gripe about how kids are becoming too focused on their smartphones and handheld devices and aren't learning wholesome values and developing relationships. So many of them say things need to go back to the "good ol' days."
But let's be honest. No one can stand in the way of progress; it's unstoppable and inevitable. Moreover, this kind of technology is getting into the hands of younger and younger kids everyday. They're even making potties with built-in iPad stands. No joke.
Moreover, there's no denying these devices become an easy go-to solution for over-stressed parents juggling multiple tasks and kids at a time. It's so much easier for parents to give their tots a device to play with as opposed to letting them scream and knock things off display shelves in grocery stores. The easy-to-use interfaces and touch-screen technology make it suitably distracting and occupying for children who only want mommy's undivided attention. Plus, it's much less embarrassing to let a screen distract them than to have bystanders judge their parenting skills during public tantrums.
The problem is, where do we draw the line? When does a little reprieve from crying babies become lazy parenting? Rather than teaching their kids patience, they use smart devices as quick fixes. And who can blame them? When parents are juggling jobs, bills, multiple offspring, and various other tasks, it can be all too appealing to use these devices as occupiers of kids' attention.
Unfortunately, the obvious harms then start to arise. When the device starts taking on the role of the parent without any limitations, kids start to turn to the devices as havens from boredom rather than other people or hobbies. Before this pervasive technology, boredom was a time for creativity to flourish in the minds of children. Without having anything to distract them, they could find resourceful ways to distract themselves just by allowing free thought to flow. Sure, creativity is possible with the free apps out there, but how often do kids do something imaginative on the device instead of just playing flappy bird?
Everyone is so eager to jump on the "blame technology" bandwagon, but it's not the technology that's evil. Technology is just a tool that is neither good nor bad. It's the content that makes it swing one way or the other and so the responsibility of mediating that content falls to the parent. That's right. Instead of trying to shift the blame, new parents and older parents have to first look at what responsibility they're taking in moderating the amount of time kids spend with technology and what kind of content is being viewed.
The Canadian Paediatric Society recently updated their guidelines in 2013, which basically discourages all "screen-based activities" for children younger than two years old. For school-age kids, they recommend two hours or less. In other words, get creative when distracting infants during those patience-zapping car rides. If they're old enough to be in school, only use it as a last-minute resort. It's tough, I know, but you can't always take the easy way out.
That said, a handheld device with its wide selection of free apps can be an extremely fun way to engage and teach younger children, but it has to be coupled with social interaction. Responsible parenting is using technology as an aide, not a substitute. If your first instinct is to grab a device when your child starts scrunching up his face, you've got a problem. If your immediate thought is to buy a new $500 device when your kid chucks the current one, you're still doing it wrong.
Lastly, parents need to teach by example. If you're saying, "Do as I say and not as I do," then you need to readjust your perspective. If you as parents can't even figure out how to let go of a phone, how can you expect your kids to? Nobody cares that you've got a business to run, or that you have really important emails coming through, or that your job depends on that next phone call. Teaching kids how not to be attached to their smart devices starts with learning that lesson yourself.
MJ
