I sat in an all day conference about Tech Addiction. 7-hours that went by super fast given I am completely enthralled in this topic.
At its conclusion I sit here full of anxiety. I’m overcome with both positive and nervous energy. I’m excited to share all I’ve learned. But I’m nervous because it reminds me of the important job we have as parents to curb technology to work for our kids, not against them, all while maintaining our own healthy habits.
It was a bit doomsday. But also hopeful. It was full of statistics and confirmation that all that I fear and analyze about technology is researched and true. And of course, only the beginning of the vast amount of research that can, and should, be done.
I naturally took 20 pages of notes. I plan to share all the good research and information from the scholars, but for now, I’m just sharing my initial reaction.
Overall, it reminded me of a recurring theme. Doing our best as parents is important. And if the odds are against us, trying to do our best again is important.
Applied to technology it means not overdoing it, filtering out the bad, and talking about it. (More on that once I get my notes together.)
It was supposed to be a sort of relaxing day. A chance to dive deep in a topic I feel so passionate about. Instead, it was a hectic day. A type of day that occurs so often in my life that I’m barely surprised and that I welcomed as a challenge.
After I succeeded in getting tired, anxious kids ready to launch to school, I found they were too sick to attend. So instead of my carefree work from home day to learn, I got to balance it with sick kids.
The worst of the challenge though, was to not give in to the very thing that I was learning how to prevent – tech addiction in my children.
As I stare at a screen in front of them for hours on end, research-based phrases like “don’t be there physically but emotionally unavailable staring at a screen in front of them” scream back at me.
In addition to learner, teacher, and maker of lunches for sick children today, I tasked myself with breaking the habit of allowing extended TV time when they are sick because the stats I was thrown are so alarming.
While shown visuals of the effects of technology on a developing brain, I scrambled to find activities more entertaining than the screen.
I spent much of the day feeling like a hypocrite – pacing around with headphones or staring at my laptop, holding on to hope that all the notetaking I was doing on actual paper is what they’d noticed.
Overall, I find myself overwhelmed as a parent trying to do it right in this tech age. As an educator I am overcome with the impact parenting has on student success. And I know parental influence reaches far past the diploma.
But despite the challenges of working in front of my children like many of us did during lockdown, the impact of today was worth it. I am emotionally charged from the graphic case studios and alarming statistics, and extra motivated to work towards change.
Though I feel physically drained from the screen, it is nothing compared to the repercussions of our children being drained from the screen.
I was lucky enough to grow up before the screen and to have parents who gave me the freedom to do all the things that are now prescribed by pediatricians and listed as strategies to curb tech addiction.
We owe it to our children to bring things like outdoor play, free time, and boredom back to the forefront.
So bare yourselves parents. A lot of the important work comes from us. We have the difficult task to create successful readers, physically active humans, non-polarizing community members, and overall good and healthy people.
But to do this right we have to allow ourselves to be human. We have to give ourselves patience and forgiveness, and we have to laugh at ourselves sometimes.
But I believe in us and the positive impact we can make on our children if we keep trying.
We can do this!