Q. You discourage parents from purchasing electronic devices and games for their children. Yet, according to some studies they build in intelligence. Why not a comfortable balance?
A. If you have young children, the day may be approaching or has already come, when your seven or eight year old asks for the latest electronic devices and/or games. If you resist, they are likely to insist that everyone else they know has one already. In desperation, your child may try every wile to wear you down, until you succumb.
The defeated parent, not wanting to be the “only” denying parent, has probably read about the challenges that devices and games bring to families.
“Okay,” the parent says, “but we have to agree on some rules.” “Okay,” says the jubilant child.
One of the most overlooked essentials in relationships with children in homes and learning environments is respect for the individual will. However, when we bring into the child's world something that is addictive in it's hold on the child's attention, another level of consideration arises.
Imagine putting an addictive drug within a child’s daily reach and saying, “Okay, you can have a little of this, on the condition you agree to use only such and such an amount.” Absurd as this analogy is, it is about something we all understand. Far from fostering independent volition, drugs cripple initiative and the creative/constructive will, as well as the will to resist the drug.
Electronics games act noticeably like drugs. Many children need increasing hits. They lose interest in entertainment through their own imagination, creativity and play. When they come off of the drug they are irritable and even belligerent. Some start to live in that cyber world even when away from it, even in a school where children are happily engaged and often in nature.
When denied a hit they often beg, cry, and even become enraged, because they so badly “need” another fix.
I am privileged to know parents who have taken a firm stand that can take weeks of exhausting persistence to “wean” the child from the electronic drug.
Nina persisted until Sasha began to pick up chapter books, instead of engaging in a futile push on his mother. Now, he is a voracious reader, having read multiple book series in their entirety. Currently, he is reading the eighth book of the Harry Potter Series for the second time.
The following e-mail exchange poignantly shares the challenging undertaking and devotion expressed by Alaina’s parents. Alaina is an extraordinarily independent and gifted child. She had been an endless fount of creativity at school until the first semester of this year, when there was a noticeable waning.
Then, suddenly, in recent weeks, her whole disposition switched from morose to happy. Her attitude became kinder and more magnanimous. Eyes shining with inspiration, she began a fantasy story, writing pages and pages for several days in a row. In addition, drawing on her forte, sculpturing paper animals, this fifth grader set up a little shop to demonstrate how to make them. Then she gifted the products of her labors to the eager attendees.
Alaina's parents inquired by e-mail about the next presentation night. The following exchange begins with my reply.
Vicki: Presentation night is scheduled for Thursday, February 26.
I so admire your precious daughter. She is definitely a leader among the other children. However, you should see how kind, respectful, and fair she is with them! Also, I'm enthused about the story she has been writing, with talent, I might add. Never has she alone and without any prompting taken off on a story like this to continue for several days. Whether or not she ends up finishing it, it's wonderful to see! This is exactly the spirit we are after, whether it comes to noticeable fruition in one, ten or twenty years!!
Jen: Awe...I'm so glad to hear this! We've had some similarly wonderful developments here at home as well! Just after Christmas, and FED UP, I took away Alaina's iPad...and game play...indefinitely. I was tired of fighting, the bad attitude when "time was up", the top of my daughter's head as she stared at that thing, and so on. And man, within just a day or two...the creative energies just took off! She was drawing all the time, and crafting all the time, and schematic drawing, and playing piano...you name it, she was doing it. And it's not like she didn't do those things before, but not very much. Like an hour here or there. But this? It was ALL DAY. Her mind just firing as she thought of the next thing she was going to do. So after much discussion and pressure to Lou, we're keeping it up for good. Now and for good she only gets her iPad OR game play for 1 hour on Saturday, and 1 hour on Sunday. And if she "complains" when time is up, she forfeits it for the next time. Because of this, it's simply so far OFF her radar now, she doesn't even think about it, talk about it, OR complain when time is up...at all. This seems to be the magic formula for her and we are thrilled. God help me come Summertime..but after what I've seen this time around, I'm determined!
Vicki: Thank you for sharing! This sort of example fortifies other beleaguered parents struggling against the tide of technology! You know, I have heard other 'testimonials' about the changed, pleasant, happy, creative child that emerges after being unplugged from electronics. This is such an important issue today. Do you mind if in my blog I refer to the info in your email, without saying who the family is?
Jen: Absolutely not! You may say, or not say, who we are. We believe in this so wholeheartedly we'd be proud either way. Alaina is such a good example of this. She is EXCEPTIONALLY "creative & imaginative" (she got "most imaginative back in pre-school). You know this about her. BUT, that said, we could have absolutely been guilty of "snuffing that out of her" if we'd been the kind of parents to let her spend too much time on these games and devices up to now, because their "worlds" really engage her imagination. Problem is, they don't INSPIRE it...AT ALL! It does all the work FOR HER, and shuts down her OWN creativity. Period. And it's a progressive issue...and it's not over until she's a full blown adult. If we ease off, even now, she would ease back in to more and more device time, and again, her creativity would wane. So it has to be CONSTANTLY on our minds. A constant battle. But it's one that I am more dedicated to than ANYTHING else in my life raising my daughter...because I will not live with the guilt of robbing the world of this precious child's creativity! Instead we are going to nurture, nurture, nurture it...until it's all she is and all she does! And RMCLE? God Bless you Vicki and your beautiful school. Alaina would simply NOT be who she is today, regardless of our efforts at home, were it not for her day to day, year to year experiences at the lovely "home away from home" ,,,
Children addicted to technology become easily bored. Without it, they easily become children.
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