Technology

Technology is something we have no choice but to contend with in today’s day and age - but before we talk about kids and tech I think we have to look at the bigger picture. As a parent whenever I’m thinking about something I feel my kids need to deal with I first have to look at how I deal with it. Because like it or not we are constantly setting examples for the kids about how to be. So let’s ask ourselves a few questions about tech. How much does it control us? How often are we on our phones/devices? Not during the workday when it is part of our jobs - after hours. When we are sitting with our kids and playing a game - do we check our phone? When having a conversation or sitting at dinner? Does every buzz make us grab it and see if we’re needed for something? If you have social media are you constantly checking in on it?

I think to model good tech habits to our kids - even before setting up our systems and our guidelines- we have to be modeling restraint and proper phone time for our lives. We need to have a system to get the phones out of our hands and away for times when it isn’t appropriate.

Sometimes we think a challenge is unique to our generation - no one had such accessible devices before. But honestly I remember my mom on her cordless phone or walking the kitchen with the phone cord wrapping everywhere - I’m sure they dealt with this also. We’ve  just got a new twist on an old issue - setting boundaries to not allow tech to invade our houses and control them.

So once we determine we have a good handle on how we want tech to be involved in our own life we can turn to how to introduce and modulate it in the kids lives.

First up - there are some essential tools that help in monitoring tech if you know where they are and you put them in place before you hand a device over to your kids. In the settings of any iPhone (and I’m sure android) are parental controls. In here you can set time limits, put a password on downloads and loads of other things to protect your kids automatically.

Here’s a link to show you exactly how to set controls and what is available.
https://m.imore.com/how-to-use-parental-controls-iphone-ipad

And there are secondary Apps you can use to monitor devices on your Wi-Fi. I am sure many of these exist and my list will be out date before I finish Writing but one good one I know of is called Disney circle. It allows you to register every device on your Wi-Fi and set shut down and time limits and types of apps which are not allowed or websites that it will block for you. Last I checked it cost Around $100 and I thought it was money well spent. The one drawback is clever kids who are desperate to get around it may find it and unplug it. If you have it when they are small I think they accept it more. You have the advantage of being ahead of some of this technology. Once your kids are teens and you have lots of battles to fight sometimes this doesn’t get into the A basket.

I guess the bigger question is how much or how little do we want to give the phone or any kind of technology to kids in order to allow them to get the benefit without getting the addiction. This is a really personal question and I think there is no blanket answer. Different kids have different needs and also different tendencies. Apps like Instagram and Facebook and Snapchat are built to addict - that is their goal and they study the science of addiction in order to make their apps tailored to dependency. Those are in a very different category than some educational games or watching movies. I think people have to decide how much screen time they want to allow their kids weekly and count every time you handover a phone or an iPad as part of that screen time. We tend to handover our phone when we’re asked can I play a game and not necessarily count that as screen time but really it all adds up. If you have a strategy for the amount of time and the amount of time at one sitting you are ok with then I think it makes technology easier to control.  It’s almost like dieting where everyone thinks a little of this or a little of that doesn’t count but when you’re really trying for weight control or weight loss you know that the little things add up. If a kid is handed a device every time we need a little break or they nudge us then they get used to constantly being on a device but if there is a set amount of time and you involve them in controlling some of when they can use it  - within  the parameters you set then they get a measure of control (something kids crave desperately) and they learn how to self regulate.Discussing it with them helps this model I.e. you can choose to play this game or watch this YouTube video but then will mark off 20 minutes on your weekly time.  You can have a sheet with a graph - maybe a bargraph for a little kids -where each block of time that they’re allowed is one chunk of the graph and then they can color it in. They know they’ve used that one and they have however many blocks you allocate for the week. All just ways for them to visually conceptualize what they’re doing and eventually they will get the idea more concretely.