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I heard someone say one time, “In the technology world, parents are immigrants. Children are citizens.” How profound. I am in my 50’s so I got my first cell phone in my 30’s. My oldest daughter who is now in her 30’s started out with dial-up internet and MySpace. When my kids were growing up, we had no smartphones and one computer in the study – again with dial-up internet – that everyone had to share. Video streaming was a hope of the future.
Their children – the kids of the parents we connect with at Crazy Cool Family – have never known a world without smartphones, easy access video content, any desired information literally right at their fingertips. Just like a second generation American citizen sees the American culture differently since it is all they have known, so our kids see technology different than their parents. It really is a seismic shift.
How do the Immigrant parents connect with their citizen children in this crazy world of technology? Instead of trying so hard to control them, what if we adjusted our strategy a little?
When TikTok came out, Suzanne asked our youngest child McCade, “Tell me about TikTok. I don’t get why it is so popular.” He loved explaining to his technology-inferior – the technology immigrant --mom how it worked, why it was popular, and even why it could lead to kids watching things not good for them. She was able to ask questions about her concerns about the impact it could have on his life and what he could do to limit the bad content.
You know what happened? After the conversation, he used TikTok for a while and eventually he decided to take it off his phone. Not because we banned it but because he decided the benefits were not worth the cost. Now I am not saying that will happen all the time but that time it was a real win for us and for him.
We’re not saying don’t control screen time and other worthwhile technology solutions. But at the very least let them be a part of the technology solutions with you and through the discussions help them believe we are not just trying to be strict disciplinarians but rather we are caring parents who have their best interests at heart. Our children are much more likely to respond better to controls when they don’t feel like we are trying to control them.
With technology, be an inquisitive immigrant learning from a citizen the ways of the technology world. Work together to establish controls. Do your best to get agreement with them about technology controls and watch them respond better to your ideas.
