I
read this article and immediately rushed to my husband who was in the living
room. To my horror, I realized I had been sitting hooked to our desktop
computer for last couple of minutes reading article after article; while my
husband was sprawled on the sofa holding his laptop and the Tab was lying on
the carpet (also switched on). What has become of us! Is technology taking over
our lives? I am not a phone person but I am a big time internet person. I love
surfing, and I spend hours on the net!
Coming
back to the article, if you don’t want to or have time to read the article; It
is about how not to give in to the peer pressure in providing your children with
the latest gadgets. It says the children are going to do exactly what they see
you doing, irrespective of what you teach them.
The
scene, which I described a little while ago, was a reality check for us. Here
we are completely besotted with all sorts of gadgets, so much that they are
almost taking over our lives and playing havoc with our attention span; and on
the other side, we fear the day when our baby will start asking for gadgets
because he would find his parents using one or the other all the time!
I
briefed my husband about this article and asked him how are we going to handle
such situation. Now just pay attention to what he said. He said we will make it
a point to meet up with the parents of our kid’s buddies and we would mutually
decide not to give such gadgets like mobile phones, Playstations and Ipods. I
asked him, “and why do you think they would go with your plan?” He said, “because
they would understand it is not good for the kids”.
Theoretically,
we all know children do not need these gadgets so soon, but even we don’t,
theoretically! And yet we spend so much time on one or the other! When I was a
kid, I can clearly remember two such occasions, where I created a scene right
at the shop to make my parents buy stuff for me. They also would not have
thought of those things (one was a toy phone and another were skates). May be
those things weren’t such which could impact my life so much, but giving mobile
phones and Playstations are big decisions.
My
husband said, “we would go to other parents’ place and discuss with them about
the impact of such gadgets on children, and I’m sure they would understand our
point, like we would if somebody else explained to us the same things”. I said,
“you could assume that because you are already open to the idea. There’s no
convincing involved here”. Other parents might have different ideas on what is
good for their children". To which he said, “our kid would obviously gel with
like-minded kids, who would not be very different from him, and whose parents
would obviously be like them.” So you see, my husband thinks the world is a
nice place where everything fits perfectly.
Then
he said, “don’t be so paranoid. These newspapers, articles and programmes focus
on extreme cases. Look around and tell me one such kid who is spoilt.” And like
always he had a point. Then I thought may be I was getting too unreasonable.
Kids are smarter these days.
Then,
I asked my husband, since we already have PS2 and PS3, what is he going to do
about those? “You can’t expect our kid not to play on the Playstations”. And
surprise, surprise, he said he would tell him not to! That takes me back to my
childhood. The more my mum told me not to have tea, I became obsessed about it,
and I still am! You can’t be playing on them yourself, and expect your child
not to; may be you can fix a time for it, may be allow him only when he plays
outdoors. I don’t want my kid to play football with joysticks; he better goes
outside and enjoys the game as it should be!
Aah!
Life was so much simpler earlier. If anybody has any suggestions on these
parenting issues, they are most welcome; and I apologize to keep ranting about
parenting. I can’t help it; it is the only thing which I can talk about right
now.
