Parents often want to give their first-grader a smartphone for the first day of school, explaining this step with security – the opportunity to call the child. It would be enough to be able to communicate with a simple hotline, it is not necessary for a child to buy a fine smart device, because at the beginning of a challenging school year it can be tempting to hide in the virtual world, explained Zanda Rubene, professor at the University of Latvia. In addition, it should be taken into account that children in Latvia have poor knowledge of Internet safety.
IN SHORT:
On average, households with young children have more devices with an Internet connection than declared people, according to 2018 data on children In Latvia. The reason that parents buy without thinking why, but only because they can buy, has created the phenomenon that children often live in a situation where both a wide range of technologies and a good Internet connection are available. Technology can be used by children as long as they want.
Parental answer: I buy a phone for safety!
The answer that parents buy phones for safety is very understandable and pertinent, because it is from the age of seven that a child is legally allowed to be alone in a public place. So he can go to school and back alone. It is safer if he has a telephone with him, which allows him to call relatives if necessary. Unfortunately, nowadays it would be naive to think that the reason for safety is why parents buy expensive and advanced phones for their future or barely first-class children, because if the story were about safety, a used hotline would suffice.
Screens. Traction force
Documentary story of Latvian Television (LTV) “Screens. Pulling force ” reveals the experience of five families raising children in the age of digital technologies, and updates the impact of smart device use habits on interpersonal relationships, physical and mental health.
With the premiere of the film, a thematic story can be found on the portal LSM.lv “The soft power of the screen – from birth to growth“.
The film and the story are also followed by a thematic plot series In the LTV program “Morning Panorama”.
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“From the age of seven, the phone has a security and communication function, so it doesn’t matter – it’s a touch-sensitive or buttoned phone if your child can accept that buttoned phone,” said Professor Rubene. She added, however, that legislation varies from country to country, so drawing a strict line – seven years and a child needing their own communication device would be misleading. In addition, not only laws but also parenting approaches differ. In Latvia, it has rather become a tradition, but at the same time it is not digging a pit, which the parents themselves will then fall into?
Professor Rubene, who participated in the study, described whether children feel safer on the street with their new phones. on the relationship between children and digital technologies: “Our study showed that Latvian six-year-olds have no idea about Internet safety – they have all been using the Internet for several years, they have well-established technology habits, but when asked about risks and technology use, they say – we know about risks: technologies are expensive, they can fall to the ground and they can break. But they didn’t really have such a big idea about what other risks. “
Thus, in the children’s sense, the word “safety” is related to the fact that the device is not an opportunity to communicate or that the Internet may be an insecure environment, but only to the material value of this expensive “toy”: We live in a society where everything can be bought. And then we buy without thinking to whom we are buying it, how our children or ourselves will benefit from that device. ”
Italian children grow up without telephones, Scandinavians – study on tablets
Laws governing the number of years a child may be in a public space alone (and the Internet is a public space) vary from country to country. Accordingly, the culture of technology use and parental approaches vary from country to country. “It depends on a person’s lifestyle and style. There are children who are not left alone without parents or other adults up to the age of 14, so they may be able to do without a telephone until adolescence. On the other hand, technology today, especially for teenagers, is not just a guarantee of communication and security.
It is an instrument of socialization and a way of creating a sense of belonging, ”explained Rubene. Namely, it is important for children not to be different from the group – if everyone has expensive phones, then they also need them.
The Internet, as Professor Rubene emphasized, was not designed for children. Although children have now begun to use technology and the Internet, no one has eliminated the need for active parenting through parenting: “It can’t be that we don’t know exactly what our seven-year-old, eight-year-old or nine-year-old is doing in technology.”
When it comes to family upbringing in the digital age, we really only have to talk about the last 10-15 years. This is a big challenge for society as a whole and for the parents themselves, because when the parents grew up, there was no technology yet.
In Latvia, the center “Dardedze” In a survey conducted in 2017 It is estimated that 46.1% of children under the age of three use screen devices for at least an hour a day. On average, a child in Europe takes up technology very early, according to the study already mentioned on the use of digital technologies by children in Europe. It happens well before the age of two. So a technology user who was 6 years old in 2009; In 2013 he was a 3-year-old child, in 2015 – a 0-year-old child.
“Southern Europe is very skeptical about allowing young children to use technology. Italy, Portugal, Spain, southern Germany, especially the richer Länder, and Bavaria, for example, consider the use of technology to be more undesirable than desirable for pre-school children.
It must be said that adults in these countries do not use technology so actively on a daily basis, and dinner does not take place in everyone’s room by phone as strongly as, for example, in Latvia, ” European Commission study the results were revealed by Professor Rubene. This is called a prohibitive or protective approach – less technology, more order in parenting and more benefit for the child. “This approach is criticized because a person who has been confined to a certain age, has been banned from using technology, is very drawn to technology when it is present.”
In a way, the opposite of this approach is found in northern Europe, where Scandinavian pedagogical researchers believe that the sooner a child learns the opportunities offered by using the Internet, the better. However, this is definitely done under adult guidance and the technology should not be a babysitter.
“As soon as a child reaches the age of one, there is the involvement of the local government, the state and educational institutions in the development of digital competence of young parents.
This means that parents learn and use technology with their children, ”explained the professor. This is called the approach of using critical or constructive technologies in upbringing. The idea is that when looking at a downloadable app, for example, parents think about how, in what educational process can a particular technology help my child? And it is not bought because “it is pink or cheap, or at a discount. Technology is bought because it is clear for what purpose it is bought and what benefit a child could get from it ”.
Latvian parents get involved incompetently
In Latvia accordingly study The upward trends in upbringing are where children have wide access to technology but parental mediation is incompetent. For example, parents tend to give a small child a tablet, so “Excluding” for several hours. “In this case, the technology is not given to a child with a developing, upbringing or educational thought. It is simply given to allow parents to eat, to call on the phone to have peace from that child, ”the education researcher described the situation.
“This is the biggest problem highlighted by media educators: the unregulated, uncontrolled use of technology by children up to adolescence is the biggest misfortune. What can be addictive can lead to various developmental difficulties, ”explained the professor.
The situation is similar to that in Latvia in other Eastern European countries, except for Estonia, which is closer to the Northern European countries in this approach.
The researcher emphasized that the post-Soviet countries have had a different, different history of how to raise children, and this has had an impact on almost every family. Namely, there are currently no guidelines on how, when and to what extent one should get involved in the relationship between children and screens, but at the same time no one – grandparent – to ask this, do not have their own childhood experience, because “upbringing” was most often understood in the last century. , which teachers did in crèches, kindergartens, teachers – in schools where young citizens were brought up by the system. Nowadays, the acquisition of technology, skills and rules have completely gone to families, to the way parents raise at home.
“Let’s not blame the parents for anything, because they had nothing to ask,” Rubene reassured, reminding that parents in Latvia most often use the permissive approach without borders and without regulations with prohibition elements. What does it really look like? “The principle of the pretzel and the whip – when a child has sinned, the technology is removed from him, and when the child has done something good, he gives it the technology that only adds value to the child’s eyes.”
The researcher, who regularly gives lectures and educates both parents and teachers on issues of upbringing in the digital environment, acknowledged that in Latvia in the last two years there has been a tendency for parents to become more interested in this topic: “I want to praise young parents technologies should be used. Because technology in itself is neither bad nor good – that’s the thing. Like a knife, it can cut bread and kill a person with a knife. It’s a question of how we use it. “
However, for all parents whose children do not yet have their own phone, the professor advised to remember that it is not just a thing, but a tool:
Wait at least until Christmas and then donate. Starting school in itself is a huge challenge with difficulties. It will be a new environment, new rules, new people, new requirements. It will be difficult, and it may be an unnecessary challenge for the child to hide from the world where it is difficult, in the world where it is easier – in the virtual. ” An education and upbringing expert in the digital age recommends giving your child time to adapt to school. “And then for Christmas – let that Santa bring their device.”
Read more about the impact of screen devices on children and young people in the story of LSM.lv “The soft power of the screen – from birth to growth“!
