That Dreaded Four Letter Word….

Yes we’ve all heard it, and we cringe every time it’s uttered, some of us likely know who introduced it to our child….but the word I am referring to is not the one you are thinking of right now, the word I’m talking about is iPad!

Yes that’s the one, the device that can be handed to a child and kept them occupied for hours….free babysitting, count me in! But wait, it can’t be that easy, there has to be a catch; there is always a catch.

Sure tablets and smart phones are wonderful devices, most of us start and finish our days with them, heck some of us look at our phones more than we look at our spouse, after all its the digital revolution, the generation seeking constant and immediate information, but how much information is too much?  And how much do our children really need?

I will admit, electronic devices are powerful and handy tools, from email, to texting, to social media; they have become the primary tool for us to organize our lives, but do we rely on them too much?  If you went to work and forgot your lunch at home, most of us would simply change our lunch plans and go out; now if you headed to work and forgot your cell phone, my guess is most of you would return home to retrieve your device….why? because this is how we run our lives, our calendar, our phonebook, our shopping list, our link to the world….one simple tool has become so powerful and convenient we depend on it in order to carry out our day.

But adults have restraint, most of us know when to put down the phone,  a device this powerful in the hands of a child needs to be monitored, children’s minds are sponges, they are curious, with all the knowledge of the universe at their fingertips, how will they know when to put it down? how will they know when it’s time to go outside and play?  That’s where us parents come in, not just through enforcement of the usage of these devices, but also by example, a child that observes their parents on a tablet for hours and hours is going to see this as acceptable.

So here is what my wife and I do (this is new to us too, so maybe we’ve got this wrong), but what we do is allow our girls one hour of electronic time every weekday evening after the kids get home from school, this allows my wife and I to catch up on the days activities and to prepare a family dinner, of course there is a bit more leeway on the weekends; the kids know that once their hour is up and we call them for dinner, “electronic time” is done for the evening.  Sometimes we get some pushback, but more times than not the kids have had their fill before the hour is up and have discarded the device and moved on to more exciting things, like trying to apply their own make-up or counting how many flushes it takes to devour an entire roll of toilet paper….see there are many ways to learn math skills!

But the use of these devices is becoming natural to our children, most classrooms now have tablets that are being used as tools to deliver the curriculum, which is great, there are many educational apps to be found, but too much “screen time” at home or at school allows kids to zone out, and with so many exiting games can be over-stimulating.

So like many things in life, we apply “moderation” to the challenge of mobile device usage, it may not work out the way we’ve planned, but like my generation, we never grew up with these devices and a lot of us have many fond childhood memories….not memories of Minecraft, Candy Crush or SnapChat, but memories of playing outside, exploring and being a kid; there will be plenty of time for our children to catch up on the latest news on Facebook and Twitter, but for now perhaps the only tweets they should concern themselves with are in the backyard at the bird feeder!