Mary Ian McAteer, MD, FAAP
Private practice pediatrician
Indianapolis, Indiana
I am all for establishing screen
time rules for children, but how about screen time rules for parents? Every day I see instances where my families
have their devices situated between themselves and real life experiences in
front of them. They are busy texting as
they walk into the office. They ask me to “hold on” while they take a more important
call. Occasionally, they even Google a diagnosis or medication while we are
discussing it in the exam room.
It is not just children that are
glued to their devices. Parents seem equally unable to disconnect. The image of a family walking through the
park talking to each other and taking in the scenery has been replaced by a
baby in the stroller tapping away at his iPad, a parent bent over a phone
balanced on the handles, the other parent walking beside them chatting away on
a Bluetooth.
Our children learn to communicate
by watching and imitating their parents.
It is heartbreaking to see a family out for dinner, what should be a
shared family experience, and instead, everyone is intently interacting with
their own personal device. This is a missed opportunity both for shared family
time but also to teach and model appropriate social interactions for a child. Conversations
are difficult enough without being distracted by a smartphone and interrupted
by devices beeping, ringing and vibrating.
Children first learn the rules of
polite social interactions from their parents, but even older children and
teens need these behaviors reinforced. Unfortunately, it seems that for many
parents having a quiet child at a restaurant is the goal and if that is more
easily achieved by handing him a smartphone or an iPad many parents see that as
a “win.”
But, these same parents are
surprised and frustrated when their children don’t know how to sit quietly in
the pediatrician’s office while their parents try to have a conversation with
their doctor. Or, they don’t know how to look a person in the eye when they are
asked a question. Yet, is it really
surprising? How should these children know how to interact if those modeling
behavior for them seem constantly distracted by a device and don’t look them in the eye when speaking. Couple this with the fact that almost all of
their opportunities to learn and practice social interaction have been
eliminated or smoothed over by handing them a device?
I would argue that even on long car
rides or tournaments, where these devices seem very handy, that it is in fact better
to use these opportunities to engage each other in creative conversation or word
games to pass the time -- together.
As a member of the older generation
of pediatricians, I accept the positives of constant connectedness and the
relationship building potential of social media. I am getting used to it and enjoy connecting
with more people than ever, even with cool emoticons. But I see the need to encourage our younger
generation of parents to slow down a little and use trusted ways of teaching
communication and social development.
They should take the time to enjoy the spontaneity of childhood,
dedicate time to fully participate in face-to-face discussions, turn off
distractions when a task needs to be accomplished or an experience simply
shared. This can be a slow, sometimes
painful process, but it needs to be prioritized in this fast paced, glamorous
world of multi-media society.
