The Struggle Raising Children In The Age Of Technology.

The 90s were a weird soup of technological progress and traditionalism.

I remember my childhood was full of playing outside, drawing, coloring, reading, and playing board games. When Playstation came out it was the coolest thing since sliced bread. And Internet? Whew!

I didn't care too much for technology and video games until the 2000's when I got into high school. Cut to today - and everyone's whole lives are based around handheld computers that call people, social media, and cell and internet service.

Our parents didn't have to worry about us being safe on the internet- at least they didn't think so.

I remember when I was in middle school, spending the night at my friend's house, and the girls would sneak onto the computer to go to the new amazing 'chat rooms' and talk inappropriately with older guys - because that was cool to them.

I read a book while they did that. I thought it was gross. I was also a few years younger than my friends. I also remember asking them after they told someone where they lived: "What if they come here and kill you? Or worse, rape you and then kill you? You shouldn't tell people you don't know where you live, Friz."

Younger, but wiser than most of my friends due to a rough early childhood that most kids don't experience (before I came to live with my mom).

I'm struggling with raising children in the era of technology.

At 6 years old, my oldest biological child is showing tendencies of being curious like the girls when I was back in school, sneaking into chat rooms to talk to guys. When she was 3, through a series of events I wasn't aware of at first, one of the adults in charge of her care while I was working, had downloaded YouTube Kids on an old phone, deleted everything else, and gave it to her to use when she needed to be entertained.

I was a little upset - since my consent hadn't been asked. Had they had the decency to ask me if I wanted my 3-year-old to have a phone - whether it was just for watching videos or not, I would have said NO.

I didn't want her, or any of my other children to have access to things like switches, tablets, smartphones, or computers until they were MUCH older. But, here we are.

My fiance has a son from a previous relationship too. He experienced a similar situation when his son's mother gave him a tablet when he was 4, a ridiculously young age to be given a tablet of his own.

So like it or not, technology is a part of our children's lives in the early stages.

I'm not ashamed of my opinion that kids should not be given tablets at a very young age.

My 10-year-old boy doesn't like playing outside - and he gets upset when we tell him he may not bring his tablet or switch with us when we go somewhere when he's visiting. We are more dedicated to spending time as a family than at his mother's house, so we had a few full-blown tantrums at first when we explained 'family time is family time, and no electronics are allowed, even for the adults, unless it's to take pictures of each other.'

Family time. That's just not something that's done over there - and if I think about it, a lot of people I know with kids who are very heavy into the 'the TV/Tablet/Phone are my babysitters' lifestyle, family time isn't a big thing in a lot of their households. (That probably sounds super judgy and rude while reading it but I promise it's not. It's just a straightforward statement- and I don't have an opinion on how they raise their kids. Not my kids, not my issue, not my business, you know? Just putting that out there to anyone who thinks I'm being cunty to parents who do a lot of devices).

If he had the option, he would opt out of every family movie night because "movies are boring" and he would go watch Minecraft content creators instead of spending time watching movies that, if he wasn't so entitled to his internet devices, he would enjoy as a child. He has very little stamina for physical activities, (he is not unfit or overweight, he just has low stamina and is tuckered out faster than other kids with a less electronic lifestyle). And because he spends so much time being a zombie watching OTHER people play games, he has an extreme dislike and refuses to use his critical thinking skills. Why would he try to figure it out when his phone next to him can help him solve the video game puzzle?

And he also has the mentality that if something is too hard, he can just give up. And honestly, it's frustrating to me how his 3 primary parents aren't concerned about that - because let's be real - if we all quit every time something got hard, nobody in this world would accomplish anything!

Technology has made him a somewhat lazy child, and I feel this is a trend in MOST children who are given internet devices as young children.

Sky isn't so bad yet, but I'm very strict with her screen time. Her biological father who I co-parent with and I both feel the same way about screen time: It's to be limited, and that child can go play outside if she is bored. No screen time before lunch, unless it's her home-schooling. Because her sister who is 2 years younger than her has grown up watching Sky get to have a phone, she also has a little phone that she gets to watch on weekends and on VERY good school days when her teachers tell us what an amazing helper she is (which, for the record... is almost every day... I might be backfiring on myself with my rules here).

Recently, Sky had to be taught what happens when she breaks our trust with her devices.

She's barely six, so she is heavily monitored on her devices. Up until a few weeks ago, she knew the only thing she was allowed to do on her little video phone was watch YouTube Kids. At her father's house, there's a tablet that her great-great-aunt and he let her use.

The problem with YouTube Kids is YouTube does a TERRIBLE job filtering out content that was uploaded to YouTube Kids that isn't quite age-appropriate FOR kids (you're still my favorite YouTube, but you're YouTube Kids app needs some more work). The last time she was there, her dad called me and questioned me about what I allowed her to watch.

I told him honestly, that she knows what she's allowed to watch and what she isn't. She and I have talked about it numerous times when I heard something on her phone that I didn't think was okay for little girls to listen to (videos of older girls making their dolls marry each other and make out and cheat on each other ... kids are intense in their play.) If one of her videos had any cursing, I would block the whole channel.

He informed me that when he walked out of the room first thing in the morning, he heard her videos saying some very inappropriate things, and they were muppets of some sort. And that she was no longer allowed to watch YouTube at his house.

I noticed her pretend time with her dolls has started taking inappropriate mature turns romantically for a little girl. So naturally, when her dad called me to tell me about this new little episode, I agreed and told him I felt he made the right decision since the source of inspiration for this inappropriate play had been discovered.

A few days later, she comes home. She and her Uncle like to play Minecraft together. He pays 5 bucks a month to have their own little private server, and she wasn't allowed on the main server with other people. Little Sky decided one day that she was going to leave her private server and join the world server. Uncle caught her.

Mean, mean Mommy has grounded her from Minecraft until she is 7 years old. A whole year since her birthday was on the 3rd of this month.

Electronics and video games are a privilege, NOT a right. And she knew my rules and she decided to break them. And I'm the adult, it's my job to teach and raise her. I am not a gentle parent so there are consequences.

I have this rule that most parents don't have: "You ARE allowed to ask me why I have a rule. I will explain it to you."

So when my 5-year-old looked at me with tears in her eyes and said: "Mommy, I just don't understand WHY I can't play on the main server with other kids. And I don't understand why I am not allowed to play Roblox."

Yeah. Roblox is not allowed in this house. The ONLY reason her elder brother gets to play Roblox here, is because his other 3 parents (including his father) said he could. If I had a voice at all in his parenting - I would be taking that Roblox, and deleting it and banning it until he's moved out of either parent's house. And no, I wouldn't give two shits how upset it made him.

Why? Because it's not 'the world's biggest playground for kids.' It's the world's biggest hunting ground for pedophiles. And until Roblox's company starts CARING about that and doing something about it, I think every parent should boycott the shit out of them and make their life much less profitable. Don't tell me it's hard. I've played games where I made a typo and it made an inappropriate word on accident and got banned. There ARE ways, if they were willing to spend some of their precious profits.

I do not shelter my children - not even at ages 4 and 6. I told her the truth.

"You aren't allowed on the Minecraft server or on Roblox because there are grown-ups out there who can and will hunt you down, steal you away from me, take you someplace dark and scary, torture you and hurt you until you die or they get bored. Then they will kill you and throw your body over a cliff into the river. There are bad, bad people out there, and on those servers, you are not safe and I don't want you talking to strangers."

She stopped crying, thought about it, and then looked at me with understanding.

"I didn't know that there were bad people like that Mommy. Is that for real? That's really scary!"

"Yes, baby. It's for real. And it IS scary. It's scary for Mommy too. That's why I have that rule. If there were not bad grown-ups out there who hurt kids, I wouldn't mind if you played on the server or Roblox. But there are. You are very important to me, and I love you. So I HAVE to keep you safe. Not only did you break my rules, but you broke my trust and now I'm disappointed in you. I can't trust you to follow my rules that keep you safe, and that hurts my heart."

Yes. I really said these things to my six-year-old. I refuse to shelter my children. And my reasons for my rules are solid GOOD ones. And the more she understands the reasons for my rules, the more reason she has to RESPECT my rules.

The most amazing thing about that conversation was that she understood, apologized, and then cried about my trust being broken. She has taken an oath that she will do her best, and get my trust back. Love her, SO much.

Hoping I got through to her.

The first little phone for watching little videos we gave to my younger daughter, we decided to break in front of her after she began throwing fits when I told her it was time to turn it in and play with toys or read a book. After the 10th or so tantrum and explaining that she wasn't in trouble but we couldn't stay on the phone all day, I was done. When her little 3-year-old-at-the-time self turned in her phone, stomped back to her room, and began throwing her toys against the wall, I was EXTREMELY done. I handed the phone to her Uncle and Dad and ordered them to make her watch them smash it.

A few months have passed, and we've given her another hand-me-down. She no longer throws fits - because she knows that Mommy will make it so she doesn't have a phone AT ALL.

It's really freaking hard to supervise your child on the internet. And on the Internet, really super easy for freaks with sick twists to find our children even if they live across the world.

And I feel like a lot of parents feel trapped between the Internet and a hard place. Not only is it hard to supervise your child's activities on the internet on a tablet or a phone, but it's also hard to find a good balance between 'physical play time' and 'screen time.'

We're all busy. We're all trying to clean the house, cook dinner, feed the animals, write articles, run a business, and maintain a job. So sometimes it feels SO easy to just hand your child a device and let that device do the job of distracting your needy little love buckets. I GET IT!

In fact let me just go ahead and inform y'all right now, I'm not perfect in anything, especially not parenting. So, I'm guilty of these things too....

But I recently found a SOLUTION.

A sweet, sweet solution, with all the supervision and screen time restriction worries built into it, along with the prevention of the child wandering onto an app or game that you do not want your child to have access to.

Amazon Kids is my new go-to. You can be sure there's an article coming with in-depth detail on the supervision, the screen time restrictions, educational requirements, and the other AWESOME features that Amazon Kids has. It's an article in itself since this one managed to accumulate to like a billion words just in my explanation as to WHY I NEEDED a solution. My bad guys, sorry! Something to look forward to though.

There's a lot to be excited about for us, who were struggling to find a balance in my child's growing curiosity and ever-maturing mind with her technology. Now I can restrict what she has access to, and require her to either read or play only educational games before she can fool around with her My Little Pony make-over game.

Because I believe video games and educational content can be extremely beneficial to a child's early development. Hand-eye coordination, critical thinking skills (puzzles, riddles, etc), reading practice, etc. There are a lot of benefits to children having access to some games and some screen time. So long as it's restricted and supervised and within reason.

Amazon Kids makes me a very happy parent.

Time is precious, thank you so much for taking some to read my article. I hope you enjoyed it and it proved useful in some way!

Find my fictional fantasy book "Memoirs of the In-Between" on Amazon in paperback, eBook, and hardback.

You can also find it in the Apple Store or on the Campfire Reading app.