Monday, April 9, 2018

Somebody's watching you

One of my son's favorite activities seems to be asking when he will be old enough to have a smartphone.

This is a conversation that we have had often...and my answer hasn't changed. But, I understand why my son likes to ask: He is trying to wear me down. (That is one of his primary jobs as a child.)

When we talk about his phone use, I tell him that there will be a lot of rules in place, including that Mom and Dad will be able to monitor what he does on his phone.

This is where the conversation derails: In his young mind, he doesn't understand why we would want to monitor him for the games he wants to play and the texts he wants to send to his Nana.

I know that the uses for his phone will change rapidly. More rapidly then we will be expecting.

There is some new research that indicates that all the monitoring software we put on our children's devices are causing rifts. I am suspect about that study, however, as it doesn't delve into what is actually causing those rifts. Is it because children don't want to be monitored? Or is it because families aren't talking about the need for monitoring ahead of time? The world may never know.

Do you plan to put monitoring apps on your child's first smartphone device? If so, tell me in the comments.

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