Parenting has many definitions with so many sets and not set rules like what to do and what not to do, when to say no and when to crack open a tub of ice cream late at night. Parenting today overall is not a cakewalk, and in the era of digital media it has become even more back-breaking.
Children growing up in the social media world surely are going to adapt to their atmosphere. The increase in the use of mobile and other gadgets has no limits. The always trending or the new updates that come up almost every day make it even more complicated. In the current state of affairs, keeping your children away from these gadgets is almost an impossible task.
We know technology and digital media have a negative impact on children. It makes them shallow and does equal harm and good. The ill-effects of technology are well known to you. It causes a lot of strain on the eyes. Not just that, but it is also harmful to the overall development of children, Unmonitored screen time eventually leads to addiction. This makes you take more effort to detox your children from the internet.
Nevertheless, we cannot separate kids and technology, neither can we completely restrict children from using them, can we? But what if I tell you that this same technology will help you keep your children away from it? You read it right. With technology advancing so much, it has certain advantages added to it.
We could short down five unique smart parenting digital hacks to slay parenting with a tap!
- Friends First
- Take a break
- Mute the Notifications
- Airplane Mode to the Go
- Parental Control Apps
Friends First-
Okay, first things first. Be their friend. And we don’t mean to become their friend offline. Well, of course, you do that. But more than offline, being friends online would provide you with a lot of access to their social media habits. No, we don’t mean keep stalking your children all the time. But instead, be their friend if they have a social media handle. Keep a slight tap on their activities online. If you are a mum reading this, gossip a bit with them.Develop a safe environment between them and you for confrontation and healthy conversations. This way you will be able to understand their social activities and the kind of circle or pages they follow. By knowing this, you can understand a lot more about their social life which they don’t share so often with you.
Take A Break! –
Let your children take a break from their screens. Children are so much engrossed in browsing content online that they forget they have a life outside the screen. There are features in most of the apps for setting a time limit. What exactly we are saying is to utilize technology to limit its use. These time trackers actually stop the app from functioning after the daily consumption of the set limit. This way, your children can actually ‘take a break’ from the screen. The technology they love so much will help them take a break from it. Well, it isn’t so bad after all, right?
Mute The Notifications-
We know children don’t use their mobiles or gadgets to just play or waste time. But they have so much to learn in this ocean of the internet. Children have various classes, courses, e-learning books, etc to explore. And it is a healthy use of the resources. But there are other distractions that come along with it. The ‘ding’ on the notification bar is always the real reason why children shift their focus and turn their backs away from the productive thing they were doing online. And turn towards notification, distract themselves and there we go. This cycle keeps repeating itself. There is another way to end it. There is always a feature in every smartphone about notification settings. You can access this feature and mute the unnecessary app notifications that distract your child from doing productive work and waste time. This way, with yet another digital hack, you can be a digitally smart parent.
Airplane Mode to the Go
One main side effect of this technology is the lack of a proper sleep schedule. A lot of parents complain about the sleep cycle of their children. There has been a study about children sacrificing their sleep and ruining their sleep schedule just to be online or because they forget to sleep on time because of being addicted to their phones. So before sleeping, changing the phone settings and activating the Airplane mode will not cause harm to the sleep cycle of your children. This way, with yet another brilliant use of the smart feature, you can keep your children from an unhealthy mobile addict lifestyle.
Parental Control Apps-
The best way to ensure that your children are safe while using their phones is by installing parental control apps. These apps have special features to keep your children away from unhealthy mobile habits. Parental Control Apps have features like
- Video Restriction
- Safe Browsing options
- Blocking of unwanted sites and apps
- Website Report
- Location tracking features
- Remote access
These are just a few features. These apps have so much more to offer and some of them are free or cost-effective to use too. Therefore parental control apps can also be a smart use of technological advancements and a helpful digital parenting technique.
These were just the five hacks that could be a step closer to your smart digital parenting. Technology has made things easier for everyone. It is enough said that mobiles have negative effects on your children and it has made parenting more difficult. But just like every coin has two sides, this too has a positive side.
To deal with your ‘smart’ children, you need to use their weapons against them. If you look closely, the problem itself has a solution. Technology, mobile phones, social media apps, web browsers have so much to keep your children engaged. But they also have the power to stop your children from overusing. You just need to know how… 😉