“TOh, look who’s talking!”. How many times could our children, faced with our reproaches, respond like this. Often we don’t even realize it, but we expect children and young people to respect rules that we disregard every day: even in front of them, and in particular in the relationship with new technologies. That is, in the way in which, hyperconnected, we inhabit the online world.
Parents Online. Hyper-connected children, children of hyper-distracted adults
For the Carolina Foundation, committed every day to the digital well-being of the new generations, it is not simply about etiquette, but about health. The topic is fundamental for the cognitive and behavioral development of our children, from the first years of life.
Between parent and child, the smartphone
«One of the most important effects of overexposure to the Internet is the reduction of shared time and richness of the relationship between parents and children». Explains Stefania Manetti, President of the Cultural Association of Pediatricians (ACP). «But the family is the primary learning environment, and for it to work, verbal interactions between parents and children must be effective and protective experiences. The presence of digital devices instead distracts attention from the direct and responsive relationship with parents. Not only that: if parents abuse these devices, their educational role is compromised.”
We are adults, let’s set a good example
Our children’s behavior reflects ours – it’s important to think about it every day and try to be consistent. We cannot complain that our children use devices if we continue to do so, even in front of them. We don’t ask them to unplug, when we ourselves always keep our cell phones in our hands, like a prosthesis. In an ideal world, smartphones should be left at the entrance to our homes, like shoes and coats.
Smartphone addicts
When you have an addiction, you can project it onto others, including your children. How many times do we judge others negatively when they behave as we do? It is an understandable defense mechanism, but not at all effective, because it does not make us aware of the problem. Instead, it is necessary to do so to understand the extent to which we are a point of reference for our children: we must represent a positive example for them.
Hyperconnected by necessity? Let’s not tell it
This week we celebrated the World Children’s and Adolescents’ Day. There Convention on the Rights of the Child in article 18 provides that “The responsibility of raising the child and providing for his development falls first and foremost on the parents”. This responsibility also materializes in our daily actions, in the coherence between words and deeds, in the substance of our behaviors.
«An ounce of good example is worth more than a quintal of words»: Saint Francis de Sales said it about 400 years ago. As adults we can also tell ourselves that we are hyperconnected out of necessity but for the health of our children we must use that ounce of good example.
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