Positive parenting in the digital era: Here's what experts have to say

According to statistics, half of children aged 10 to 12 and one-third aged 7 to 9 use social media. Thirty-nine per cent of parents don’t have time to monitor their children’s social media use, 21% of parents can’t find information to set up monitoring at all. Usage of digital gadgets can have both beneficial and negative impacts on the youngsters. Therefore, parents should be mindful at what age we introduce our kids to digital devices. Children under the age of 24 months should not be exposed to smart gadgets as frequently as a more mature youngster. These were some of the insights that came forward in the recent discussion that took place in the latest episode of HT Dialogues. 

The panelists of the session were Dr. Meghna (also known as The Therapist Mommy on social media). She is a clinical psychologist, a trauma-informed therapist, and an internationally certified Parenting educator and Aditi Misra who has worked at several Delhi Public Schools like RK Puram, Vasant Kunj, Dubai and now heads DPS Gurgaon. She also the Vice Chairperson of the NPSC a body of Progressive School Principals of India; and Shikha Soni is a mother who is Working as GM- Laision in Kreate Energy. 

In the discussion, Misra spoke about the signs that tells whether a child is addicted to technology or not, “Social withdrawal is the most telling sign that suggests that a child is addicted to technology. Just after the pandemic when children joined schools physically, it was a challenge for the teachers to recreate a buddy system so that children open up to interact and participate in class. Another very scary sign was the dry eyes, in this condition a child blinks at a higher frequency. The third thing was obesity among children. Picking out on these physical attributes really helped us to make a breakthrough in almost 80% of the students in school. We encouraged them to participate in assemblies, introduced sports activities frequently and thus dealt with the technology addiction in students,” she said. 

Dr. Meghna shared her insights about how she as a parent educator and a parent herself practices positive parenting, “When children are exposed to the Internet at such a young age, there is a plethora of information that they come across. My suggestion to parents of the new age would be that always have empathy for your children. Never assume a superior or a moral high ground when having these conversations. Be interested, be queued into your child’s digital world. Discuss about online safety, digital footprints, cyber security, click jacking etc. Highlight the behaviour of online predators. These conversations should be frequent and relatable to the real-world instances,” she said. Furthermore, she also shared some helpful tips for both children and parents that encourages technology detox in households. She added, “I dedicate a reading time in the house. Apart from this, there’s a strategy that might be helpful to a lot of parents and children as well. It’s called a ‘gadget contract.’ This is an agreement between the parent and the child which spells out the terms of the usage of the particular technological gadget. If there is a violation of the terms the consequences have to be laid down, which is again predefined by the parent and the child both. It is important that the child also has a say in this so that they understand the importance of negotiation. The child also develops a sense of agency and they’ll be more encouraged to comply by the contract, thus using the device responsibly.” 

Since digital media has such a big impact on children's physical and mental development, parenting in the digital era must obviously take on new aspects. In the discussion ‘Positive Parenting in the Digital Age’ we understand why parents cannot afford to remain passive spectators as the digital world unfolds. They must become an active and alert participant in order for their children to thrive in the new era while being protected from the potential dangers of it.