As I continue to struggle with parenting around media and video games at home, I thought it appropriate to share some of my personal story. My son has given me carte blanche to share our world with you.
To my dismay, my darling 11 year old son inherited his father's gene for loving media of all forms. Whether it is music, movies, video games, etc..., he loves and is slightly addicted to them. I informed him that I have had my own issues around the lovely iPhone and being present moment when I need to be.
I find both of our issues irritating but not life threatening. What to do?
I find that for me, I have to keep awareness of my activities and keep my phone away during times when I need to be present moment. Leaving it in the car at family dinner outings or other precious family times is useful.
Parenting around the media is a whole other issue. My son decided to follow a few friends on instagram after explaining to us his plan and how he will let us monitor these activities. After he started to view the site, he fell into a zone of watching the world fly by. I let him go to see how long it would continue. 90 minutes later I had to step in and make him aware of the sink hole that just developed in his road of life. He fell right in.
He did his defensive thing and we talked. Being open to how hard the immediate gratification world is today is powerful. Being vulnerable and saying that you get it and it is hard for you as well makes you human.
I cannot be blind to the reality of the media world of today. They will be exposed despite all of our best efforts. My wife and I have decided to allow some and follow it carefully under our watch. I find that at the tender age of 11 my son responds better to our parenting by having some control. He wants to try and fail and try again all the while being loved. We can give him that as best as we can.
He is impressing me lately. Today he got up with me at 625am and instead of asking for the password for the computer, he asked me to play chess until I left for work. I know it sounds like nothing special, but to me it tells me that he cherishes our time and that maybe he is AWARE of his media desires. Maybe it is wishful thinking or seeds of a new media based life that is grounded in our common goal, his growth.
Goals of a modern media friendly parenting style:
1) Model the behavior you wish to see. Keep family time for the family. Keep your iPhone or media time when you are alone or have dedicated time.
2) Stay involved. Help them navigate the media world. This will go a long way to preventing cyber bullying and show them that you love them.
3) Be open with your kids. Let them sound off with you on concerns so that they do not turn to the internet for the answers or worse a friend. This is hard because it means trying not to be judgmental. I find that I struggle with this at times based on my own upbringing.
4) Have a docking station for all media devices in the kitchen. They stay down after dinner.
5) NO TV's in a bedroom - period. Including yours. Modeling.
6) Set a time limit for media daily. Our house has 0 hours from sunday night at 5pm to friday night at 5 pm on school nights. We give 1-2 hours on weekends. Being able to play games is a privilege and not a RIGHT.
7) Educate them about what they post on social media. It is out there immediately and forever. (thankfully we are not there yet)
8) Tell them to never share a password with anyone other than a parent. Their site is their site and what goes out is assumed to be theirs. Never give out personal information online. No exceptions. Criminals troll for this data to cause harm.
9) Have them report any strange things that they encounter to you. Keep that channel open. It could be lifesaving.
10) Any other ideas? Write them to me and I will post some of them.
Always learning and evolving on the fly with media,
Dr. M