What is the correct age to give a child a cellphone?The modern-day child is being thrust into a rapidly expanding digital and cyber world, whether they are ready for it or not. The question that was posed to me was, “At what age should a child receive their first cell phone?”
If only it were that simple and if only society had written rules on how to govern social media and its appropriate etiquette.
Sadly, too many children and parents find themselves in a situation way over their heads when it is too late to reverse the precedent that has already been set. As parents, we should aim to be pro-active. In an ideal world, if parents could agree on unwritten regulations, then we could minimise the added cyber peer pressure that our children are experiencing.
I find myself in the advantageous position of being a parent to a tween (pre-teen) as well as a high school teacher for twenty years, teaching Life Orientation, Social Sciences and English. Thus, I have made it a priority to try to best equip myself and to empower my own children and pupils.
At the beginning of the year, I assigned a task to my grade 7 pupils to interview various age groups regarding cellphone usage. Based on their findings, they had to formulate their own cell phone etiquette policy. Their findings were astonishing. Many tweens had already encountered cyber bullying or inappropriate usage of social media. When conducting my own research amongst pupils, teachers, psychologists and parents, one thing became clear: Cellphones are unfortunately a necessary evil.
While we do not have the choice to ignore the necessity of our children having a cell phone, we should be intentional in our navigation and set our own “terms and conditions”.
When our children learn to drive, they first need a learner’s license and adult supervision. Why then, can we not create a similar platform with cell phones, before we just toss them the metaphorical keys and expect them to know how to drive?
Cell phones are intriguing and as exciting as getting your first car. The sense of independence and freedom combine to make the user want immediate access and license. However, we never grant a child a license before they learn how to drive and pass the test.
Receiving your first cell phone should be a significant rite of passage and an exciting phase in your teenager’s life. It could be likened to getting your first bicycle. Accompanied with the thrill, is the need to learn how to ride the bicycle as well.
Most Parents and teachers agree that thirteen is an acceptable age to receive a cell phone, provided that the child is mature enough to abide by rules set at home and at school. The determining factor should not be a matter of convenience only, whereby parents simply hand down their old phones to their children in order to satisfy a desire and keep them occupied.
Did you know that Facebook has an age restriction of 13? WhatsApp has now changed its age restriction in the European Union from 13 to 16 years of age. One can assume these age restrictions have been put in place for a good reason.
Larian Botha, Teacher and Parent – Southdowns College
Bill Corbett has a degree in clinical psychology and has been invited to deliver the keynote address at a large education conference in Holland this Fall.He is happily married with three grown children, three grandchildren, and three step children, and resides in Enfield, CT. You can visit his Web site
www.CooperativeKids.com for further information and parenting advice.
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Should toddlers be exposed to technology?By Anne-Marie Reed
Watching your two-year-old princess swiping effortlessly through the apps on your iPad does not necessarily imply that she’s ready to be exposed to technology. That said, it is natural for toddlers in their explorative phase to prefer playing with tech toys over traditional toys and games.
Traditional toys and games all have one feature in common – the child needs to engage with them in order to give them any entertainment value. Engagement implies that the child has to make them work, they don’t just provide entertainment by pressing a button. In addition, traditional games require a fair amount of creativity and personalisation, whereas most digital games are pre-set; creativity lies in the hands of the programmers. A comparison between a lifeless box of wooden puzzle pieces and Candy Crush on your phone should explain this point sufficiently.
The “good” stuff always requires more effort. We know this from all sectors of our lives: health, fitness, relationships, etc. But does this mean that we should keep those tiny, inquisitive hands off our digital devices?
Research reveals that parents mainly use technology, including television, as a babysitter when the going gets tough. As a parent myself, with vivid memories of those incredibly rewarding (and exhausting) times with two toddlers, I understand this completely. The question, however, remains: is it damaging for children between the ages of one and six years old to be exposed to technology?
Dr Michelle Ponti, a paediatrician and chair of the Digital Health task force at the CPS, reported that, based on recent research in Canada, children under two years old should not be getting any screen time at all, while children between the ages of two and five should be limited to a maximum of two hours a day – and that includes television time.
Once you start searching for research reports on this topic, you realise that the question is not necessarily whether young children should be exposed to technology, but rather, why you would want to share your tech gadgets with your toddler.
So, before exposing your toddler to technology, consider the following:
- Children should have a screen time limit, based on age. A maximum of two hours screen time per day is a good general guideline for toddlers.
- Technology steals the time your child should be using to explore, create, craft, or for imaginary play. You cannot replace this time at a later stage – if your child missed out on these activities as a toddler, it cannot be caught up when he or she is older.
- Screen time can be divided between education and entertainment. However, to do this successfully, you must ask yourself why you want your child to sit in front of the television instead of playing with his toys. Is it to learn something? Or is it to keep him entertained without breaking anything or hurting himself? Incorporating educational digital content, such as interactive digital storybooks, where the child can hear the correct pronunciation of certain words, can be very advantageous. Another good example of a locally developed digital program for kids from the age of four, is the CAMI Perceptual Skills Builder. This program addresses basic perceptual skills such as colour, shape, spatial orientation, retention and quantity in both English and Afrikaans.
- Technology can be a useful tool to actively spend family time together as it serves as a platform for parents to play age appropriate games with their children while actually having fun themselves. We know that the best time spent with children is when you enter their arena, not when you invite them into yours.
Exposing toddlers to technology before the age of two is not recommended. As they get older, however, the true value of technology for toddlers lies in shared experiences with parents, whether that is to read an interactive book or build a shelter in Minecraft together!
When in doubt about allowing technology in your toddler’s life, keep in mind that the playful learning and cognitive development that happens when a little girl dresses her doll before they visit the queen for a tea party, cannot be regained at a later stage.
Bill Corbett has a degree in clinical psychology and has been invited to deliver the keynote address at a large education conference in Holland this Fall.He is happily married with three grown children, three grandchildren, and three step children, and resides in Enfield, CT. You can visit his Web site
www.CooperativeKids.com for further information and parenting advice.
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How To Instantly Organize Childhood MemoriesHow do you survive an influx of your kids’ stuff pouring into your home from school on a regular basis? Today it’s a drawing of your family, tomorrow it’s a painting, yesterday it was a school photo, 3 weeks ago it was a special valentine’s card and next week it might be a footprint in clay.
And I’m sure your memory keeping doesn’t stop with creative objects. During the year you’ll take digital photos of a birthday ring, receive a medal of achievement from a sports day and near year end, purchase a video of a school concert.
Memory keeping, I’m sure you’ll agree, doesn’t stop there. You’ll most likely celebrate a birthday with a specific theme, and you’ll enjoy a family holiday. Both events will bring loads of digital photos and videos to show for them.
And that’s just for one year. Now multiply that by the number of years your child goes to school and multiply the stash of keepsakes you have for every other child you have. Oh, my! That’s a lot of, well… good stuff!
Who else is living with the dilemma of clutter in their living space? So why then, do we collect all these objects that take over our lives?
I don’t know about you, but my heart goes all mushy when delight fills my daughters’ eyes, as she delivers her little masterpiece into my hands, after a day at school. Her unique voice rambles away with joyful excitement as she explains her creative work.
I love being part of her development, watching her grow and flourish from day to day. I especially enjoy participating in the progressing maturity of her work. And that’s why I tend to keep a careful selection of her beautiful efforts. Each piece telling a story of her childhood journey. Sentimental items, that’ll one day take her back in time, of days long forgotten.
Browsing through photos of when she was a baby and toddler, never ceases to amaze her. Again, and again, she loves to travel back in time and witness how she has grown over the years. I feel particularly fuzzy inside, when she suddenly gets excited about a birthday theme she had, or friends that were present in her life. She suddenly remembers stories of her past and confidently tells us about them, and as a family, we share in her joy.
Children are a joy! As parents we choose to celebrate their lives. And most of the time, I’m sure you’ll agree with me, all these precious memories and valuable mementos of their childhood, are of course, very sentimental. And that’s the reason why we keep these tokens of their lives.
How much we tend to keep, is purely a reflection of who we are as individuals. Some moms will keep more, some will keep less, but the point is, we all keep something, because there is priceless value associated to whatever we choose to keep.
The problem doesn’t lie with keeping these treasured pieces. The problem therein lies, on where we keep them and how we display all these very dear tokens of childhood.
The truth is, most of us moms and dads, think we have solutions for saving our children’s prized works and achievements. We think we have all our digital memories all saved safely and sorted. But if we ask ourselves honestly, do we really have it together?
I’ve experienced it all myself and I’m sure dozens of you feel the same. From boxes, of all shapes and sizes, to envelopes, files, books, scrapbooks, flip files, albums, drawers and shelves. We’ve all tried and tested a mix of them all.
Some work, some don’t but the combination of assorted methods tend to create havoc on in our lives.
To make things worse, and with the advent of the digital world, well this just bamboozles our filing methods all together. Because simply put, there are way too many videos and photos to look through in a single lifetime. And they too, are just dotted all over the place in various drives, SD cards, memory sticks, computers, phones, CDs and DVDs.
Do you feel swamped? Do you need a life jacket yet?
If you are anything like I was, or how most people are, you’re using a bunch of standalone keepsake methods that are cluttering up your home and life. In isolation they probably work, but honestly, they negatively alter the way every childhood story should unfold, that is, chronologically, in unified sequence.
If you want to feel better, faster, I’ll pinpoint ONE staggering storage solution, that’ll save you money, space, time, chaos in the long term. More importantly, this one revolutionary system is guaranteed to accurately and chronologically keep a variety of ALL your keepsakes, art and memories together, in ONE place, in a neat, tidy, organized and compact way.
A way that is not only easy to put together, instant to enjoy and look through, but impressively tracks childhood year by year, whilst keeping all documents safe, from anything that can destroy them.
ForeverChilds – My File About Me has made a huge difference in my life, and it’s had an impact on the lives of thousands of our happy customers too.
I invite you to embark on a new adventure. It’s truly a delight to watch your child grow and capture the journey.
To discover more or shop online
www.myfilleaboutme.co.za
Bill Corbett has a degree in clinical psychology and has been invited to deliver the keynote address at a large education conference in Holland this Fall.He is happily married with three grown children, three grandchildren, and three step children, and resides in Enfield, CT. You can visit his Web site
www.CooperativeKids.com for further information and parenting advice.
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