03 July 2018

The Essential Guide To 21st Century Parenting

Forget board games, LCD consoles, hopscotch and 2D Mario platform games, the world of entertainment for kids has exploded into something altogether more sophisticated. The twenty-first century has seen the emergence of social media, the Internet, connectivity, WiFi and virtual reality. Children nowadays want the latest technological advancements at their fingertips. They want to communicate with their pals via their games console and want to play Fifa with the faceless individual they met online that’s based in Australia. The world has gotten smaller, but it has also gotten more hazardous.

Parenting in the twenty-first century has become all the more difficult because of the dangers posed by these technological advancements. Take a look at this essential guide to parenting in 2018 and beyond to help you protect your kids.


Online

Safety online is paramount. While you can ban screens in the bedroom and you can try to limit the time your offspring spend on tablets and their smartphone, they will inevitably be scrolling through their Facebook feed or checking out the latest Instagram images at some point. Go too far in banning devices and they will rebel. You need to find a happy medium. Limit online activity in whatever shape or form to an hour a day max. Make sure this is after all homework is complete and ensure a curfew is in place at least two hours before bed to ensure a sound sleep routine. Put this in a contract that the whole family can sign up to. Make it look official, print it off, talk about it at a family meeting and obtain everyone's signatures. This way your kids won’t feel victimized, and you can be more inclusive with the house rules. By making it official, everyone in the household will give it the attention it deserves.

When online, encourage an open dialogue with your children and make sure they are aware of the perils. Your kids' school should also be taking time in computing sessions to teach your children about online dangers and staying safe while on the Internet. While you are not going to spy on your kids' profiles, make sure their privacy settings are at the strictest so strangers can’t stumble across their personal information. Ensure that they can approach you if they see or experience something unpleasant or unwanted online. Having a positive relationship with each other and the technology is vital to keep your kids safe online.

Peer Pressure

The world of Instagram may seem a fickle entity to us adults, but for your little darlings, this is where they can emulate their icons, check out what their pals are doing and have fun uploading their own images. The Holga, Rise and Amaro filters do little but add a fake perfection to photographs which can lead to feelings of inadequacy and a lack of self esteem especially amongst teenagers. Talk to your children and ensure that they don’t become obsessed with image and encourage them to have fun with their own photos and not take the online world too seriously. An obsession with image can lead to eating disorders, depression and mental illness that we want to protect our children from.


Home

It is not solely online that has seen the impact of the twenty first century. Our homes are also seeing technological advancements like never before. We can now pop a capsule into our washing machine to sort out our laundry. Smart devices can control our thermostat, and we can ask our kitchen worktop for a recipe based on the ingredients we have in our cupboards. It’s still as vital as ever that you create a safer home for your children by doing the basics. If you have younger cherubs, keep the kitchen cabinets on a child safety lock, cover your plug sockets with protectors and ensure the cords on your blinds are out of reach of little hands. While basic, these safety concerns should not be overlooked.




As a responsible parent, your offspring are your heart and soul, and you will do everything in your power to protect them. It can be difficult at times to know the best course of action to take if you notice your child spending a little too much time on the Xbox or appearing to be stressed after looking at their Snapchat feed. Be present, be open and stick to the basic ground rules that the whole family has signed up to. By following this guide, you can ensure that your children stay safe in 2018 and beyond.

9 comments:

  1. So many parents really dont get it that youre not invading a childs privacy monitoring internet usage. They are your kids and the key words are kids. By not monitoring you are allowing the world into your home.

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  2. It kinda puts kids into a #trance like #stateofmind where they're in a tunnel without any awareness of their surroundings...

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    1. I understand it's hard because you want kids to be able to play outside however you want them to be save too. Lucky if you live out in the country.

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  3. I do not even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was great.
    I don't know who you are but certainly you are going to a famous blogger if you are not already ;) Cheers!

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  4. Parenting is a lot the same but each generation has something new. This article definitely hit good points about parenting in this generation.

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  5. I very delighted to find this website on bing, just what I was looking for :
    D besides saved to my bookmarks.

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  6. I think we parents need to be careful not to let our anxieties and feeling out of our depth technologically get in the way of our children fitting into their normal peer groups amongst friends, school friends and church friends. This is especially true as they get to be young teens and we should be aware, for instance, that confiscation of an iPhone after some misdemeanour may lead to being isolated from their peers. As children grow into adulthood we have to learn to trust them even though they can, and will, make mistakes, Hopefully parents can provide a supportive environment in which they can learn from mistakes and grow in independence.

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  7. Got to prevent them from being unsafe online!

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  8. Good to teach them online safety when young

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