Gadget Overload

I've taken Amelia to the park out in town recently several times and I'm always saddened by something I see.  Invariably there is at least one or two parents, more if it's a busy day, chatting away... on their gadgets.  Looking down, texting like crazy, half hearing their kids and only glancing up occasionally to check on them.

 It doesn't seem so bad when the kids have a few other kids to play with, but when it's obviously only one child with his or her parent it really breaks my heart.  I watch the kids try to get their parent's attention - "watch me, daddy/mommy, watch me!", "play with me",  "swing me" - over and over again only to see the parent not really look up. 

Do they really think their kids can't tell they aren't giving them their full attention?  Do they expect their children to grow up to be teenagers and adults and act completely differently than the behavior they see modeled right now?  It's like you are sitting there telling your kids, "You aren't really that important to me, and definitely not as important as the other people I am talking to right now"

I do know that it might be the a conversation with other kids/spouse/doctor that is important.  But there aren't that many urgent conversations that would make that many people sit there and text away for almost an hour at a time (at least) to all their FB and online buddies.  When your gadgets become more important than your kids, you have a problem. 

It's lead me to think of something else - the computer behavior I model in the house.  I take breaks to check email from Rafe, Olivia's doctors, other info needed throughout the day.  I need to make sure that I am on there for a real reason and keep it as short as possible when we are having our free time together.  That's not to say that when she is playing independently or we are having alone or personal time that I shouldn't be on there; but how do I want to model the attentiveness I want her to pay to my interactions with her?  Her time after school with us is limited before she goes to bed, and I want to make sure that our time with each other is meaningful family time, and not all of us in seperate corners hooked up to our gadgets vegging out. 

Something I read today reminds me to limit computer time for my kids as they grow older. The implication that their social and emotional development will be guided by internet media isn't a comfortable one.

Facebook can lead to depression in adolescents
The researchers say a "large part of this generation's social and emotional development is occurring while on the Internet and on cell phones."

Improvised Play

I'm not a big fan of television for kids and I'm especially not a fan of advertising aimed at children. Most of my friends know that I was absolutely against all the branded clothing and toys when Amelia was born, preferring to let her imagination take over and leave some of the materialism behind as much as possible. I've had some feedback occasionally that our stance was extreme, but I have to share this story as it explains quite well some of the reasons we chose to do what we did. I also believe it has as much to do with television itself as the type of toys kids play with - Rafe has a great theory on that I'll share sometime. I've noticed that with the toys we do have that are more structured, she plays with them much less than she plays with the things she creates out of bits and pieces around the house - an empty plastic tub in our kitchen alone has been a baby bed, a wagon, a tent, a boat, a car...

Old Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills
(the link to the full article; an excerpt below)

Clearly the way that children spend their time has changed. Here's the issue: A growing number of psychologists believe that these changes in what children do has also changed kids' cognitive and emotional development.

It turns out that all that time spent playing make-believe actually helped children develop a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of different elements, but a central one is the ability to self-regulate. Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline.

We know that children's capacity for self-regulation has diminished. A recent study replicated a study of self-regulation first done in the late 1940s, in which psychological researchers asked kids ages 3, 5 and 7 to do a number of exercises. One of those exercises included standing perfectly still without moving. The 3-year-olds couldn't stand still at all, the 5-year-olds could do it for about three minutes, and the 7-year-olds could stand pretty much as long as the researchers asked. In 2001, researchers repeated this experiment. But, psychologist Elena Bodrova at Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning says, the results were very different.

"Today's 5-year-olds were acting at the level of 3-year-olds 60 years ago, and today's 7-year-olds were barely approaching the level of a 5-year-old 60 years ago," Bodrova explains. "So the results were very sad."

Sad because self-regulation is incredibly important. Poor executive function is associated with high dropout rates, drug use and crime. In fact, good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child's IQ. Children who are able to manage their feelings and pay attention are better able to learn. As executive function researcher Laura Berk explains, "Self-regulation predicts effective development in virtually every domain."