{"id":28,"date":"2018-04-04T01:30:53","date_gmt":"2018-04-04T01:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gypsynet.org\/?p=28"},"modified":"2018-04-03T22:38:49","modified_gmt":"2018-04-03T22:38:49","slug":"choose-your-babysitter-wisely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gypsynet.org\/?p=28","title":{"rendered":"Choose Your Babysitter Wisely"},"content":{"rendered":"

Time to address the elephant in the room; Technology.\u00a0 When is it applicable to hand over to your child and when should you misdirect with the toy truck?\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A good half of parenting is observation, both in watching the child and what other parents are doing.\u00a0 Observation being something that I have always been good at.\u00a0 Then picking apart someone\u2019s actions from a sociological standpoint has always been something that interests me.\u00a0 So, I tend to see the why of how someone reacts a lot quicker than most.\u00a0 I think this is where my initial judge of character comes from.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

One of the biggest trends in parenting that I\u2019ve seen today is when in a restaurant handing off the smartphone to keep the child entertained \/ quiet.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen this happen with children ranging in ages from 2-well into their teens.\u00a0 Admittedly the latter half of that tend to have their own smartphone.\u00a0 While I can relate that it is a very easy way out, I\u2019ve got to wonder if it\u2019s more harm than help.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll set the stage for you.\u00a0 Two parents and their child walk in to a restaurant.\u00a0 They get seated and the kid is fidgety and inconsolable, one parent frantically pulls out their phone, unlocks it, opens an app and hands it over.\u00a0 This is a desperate attempt to keep the kid quiet, it\u2019s got an added side effect of the parents can now speak to each other unhindered by the interests of their child.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

How did we get here?\u00a0 When did the smartphone become the replacement for the pacifier?\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s not a new trend.\u00a0 Parents used to be able to turn on the television and plop their children in front of it for time to themselves.\u00a0 There is an unfortunate downside; the parents have caved once on this, they will cave again and again.<\/span><\/p>\n

Throughout a child\u2019s developmental life, they begin everything with mimicry.\u00a0 You never really appreciate just how much of this happens until you see it happen.\u00a0 Hearing my son trying to repeat something I said while not consciously censoring my language was an eye-opener.\u00a0 That\u2019s not to say mimicry is only going to show you what you need to do differently, I also remember my son sitting in a high-chair with a spoon tapping the surface of his tray and then bringing the end of the spoon to his face.\u00a0 My wife and I thought the behavior was odd until we pieced together that he was mimicking us eating.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve gotten off topic.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When you realize the parroting is happening you really need to be more conscious of what you do in front of your child.\u00a0 How often do you check your phone?\u00a0 How often is it out in the open?\u00a0 This is where you really need to lay the groundwork for what is acceptable, and bear in mind that if you want your child to follow the rules, you must adhere to them as well.\u00a0 Otherwise, you will be fighting an uphill battle against a fundamental learning method; mimicry.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The other side of this is what else will your child mimic?\u00a0 Take our family in the restaurant from earlier; did they just open YouTube, or some other video service?\u00a0 Do you think the child is going to mimic what they see there?\u00a0 They absolutely will.\u00a0 Maybe not with as much conviction as they parrot their parents, but it will happen.\u00a0 Additionally, I must ask, does the child understand at this point what is morally and socially acceptable for them and what isn\u2019t?\u00a0 Does the child comprehend just how powerful the device is that they hold in their hands?\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This post is going to be at least a two-parter, on one hand to keep the length of the posts consistent, and to try and maintain a consistent train of thought.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Time to address the elephant in the room; Technology.\u00a0 When is it applicable to hand over to your child and when should you misdirect with the toy truck?\u00a0 A good half of parenting is observation, both in watching the child and what other parents are doing.\u00a0 Observation being something that I have always been good … Continue reading “Choose Your Babysitter Wisely”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,6,4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-imo","category-parenting","category-technology","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gypsynet.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gypsynet.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gypsynet.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gypsynet.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gypsynet.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gypsynet.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gypsynet.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gypsynet.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gypsynet.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}