Technological Implications
for Parents and Their Children

Technology has changed the face and pace of the 21st century. In many ways technology has enriched our lives. In other ways it has cluttered our lives with junk. Just a few years ago, if parents were taking a rare day off to spend time with their kids, they could not be reached. Today cell phones, voicemail, email, faxes, and any number of other means are available to reach people 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Children still have television, but it is only one medium among a host of others including the Internet, video games, and gadgets that fill their time and days.

In the last section we discussed the importance of parents’ spending more time with their children. Technology provides one opportunity for spending this time. The following suggestions are made for parents regarding their children and technology: (1) Become familiar with the technology your children use. (2) Use technology with your children. (3) Monitor and limit the amount of time your children spend watching television, playing video games, and using the Internet. (4) Help and encourage your children to use technology for cooperative rather than competitive activities. (5) Discuss technology with your children often and communicate a sense of trust in them to use technology appropriately.

Become familiar with the technology your children use. A great resource to follow is the Web site provided by The Center for Children and Technology (CCT). Their address is http://www2.edc.org/CCT/cctweb/index.html. They have begun to identify the digital literacies children will be using in the 21st century. These include technological literacy, information literacy, communications literacy, and media literacy.

Technological literacy involves using machines for word processing, software applications, and even multimedia production tools. The CCT suggests that these should be taught or learned together in some meaningful context. In other words, technological literacy should be taught with a specific, practical purpose or project in mind.

Information literacy is necessary because the amount of information available at home, in the workplace, and at school has exploded. Children need to learn the process of evaluating, sorting, and judging the plethora of information currently available to them, which, by the way, is on the increase daily. Children have to become their own librarians, sorting and classifying information which is important to their work and play, as well as that which is irrelevant, useless, or in some cases harmful.

Communications literacy is a must in the 21st century due to the increased use of email. Students can now email the professionals, asking important questions about what these professionals do. This is a new way of communicating. Children have to learn to compose an appropriate email, which includes “netiquette” (Internet etiquette), and to ask the right questions in the right ways to both invite and promote conversations.

Media literacy—the ability to use and produce communications in different forms—is also important. Children are most likely provided more opportunities to decode and analyze media than to produce it, although this is changing. Children can be taught that each form of media has a particular way of showing the world. There are biases, and children need to look at whose viewpoint is being expressed, what biases are present, and what important information may have been omitted. Children do not automatically learn these skills. Teaching children media literacy is an important role for parents and teachers. This is another way parents can spend time with their children.

Should you be concerned with these types of literacy at church? If so, how can you go about incorporating these into your lesson plans and activities?

Use technology with your children. Technology can be used to the family’s and the children’s advantage. It does not always need to be viewed as the enemy. Families can view quality television programs together and discuss them. There is now even a satellite dish available that incorporates multiple family-viewing channels. Carefully selecting quality religious or educational programming can be tremendous fun for some families. Appropriate videos can also be used for family gatherings. However, it is important to note that family discussions are vital if this is to be an interactive activity. The home provides an arena for families to discuss programs while they are watching as opposed to a theater where we are not supposed to talk.

Another way to use technology with your children is by building your own family Web site. Selecting pictures, constructing the family tree, deciding what is important to include and what is not offer opportunities for satisfying family discussions if both children and parents are interested and committed to the endeavor. Contact LifeWayonline for Web space services (call 1-888-454-5965).

Monitor and limit the amount of time your children spend watching television, playing video games, and using the Internet. Research is clear on this issue. Children who spend 10 hours and less per week watching television have higher IQ scores than those who watch more than 10 hours of television each week. We are not exactly sure why.

Does television dull the mind? Or do dull people just watch more television? What do you think?

Today, though, the amount of television viewing time seems less important than the quality of programs children are viewing. Back in the 1950s when I Love Lucy was first on television, the word pregnant was never used because it might be too vulgar or suggestive for children. That’s hard to imagine in the 21st century. No one needs to be reminded that prime-time television has violence, sex, obscene language, and nudity. Professional wrestling in past decades used to be violent enough. Today it appears several times weekly during prime time, and vulgar, suggestive, malicious, and evil plots have been added.

Many video games are just as bad. Children have to kill the bad guy again and again to progress to the next level in many games. Then there’s the World Wide Web with links to endless pornography, violence, and information children should not view under any circumstances. However, children’s technological savvy is often greater than their parents or teachers, and they can easily surf inappropriate Web sites if adults do not tenaciously monitor their children’s Internet habits. Parents may want to add a filter to their computer. One excellent resource is LifeWayonline (for information, call 1-888-454-5965).

Help and encourage your children to use technology for cooperative rather than competitive activities. This can begin with television. Most television game shows are competitive in nature. Children who watch these shows tend to be overactive and excited during and after the show. Other shows, even those designed for children, tend to move from frame to frame and topic to topic without ever landing on anything. While children may seem captivated, they are actually developing short attention spans because of the nature of these programs. A few programs, unfortunately not nearly enough, encourage cooperation. For preschoolers one example is Mr. Rogers. His show is designed to teach cooperation and helpfulness. Research shows that particularly boys exhibit more appropriate social behavior after watching Mr. Rogers. Television shows promoting social behaviors and targeting elementary-aged children are even more scarce. While Mr. Rogers has been around for 30 years, no other shows promoting kindness and cooperation for elementary children have lasted even half that long. Parents need to read carefully and often descriptions of religious or public television programs to find even a few of these. Still, if children are to watch television, the shows they watch should promote cooperation.

Discuss technology with your children often, and communicate a sense of trust in them to use technology appropriately. No matter how much time parents spend with their children, there are still large blocks of time when parents and children are separated. These are the times when children may be most vulnerable to destructive uses of technology. This can even occur in school. Recently an elementary teacher told me that one of her students easily pulled up pictures of naked women on the Internet. When she found the boys giggling around one of the monitors, she quickly went over to discover the pornography.  In another situation a third-grade girl went to an overnight party at a neighbor’s house. The children watched R-rated videos until the early morning hours.

Since children are often much more skilled at technology than their parents or teachers, we have to teach our children values, prayerfully communicating Christian values to children often and lovingly. If we do this, we can move toward trusting our children to make the right decisions, even when they are difficult, about using technology in a Christlike manner.

Here are a few Web sites for children:

www.lifeway.com/kidtrek (Sunday School)

www.kidzplace.org (Mission Education)

www.wmu.com/organizations/children (Children in Action^SM)

www.gapassport.com (Girls in Action^®)