Monitoring a child's access to technology

The internet, the worldwide web, smartphones, texting, Facebook, Pinterest and Snapchat all offer the opportunity for humans to be connected 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Is all of this connectivity disconnecting us as humans?

Kids use technology to say things to and about other kids they would never say in person. I often wonder what a world without technology might look like; no television, no computers, no phones. To solve a problem in my technology-free world, people will have to sit and ponder. To resolve conflict, people have to look each other in the eyes and talk.

Imagine if children of today behave as if they live in the Age of Enlightenment, where kids are rewarded for thoughtful exploration of ideas through intellectual exchange which honors skepticism, and respectful challenges instead of hurtful bullying through cowardly texts and Facebook posts. Imagine a world of critically thinking, hardworking children who weigh cause and effect before making decisions and examine how they might change the world for the better. This is a world I wish to live in.

Maybe children are too psychologically immature to have a cellphone and Facebook account and should be forced to talk to other children without the aid of technology. Taking this argument further, I believe technological communication between kids is psychologically damaging creating a culture of relational avoidance and emotional absence.

For a child’s brain to mature completely, the child needs to examine and experience others’ facial expressions, vocal tonality and body position while angry, happy, sad and frustrated. Without this body language experience, children struggle to develop an understanding of human behavior. Without understanding human emotion, children struggle as adults predicting an employer’s job satisfaction, a spouse’s frustration or friend’s anger. Technology is damaging the minds and emotions of our children, culminating in a world where cyberbullying is expected and condoned. The madness needs to stop.

Hannah Masters, a parent focused on ensuring children are safe when using technology, argues “It is important for every family to have the digital talk. Establish rules for conduct, acceptable friends and consequences for breaking the house rules. Let kids know that you are going to be a moderator of their digital life, like you are in their real life. In order to moderate their digital life, you must have all usernames and passwords for their social networking sites.

“In our house, we view technology as a privilege, their dad and I pay the internet and cellphone bills, so they are actually our phones. They are borrowing them, kind of like when they borrow our car. So if my son asked me to borrow the car and our house rule is to be home at 10 p.m., if he said to me, ‘No mom I won’t be home at 10 p.m.,’ I wouldn’t hand him the keys.

“Many kids tell their parents no when asked for their usernames and passwords, I say change the Wi-Fi code and ask for your cellphones back. It is impossible for you to moderate the child’s digital life, and keep him or her safe if you don’t have a window into that world.”

A parent is the gatekeeper to a child’s access to internet connectivity and it’s OK to demand access to a child’s phone. Through my years of experience working with kids and inappropriate cellphone use, I can make you this promise: Great kids, who make great decisions in all aspects of their life, will make poor decisions when it comes to the use of a cellphone. I can also promise that many of these poor decisions will result in negative, life-changing outcomes. You have the control to save your child from a possibly life-changing mistake. Demand access to your child’s cellphone.

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Send comments or other suggestions to William Rutherford at [email protected] or visit pensiveparenting.com.