No playing around
Owning a screen device can be an opportunity for children to learn self control
We bought our son a Kindle. What could be better for his middle-school years, we thought, a gadget that encourages him to read books. We even went the extra financial mile by getting a Kindle Fire, and there’s a lot more to this device than black and white text. It lets you surf the Web, play movies and video games, and basically do anything you can do on an iPad or Nexus.
Forget books — our boy was playing Subway Surfers approximately five seconds after unwrapping the gizmo.
It felt like a definite parenting failure, but as I thought it over, I wondered if my wife and I had inadvertently done something smart.
That’s because parents are always expected to be the guardians of screen time, limiting their kids’ exposure and taking it away before it becomes compulsive. I agree with that approach and have tried to follow it, but I’ve come to recognize that it has one real drawback:
If parents always control screen time, what happens when a kid has to control himself?
There’s no doubt that this is a difficult job, as anyone with a smartphone, cable modem and an interest in playing League of Legends or World of Warcraft can attest.
When the American Psychiatric Association was preparing its fifth edition of the bible of mental illnesses, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, some psychiatrists pushed to have excessive Internet game-playing (or even mere Internet overuse) included as a genuine mental disorder. But when the book was published in 2013, “Internet Gaming Disor-
der” was listed — but not as a recognized disorder, only as a phenomenon worth more research.
“Further research will determine if the same patterns of excessive online gaming are detected using the proposed criteria,” according to a statement from the association. “At this time, the criteria for this condition are limited to Internet gaming and do not include general use of the Internet, online gambling, or social media.”
WIRED PARENTS, UNWIRED KIDS
Still, in what strikes me as a clear sign of guilt, some tech experts responsible for popularizing Web gadgets ban them from their own homes.
Even Steve Jobs once told The New York Times, “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”
Recounting that conversation, Times reporter Nick Bilton wrote in September, “I’ve met a number of technology chief executives and venture capitalists who say similar things: They strictly limit their children’s screen time, often banning all gadgets on school nights, and allocating ascetic time limits on weekends.”
Among other exemplars, Bilton quoted former Wired editor Chris Anderson, now a drone manufacturer, about the parental controls he and his wife have on every device his five children encounter at home. “That’s because we have seen the dangers of technology firsthand,” Anderson told the Times. “I’ve seen it in myself, I don’t want to see that happen to my kids.”
In reaction to Bilton’s report, Jimmy Fong, CEO of EpiCentre, told The Straits Times of Singapore, “Such gadgets are so easily addictive — once you open the can of worms, there’s no turning back. Too much time spent on tech gadgets means sacrificing family, reading and playing time.
“We want our children to read rather than to watch screens.”
Banning all screens might be possible if you’re a Silicon Valley billionaire, but the rest of us aren’t so lucky.
As Sherman Tan, chairman of the game-developer Asiasoft Online, told Straits Times, “You cannot be too strict. I doubt Steve Jobs could control his children. You cannot tie your children’s hands, they might go to their friends’ homes to play games.”
NECESSARY TOOLS
More and more adults have nighttime work they’re expected to do at home, and that requires a computer. More and more kids have school-issued tablets and laptops on which they must read assignments and complete homework.
It takes the discipline of a Shaolin monk not to turn work time into playtime, and plenty of adults regularly flunk that test. Soon enough our kids will have to fight that battle alone, so doesn’t it make sense that they should get some early practice?
Jane Nelsen, a psychologist and author — she wrote the Positive Discipline parenting series — partially agreed with that premise but said children need help to self-regulate. She recommends:
Holding a family meeting to discuss the need for limits.
Establishing a “parking lot” for devices.
Keeping them out of bedrooms so they don’t inhibit sleep.
Sounds good. Routines like that will help our kids build the digital fortitude they need, right? Sure. Probably. Maybe. “Pretty soon everyone will be addicted,” Nelsen said wearily, noting her own problems with turning off computer games. “We all probably already are.”
Nonetheless, she said, it’s important to set guidelines if kids are to have any chance at all as the digital current becomes ever stronger.
“Screens are here to stay, so we’ve got to figure out how to work with them,” she said.
One of the best ideas I’ve heard came from a blogger who goes by “Narrowback Slacker.” She wrote earlier this year that she lets her children have unlimited screen time as long as they first complete their daily tasks — a list that includes not just chores and homework but doing “something creative, active or productive for at least 45 minutes.”
She found that once her kids were engaged in nonscreen activities, momentum tended to take over.
“Homework was suddenly getting done without me nagging,” she wrote. “Brownies were baked. Rooms were tidy. And computer time, while still substantial, was contracting.”
My wife and I have decided to try this approach, although I’m already anticipating complications galore. Does reading comic books count as productive?
And what about building a fortress in Minecraft? Isn’t that creative?
Undoubtedly there will be plenty of cheating and backsliding, and I think my kids’ digital appetite will remain quite hearty. I’ll be shocked if they develop any hobbies that don’t involve pixels, but weirder things have happened.
I mean, my son has now actually read a book on his Kindle Fire. Who would have predicted that?