Negotiating Technology Access - Kids and their Gadgets

Technology Thursday

Image by Lyn Millett via Flickr

As most parents can't help but be aware, the American Academy of Pediatrics discourages television for kids before the age of 2. While there are not clear guidelines (yet, that I've found), for what to do about other kinds of screen time, since my toddler (still under 2) has become an iPodTouch and iPhone master, I am personally vexed by this question quite often. I console myself in that we don't have a tv in the house that he ever sees. (It's in the basement where he does not go.)

But we definitely have found ourselves to resorting to asking him to amuse himself with the iPod when no other distractions seem to work and we need to be doing something else. It's not just the little toddler games, but he also likes to browse pictures of himself and people he knows. And given that frequently sharing pictures of faraway-relatives is one of the recommended strategies for coping with mobile and geographically-dispersed modern families, I console myself with that a little bit, too. We disable the net connection when he has these devices so he can't inadvertently send someone email.

Every once in awhile I'll come across discussions of the variety of parenting strategies and policies when it comes to Internet and gaming use for older kids, though, and I have to admit I'm stumped. ]

Years ago, in the days before wifi, I knew someone who would run the ethernet cable down the hall when her adolescent son wanted to be on the Internet - he could have the computer in his room, but she always knew if he was accessing the Internet or not. There are of course all kinds of spyware and nannyware and censorware and such that parents can install to try (note the operative try) to restrict what their kids have access to. One friend of mine considered mirroring his son's computer screen to another computer in the house, so that they'd be able to glance at whatever he was doing at any time, but rejected that idea as too totalitarian.

It occurred to me that this issue is probably like allowances -- another thing we have no idea yet how we're going to handle. There are many theories and approaches and no one right answer. And a lot depends on the particulars of your family, the kid's personality, your own risk assessment, philosophy, and so on. But I do like reading about how others are tackling this issue. Over at Child of Mind there was a discussion about kids the Internet. Not so much about internal family practices and behavioral expectations, but about how so much time online might affect them cognitively.

What are the social and emotional differences between digital "natives" (those who have grown up never knowing a world without the internet) and digital "immigrants" (most of us basically, those who may have whole-heartedly adopted technology and the use of the internet, but who have NOT grown up with it)?

In a separate but related issue, Kevin Drum at Mother Jones is fretting about whether children these days are "too close" to their parents. You know, because they can text them at all hours of the day or something. What I found most striking is that apparently the only advantage Drum can conceive of for kids being close to their parents is that "They're more comfortable around adults at an earlier age." Umm. Huh.

Anyway, notwithstanding the obvious over-reaching on the part of some parents who try to insert themselves into every decision their college students are making (and tales of overbearing parents are much, much older than texting, or online course registration), I'm hard-pressed to find the fact that there may be a quasi-trend of teenagers actually being willing talk to their parents -- even wanting to talk to their parents to be worrisome. And while I recognize that generational generalizations are just that, this comment resonated:

I seem to remember a time when the problem was Baby Boomers not being involved in their kids lives... i.e. letting the television raise them etc... leading to Gen Xers complaining about their parents all the time. Now that Gen Xers are having kids and trying to have closer relationships with them Baby Boomers are complaining about their grand kids being coddled.

I'm also reminded of the studies discussed in Nurture Shock that showed that, in fact, teenagers are not really all that horrible and many have reasonably functional relationships with their parents and that, summarized in this blog: "the most common reason for lying was to protect their relationship with their parents – many teenagers wanted to avoid disappointing their parents."

There's undoubtedly some science to be understood or developed regarding the cognitive questions, and there's no question in my mind that for young children moving and interacting with physical things should constitute the bulk of their activity. But questions about how much unsupervised access middle schoolers and teenagers should have, whether they should have their own cellphones, how accessible parents should be, and what are appropriate expectations for use and behavior are extremely challenging. For my own part, I'm just monitoring discussions and suggested strategies now. In 10 years, when my kid will be nearly 12, the technology will have changed immensely (remember: 10 years ago, there was no iPod, much less iPhone or App Store) which will also surely affect decisions we make. I'm sure the ongoing negotiations with my now-toddler about these issues will be . . . interesting.