Adventures in Parenting, take the lightsout challenge!
I'm taking a break from my normal fare to speak as a parent, to other parents.
This is Brooke and Brooke is 6 years old (and no she's not one of mine)
"Alexa ordered me a dollhouse and cookies,” Brooke explained to CBS 11
Yes I was in fact inspired to write this because Brooke asked Alexa to "order me a dollhouse and cookies," and that's just what Alexa did. A KidKraft Sparkle Mansion dollhouse to be exact, which costs about $170, and a tin of Royal Dansk sugar cookies, both of which arrived within a day or so.
What makes this newsworthy, and in my case, blog worthy, is that unfortunately, Alexa isn't a mischievous friend, or an older sibling, or even a local babysitter. In fact Alexa isn't flesh and blood at all. Alexa is a household virtual assistant service, built into Amazon's Echo device
Her parents only found out about the purchase when it arrived on their doorstep, much to the chagrin of her parents.
Yet this is the future of parenting!
Imagine your home filled with devices, toys and furnishings that respond to your child's every whim.
It's rapidly becoming a reality.
But at what cost?
In the case of the Neitzel family, the cost was $170 and a lesson learned to set a PIN on the virtual home assistant.
This is hardly the first time this has happened in recent years.
Consider the case of the 10 year old who ordered $10k worth of smurf berries through a video game, or the 14 month old who bought a vintage sports car on ebay by banging away at an unattended laptop.
These are humorous, somewhat costly mistakes that remind us not to lend our cellphones, tablets and other connected gadgets to the little carpet biters in our lives.
But are unexpected credit card bills the real cost of our always on 24/7 connected lives?
As our technology becomes more and more an extension of ourselves, we rely upon it to provide companionship and entertainment for not only ourselves, but those closest to us. We do this without so much as a second thought, but...
Perhaps we should spare it some thought?
By relying upon these devices to provide companionship and entertainment to our children, we're robbing them of the most important thing we can give them,
Our time!
Countless studies demonstrate time and time again that the single most important factor in a child's success in later life is simple parental involvement. The more time and interaction a child has with their mother, father, siblings and first order relatives the more confident and secure they become and this translates into success later in life.
This is one reason why government child protective services have begun to focus their efforts more on healing the family unit, than on removing the child from the home except in cases of imminent danger.
Why then are these "labor saving" devices, being used to save us from our most important labor? And for what purpose?
Tired and exhausted from the day?
Very important work must be done at home to meet a deadline tomorrow*
Want to binge watch netflix, child doesn't want to watch the same show, toss them the tablet and let them play games
Got friends over, don't want the kids interrupting so you tell them to go play video games?
I know it's difficult, but how valid are any of those reasons in the grand scheme of things really?
When I was a kid we had this giant thing to play with, it was called the outdoors.
Now days we live in such a state of constant fear that it's increasingly strange to hear the squeals of joy as children run and play in the park while their parents play and engage with them. In fact, generally if you do see children in the park and their parents are present at all, the parent is engaged in other tasks such as catching up on the latest happenings on facebook.
That's if you're lucky enough to even find a family out there. Now days even kindergartners have smartphones they are engrossed in 24/7. My own wife @ghostwriter and I were talking about this a couple of years ago. We lived in a nice neighborhood, with a lot of families and even it's own dedicated park, in a gated community but we'd be the only ones at the park at any given time. Why is that?
I'm sorry, I know this sounds like a guilt trip. I'm extremely guilty of this myself and it's my own inner reflections that are driving me to reach out with this.
What we're doing as a society isn't right, we're robbing an entire generation of their own ability to become caring parents. In fact the blase,blase, disconnected, jaded, "me! me! me!" attitude of both Gen X and the Millennials may be a direct result of our own well meaning parents, deciding that the glowing babysitter was best suited to raising us when we were kids.
And what has been the result of this?
We have entire generations now where ADD and even Asperger's and Autism have become common place.
Suicides, cyber bullying, and even just an inability to form lasting relationships.
Isn't some of this increase in mental health problems, due to better diagnostics and broader awareness?
Of course!
But not all of it, not even half of it.
The fact is that none of these devices we subject our children to constantly are warm and caring, they are cold, distant, mechanical. As a result we are raising children who are becoming cold, distant and mechanical.
It's true we as a species are colder and more distant than our parents were.
So maybe it's time to pull the plug on our always on connected lives!
I urge every parent here to take the #lightsout challenge!
Set aside a single day each week where all the electronics in the home are off the minute they step in the door. This means shut off the cell phones, tablets, home assistants, TV's video games and every other distraction. Then pull out the board games, some books, crayons whatever and spend the entire time together as a family. Talk, laugh, enjoy! Heck scream, shout and holler if you need the catharis. The point is to be a real human family for at least one day each week, then you can revert to your cyberlife the very next day.
Mondays seem to be better for this because Mondays always suck and you'll have lots of things to talk about.
To complete the challenge create a post here on steemit the following day, tag it #lightsout and tell us all about it. I can't promise you any prizes, but you'll get my upvote.
Most importantly you'll get to know your family again.
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I think the point of this post is to remind us that the only thing that matters when raising kids is how much love you instill in them. Shiny boxes can't do that. We are social creatures, we need human touch and direct involvement. We can't use glowing babysitters on a regular basis and expect to get happy, well adjusted adults in a few years.
The shiny boxes are entertainment, maybe even education. But they can't be a replacement for loving parents.
So at least 1 night per week, banish the glowing babysitters and have fun with your kids. Play with them, be silly, let them talk your ear off.
You might even make a rule that says no glowing objects at dinner.
Anyway, this post made me think of this video:
That was hilarious, thanks I needed that!
Couldn't agree more, and thanks for the reminder.
unfortunately, many parents think they can be replaced with technology and a lot of it starts from giving the child a tablet. I've seen younger than toddlers playing with one in a stroller.
This is so true!
On school days my kids are only allowed one hour screen time a day. If their homework is finished, they need to find a way to amuse themselves. On weekends and holidays they are glued to their phones and computers.
Hi @onetree I totally get what you're saying. But it's not just the cellphones and tablets, it's the entire digital world we live in. I'm really saying here, to take one day a week and completely unplug your family from all of it, so I really hope you'll take the challenge!
I understand your challenge, but I probably won't be able to do it. I absolutely agree that digital time of all sorts must be limited. The whole family must be up for it though, or it simply won't work.
Understood, it's not for everybody. But for some folks it might help and it's something to try.
Good night
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You're right... all of it... oh boy.
Thanks! I take that as the utmost compliment!
A lot rings true, not only from my adventures in parenting, but also my parents' 'skills'. Oh boy... can'o'worms time!
Yeah while I was writing this like I said I'm mostly digging deep to show everyone something I don't always admit to myself even. Anyways, found this, but didn't include it because the images were already getting heavy. Felt appropriate, especially in my case if you just swap mother for father :D
Yeah... unfortunately for me, I had to learn from my parents' mistakes. Fortunately for my children, I learned fast - 'How not to parent' was the best lesson I learned from mine... hence the can'o'worms comment :)
Ha... being of Greek Decent, I was weened on Olive Oil. A day without it and lemon juice is like a day without sunshine.
Try this; instead of butter on toast... use olive oil, salt and oregano.
Kids socialize differently that they did when i was young. WE are socializing here, now. they do the same, on THEIR formats. That lack of nature and nurture is a problem. The culture will be less for it, but , do you want to give up the internet? It is a tool, like any other and more addictive than most.
No that would absolutely be the wrong read of the article and I apologize if that felt like an element of the post.
What I am saying is that taking a single day each week to unplug completely from everything for the whole household, should be a very good thing for any family especially if done regularly.
Play, talk, sing whatever, just do it without some glowing, beeping device involved.
I'm not saying forever, I'm only saying for 1 day each week.
And if you do it, please let us know your experience.
I'm sorry, but as a Mother myself the first part of this post is absolutely hilarious hahaha. And I like the second part too. When my daughter was 10 months old we joined something called Playcentre - where the parents are the teachers. So we get to hang out with our children and do super fun things. The best choice we could of made!!
Omg -- I don't know what I'd do if a doll house and tin of cookies showed up at my door, haha!