Put your phone away and focus on your kids By Dr. Jon Kester

In today’s society we see parents on their phones at playgrounds, at restaurants, in cars, seated around dinner tables, at school functions, on vacation—everywhere. According to Jenny Radesky from psmagagine.com, when parents' attention is directed at a smartphone, we talk to our children less, miss their bids for attention, overreact to their annoying interruptions, and think less clearly about what their behavior means.

This has become such an issue that some cities have begun public-service campaigns to increase parents' awareness of the toll their heavy technology use may be taking on child development and well-being. A German boy even organized a rally to protest modern parents' preoccupation with technology.

There's good reason to want parents to talk, play, and relate to their children more positively and sensitively. Research suggests that a high proportion of child social-emotional and academic success can be attributed to positive parenting and secure attachment. We don't need to be perfect parents, responsive to our children's needs all the time, but we do need to be "good enough," as the pediatrician Donald Winnicott put it. What this approach translates to in practical terms is Kids can feel that we’re more interested in our phones than we are interested in them.

The good news is that this is a fixable problem. For most people, it’s simply a matter of admitting to the issue, and making a simple plan with the rest of the family. Below are some suggestions .

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Have Family Discussion About Appropriate cellphone use

The first step to losing the cellphone is to have discussion about their use with your family. Even young kids can contribute to a conversation about phone use around the house. This will help them understand why you occasionally need to get on the phone. It will also help them understand why you set rules on their technology usage. Ask them what they think appropriate electronic media use looks like and what sorts of consequences might be warranted for breaking the agreed-upon rules. You may have to help guide them in these discussions, but often you’ll find that they have expectations that are not that different from your own

Make a list of why you use your phone at home

It’s useful to write a list of your important everyday phone activities. This list will be slightly different for every parent. Ask yourself what phone activities are critical for your job vs those that are fun and refreshing? Use this list to make time to check your phone without interrupting family moments. Account for work and play on your phone – you need both. The key is for parents to reassert control over your phone by figuring out how you actually use it. Don’t let it use you.

 Consider Your Habit Triggers

In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg wrote  “Most of the choices we make every day may feel like the products of well-considered decision making, but they’re not.”

We automatically reach for our phones in certain situations. Try to pay attention to these cues or triggers. When do you automatically reach for your phone? What can you do differently during those times, besides look at your phone? Or how can you change the way you’re using your phone in those moments to include your kids? Charles Duhigg also wrote “The Golden Rule of Habit Change: You can’t extinguish a bad habit, you can only change it.”

If might not be a bad thing of you read the news on your phone at breakfast in front of your kids – if you occasionally share something of interest with them. Kind of like the old days with the newspaper.

Make Family rules

Once you have good conversations with your children and figured out the reasons to use / not use your phone at home then rules must be established.  Some example of rules that could be made are as followed:

·        No phones out for the first hour after coming home

·        No phones out until the kids are in bed

·        No phones out during meals

·        No phones out during a family movie (the hardest one for me – kids’ movies are terrible).

Parents, make sure you designate a spot or drawer where you will stash your phone during the rules period. 

 Conclusion

As parents we must take into account that intense attention we devote to our smartphones has a major, measurable impact on our health, wellbeing, and most importantly our family relationships. We must create healthy phone boundaries. Boundaries that hopefully your kids might inherit and follow outside of your home, and may even pass down to their own kids someday.