Be the Parent, Please: Stop Banning Seesaws and Start Banning Snapchat: Strategies for Solving the Real Parenting Problems
Toddlers on tablets. Pre-teens on Tumblr. Thanks to a variety of factors—from tech companies hungry for new audiences, to school administrations bent on making education digital, to a culture that promotes everyone as the star of their own reality shows—technology is irrevocably a part of childhood, and parents are struggling to keep up. What should be allowed? What should be denied? And, given the ubiquity of technology and its inherent usefulness, what do sensible boundaries even look like?
A noted columnist and mother of three, Naomi Schaefer Riley fully understands the seductive nature of screens. For example, an afternoon of finger painting equals enormous cleanup of both house and hands. But an afternoon of iPad games? Just a swipe and a charger. Or what about car rides around town? Always having toys and books on hand isn’t a given, but your game-loaded smart phone is.
Riley draws us into her story and then walks us through the research on technology’s encroachment into each stage of childhood. She then offers “tough mommy tips”: realistic, practical, applicable advice for parents who recognize that unlimited technology access is a problem, but who don’t know where to start in taking back control. These tips cover everything from placating an antsy toddler at your local favorite restaurant to best practices for keeping your teens safe from unsavory sites.
Any parent knows the effects of screens on their distracted, cranky, sedentary, and incessantly anxious-about-what-might-be-going-on-without-them kids. Naomi Schaefer Riley brings her experience, research, and no-nonsense candor to help parents prevent the children from falling under the destructive spell of technology.
Drop the Call
by Naomi Schaefer Riley,
Author of Be the Parent, Please
Excerpted from Be the Parent, Please: Stop Banning Seesaws and Start Banning Snapchat. Published by Templeton Press. (c) 2018 Naomi Schaefer Riley:
When it comes to technology, parents must examine not only how they want their children to relate to the devices or how much of their time they want kids to spend texting or emailing or gaming or surfing. They need to decide something more fundamental—how their children are going to interact with the rest of the world.
It is not an exaggeration to say that giving your kids a cellphone is giving them the keys to the kingdom. There is a whole world out there that they can now access without your knowledge. That world, which will be constantly beeping at your child, will forever change him or her. It may change how your child views friendships, how he or she interacts with the outdoors, how he or she experiences time alone.
When we hand over phones and tablets to children, we are likely to be changing not only the information they can access but also their habits, their personalities, and their tastes. And while they may see their online life as a privilege — if not a right — we should also be honest enough to understand it as a burden. For the sake of our own convenience and their entertainment, we are giving up their freedom and perhaps even some of their happiness.
Tips for Cutting Back
Buy your child a watch and teach him or her how to use it. You may think that you need your kid to have a phone in order to arrange pickups and drop-offs, but you don’t. Agree to meet at a time. You are not Uber. If something goes wrong, teach your child how to ask the adult present to contact you.
Play the memory game. If you’re tempted to give kids technology because you can’t figure out how else they would entertain themselves or communicate with you or their friends, ask yourself how you did it as a kid. The answer won’t always be the right one, but it will give you perspective.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Naomi Schaefer Riley is a weekly columnist for the New York Post and a former Wall Street Journal editor and writer whose work focuses on higher education, religion, philanthropy and culture. She is the author of six books, her most recent titled, The New Trail of Tears: How Washington Is Destroying American Indians, (Encounter, 2016). Her book, ’Til Faith Do Us Part: How Interfaith Marriage is Transforming America (Oxford, 2013), was named an editor’s pick by the New York Times Book Review. For more information, please visit https://www.naomiriley.com/
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