Digital age means new challenges for parents

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Moms and dads: Have you ever questioned your parenting skills when it comes to raising your kids in the digital age?

A local workshop this evening, hosted by a technology writer and researcher, is designed to give parents some help in teaching their children how to navigate the online world safely and effectively.

“They need to know how to post on social media in a way that is going to be appropriate and effective, they need to have basic technical skills so that they can not only do their school work, but work in a world where more and more of our work takes place online,” says Alexandra Samuel.

She adds coping with the overwhelming distraction of the digital world is another big concern for parents.

“As parents and as individuals, we need to find ways of bringing a quality of intention to how we spend our attention, right? We need to think about… ‘Is this Buzzfeed quiz about the world’s cutest kitten really the most meaningful way I can spend the next half hour of my life?’ Maybe I’d rather unplug and have a face-to-face conversation, or maybe I’d like to use this time to post the photos of my latest trip so I can share them with my friends. Maybe I’d like to use it to write something. Maybe I’d like to use it to read something that’s going to inspire me.

“It isn’t always about unplugging, but it is about making choices for ourselves and teaching our kids to make choices that are actually more fulfilling so that our time online helps us become the kinds of individuals we want to be, and also as parents, the kind of parents we want to be.”

Parents at the talk will have an opportunity to develop a technology plan and policy for their own families.

“But the approach is driven by research I’ve been doing over the last two years with about 10,000 North American parents looking at the differences in family technology styles,” says Samuel.

“The challenge is often we hear these guidelines about kids and about screen time, but there are many different kinds of kids and many different kinds of screen time, and there are also many different kinds of parents. Some parents are what I call ‘mentors’ — that’s about a third of parents who actively try to guide their kids’ use of technology — but there are also parents who I call ‘enablers,’ who really let their kids drive the technology agenda. They trust their kids online. Then at the other end of the scale, we have ‘limiters’: people who are really trying to minimize their kids’ use of technology and keep them offline as much as possible.”

Samuel adds the issue she hears about over and over again is kids spending too much time in front of a screen and too many battles erupting.

“It’s not that the technology itself is a problem and it’s not even that the time is a problem. But when you see that your kids are having a hard time unplugging, you know that the activities they’ve been involved in online are more than they have the emotional capacity to disengage from, and so it’s your job as a parent to put the structures around that so that they can find a way to unplug.”

The workshop takes place at SFU Harbour Centre at 7 p.m.