Contents
How to Win at Modern Parenting in the Digital Era? 1
Parenting in Today’s Age 1
Digital Parenting 1
Strategies to Parent in the Digital Age 2
1. Encourage Healthy Screen Habits 2
2. Monitor Your Child’s Online Activities 2
3. Maintain Open Communication with Children 2
4. Join Digital Parenting Communities 2
5. Include Real-World Activities in Your Children’s Routine 3
6. Teach Them Media Literacy 3
Your Key Takeaways 3
The digital age is the era of convenience and ease. But it hasn’t made life a bed of roses either. It has changed the very fabric of how we live life. The key to coping with this change is learning, unlearning, and relearning.
One area that the digital age has challenged is parenting. Today’s kids are growing up with technology in their hands. Millennial parents are ditching traditional parenting for a more modern approach. Around 73% of new parents believe their parenting style is better than past generations.
Despite that, most people struggle to raise their kids in this digital age. From screen addictions to inappropriate content, the digital age has bougth an onslaught of challenges for parents. However, not all hope is lost because this blog delves into all the strategies modern parents should adopt.
Parenting in Today’s Age
Before we get into parenting strategies and tips, let us quickly overview how parenting keeps evolving.
To put it simply, modern parenting is the evolved form of traditional parenting. It does not follow a set of rules, unlike its counterpart. It acknowledges every child has different needs and is flexible enough to cater to them. Modern parents focus on raising their kids with empathy. It diverges from the usual strict parenting and focuses on what works for every child.
Mentioned below are some research-backed benefits of the modern parenting style:
- It instills self-confidence in children which helps them excel in life.
- It helps the teenage brain function better at its emotional and cognitive functions.
- It equips children to have stable mental health and relationships.
However, a bitter reality is that modern parenting, despite its benefits, is not enough in this sufficient age. It does not equip parents to tackle the challenges of this digital age.
The answer, however, lies in an evolved form of Modern Parenting i.e., Digital Parenting.
Digital Parenting
Digital parenting uses technology to raise today’s technically advanced kids. Digital parents are well-equipped to tackle the challenges that come with today’s digital age. Moreover, the role of technology cannot be ignored in digital parenting. It equips parents to stay one step ahead of their tech-savvy children. It is especially used in keeping an eye on children’s activities.
Digital parenting mixes the flexibility of modern parenting with technology. Such parents are aware of all the digital tools that can help them in parenting.
Now let’s get to how you can become a digital parent and ensure your child’s wellbeing.
Strategies to Parent in the Digital Age
Technology is an inseparable part of our kids’ lives. This is why millennial parents are forced to reshape their parenting strategies. The goal is to ensure the safe use of technology.
Here are some strategies that can help you ace digital parenting.
- Encourage Healthy Screen Habits
With kids spending so much time on their phones, tablets, and other devices, it is important to control their screen time. You can gently enforce set screen times and convey your intention to the kids. If not communicated properly, kids can view this as highly restrictive. You can also tell them about screen addiction and how dangerous it is. Daily screen limits mean kids can only use their devices for a certain number of hours daily.
To make this a little less dreary, you can determine activities that will earn more screen time on the weekends. These can be doing the dishes, putting away laundry, or taking the dog on a walk. This will enforce a sense of responsibility in the kids too. They will also happily do the chores if they know it has a reward.
- Monitor Your Child’s Online Activities
Since kids do almost everything online, parents must monitor their online activities. The online world has a dark side, and it falls on us to shield them from it. With everything that children do online, there is a wrong side. For example, adults pretending to be kids in online games and social media accounts with inappropriate content.
The silver lining is that almost every app comes with parental controls. These allow you to limit what your child can and cannot do. Google has rock-solid parental controls. Other parental control apps like Aura and Net Nanny allow you to set screen limits, block inappropriate sites, and monitor your kids online. Some broadband providers also allow parental controls through their apps like Xfinity’s xFi app. If you are not an Xfinity user but want to look into it, you can contact Xfinity Customer Service.
- Maintain Open Communication with Children
This is the most crucial part of parenting. Maintaining open communication with your children makes you their safe space. This means they will come to you if they are in a fix. Moreover, if you communicate on their level, then your children will see you as their equals. They will talk about new trends and ask questions from you. This will keep you in the loop about your children’s digital interests.
Open communication can foster a healthy relationship with your children. It also enables your children to understand you better. This can also allow your child to see these strategies as less restrictive and more productive.
- Join Digital Parenting Communities
Joining an online digital parenting community can help you immensely in maintaining online family safety. Apart from tips and tricks on internet safety, you also get support from fellow parents. Digital communities are helpful for new parents struggling with modern parenting. You can also share tips that work for you.
There are many online communities for digital parenting. Facebook groups are super helpful in this regard. On top of that, many companies provide digital safety solutions for family safety. They also have discussion forums on their websites. Lastly, Reddit might be a lifesaver for you in this regard.
- Include Real-World Activities in Your Children’s Routine
In today’s hyper-digitalized world, you can teach your children to balance their online and real lives. For this, you can include real-world activities in their routines. You can go on walks, play outdoor sports, etc. You can also plan family game nights and play board games. This helps in building real-world social skills that are severely lacking in today’s generation.
It is also a good idea to enroll them in different school clubs. Local libraries are also great for activities like reading clubs. These real-world and face-to-face interactions do wonders for your children’s psychological and emotional growth. Lastly, it also teaches them the importance of real-world interactions.
- Teach Them Media Literacy
We saved the most important one for last. Media literacy is often viewed as the most important soft skill for kids. It is described as the ability to interact with the content they view online realistically. To add to that, social media causes body image and self-esteem issues among children due to its unrealistic depictions. This can be detrimental to children’s emotional growth. Media literacy helps them understand the intent of what they see online.
On top of that, media literacy also educates children to use the internet and social media responsibly. It helps them understand the importance of limited media usage and maintaining healthy media consumption.
Your Key Takeaways
- Technology has changed our children, so we need to reshape our parenting strategies too.
- Modern parenting ensures well-rounded brain development.
- Digital parenting is important for raising children in a hyper-digitalized world.
- Monitoring screen times helps you with your children’s online activities.
- Open communication enables your children to trust and understand you better.
- Teaching kids media literacy is key for them to sustain in this digital world.
