What Our Children Need to Fight the Effects of Technology

A few years back,  I had the privilege of sitting down and talking with Dr. Katey McPherson. She is an Internet safety expert, and she shared what our children need to fight the effects of technology. Our conversation was filled with all sorts of useful information, but more than anything I realized the importance of what I am teaching. There are specific things our children need to fight the effects of technology. What I teach in The Parenting Backpack is exactly what they need.

Dr. McPherson shared that if children do not have a safe place to process their big emotions, they often turn to the Internet to do so. Our children need us to listen, understand, and validate them while giving them the boundaries they need to keep them safe and healthy.  If they are not getting this at home, they will get it through the likes they get on Instagram, the views they get on Snapchat, the wins they get on Fortnite, and the dopamine rush they get from it all.

We must ask ourselves, how are we reacting to our children? Are we listening to them, understanding and validating them? Are we setting boundaries to keep them healthy and safe?

Our hope would be yes, but parenting has become very reactive for several reasons. Our reactions often come from our fears and insecurities, and society isn’t helping.

• The 24/7 news cycle creates fear. If you turn on the television, you have an excellent chance of seeing something scary: mass shootings, terrorist attacks, homicides, political fighting, racism, pandemics. Some argue that we are living during the safest time in history, and others would disagree, but either way, if we watch anything nonstop, it plants a seed of fear that grows inside of us. Fear sells, the media knows that, and it often causes us to feel paralyzed.
• The technological world has hit us over the head. Children are averaging an insane amount of time on technology: television, iPhones, iPads, iPods, computers, tablets, TikTok, Snapchat, Fortnite, and Grand Theft Auto. We are worried about what they are seeing, what they have access to, who is contacting them, if anyone is cyberbullying them, if they are addicted to technology, and so much more. It feels like the internet has hijacked our children’s brains, and we have no idea how to handle it.
• “Keeping up with the Joneses” has hit a whole new level. Parents have children running on hamster wheels with one goal in mind—raising the best________________ (you fill in the blank). We are so fearful that our children won’t “succeed” that we often try to fix our children’s mistakes and disappointments.

We want to react in ways that help our children, but our fears are often causing us to escalate in anger, or sink into guilt. When we parent from escalated anger or paralyzing guilt, we shift the way we parent and disconnect

If this is how you react, you are not alone. Don’t beat yourself up. Focus on your fears. How are they shifting the way that you parent? Start with awareness and then begin taking steps to change.  They will be some of the most important changes you will ever make in the lives of your children.

For more on this, read my book, The Parenting Backpack.