Parenting In The Age of Information

Aron Adalian   -   May 16, 2022

We live in the age of information! In no other time in history has there been more information readily available for people to encounter than the era we live in now!  Unfortunately, information does not have the ability to delineate between different audiences.  This means that information that is available and geared towards a 37-year-old male doesn’t differentiate between the eyes of a 37-year-old male and a four-year-old child when access has been granted.  There may be no better example of this than advertisements seen on streaming apps geared towards families.

 

As followers of Christ, we shouldn’t be shocked that organizations that do not hold Christian values would produce information and media that doesn’t align with our beliefs.  Instead of being surprised that organizations would use their power to target people at their most impressionable ages with an agenda, we should lean into the power of being a parent and the greatest influencer in the life of an individual.

 

One speaker put it this way, “parents may not be able to control ALL the content that their preschoolers will encounter, but they do control where and who has access to sharing content with them.”  During the formative years in a child’s life in is important that we create a plan to be intentional with what information our children will have access to, and who will be providing that information.  Choosing developmentally appropriate ages for what kind of information and how they receive that information is not easy an easy task!  In his book The Tech-Wise Family, Andy Couch lines out 10 commitments that he suggests for helping your family become a Tech-Wise Family!  This is a great list provided to help you think about ways to be intentional, not to suggest that this is the correct and only way.

 

  1. We develop wisdom and courage together as a family.
  2. We want to create more than we consume. So we fill the center of our home with things that reward skill and active engagement.
  3. We are designed for a rhythm of work and rest. So one hour a day, one day a week, and one week a year, we turn off our devices and worship, feast, play and rest together.
  4. We wake up before our devices do, and they “go to bed” before we do.
  5. We aim for “no screens before double digits” at school and at home. (Crouch admits that this may be impossible for most Americans, but if you can’t adopt this commitment, we need to at least put some sort of limits in place. The American Academy of Pediatrics suggest no screen time until the age of 2 years, for reference.)
  6. We use screens for a purpose, and we use them together, rather than using them aimlessly and alone.
  7. Car time is conversation time.
  8. Spouses have one another’s passwords, and parents have total access to children’s devices.
  9. We learn to sing together, rather than letting recorded and amplified music take over our lives and worship.
  10. We show up in person for the big events of life. We learn how to be human by being fully present at our moments of greatest vulnerability. We hope to die in one another’s arms.