Qwhat we share on social media is the mirror of how we want to be perceived. If on a personal level we use filters and digital make up to try to look the best we can, when it comes to family the most widespread changes concern the context. Whether they are trips, ceremonies or simple convivial moments, we pose, ready to portray the desired family picture. This is often the point of bringing a smartphone to the table: having it nearby and ready to use to immortalize the smiling parents next to the child who learns to eat alone or each member play his role in the play of the happy family at dinner.
A few seconds, the right shot and…click, you’re done!
Now that the selfie has succeeded we can go back to ignoring each other, parents and children, friends and relatives, even though we are sitting at the same table.
Everyone in their place, but all bent over the smartphone screen. The mother returns to the call, the father watches the match in streaming, while the children are immersed in chats or video games.
Parents Online. Because the smartphone at the table is indigestible
Families would gather for dinner to share food. But the meal, especially for the little ones, is also an important relational moment. «A real educational moment. In the first years of life, good eating habits are established: you learn to eat in a healthy and balanced way but also how to behave at the table”, explains the President of the Cultural Association of Paediatricians, Stefania Manetti. «At dinner we talk, talk and discuss, possibly with the TV turned off and without devices in plain sight». Through observation and imitation, the child has the opportunity to learn thanks to the good example of his parents.
For girls and boys the meal is then theopportunity to learn healthy behaviors. «Science tells us that if adults smile while eating vegetables, adding positive comments, children will be more inclined to eat vegetables», continues the ACP President.
Virtual image vs reality:
On the contrary, when we experience “digital places” as if they were another reality, our sense of identity and our relationships are significantly influenced. Often, when we take a selfie, we create a scene in which to show ourselves smiling and winning even if we don’t feel like one. As we would like to be, this is how we try to appear.
This narrative of ourselves, which we feed every day, destabilizes our children, who look at us, but without understanding when to imitate us and when not.
From the smartphone at the table to dissociation from reality
It is an aspect that the Carolina Foundation experts criticize on a pedagogical level. This mechanism of dissociation from realityalthough it may be physiological in adolescence, risks becoming a boomerang. What if it turns out that I’m not what I show? What will happen to my reputation? A first step to prevent our children from having to face these questions one day is to set a good example for them. Avoiding, as their reference adults, to show us what we are not.
There Carolina Foundationborn in memory of the fourteen-year-old Carolina Picchio (the first known Italian victim of cyberbullying in Italy), is today committed to the all-round protection of minors online, with activities at national and international level of awareness-raising, training, advocacy, research and emergency response. From the Research sector, the importance of information on digital and children for caring for the health of one’s children emerged as a priority. Not only with reference to adolescents, but also to protect babies with respect to the correct and conscious use of device, which have now entered everyone’s daily life. Carolina Foundation has created various awareness and information tools for parents, all accessible from the site Minorionline.com.
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