Hm, this seems a bit contrary to my personal anecdotal experiences. I've generally seen more coddling of kids, and that has been accompanied with lax rules / letting kids have what they want. Especially when it comes to digital tech / roaming the web. Perhaps both extremes of parenting - giving autonomy and helicopter parenting - are both becoming more common?
What kids need is actual parents that provide structure, a good home and learning experiences, not constant 24/7 entertainment.
Perhaps this is why i see so many parents delegate their responsibilities to their ipads and let their kids drool while watching entertainment instead of interacting with them and parenting them.
Disclaimer: father of two who don't need tech crap or constant entertainment to be happy.
As a parent, and an introvert, I'm not convinced that kids (or anyone, for that matter) absolutely need social interaction all the time. If a parent/adult were to teach the kids all the time, in some ways, they're interfering with the child learning to learn.
Surely there is a middle ground between tablet parenting and helicopter parenting.
as a parent you have all the control. why does your kid need a tablet? why do they need a smart phone like at all? these devices did not just magically materialize in your home, the tooth fairy didn't put them there. you chose to plop your toddler in front of a screen because electronic vicodin was easier than parenting and then you chose not to lock down their devices with the abundant parental controls you are given and then you decided you couldn't be assed to teach them basic internet safety habits or how to develop healthy skepticism and that seeing isn't always believing. really the only thing your children have been '''exposed to''' is your own laziness and utter unwillingness to offer them direction. the world will continue to exist whether we like it or not, and some day our kids will have to live in it just like we do. we can either prepare them for what's really there, warts and all or we can hide them away only toss them to the wolves when they turn 18 with the delusion that this somehow preserved their innocence. i personally believe giving them the grace of a childhood to learn how to deal with the bumpy parts of life is a much kinder option.
Maybe try to actually prepare your kids for these moments instead of trying to restrict them so hard. Teach them how to use a computer for real, instead of sitting them down at a hyper-restricted one for an hour a week.
Would you let your kids get a driver's license without teaching them the rules of road safety? Would you let your kids cook without telling them the stove is hot and will hurt them? Do your kids know not to let random people in the house?
Or do you just helicopter them so they never experience danger?
Lack of development due to helicopter parenting and being given a tablet in a highchair instead of sending them outside to eat dirt, play commandos - or whatever.
The thing that people are missing is, tech is being used as a baby sitter. Just like TV was for me. Now it's worse because It's always connected. Parents are fucking lazy today. I see it constantly. It's about being connected to your kid that I'm for. That's fucking hard and people don't want to do hard today when they come home from work. They would rather sit and watch their own shit on their device because parenting is hard. Just look around the mall, airport or a dinner table. We're not talking about 12 year olds. These kids are 2, 4, 5, 7 and 9, etc... Their brains are developing and technology, scientifically proven, gets in the way of brain development- just like TV and video games in my gen. It's not bad, in moderation, just like everything else in this world. So, it's not about the tech it's about the family. My 9 yr old kid reads 5-10 books a week. She looses herself in her books to the point she can't hear anyone. Learning, safely, for the most part. Using her imagination instead of it being fed to her by the vast majority of the shit out there. she gets to play learning and thinking games, not fruit ninja. What has changed from my gen is being connected 24/7 has giving adults an easy way out from doing something hard. I fucking want yell at a parent who is out to dinner with 2,3,4 year olds at the table playing with an iPad. While the parent is buried in their own. I limited the tech not because it's tech, trendy and cool to do so but, because we want our kids to be able to communicate with other human beings and the ability resolve conflict through something other than a text or Facebook. They will have plenty of opportunities to be immersed into technology and all troublesome things that come with it as a teen.
I know technology is empowering at the right age. But, I want both my kids to be exposed to cooking, knitting, skateboarding, swimming, playing sports, books, music and art by actually doing it versus it being fed to them on an iPad. If either one of them wants to learn a different programming language than me, I hope the fact that I've connected with my kid so we will be able to discover it together.
Bottom line, Generation Z is being raise by Apple, Samsung and Amazon. As a parent, I'm not OK with this.
This is not a very rigorous article. It's a series of observations/opinions of one particular expert who's worked with one particular set of kids. Not useless anecdotes, but anecdotes nonetheless.
That being said, I think there's some truth in there. I'm very dubious of the endless technology moral panic that's cycled through parenting ever since the invention of the sharpened stick. ("In my day we just bashed the gazelles with a blunt stick. These kids today have no character") Nevertheless, I tend to agree that the human mind needs unstructured periods of boredom and social interaction to thrive, and that parents are too quick to mollify their kids with entertainments instead of helping them learn to occupy themselves. Also, kids should be able to play outside, away from parental supervision.
I certainly wouldn't argue with how anyone else raises their children, but I think it has been hugely beneficial to restrict access to technology early in my kids' lives. It can be introduced as they get older without worrying about them falling behind
Most articles on how to raise your kids are crap, in the same vein as all those articles that told you salt would raise your blood pressure or eggs would raise your cholesterol levels. I didn't realize until I became one that parents are faced with a mountain of old wives tales, superstitions, luddism, etc, when it comes to their kids.
We're 'high tech' parents, and it works great. Our toddler has a 64GB iPad, and uses it to watch Doc McStuffins, Veggie Tales, etc. Our generation grew up in front of the TV, and the iPad is way better. It let's us control her exposure to content and pernicious advertising, for example.
I don't doubt your claim, but you didn't provide any examples or evidence. What positive effects did limiting device access from your kids have on them?
Whether the device your child uses is yours, or theirs, that's up to you as the parent to decide.
> I certainly wouldn't have tolerated that sort of behavior from my parents when I was a kid myself.
Kids will be kids. I would have been the same way. I learned to pick a lock on the computer desk as a kid in order to play computer games after I was supposed to be in bed. The issues is the negative impact of tech is only growing, and it's harder and harder for kids to come out unscathed.
Every parent will have different philosophies and every child matures at different rates.
That being said, we have continued to push back the age when our kids have an internet connected device of their own (oldest is a 7th grade / 12yo boy).
Went with an Apple Watch with cellular so my son could text his friends and listen to music. Neither him or his 2 year younger sister can be on a laptop in private. I use NextDNS to block a bunch of sites. They don’t have any social media accounts.
This sounds draconian. But the stuff kids can stumble upon online is terrible and I don’t buy into the idea that they’ll learn through experience. I think many people don’t realize how under developed a child’s brain is.
Upvoted for: It does seem like they will spend the rest of the time attached to monitors regardless of what profession they choose. I always wanted to delay that as much as possible.
Yes. Yes, do delay that as much as possible. This is a good thing. Strive to keep your kids off the screen. While acknowledging that screens now own the world.
Speaking personally, I let my son use my old iTablet starting at 3.5 years. I gave him his own tablet a few months before his recent 6th birthday. Good decision? Bad decision? We shall see when his generation assumes the Mantle of Control.
Regardless, I do not judge parents for their decisions with respect to this. It is a brave new world, and we are pioneers.
Please parents...look up the studies on how detrimental it is to hover over every aspect of your child's life. It's not good.
I raised five kids to adulthood with the last one finishing his freshman year of college this year.
None of them had devices until middle school and even then, it was restricted. We made our kids roam around like feral coyotes.
They are absolutely better for it.
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