Growing Up Social: Raising Relational Kids in a Screen-Driven World

by Gary Chapman

One good rule of thumb is to keep all electronic media out of the children’s room, particularly with younger children. You don’t know what goes on after...

Seventy-one percent of eight- to eighteen-year-olds have a TV in their bedroom.8

It’s up to us

as parents to guide our children to the positives

Screen-Safe Family Pledge

Unfortunately, we live in a parenting culture where it is increasingly common for children to call the shots instead of the parents. Somehow adults have given in

to little girls in pigtails and angry, young boys who aren’t getting their way. Yet parents are responsible for the rearing of children, not the other way around.

Parenting is not a place where you can pass the buck. The responsibility for raising your child isn’t shouldered by the school, government, religious organization, or child-care worker. Although the involvement of community is important, your child needs you to be his primary teacher at every stage of his life.

Contemporary parenting has catered to many a child’s whim and become something of a popularity contest. We long to be liked by our kids and fear rocking the boat with them relationally. Or we simply don’t have the wherewithal to deal with tantrums, tears, and other battles of the will. It’s important to remind yourself that you are the parent, not the friend, of your child.

without clear leadership, today’s child feels entitled to choose whatever pleases him or her.

Parents are needed more than ever to provide instruction, correction, and positive modeling to a child regarding screen time, even if this digital world seems like unfamiliar territory.

We live in a brand-new era when children are digital natives and many parents are digital immigrants. In other words, many children know more about technology than their parents, and that is quite different from how the world worked hundreds of years ago.

During the print age, parents could read and have access to information that children could not. This led to an elevated status for adults and a clear delineation of childhood. Broadcast media then allowed children to peek into the world of adults through television, a world formerly hidden...

Parents struggle to understand th...

of children and teens, asking their children for advice on everything fro...

The lines between children and adults are becoming blurred.

Don’t give up your influence as a parent just because you don’t understand the latest gadget or website. Learn what apps and websites your children are using. Ask other parents to help you or take courses to gain a basic understanding. You cannot be left behind while your child journeys alone to a rapidly evolving world of screens. Without parental authority, Google becomes the answer to life’s questions.

We live not only in a multicultural world; we live in a multi-moral generation. People have all sorts of different ideas about what is right or wrong. Many moral standards that have been embraced for centuries are being questioned. On-screen entertainment often goes against the morals we are trying to instill in our children.

As a parent, make it your business to evaluate everything your kids bring into the home.

What music do they listen to? What are they watching on television or on DVD?

After you watch it, talk about a program and what values it promotes.

Sometimes you have to go against the grain to protect your family’s values.

Screens—the phone, computer, tablet, or TV—have become a default activity for many families.

Many parents give a child a personal phone way too early.

To give a child a phone or iPad with no limitations, no boundaries, no instructions, and no expectations is extremely detrimental to a child of any age.

Make your child’s bedroom a digital-free zone.

Don’t allow phones or screens during mealtimes.

Preserve car rides for conversation, not for earbuds, movies, or video games.

Schedule your child’s free time with non-screen activities.

then screen time can be scheduled in to become a part of their life, but not the main part.

Your child may throw a temper tantrum, but if you don’t deal with that tantrum at age three, he’ll still be throwing tantrums at age thirteen.

Don’t ever let your child’s temper tantrum work in his favor. If he gets what he wants by throwing a tantrum, you are training him to throw a tantrum more often because it’s effective.

Don’t be afraid to make unpopular decisions in the best interest of your child. Your goal as a parent isn’t to make your child feel good; your goal is to make him be a good person.

There is no computer program in the world comparable to an involved and loving parent providing guidance.

When you take your place as the authority figure in the home, your child will become more and more secure in the real world, not the screen world.

Obesity.

Impaired academic performance. Elementary students who have a television in their bedroom tend to be outperformed by peers who don’t have screens in the room.

Less time for play.

These side effects are experienced by any child, whether from a single-parent home or a two-parent home, but you can see how these side effects are especially detrimental for the child already struggling with behavioral and emotional problems.

Decide in advance what programs your child can watch.

Turn off the television when the program is over.

Don’t use the TV as background noise.

Make a screen-time chart fo...

Designate certain days of the week,

Don’t allow eating in front of the TV or computer.

Talk with your child

“I believe the most damaging effect of the digital world is the parent’s own dependence on digital media because it will become their child’s dependence.”

Parents are glued to their phones while they walk their kids from the parking lot to the school yard. At home, moms and dads constantly face screens, whether it’s a computer, tablet, television, or phone. We’re busy checking emails, social media, stock prices, daily news, and text messages. Headlines grab our attention while our kids go unnoticed.

No child wants to compete with screens for their parents’ attention, nor should a child have to. Yet adults are becoming increasingly dependent on their devices, eroding communication with their children. Kids don’t need constant attention from their parents, but they do need the assurance that they rank above the noise of the screen world.

Children learn from imitating parents from the very start.