Fishing Rods for Free!
Technological Balance
The Victorian Government currently provides primary school aged children with ‘Little Angler Kits’, including a fishing rod, tackle tray, some tackle and a kids guide to fishing. The approach is aimed at getting more children outside and active and connecting with nature.
This initiative was discussed on ABC Radio this week, as ‘children’s screen time’ again appeared in the media.
‘Raising children and adolescents in a digital world is hard... really hard. Why? Most parents had predominantly analogue childhoods and adolescence where we stared at the sky and not a screen! However, we’ve been forced to raise kids and teens in a digital world: they’re living in a tsunami of screens and social media. We wrestle with the fact that our children will inherit a digital world, so digital amputation simply isn’t an option.’ - Dr Kristy Goodwin
There is no effective parachute on board this aircraft! It is up to us to manage the controls. Technology is an important (and mandatory) part of the School Curriculum, which aims to equip our children with essential future-proofing skills for a rapidly changing world. It caters for three fundamental biological drivers - our need to connect, to feel competent and to be in control. It is also an important part of everyday life.
However, technology can also be addictive! Engagement with technology can release dopamine from the brain, impeding logical thinking, causing us to lose track of time, providing addictive novelty, and a feeling of never ‘being done’.
Dr Kristy Goodwin suggests that to develop healthy ‘technology’ habits, our kids and teens need their parents/carers and educators to be the pilot of the digital plane and not the passenger. When adults assume the role of pilot, they help their child to navigate the digital terrain.
Even though many parents and educators may feel ill-equipped to be the pilot because they feel they lack the technical skills and knowledge our ‘screenagers’ display, we have two vital advantages they don’t yet have:
(i) life experience; and
(ii) a fully developed prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that’s responsible for high-order thinking, logical decision-making, and impulse control, which doesn't fully develop until the twenties).
When parents and educators are the pilots, they can help young people deal with turbulence and other crises without crashing the plane. When children go in the wrong direction, parents can help them course correct. When they are facing scary digital dilemmas, (like cyber-bullying, exposure to pornography, violent or inappropriate content) they’ll call on the pilot and not fellow passengers to help them. However, they’ll only do this if parents and educators are sitting in the pilot’s seat AND if we don’t use screens as a punishment tool.
Being the pilot means helping them establish and enforcing BOUNDARIES to develop healthy technology habits. Firm and consistent boundaries (developed in consultation with their children, who really should be the co-pilots not just passengers) ensures that screens don’t derail basic needs for healthy development and help to form healthy technology habits.
One such boundary is that parents must keep digital devices in publicly accessible parts of the family home and install Internet-filtering tools on all Internet-enabled devices (including the Smart TV which is often overlooked). Dr Kristy Goodwin personally uses and recommends The Family Zone.
The use of digital devices will continue to increase. We need to ensure that we are the pilot by showing an avid interest in their online activities, installing Internet-filtering, and fiercely protecting their basic critical psychological needs.
‘Boundaries are like seat restraints - your kids need them, but they don’t particularly like them much.’
Peter Grimes | Headmaster
Reference:
Dr Kristy Goodwyn - Link - Raising Your Child Online
Australia's guidelines on screen time for kids:
· No screen time for children younger than two years.
· No more than one hour per day for children aged two to five years.
· No more than two hours of sedentary recreational screen time per day for five- to 17-year-olds (not including schoolwork).
Source: The Australian Institute of Family Studies
