Discussion Topic: Addressing Teen Use
I am nearing 30, but I do not have kids of my own. I do tend to play with them a lot, and mobile technology is very much a part of our time. Especially with teens, mobile tech (phones usually) are seen as independence and personal items. They go as far to color them, add screens/ringtones, and do other things that make the mobile theirs, even when they are not even paying the bill for it.
However, parents have an issue with this. And I totally understand. For many of them, the technology has moved as fast as their kids in terms of growth and its harder to know what they are doing versus just shutting it down completly. Some parents have a handle of being able to use mobile tech in a rewards system, being able to emphasize that mobile tech is a priveledge, not a need.
So I want to open up some discussion, and maybe this can give me (personally) some insight into parenting, and you (parents, pastors, and teachers) some insight as to how to better understand what it is your teens are doing with mobile tech. Becuase we don't want statistics like these becoming more common; we'd rather Godliness speak louder than debauchery ya know.
Labels: communication, community, mobile, parenting, teens, usability
posted by Antoine @ 7/19/2008 10:00:00 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
I guess that it should be me that opens up things a bit.
There is a brother in the church that uses mobile tech, speicifally an iPod Touch, as a reward item when his son does well. His thinking (not faulting it) is that if his child is not doing well at home or in school, that he has to take away some of those things that his child enjoys.
On the other side of that, its hard for him to keep up with what his son knows about the device. And so he's looking for ways of talking with his son about what's on his iPod as a means to facilitate not just letting his son think that what he listens to is 'his world' only. But that it will have an effect beyond his ears.
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