Last night, my son had the opportunity to perform in a short concert with the top band in the high school he is matriculating to next year. So naturally I was there to cheer my baby on. Whenever I go to one of my children's performances, I expect to hear a fantastic production and I have never been disappointed. What I don't expect, however, is to see a four year old with a pair of Beats headphones and his own mini iPad roaming the aisles.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but these tablets still retail for a couple hundred bucks. Not to mention that a pair of Beats headphones are at least $150. So this mother was trusting her four year old with up to $500 worth of equipment. I don't even trust my 14 year old with that much.
I honestly don't know what is happening to people that they feel they can't get their children to sit through a 30 minute concert without resorting to placating them with phones, tablets, handheld games, mp3 players... Wait. Mp3 players? At a concert? Where the music is being provided for you?
If that's not bad enough, parents are allowing children to take their phones under the guise of snapping photos of their siblings, but in reality they are running amok in the auditorium with other like-minded children. And no one, but me, the mean, nasty, ill-tempered, evil mother who just wants to hear her child perform, will tell these kids to kindly shut up and go away. Not even the owner of these loudmouthed hellions seems to notice. Or care. Maybe they have their Beats headphones on.
Call me old fashioned, but I also believe in having a family dinner. I have a "No Tech at the Table" policy. That includes the adults. There is nothing that my husband and I hate more than seeing an entire family out to dinner and watching them completely ignore each other because they are engrossed in their phone conversations. If I am going to spend my time preparing you a yummy, delicious dinner or pay my hard earned money to take you out, the least you can do is talk to me. I gave birth to you, after all, the least I can do is get to know you.
As of this moment in time, my children do not have cell phones. I'm not against it, I just don't feel it has been necessary as of yet. I think we are getting closer and closer to that point now that they are expanding their social calendars and extracurricular commitments. My kids are in band, choir and student council. They have friends all over the neighborhood and frequently stay after school for rehearsals. My husband works long hours and I sometimes need to be in two places at once. There have been times where it would have been convenient to reach out and call or text my kids to let them know I was running late or to ask them where I need to be. But we have managed just fine so far without the gadgets. So maybe the phones can wait a little longer.
I think it's a shame that children are missing out on their sibling's performances, family conversations, the world around them, new experiences and any number of other things because they have their nose in a phone, in a tablet or in a handheld game. But, by God, they can tell me all I need to know about the latest Vines, music videos, game cheats and celebrity gossip. Talk about a Zombie Apocalypse, we're creating one right before our eyes. No monkeys included.
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
The Computer Age
Social media has offered our children a whole new world of opportunities. Research has become so much easier and faster. Gone are the days of Dewey. Long live Google. Banned books are no longer really banned. They can be downloaded, for a price, to any e-reader. Pornography is available at the touch of a finger. Videos are forever imprinted on the internet. Cyber-bullying is in full swing. Wait... What did I say? Pornography? Videos? Bullying? What are our kids really up to?
I always fancied myself a laid back mom. When we had kids we had visions of talking to our children about the dangers of the world. Internet included. We had decided that we wouldn't be those parents that would put parental locks on the television or on the computer because everything was in a common area. We eliminated the need. There was no way they could seek out "danger" without us knowing about it.
Boy were we wrong.
It used to be that boys would look under the mattress or in the closet or garage or wherever for their dad's Playboys, Juggs, Hustler or Penthouse Magazines. But hard copies are so passe. Who wants to scour through articles to get to the good stuff when you're a twelve year boy who's curious about the female form? Not today's youth. Not when it's so easy to snag a laptop when your mom is taking a nap or cooking dinner. Not when any search engine will give you all the answers you need to know. And some you don't.
All I have to say is thank God for the History function on my browser.
I understand that boys will boys. This is really not much different than snagging Dad's mags and sneaking a peak. But it's so much more dangerous. There are so many things that a boy can accidentally stumble upon that we as parents don't want him to see. And once you see something, you can't unsee it. So it is up to us to protect our kids from the internet. I succumbed. We installed a parental control on the kids' side of the computer. And the television downstairs. Sigh...
But how we do control what they do at other people's homes? The truth is, we don't. We have to trust our kids to do the right thing. When I was high school I was working on a class project with a couple of boys. We were all together at one boy's house putting the final touches on our project. When we were done, they decided to get on the internet and search for sexy pictures of Teri Hatcher. Of course all that was available then was dial up on early home computers and the picture never fully loaded. That memory sticks out clearly in my brain. Boys being boys in an era that was slowly changing. The point is, we can't control what they do at their friend's houses but we can try to monitor it if we're sneaky.
My kids made the mistake of telling me that they had made a YouTube video with the kids down the street. I found it and watched it. It was completely innocent. Basically they were just playing a game in the front yard. The point, however, was that my minor children were video taped by other minor children and posted it on the internet to a minor child's YouTube account for the world to see. Of course I was furious. Not at the content, but at the sheer naivete of their actions. They had no idea that what they did was wrong. They didn't have parental approval from me to be on the internet. The account holder is under age and has a public account. These children don't know how to set privacy settings to protect themselves (or my kids), yet they have been given this powerful technology by their own parents. I now regularly check this account for videos. Yes, I am a stalker. I know who this person is watching, commenting on, posting and doing every minute of every day. The things we do to watch out for our kids.
My children (ages 12, 10, and 8) don't have cell phones, iPads, Game-boys, Nintendo DS or any other handheld electronic devices. We made that decision as parents to keep our kids part of a real community, not a cyber one. They walk with their heads held high, not staring at a screen. I'm not against the advancement of technology. In fact they use technology everyday and are very adept at it. I'm just against placing such power in the hands of those who don't understand how to use it. There's enough of that in the adult world.
So call me old fashioned, over protective, hypocritical... Call me what you will. But my kids came to understand why I felt what they did was wrong. So maybe we did get to have our dialogue about the dangers of the world after all. And do you know what? It was a good talk.
I always fancied myself a laid back mom. When we had kids we had visions of talking to our children about the dangers of the world. Internet included. We had decided that we wouldn't be those parents that would put parental locks on the television or on the computer because everything was in a common area. We eliminated the need. There was no way they could seek out "danger" without us knowing about it.
Boy were we wrong.
It used to be that boys would look under the mattress or in the closet or garage or wherever for their dad's Playboys, Juggs, Hustler or Penthouse Magazines. But hard copies are so passe. Who wants to scour through articles to get to the good stuff when you're a twelve year boy who's curious about the female form? Not today's youth. Not when it's so easy to snag a laptop when your mom is taking a nap or cooking dinner. Not when any search engine will give you all the answers you need to know. And some you don't.
All I have to say is thank God for the History function on my browser.
I understand that boys will boys. This is really not much different than snagging Dad's mags and sneaking a peak. But it's so much more dangerous. There are so many things that a boy can accidentally stumble upon that we as parents don't want him to see. And once you see something, you can't unsee it. So it is up to us to protect our kids from the internet. I succumbed. We installed a parental control on the kids' side of the computer. And the television downstairs. Sigh...
But how we do control what they do at other people's homes? The truth is, we don't. We have to trust our kids to do the right thing. When I was high school I was working on a class project with a couple of boys. We were all together at one boy's house putting the final touches on our project. When we were done, they decided to get on the internet and search for sexy pictures of Teri Hatcher. Of course all that was available then was dial up on early home computers and the picture never fully loaded. That memory sticks out clearly in my brain. Boys being boys in an era that was slowly changing. The point is, we can't control what they do at their friend's houses but we can try to monitor it if we're sneaky.
My kids made the mistake of telling me that they had made a YouTube video with the kids down the street. I found it and watched it. It was completely innocent. Basically they were just playing a game in the front yard. The point, however, was that my minor children were video taped by other minor children and posted it on the internet to a minor child's YouTube account for the world to see. Of course I was furious. Not at the content, but at the sheer naivete of their actions. They had no idea that what they did was wrong. They didn't have parental approval from me to be on the internet. The account holder is under age and has a public account. These children don't know how to set privacy settings to protect themselves (or my kids), yet they have been given this powerful technology by their own parents. I now regularly check this account for videos. Yes, I am a stalker. I know who this person is watching, commenting on, posting and doing every minute of every day. The things we do to watch out for our kids.
My children (ages 12, 10, and 8) don't have cell phones, iPads, Game-boys, Nintendo DS or any other handheld electronic devices. We made that decision as parents to keep our kids part of a real community, not a cyber one. They walk with their heads held high, not staring at a screen. I'm not against the advancement of technology. In fact they use technology everyday and are very adept at it. I'm just against placing such power in the hands of those who don't understand how to use it. There's enough of that in the adult world.
So call me old fashioned, over protective, hypocritical... Call me what you will. But my kids came to understand why I felt what they did was wrong. So maybe we did get to have our dialogue about the dangers of the world after all. And do you know what? It was a good talk.
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