Parenting in an online world

Technology and education are two major preoccupations for many parents, and with those worlds colliding in coronavirus lockdown, many of us are struggling with both the practicalities and more philosophical issues. In many ways, though, the current enforced-virtual-schooling intensifies already-established trends, rather than heralding something completely new.  Prior to lockdown, children were already being set much of their work on computers; I asked to consult the textbook recently when we (all) got stuck on a maths homework problem, only to be told there was no textbook. Everything was online and instant, with all the work disappearing once submitted.  

Whether we like it or not, parents are having to become ever more involved in schooling, now that our children have joined us in ‘working from home’. This is also playing into an established trend. We have had school-age children for over a quarter of a century (other parents tend to move on….) and over that time we’ve seen parents becoming much more involved in their children’s schooling, with more of a general tendency to ‘second guess’ teachers and schools. With so much information available, it seems that everyone feels they are an expert. Of course, school is a key influence on children’s lives; we are not suggesting a laissez faire approach but (as always) it needs to be a balancing act. To be aware, to be interested – but not to smother. True interference should be reserved for a major problem with the teaching or if your child is being bullied. 

You may not always agree with the finer details, but what’s important is whether a school is centred, whether is knows what it is trying to achieve, whether (in normal, physical school) the teachers’ efforts are spent on disciplining or whether they can actually teach. The critical role of team sports. Debating and discussion. Art, music, drama, trips. A light touch when it comes to the basics – hard work but not at the expense of curiosity and fostering a love of learning. We’re certainly not fans of hot-housing children, of excessively tutoring them outside school and making them read everything on the reading list or signing them up for numerous ‘improving’ after-school activities. In our (rather extensive!) experience, as soon as a child has the freedom to decide what they will do with their own time, they will go with what they actually want to do. The key is to encourage their natural curiosity.  If they are interested in something very specific, say, animation, then let that flower bloom rather than insist they learn judo or the violin. Having many children has perhaps lessened the normal parental ‘hopes and dreams’ resting on a specific child in our case, but we (and they) can now see it’s been beneficial to have been ‘allowed’ to choose their own path and to become self-motivated. 

But that was how it was in ‘normal’ school life. Today everything is in a state of flux, partly because of the coronavirus crisis but also because of technology, obviously one of the most powerful, all-encompassing and controversial developments of the past twenty years. We have seen that our approach to encourage the child to choose for himself is highly questionable when it comes to tech time. Children can’t self-regulate especially when Apps and programmes are often designed to make them addicted. Since parents are often at least one step behind, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed or unsure of how to set boundaries around social media, screen time and the appropriateness of different Apps. Just as we catch up with a ‘new’ development, something else becomes the latest thing and we’re behind again.  

And with children now being educated online, the challenge is even greater; how can we limit or even monitor screen time? And how can we get the balance right between being tempted to stand over their shoulder and the reality of often having to juggle our own work with the school day? It’s not as if any of us has experienced online schooling. Even our eldest son Fitz, aged 28, learned using only books until late into his secondary schooling. Bea, aged 11, has grown up with digital learning from the day she started school. It may just be a coincidence but Fitz has always been able to really concentrate and is a very strong critical thinker – it’s hard to feel the same degree of confidence that our youngest children will have such strong attention spans, though of course we’re not writing them off in any way, it’s just the way they have been taught doesn’t seem conducive to that. 

In our view (for once hardly controversial) while the digital revolution opens up exciting new ways of working, it also messes with attention spans, the way we learn and form opinions. The combination of data-driven addictive technology and a deluge of instant information is highly dangerous if we have not learned first to think critically. A modern culture has been rapidly developing based on a sense that feelings and emotions are more significant than knowledge-based understanding or what may be judged an old-fashioned set of values, While being ‘digitally native’ offers benefits, children who have not learned other than through technology may have a distorted sense of human relationships and be at risk of succumbing to the superficial aspects of social media. The technology may be ever-smarter but it doesn’t mean that human beings are. 

But parents cannot shut our children off from the reality of technology – that would only make the digital world yet more attractive – instead we need to show our children how to understand social media for what it is, to use technology rather than to be used by it, and to be able distinguish what’s gloss and what’s real. And we need to ensure they are in command of the devices, not being controlled by devices. We know this is easier said than done – we have a 14-year-old son! But the way we at least attempt to ensure he’s in control, not the tech, is to ‘ground’ him by encouraging (ok, insisting) all the children play outdoors several times a day and taking an active interest in what he is doing on the computer. Our son likes to create games and animated films – and loves nothing better than to show us what he’s developed. The games themselves may go over our heads, but by talking to him about what he’s doing, we can help him to avoid being sucked into an isolated, virtual world.  We try to do the same when it comes to guiding our teenage girls through Instagram; we don’t attempt to discourage it, but we do want them to see it in a light-hearted way, as entertainment and fun, not the be-all-and-end-all. We point out when photos are obviously edited, or when a ‘look’ is being pushed – not to be unkind or critical, but to remind our daughters that they are great in their own diverse ways. 

Virtual schooling offers great opportunities for us all to understand how to use technology for good, as well as new risks. Children are being given more latitude to research around topics, to explore what they are interested in rather than a strictly defined curriculum, and that’s a good thing. At the same time, each child disappears to work in their bedroom or another quiet space – out of necessity but they hardly see anyone during the school day (lunch is a rolling programme as everyone’s lunch break is slightly different). So even if we have busy working days we tend to go through the house every hour or two, just peeking in on everyone, checking that they don’t need any help, that they are taking enough breaks away from the screen, that they are keeping up with their new hobbies (one child is growing vegetables, another has been doing a lot of art projects over lockdown).  With economic destruction all around us, we need to encourage our children to go beyond their boundaries more than ever, to explore subjects more deeply and broadly and consider how they can contribute as well as trying out things that they have been interested in but not had time to experiment with. And in the meantime, we are learning more about how they are being educated, seeing how schools are attempting to enhance the online experience, not merely replicate the classroom. It’s a fascinating, if scary time. Just like being a parent.  

My husband Richard and I expand on this topic in our latest podcast on family life, available at www.britfamilymorrissey.org or subscribe via all the usual podcast channels