23 Jul
2009
While I was driving today I was listening to an interesting commentary on CBC radio about parenting and early childhood development; two topics dear to my heart. They were talking about today’s reality of everyone staring at a screen. Parents are checking email, chatting online or browsing websites while their kids are either watching TV or looking at some kind of electronic monitor. When I first tuned in they were discussing the Baby Einstein videos. A mom was quoted as saying “Did you see the trees in those videos?” and the person telling the story said: “Did you see the trees outside?” Later on in the program I heard: “Parents are out-sourcing because they don’t trust themselves.” They referred to the excessive use of electronic monitors as “out-sourcing”.
I’ve blogged before about video games. In moderation, I see no harm in them. My sons played them, continue to play them, and our grandson plays them. The key is, they also do a lot of other things and have a balanced life. I think for the most part, banning anything completely, only makes it that much more desirable.
What we seem to be doing less and less of, is face to face communication. What happened? I heard a man once say that he preferred his wife to send him an email to say that dinner was ready rather than calling him. Kids are text messaging each other even when they’re in the same room! If you’ve been in an airport recently, everywhere you look, someone is connected to a device. What is all of this doing to the art of conversation? I love online communication a lot. I’ve connected with people I would never have known otherwise but I hope we don’t ever see the day when we lose the art of face to face conversation. We communicate so much through body language which is all lost when we’re communicating electronically. What is our role as a parent in restoring the value of face to face communication? Also, how often are we escaping into the online world to avoid face to face communcation?
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