Digital Age Parenting

Parenting in the digital age entails spending a significant amount of time arguing with our children about their usage of screens. We set time restrictions, vet apps, keep track of where our kids are, try to enforce screen-free zones, and generally worry about how much time they spend on their favorite devices.

Despite the fact that we devote so much time and effort to ensuring that our children have a healthy online/offline balance, most of us do not devote the same kind of attention to managing our own online time. Our children, it turns out, notice the paradox, and no matter how much we preach, our actions finally speak louder than our words.

Our children take up on our actions, just like everything else in parenting, and end up imitating many of them. So it's worthwhile to consider the habits we model around our phone and computer use.

Here are some ways parents might change their own routines to assist their children develop good tech habits:

Concentrate on the persons with whom we are conversing.

One of the most concerning side effects of mobile technology is how it interferes with our capacity to be present and focused on the people in front of us. Even when we are in the middle of a real-life hangout, we are all guilty of snatching up the phone in reaction to a text or notification. When it comes to our children, this is especially troublesome.

No child likes to feel as if they are competing for our attention with a phone, but when we keep our phones with us at all times, we find ourselves picking them up more frequently - even when we are spending valuable time with our families.

Have a place in your house where you can store your phone when you're not using it (a basket, charging dock, drawer). Put the phone aside and dial down the noise whenever you're interacting with the kids through play or conversation so you can be truly present with them. You are modeling courteous and healthy social interactions in this way.

Make it a rule to eat meals without using a screen.

Many research have shown that eating in front of a screen has negative consequences. We eat less attentively when we eat in front of a technology (tv, phone, tablet, computer), which leads to overeating and a lack of enjoyment around food. The family dinner, on the other hand, is the one to focus on when it comes to leading by example.

Family meals have traditionally been a moment for everyone to pause, converse, and connect from their many pursuits. The family supper can become a shelter in a world when we are continually assaulted by external stimuli and tugged in many directions by our technology.

Making screen-free family meals a priority teaches our children that meals with family or friends are a time for them to disconnect from the outside world and connect with the people in their immediate surroundings – a habit that will benefit their mental and physical health as they develop.

Phones should be kept outside the bedroom at night.

While you may understand that letting your child to have their phone or tablet in their room overnight is a no-no, it's likely that you don't follow the same restrictions for yourself. Many studies have linked sleeping with a phone to difficulty falling asleep as well as nighttime disruptions. Our phones' blue light interferes with the creation of melatonin, a hormone that regulates our sleep/wake cycles. Furthermore, content overstimulation and the fear of missing essential information if we don't constantly check disrupt our sleep.

Teens, unfortunately, are particularly vulnerable to phone-related sleep disturbances. Sleep is one of the most critical aspects of our children's healthy growth.

One way that our modeling can have immediate health benefits for our children is to keep our phones out of the bedroom at night. Practicing a nightly ritual of putting the whole family's phones away at the same time and in the same place is one method to help your kids get into a decent sleep pattern with their electronics. Parents can also set up repeating Freedom sessions to ban internet access at a specific time each night to ensure that no one is trying to sneak in extra phone time throughout the night.

Make time to exercise.

Let's face it: we weren't created to spend our days sitting on our arses in front of screens. According to the American Heart Association, sedentary jobs have increased by 83 percent since 1950. As you can expect, this isn't helping us in the health department. It is critical, then, that we model the daily habits of standing up, moving around, stretching, walking, and doing other activities.

Too much time spent staring at a screen without moving has a substantial impact on our physical and emotional wellbeing, and the effects are even more pronounced in children's developing bodies. So let us teach our children the importance of putting down the laptop or phone and reconnecting with our bodies on a regular basis.

Keep an eye on where you're focusing your attention.

The contest for our attention is one of the most difficult issues we confront in the digital age. Advertisements, notifications, and the allure of mindless distraction add up to hours of our attention being diverted to things we don't care about.

Fortunately, there are techniques that can assist us in being aware of these enticing distractions. Most phones allow us to set time restrictions on apps and generate a "screentime" report so we can see where our attention is being diverted. It's especially challenging for kids whose frontal lobes aren't completely matured to stay on task.

The idea is to teach children the value of reclaiming control of their attention, which is one of our most valuable assets.

Never lose sight of the fact that our children are watching us. We are the first (and most significant) role models for our children. The good news is that by modeling the healthy behavior we want children to emulate, we improve our own relationship with technology — a win-win situation!