How
to keep technology from interfering with family bonds
By
Taryn Plumb|
GLOBE CORRESPONDENT
FEBRUARY
13, 2014
"Hold
on!”
The
continued tapping of keys.
“Can’t
you see the game’s on?”
An
abrupt hand gesture to signify “Stop.”
“You
know, I never get private time anymore!”
Absolute
silence.
When prompted with a “Hey dad?” or a “Mom, can you help me out with something?” these were the responses a group of fifth-graders reported receiving when attempting to get their parents’ attention while the adults were absorbed in e-mail, text messages, apps, games, or television. The 10- and 11-year-olds, students at the Glen Urquhart School in Beverly, ticked off the reactions with a mixture of bemusement, bewilderment, and annoyance during a special assembly at the private K-8 day school.
“Your parents love you, of course they do,” guest speaker Catherine Steiner-Adair, a psychologist and author, stressed to the small group. “Grown-ups are struggling, just like kids are struggling, to get control of who they are online.”
When prompted with a “Hey dad?” or a “Mom, can you help me out with something?” these were the responses a group of fifth-graders reported receiving when attempting to get their parents’ attention while the adults were absorbed in e-mail, text messages, apps, games, or television. The 10- and 11-year-olds, students at the Glen Urquhart School in Beverly, ticked off the reactions with a mixture of bemusement, bewilderment, and annoyance during a special assembly at the private K-8 day school.
“Your parents love you, of course they do,” guest speaker Catherine Steiner-Adair, a psychologist and author, stressed to the small group. “Grown-ups are struggling, just like kids are struggling, to get control of who they are online.”
We’re
all guilty of it. Whether in the car, enjoying the outdoors,
gathering with friends, or eating dinner with the family, our devices
have an indelible pull. (“Did I ever answer that text?” “What’s
everybody up to on Facebook?” “Have I earned more lives to play
another round of Candy
Crush Saga?”)
And,
much as their elders say “it’s these kids nowadays,” it is
clear that parents are just as culpable as their children when it
comes to having obsessive relationships with their phones, tablets,
MP3 players, and computers.
“The
intrusion is really hard to manage,” said Yoshi Campbell, a
Gloucester other who has a sixth-grader at Glen Urquhart.
If
your phone goes off — as it inevitably will — when you are
spending time with your children, you do not want to break that
real-time experience, she said, but you also want to keep up with
friends and work responsibilities, and not be rude or unresponsive.
According
to research company eMarketer,
US adults spend 12 hours and 5 minutes a day with various media. That
includes multitasking in which, for example, one hour of watching
television while spending that same hour online was counted as two
hours. Meanwhile, children ages 8 to 18 spend 10 hours and 45 minutes
a day plugged into something, based on a study by the Kaiser
Family Foundation.
Kaiser’s study found 29 percent of that time was spent
multitasking, putting the total media-use time for children at seven
hours and 38 minutes in a 24-hour day.
“We
all are spending less time with one another,” said Steiner-Adair,
author of“The
Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the
Digital Age,” during
a talk with parents in Beverly. Technology has us constantly putting
others on pause, she said, and thus can interfere with the
parent-child bond.
Melrose
mother Anita Meyer admitted that she has used the dismissive and
“awful” phrase “Just a minute!” when she has been on the
phone and her 6-year-old daughter has tried to get her attention.
“Connection
trumps technology every single time,” she said. “Be thoughtful,
be informed, connect. And teach your child to be and do all those
things.”
Kids
need genuine contact Steiner-Adair told a crowd of a few dozen
parents at Glen Urquhart on a recent morning. As a mom or a dad, you
want to be approachable.
“Children
thrive in families where they feel they’re connected,” she said.
“Technology doesn’t love your children.”
There
are definitive actions people can take to control technology in their
household, rather than having it control them, she said.
To
start, if you need to respond to e-mails in the morning, do it before
the kids get up, so you can spend time with them before school,
Steiner-Adair said. And after school, do not let children get into
the habit of immediately immersing themselves in computer or video
games. Dinner is a no-brainer, she said: Set a no-device-at-the-table
policy and stick to it.
Likewise,
do not let your children take their phones or tablets to bed; collect
them from each family member and secure them away for the night.
In
the car, meanwhile, put all devices away, and take the opportunity to
talk, relax, play educational games, daydream, or just adjust to the
“ambient quiet.” On the weekends
Consider
setting aside a dedicated block of “nontech” time, she said.
When
it comes to social media, Steiner-Adair said, do not be “friends”
with your children on Facebook, because that is awkward for
everybody. But do try to know their password to be able to check in
on their activities once in a while — just do not get overbearing
about it.
“The
most important resource that you have, by [the time they’re in]
seventh or eighth grade,” Steiner-Adair said, “is your
relationship with your child.”
She
posed similar points in speaking with students.
How
can they calm themselves after school? Read a book; play sports;
dance; hang out with friends. Anything that does not involve an
electronic screen.
“Games
distract you, but they don’t calm you down,” she told a group of
about 30 fifth-graders seated before her. “They stimulate you. They
rev you up.”
She
also cautioned them to be mindful of what they say and do online,
noting the permanency of their actions. While impressions made in the
sand wash away or fade with time, she said, a person’s digital
footprint stays with them forever.
“Listen
up,” she said. “Since you are in fifth grade now, we’re hoping
that you will begin to break this cycle of staying on screens all the
time.”
Still,
she recognized that it is not all mindless time-stealing. She
acknowledged to parents that there is a “wonderful educational use
for technology.” The difficulty is helping children safely tap into
that, rather than getting lost in it.
It
is a “tremendous challenge” to figure out how to use technology
in a managed and responsible way, said Kristin Cotter of Beverly,
whose 5- and 6-year-olds are prospective students at Glen Urquhart.
Although
she said her family plays board games every day after school, she
allows her children 30 minutes of “Netflix time.”
“It
is teaching them how to relax with a screen,” she said. “Should I
be doing that?”
Campbell
said it is disturbing how intimate a relationship people can have
with their smartphones. All members of her household have some sort
of device, she said, but her family does spend quality time together,
including playing outside.
The
goal is to keep things that way.
“We
all need to have a serious and honest conversation,” Campbell said.
“Create some boundaries, preserve that real connection that we all
value as a family.”
How children spend their time
FEBRUARY 13, 2014
When multitasking (using more than one device at once) is factored in, US kids age 8 to 18 spend 10 hours 45 minutes a day with entertainment media.
US adults spend 12 hours and 5 minutes a day on media devices.
Among the 82 million Millennials age 16-34, 72% use MP3 players; 67% gaming platforms; 59% smartphones; and 42% watch TV online.
For every 1,720 minutes teens spend in front of screens at home, they’ll spend 40 minutes interacting with a grown-up.
In a poll of sixth- to 12-graders, the most common terms used to describe parents were “scary,” “crazy” and “clueless.”
Sources: The Boston Consulting Group, eMarketer, the Kaiser Family Foundation, Catherine Steiner-Adair.
Photos by Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff
©
2014 BOSTON GLOBE MEDIA PARTNERS, LLC
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