At the risk of sounding old fashioned, I am going to say, kids these days have a lot more distractions than we ever did. Sometimes, that kind of makes me feel sorry for them. More than them, though, I feel sorry for us as parents. We have to navigate through so much crap. Like, how much time is too much? What is a good age for a child/teen to get a phone? Do they get to keep it with them all of the time? Striking a balance between the world we live in and the one we should is tough business–and everyone handles it DIFFERENTLY.
According to an article on NPR, children who have some sort of screen in their room {T.V., iPod, iPad, Smart Phone, etc.} get an average of 18 minutes less sleep than their screen-less peers. So, sleeping with access to the screen seems to equal less actual sleep. I have watched kids text each other while sitting right next to each other. I’ve watched teens driving down the road, heads down, flipping through their phone {I’ve watched grown adults do the same}. All of these distractions seem obviously detrimental, but how do we strike a balance?
What are YOUR rules on smart phones? Do you let the kids take them into their bedrooms at night? Do you restrict their use? Or, do you let it ride? No right answers, I am just kind of curious where we are headed?
~Mavis
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