[humanser] Parenting While Plugged In

[David Stayer]

Thank you for this most interesting article.
Each day is a precious gift
David R. Stayer, LCSW-R

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From: "Mary Ann Rojek" <brightsmile1953 at comcast.net>
Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 6:32 AM
To: "Human Services Mailing List" <humanser at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [humanser] Parenting While Plugged In

> June 9, 2010
> The Risks of
> By JULIE SCELFO
>  WHILE waiting for an elevator at the Fair Oaks Mall near her
> home in
> Virginia recently, Janice Im, who works in early-childhood
> development,
> witnessed a troubling incident between a young boy and his
> mother.
>  The boy, who Ms.  Im estimates was about 2 1/2 years old, made
> repeated
> attempts to talk to his mother, but she wouldn't look up from her
> BlackBerry.  "He's like: 'Mama? Mama? Mama"' was Ms.  Im
> recalled.  "And then
> he starts tapping her leg.  And she goes: 'Just wait a second.
> Just wait
> a second."
>  Finally, he was so frustrated, Ms.  Im said, that "he goes,
> 'Ahhh6'" and
> tries to bite her leg."
>  Much of the concern about cellphones and instant messaging and
> Twitter
> has been focused on how children who incessantly use the
> technology are
> affected by it.  But parents' use of such technology -- and its
> effect on
> their offspring -- is now becoming an equal source of concern to
> some
> child-development researchers.
> Sherry Turkle, director of the Massachusetts Institute of
> Technology
> Initiative on Technology and Self, has been studying how parental
> use of
> technology affects children and young adults.  After five years
> and 300
> interviews, she has found that feelings of hurt, jealousy and
> competition are widespread.  Her findings will be published in
> "Alone
> Together" early next year by Basic Books.
>  In her studies, Dr.  Turkle said, "Over and over, kids raised
> the same
> three examples of feeling hurt and not wanting to show it when
> their mom
> or dad would be on their devices instead of paying attention to
> them: at
> meals, during pickup after either school or an extracurricular
> activity,
> and during sports events."
>  Dr.  Turkle said that she recognizes the pressure adults feel
> to make
> themselves constantly available for work, but added that she
> believes
> there is a greater force compelling them to keep checking the
> screen.
>  "There's something that's so engrossing about the kind of
> interactions
> people do with screens that they wall out the world," she said.
> "I've
> talked to children who try to get their parents to stop texting
> while
> driving and they get resistance, 'Oh, just one, just one more
> quick one,
> honey.' It's like 'one more drink.'"
>  Laura Scott Wade, the director of ethics for a national medical
> organization in Chicago, said that six months ago her son,
> Lincoln, then
> 3 1/2, got so tired of her promises to get off the computer in
> "just one
> more minute" that he resorted to the kind of tactic parents
> typically
> use.
>  "He makes me set the timer on the microwave," Ms.  Wade said.
> "And when
> it dings he'll say, '-Every on1' and he'll say, 'Don't bring your
> phone.'
> his
>  Not all child-development experts think smartphone and laptop
> use by
> parents is necessarily a bad thing, of course.  Parents have
> always had
> to divide their attention, and researchers point out that there's
> a
> difference between quantity and quality when it comes to
> conversations
> between parents and children.
> "It sort of comes back to quality time, and distracted time is
> not
> high-quality time, whether parents are checking the newspaper or
> their
> BlackBerry," said Frederick J.  Zimmerman, a professor at the
> University
> of California, Los Angeles, School of Public Health who has
> studied how
> television can distract parents.  He also noted that smartphones
> and
> laptops may enable some parents to spend more time at home, which
> may,
> in turn, result in more, rather than less, quality time overall.
>  There is little research on how parents' constant use of such
> technology
> affects children, but experts say there is no question that
> engaged
> parenting -- talking and explaining things to children, and
> responding to
> their questions -- remains the bedrock of early childhood
> learning.
>  Betty Hart and Todd R.  Risley's landmark 1995 book,
> "Meaningful
> Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American
> Children,"
> shows that parents who supply a language-rich environment for
> their
> children help them develop a wide vocabulary, and that helps them
> learn
> to read.
>  The book connects language use at home with socioeconomic
> status.
> According to its findings, children in higher socioeconomic homes
> he
> an average of 2,153 words an hour, whereas those in working-class
> households hear only about 1,251; children in the study whose
> parents
> were on welfare heard an average of 616 words an hour.
>  The question is: Will devices like smartphones change that?
> Smartphone
> users tend to have higher incomes; research from the Nielsen
> Company
> shows that they are twice as likely to make more than $100,000 a
> ye
> than the average mobile subscriber.  If increased use of
> technology
> encroaches on the time that well-to-do families spend
> communicating with
> their children, some could become the victims of successes
> originally
> thought to help them.
>  Dr.  Hart, who is now professor emeritus at the University of
> Kansas Life
> Span Institute, said that more research is needed to find out
> whether
> the constant use of smartphones and other technology is
> interfering with
> parent-child communications.  But she expressed hope that more
> parents
> would consider how their use of electronic devices might be
> limiting
> their ability to meet their children's needs.
>  Part of the reason the children in affluent homes she studied
> developed
> larger vocabularies by the time they were 3 is that "parents are
> holding
> kids, the kids are on their lap while the parent is reading a
> book," Dr.
> Hart said.  "It is important for parents to know when they're
> talking to
> kids, they're transferring affection as well as words.  When you
> talk to
> people, there's always an implicit message, 'I like you1' or 'I
> don't
> like you.' his
>  Meredith Sinclair, a mother and blogger in Wilmette, Ill., said
> she had
> no idea how what she calls her "addiction to e-mail and social
> media Web
> sites" was bothering her children until she established an e-mail
> and
> Internet ban between 4 and 8 p.m., and her children responded
> with glee.
> "When I told them, my 12-year-old, Maxwell, was like, 'Yes6'" Ms.
> Sinclair said.
>  "You can't really do both," she added.  "If I'm at all
> connected, it's
> too tempting.  I need to make a distinct choice."
>  Articles in this series are examining how a deluge of data can
> affect
> the way people think and behave.
>
>
>
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> signature database 5198 (20100615) __________
>
> The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.
>
> http://www.eset.com
>
>



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> __________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus 
> signature database 5198 (20100615) __________
>
> The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.
>
> http://www.eset.com
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> 

__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 5198 (20100615) __________

The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.

http://www.eset.com