IPhone childhood

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

I'll start from afar. From three years old. Although, in fact, even earlier: from one and a half years … I left the office for boiling water and found the end of a loud scene at the reception desk: a young mother tears a tiny girl off her leg, unhooks one finger at a time, while commenting: “And after all, it will not come off until I give the phone to her!

I won't give it, I said, I need him myself! " The girl is a little over a year old, but she yells loudly and expressively: “Let me play! Playaaaat! " And I wondered - who is being cut into pieces here?

The main request of all parents in recent years looks like this: how to take a child away from the computer? You won't like my answer. Because the only thing that can be done is not to put the child in front of the screen. At all.

History of the issue

Let's sit back in our chair and remember how our own childhood went. From zero to one and a half years: a child in his arms, in an arena, on the floor, in a stroller. He is entertained by the strength of the whole family, sometimes left to cry alone while his mother takes a shower or visits the toilet. In case of difficult life circumstances, the baby is sent to a nursery, where the situation is about the same, minus the family. He bangs his head on everything, brings down a mountain of ironed linen on himself, voluptuously squeezes the cat, then sobs that she is scratching …

From one and a half to about three years: a child walks by the hand, walks in the yard or in the park, digs selflessly in the mud, collects cigarette butts and drags them into his mouth, throws sand, falls and gets up, tries to pick out an eye from the dog, throws up a dead bird to make it fly …

Three to five. It stands half a day frozen in front of the open garage door, where the car is being repaired. Sits, sick, on the windowsill, wrapped in a blanket and watching the traffic. Helps mom on Saturday to mop the floor, then to dad to knock out the carpet in the snow. She falls asleep where she found herself, while my mother rushes about, like a shot, in search of the loss. She travels with her parents to the dacha on four types of transport, this is practically a round-the-world trip …

Goes to school at the age of seven, there are friends, football after school, comes when it gets dark, filthy to the point of impossibility and hungry like a wolf, falls asleep over the lessons. Rides a bike, explores attics and basements, gets into trouble, loses a shift, briefcase, jacket … Goes to an aircraft modeling club and hockey in winter, takes books from the Adventure Library, reads them at night and in the toilet, raves about Captain Blood and Robin Good …

His life is full of events and accomplishments, it requires the exertion of all the forces of the soul and body. Sometimes he jumps up at night with open and meaningless eyes, mutters something fervently and falls back into bed like a dead warrior. He fantasizes, whispers to himself as he slowly trudges home after school along the tram tracks. It has its own "places of power", an ice cream stall or a bakery window, a garbage can - a source of innumerable treasures. He knows the courtyards that you don't need to enter, and the entrances where you can wait out the thunderstorm. He has friends among adults and enemies among children. This is a magical, completely real world. Unlike digital today …

Matrix. loading

Now we are looking at how the current generation lives. From zero to one and a half, the difference is small, except that mom has more free time (long live diapers and washing machines!) And a lot of anxiety. Therefore, the child is mostly fastened: to the stroller, to the mother, to the highchair … there can be no question of quietly crawling around the yard. All around danger, dirt, syringes and dog poop. Unless on the sea you can get to the clean sand, but not everyone succeeds. In order to survive with a child in a modern city apartment, a variety of devices, toys, development games, distractions have been invented. Everything in order to prevent the child from exploring the world around him on his own.

And he is bored, desperately bored. He wants to climb, dig, pour and pour, break, sniff, spill. Mom wants to calmly wander in social networks. Okay, let's say Mom wants to cook dinner. But to be honest, the child does not interfere with the preparation of dinner, washing, ironing, cleaning the floors as much as surfing the Internet.

Therefore, as soon as the child grows up to independent sitting, he is handed an old phone or tablet, or, if everything is really bad, the TV turns on.

Oh great, now he's busy and mom has half an hour for herself.

We also switched to cars almost without exception. If earlier the children were calmly taken in public transport (there was no other), now the mere thought that the child will be in the same volume with the crowd of horrible and (most likely) infectious people causes panic. Therefore, we carry the child ONLY in the car. Yeah, traffic jams. And very soon it becomes clear that the child is also bored in the car. And he scandals and rages. And being distracted from the road is very, very dangerous. Therefore, and only for safety reasons, the child is given to be torn apart by an iPhone with a Fruit Ninja.

Queues at the children's clinic, metro, train, any waiting situation when parents do not know how to occupy a child, or do not want to strain - an electronic friend will help out everywhere! This is a great way:

- seek obedience (if you lie down without whims - I'll let you play)

- punish and threaten (if you behave like this, I will take the iPad)

- get a respite yourself

- make gifts

- and even stimulate good studies (a quarter without triples - and you will get the fifth iPhone for the New Year).

Shouts "Why is he not interested in anything, wants nothing, does not go anywhere and does not communicate with us? !!" will begin a little later, by the age of 12. There is another important aspect of the topic. Some 15 years ago, children massively observed the daily life of their parents: work, housework, even children were taken to the store more often. I judge this on the basis of children's drawings. In 1994, the diagnostic drawing "Family" usually depicted either "mom is in the kitchen, dad is on the couch in front of the TV, I ride cars in my room", or "mom, dad, I walk along the street hand in hand."

Today, children's drawings show that even a cat has its own iPad. Everyone is sitting, buried in monitors. A bleak picture, as Eeyore's donkey said.

Teach children to live

Agree, this is our main task as parents, the ultimate goal of our educational efforts: to prepare children for independent survival in the modern world during the years of childhood and adolescence. For the most part, we do it, and we do it well. We give education, take care of health, try to surround with good people and things.

But learning is mainly by example. So what do our children see? Our backs covering computer screens? They do not go to work with their parents (with very rare exceptions), spend little time on the street in a free search, although this is absolutely necessary for their growth, they have no reason or opportunity to learn about the world and themselves. Today's urban children live in a sterile world of computer technology, virtual communication and game fights.

What is called "role-playing games" in special literature - mothers and daughters, robber Cossacks, simply recreating any fictional plot that begins with the words "come on, as if you …" - has now been transferred to the worldwide network and consists mainly of destruction representatives of the afterlife.

I don't know how to get them off the monitors. The alternative to the world, where you are an almighty Hero, should be so attractive that the child wants to turn to face her. What can you offer? You yourself will have to close the computer, log off the Internet, turn off all gadgets …

Remember your childhood … to cut a "siskin" out of a block and find a suitable bat. Rummage (okay, I allow you to rummage for a good cause) on the Internet and find all the figures in the "rubber band". Go to the site of the Game expert and buy Dixit or Monopoly. But you still have to play by yourself, people are not yet brought home with home delivery. You are ready?

You are ready to endure his addictive withdrawal to cancel the computer, withstand waves of aggression against you, attempts at blackmail (“I’ll throw myself out the window if you don’t give me the tablet!”) You will be able to communicate every evening, despite the fatigue after a whole day at work with a teenager who doesn't really want to communicate? Walking with him, chatting, visiting and receiving guests?

You will have to teach him again, show all the possibilities of our world, and improve relations. To endure anxiety and depression - after all, any rejection of the usual pleasure leads first to depression. Teach him to walk, play, cook food, buy groceries, watch the sunset, read aloud about Three Men in a Boat, chat quietly in the car, sing along to old bands. Now he can’t do any of this, he has headphones in his ears, his hands are busy with buttons on the screen. Remember that a letter can be written, not printed with a printer. And that the game is when friends see each other's eyes.

After all, this is NORMAL life, the way it should be. If you turn off your computer.