I truly believe that building positive relationships around the use of technology and devices is about balance and not promoting it as a ‘treat.’ Remember, technology is around to stay, it’s not going anywhere. So, we as parents need to support our children in building a healthy relationship and an appropriate balance with activities whether online or offline.
I hear you ask… what if they see something that is inappropriate or something that they aren’t supposed to see? If they are unprepared, out of curiosity they will inevitably watch it and not know how to handle the situation. The same applies to situations in day to day life that we have to teach our children how to deal with.
You know your children the best, but I would advise not solely relying on monitoring apps or screen time, but using them as a guiding tool and as part of your parenting toolkit. Devices can be used in really positive ways from reading the news, learning to code, playing on a grammar app to calling family and friends. If you rely only on monitoring time you can deprive your child of an educational session on their device by turning it into a negative situation. Discuss with them what they are doing and how much time is appropriate depending on the activity, therefore identifying with your child that not all screen time is the same.
Teach your child the safety skills and emotional skills to learn how to deal with different situations. Don’t focus solely on what apps and websites are good and bad. We as a parenting generation have become fearful of technology instead of embracing it. We need to teach our children how to be good people both online and offline so that they have the skills to learn how to balance screen time and the activities they are completing.
Like anything… This won’t happen overnight and will take time and patience.
Jump onto my blog next week for 5 steps to help you build positive habits around technology at home.
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