With over 50% of 11-year-olds already owning smartphones, tweens are not too young to learn effective digital literacy practices to safely navigate their digital world.
Danielle and Jack visited last week and so all four of us had some conversations about future families. Your topic here was very much included in the convo. A takeaway for me is that prohibitive rules don't work and may even be counter intuitive while strategic efforts toward authentic digital literacy is the way to go. I'll be sharing with Danielle!
If you think back to being a tween/teen, I'm pretty sure you're remember how much you wanted to be "older" as if that meant you could do anything you wanted and how things that were forbidden became much more alluring as if that was somehow proof of the alleged freedom to yourself and your peers (which we all find out way too soon is a head fake.) As you say, prohibition works against strategies for digital literacy for other reasons too that represent more problems and potential dangers. Tweens and teens will seek out those digital experiences, whether through hacking skills or BFF's devices, but if kids are engaging in behaviors that are "prohibited," they won't come talk to you if/when they run into something troubling. The best intervention for healthy media use is continual parental engagement and conversation (not lecturing but listening, but you're not a lecturing type, so you'll make a great dad.) That's how you know what's age appropriate for your child's maturity and development and how to anticipate the level of tech "training wheels" your child needs to thrive. How fun that Danielle and Jack were able to visit.
Danielle and Jack visited last week and so all four of us had some conversations about future families. Your topic here was very much included in the convo. A takeaway for me is that prohibitive rules don't work and may even be counter intuitive while strategic efforts toward authentic digital literacy is the way to go. I'll be sharing with Danielle!
If you think back to being a tween/teen, I'm pretty sure you're remember how much you wanted to be "older" as if that meant you could do anything you wanted and how things that were forbidden became much more alluring as if that was somehow proof of the alleged freedom to yourself and your peers (which we all find out way too soon is a head fake.) As you say, prohibition works against strategies for digital literacy for other reasons too that represent more problems and potential dangers. Tweens and teens will seek out those digital experiences, whether through hacking skills or BFF's devices, but if kids are engaging in behaviors that are "prohibited," they won't come talk to you if/when they run into something troubling. The best intervention for healthy media use is continual parental engagement and conversation (not lecturing but listening, but you're not a lecturing type, so you'll make a great dad.) That's how you know what's age appropriate for your child's maturity and development and how to anticipate the level of tech "training wheels" your child needs to thrive. How fun that Danielle and Jack were able to visit.