In an age where few children born in the last ten years will likely remember life without smartphones or tablets, it’s hard for anyone to really fathom getting along in a world that wasn’t online. Was programming a VCR as complicated as everyone made it out to be? I can’t even remember.
As today’s YouTube toddlers emerge to preschool age, they’ve already been immersed in a digital world, so web-based learning comes naturally when touchscreen is your norm. When they embark on their elementary school years, they don’t use card catalogues, encyclopedias or microfiche, much less know what these are. In middle school, they don’t have to haul around 30-pound backpacks full of textbooks. They live in a new and improved ‘domain,’ if you will, that we previous generations created for them. When our parents wanted something better for us and we wanted something even better than that (what could be better than the 90s?), we realized that dream, right alongside Marty McFly.
Technology has opened so many doors for parenting and learning. Grades are now posted online; to wait six weeks for an update is unheard of. Modern-day educators use email or text messaging services such as Remind as their preferred means of communication with parents. (How many teachers have you heard jokingly say, “Please don’t leave me a voicemail! I wouldn’t even know how to retrieve it!”) Real time, direct access to the classroom means that I can text the kindergarten teacher that I’ll drop the library book off after Yoga (or…Errr… I mean after Wendy Williams).
Technology in the home, on the other hand, may not be ideal for some parents. I’ve come to realize though, that whoever said, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” was actually talking about teenagers. It’s not like I’m without social media myself, anyway… I’ve got my Pinterest, my Facebook, my Twitter, my YouTube… (Oh! That’s where they learned how to get on there!) My now six-year-old son did not sit at the computer and type “youtube.com” into Google when he was three. Nor did he download that magic horn honking app that could instantly silence his nettled giant baby self in any restaurant (ok, I admit it, I downloaded that app).
And I downloaded SnapChat (and Marco Polo, Musical.ly, Instagram, SongPop…), not only so I could monitor whatever social media app my daughter and her friends had become engulfed in, but so that I could engage in that fun alongside them. We have talked about the dangers of all social media networks and taught our children the utmost degree of internet safety. If you haven’t yet, now is the time to do so because the social media craze is clearly this generation’s thing. Do your research, relay the warnings, enforce the rules and consistently check with your own eyes that everything is proper, but have some fun while you’re there.
Some of the funniest things happen on SnapChat, and I don’t want to miss out on those moments with her, especially since the moments will disappear in 10 seconds. And that’s the kicker—whether you’re on a social media platform, taking them for ice cream, or drying their tears, the moments will disappear. I used to be scared of social media, so if you are as well, don’t be. Download the apps, friend your children and their friends and enter their sphere of influence because that’s where the fun is. We have so much to teach our children, but oh, they have so much to teach us!
By Haylie Kramer, Communications Chair, East Cobb County Council of PTAs
This article originally appeared in the May issue of the EAST COBBER magazine, on page 16. Click HERE to access the digital edition.
