Hello Bobbledy parents,
As 2014 begins, we’re trying something new on the Bobbledy Blog.
In addition to having a theme of the week, as has been described in another post, we’re going to try to tap into our greatest resource, which is you. The parents of Bobbledy club members form a natural community of people who care about good books, drawing, writing, music, creativity, and, most of all, our kids. We wonder what might happen if we start talking to each other.
To that end, we’re creating Parent’s Roundtable, a bi-weekly forum for sharing experiences, discussing ideas, asking questions, or anything else that comes to mind.
Each week, we’ll get the ball rolling with a topic or question with hopes that you all will chime in and create a conversation. We get the sense that there is a lot we might learn from one another.
So…to get the ball rolling. This week’s topic is:
New Year’s Parenting Resolutions
As most of you know, I’m a father of three. My kids are 5, almost 4, and barely 2. Every day, I participate in their care and upbringing. I make them food, I dress them for school (not well, mind you), and I give them my love. But am I doing it right?
After all, I wasn’t trained. I never read the manual. It a mostly instinct-driven enterprise, and who’s to say I’m not terrible at it?
Every once in a while (ok, pretty much every day), I stop myself and wonder if there’s a better way to do it. And sometimes I’m struck by an alternative approach that makes sense. When this happens, I feel relief. There is a better way!
But these moments of insight are usually doubling as moments of three-ring-circus, and so I slip into the next moment without changing my approach. And so I make the same mistakes again and again and keep feeling badly about them.
But one persistent piece of self-critique is the extent to which I use my phone around my kids, whether to check email or to play a game of Angry Birds while they put their boots on in the morning.
It’s only natural. I work from home, and so my phone is my tether to my livelihood. It’s how I know when I’m needed. It’s also my momentary escape when all three are in a bad mood and grumbling and I feel the need to turn to something as rational and predictable as knocking evil green pigs off of pedestals.
But they deserve more (the kids, not the pigs). They deserve me, present and accounted for.
My new year’s parenting resolution is to keep my phone in my pocket when the kids are around. I’m not saying I’ll never take a phone call in their presence, or that I won’t occasionally have to send an email, but my resolution is to significantly limit the amount of time I spend paying attention to my phone when they are around.
In addition to giving the impression that I’m more interested in a piece of electronics than I am in my kids, I’m teaching them habits I don’t want them to have. At least not yet. I know it’s inevitable that they will join the digital age, and probably sooner than I realize or am entirely comfortable with. But for now, I’d prefer they learn to recognize the pleasures of analog entertainment and the pleasures (and necessities) of genuine human relationships.
The Angry Birds will still be available when they are old enough to make their own decisions about phones, apps, and the like. (I can’t imagine how angry the birds will be by then.) For now, I’m the one who’s old enough to make the decision to keep the phone in my pocket when the kids are around.
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What’s your new year’s parenting resolution? Any thoughts on my phone woes? Any helpful links you’d like to share? Let’s use the comments field below to start the conversation.
Write me if you’d like to suggest a topic for future edition of Parents Roundtable.
And be sure to check back tomorrow for a mashup of reader comments, pictures, and stories from Beaver Week!
I like the new blog direction! This is a great post. I read one in a similar vein titled “How to Miss a Childhood.” Like you, my job requires me to have my cell phone with me. I find that your strategy of leaving it hidden- for me, in my pocketbook rather than my pockets- makes it easier to keep myself from playing on it. I find it rude and annoying when I’m around friends or co-workers and everyone is peering into their phones, and I don’t want to make my children feel that way. I also don’t want to raise self-absorbed people who drive others crazy with their inability to interact- make eye contact, carry on a conversation, sit still without fidgeting and jabbing at something in their hands. Maybe it’s old-fashioned, and maybe they’ll develop those weaknesses anyway, but I can try, right?!
Great ideas. Both the round table and keeping the phone in your pocket. It’s incredibly hard these days. I never expected to be so tethered to the damn phone. Our kids are 4 and 1. In our house my wife and I have a no phones at the table policy (I can’t believe we had to even consider such a thing, let alone actually enforce it). And we try to stay off the things when we are with the kids, but it’s not easy sometimes. It allows work to invade everything, but I actually feel physically weird if I don’t have my phone with me. We do let our older one use our phones to put on music or play the occasional educational game (another possible roundtable topic, by the way).
Like anything else, I think it’s a case where awareness and perspective are important. If I was my kid, what would I think if my papa was playing on his phone when he’s supposed to be playing with me? When I think of it that way I’m quick to put the infernal device down and pay attention to what’s more important.
Taylor – thanks for posting! I like your purse idea. I need to figure out how to make that work with my rugged, masculine image. And yes, it may be overly optimistic to think we can keep our kids from our own e-failings, but I agree that it’s our duty to try. Or at least to present an alternative perspective.
I have a similar problem that is actually not phone-related but is rooted in the same desire to be present with my kids. I have a terrible habit of trying to multitask when the kids are around – while you guys eat, I’ll clean up the kitchen, while you guys play, I’ll finish up the painting I was supposed to finish earlier, while you guys watch a movie, I’ll work on the website, etc. I’ve only recently realized how often the kids ask me to do something very simple with them and I’ve declined with some version of “I’m busy.” It was most noticeable the other day when they asked me to sit and watch a movie with them. I had always considered their time watching movies as a way for me to get some things done – they are so dialed in, after all, that they can barely keep from drooling. The idea that they wanted me to hang out with them even while they were totally passively absorbed in something else was just kind of sad. So I watched the movie with them, and we actually had a great time. So I’m working hard on saying “Yes” when they particularly ask for me (lucky for me, they don’t actually ask that often).
Hey Seth,
Your “no phones at the table” policy may seem like a no-brainer, but I, too, have to remind myself that it’s not cool. Checking in has become so automatic. And I hear you on the feeling “weird” without your phone front. I literally feel incomplete without it. Like I’m missing a limb. I recently lost my phone for about a week, and my distress went far beyond the mere inconvenience of being without my phone as a tool. There was a sense of emotional disturbance. Which worries me.
As for how my kids feel, I found this video yesterday. I’d hate to think my kids feel anything like this woman does. Talk about missing out on life:
http://www.artthesystem.com/2013/12/after-i-saw-this-i-put-down-my-phone.html
Putting the phone down is definitely something I need to work on too. I used to be a stay at home mom, but I missed adults. Now that I work, I miss my kids! So my resolution is to find balance. Spending time on the floor playing, reading books, drawing, singing. These things are important and my resolution is to give what time I have to my kids when I’m with them and not allow myself to be pulled away. My oldest loves to do art, so I’m trying to spend time drawing with her. My youngest loves to play with little figurines she calls her “guys.” She loves it when mom or dad sit down and make a scene with her (but don’t try to make them talk!).
My other resolution is to do a better job of writing down the crazy things they say or that happen every day! Like how my littlest starts words with F like “fmarshmallow” or how my oldest can turn anything into a song (cover your dogs ears now! she is a super-soprano). I find myself saying “What was that cute/funny/crazy thing they said?” far too often!
Great topic. Other topics might be –
1) how do I encourage a sophisticated, high brow sense of humor in my children when my wife and I laugh uncontrollably at fart and poop jokes?
2) Do I post too many photos of my kids on the Internet, risking severe damage to their delicate psychological development, especially during puberty, when they google themselves?
3) Daddy drew me and now I feel terrible about my appearance. Am I ugly, Mommy?
You are funny. But I totally worry about number 2 all the time.
(that was a poop joke, ha ha ha ha ha!!!)
Amen to resisting the siren call of the smartphone. It is indeed a challenge. Even more so when my elder son (Simon, 5) specifically asks that I pull out the phone and run a Google image search on “new dinosaurs” or “Thomas and Friends”.
We certainly want our boys to be tech-savvy, and the laptop/phone/tablet can be a great tool for entertainment and (virtual) exploration — in moderation. We’ve found a good balance point where our two boys each get a half hour of computer time on Tuesdays and another half hour on Fridays. It’s a big deal for them, and provides some leverage for encouraging good behavior: acts of kindness and helpfulness net you an extra 5 or 10 minutes of computer time.
p.s. Angry Birds is so 2013. Check out “Tiny Wings” (if you’re an iPerson) for happier birds.
p.p.s. What’s wrong with fart and poop jokes?
Yes, I think we need to start being more specific about our screen time. It’s a slippery slope, and we are a-slippin’. The other night, Alden actually said, “HEY! WHERE’S MY MOVIE?!” Ugh.
Patience. Someone once told me a quote that went something like “children are like little paratroopers who are dropped into your life to teach you patience.” And I am still trying to learn it. And besides, it seems that the words “hurry up” just seem to make her move slower.
This year I’ll try to make more time for ‘natural consequences’ learning. I had a taste of success before the holidays, and I’m hooked.
Getting out of the house and to school on time with H (Kindergarten) and Z (Preschool) was such a drag. We were constantly running late, and I was barking orders and jamming on shoes, forgetting stuff, feeling super-stressed, and saying all the things we say under such circumstances and regret only minutes later.
Finally, I just gave up. I gave up trying so hard to get to school before the 2nd bell. I gave up caring whether clothes matched; whether shoes were weather-appropriate; whether breakfasts were finished. I focused on getting *myself* downstairs by 8am so we could drive away by 8:20, and that was that. (Note: Bryan takes care of lunch assembly and breakfast because he’s the “morning person” around here.)
For a week, we were late to Kindergarten. Sometimes we got away with it, and other times, we collected tardy slips. H had to go into the school office, collect her slip, walk it back down the hall, and hand it to her teacher. The first time, she didn’t care. The second time, she tried to get me to do it (I refused). The third time, she burst into tears. There was no fourth time.
Now she’s the one pulling *me* out of bed at 7:45 to get dressed (yes, yes, I know I need to work on my mornings, especially if I’m going back to work soon) and reminding her brother when it’s past 8 and he’s still in his jammies. I still have to help Z with a few things, but H is ready to go. Every single day. No more yelling, no more tardies, and she even reminds me when things are left behind.
I know this has nothing to do with cell phone management, which I also struggle with (here I am absorbed in technology while they watch The Little Mermaid at 4pm on a Friday – that’s cool, right?) – – but maybe it’s on the topic of time management, which we all believe our phones are helping us with.
Cheers! N
Natasha – I hope Matthew is reading this. Mostly so that he sees that I’m not the only mom who doesn’t put her children in matching clothes or weather-appropriate shoes. Though, I wish in my case it were a function of intentional natural consequences training rather than complete hairbrainedness.