Are iPhones good for 3 year olds?

"Why an iPhone could actually be good for your 3-year-old” in Sunday’s Boston Globe Magazine (Nov. 1) made some good points.

I love this statement about writer Neil Swidey’s 4 year old: “She belongs to a new generation. These ‘mobile kids’ are the purest breed yet of natives to the wireless world where the rest of us are refugees.”

Everyone over 30 is a refugee in the world of technology. And we hold the reigns of this wild horse that no one knows where it will lead us in the new millennium.

“It becomes yet another medium to be monitored and negotiated over,” Swidey says. Well, that’s a big part of being a parent. A century ago, instead of computers, dime novels were thought to be the ruin of young people.

“Technology” ought to be on the agenda of every family meeting in today’s world, if for nothing else, for the parents to get a lesson from the children. Family meetings are the ideal place to negotiate limits. Open the negotiations by asking the youths for the first bid. It might surprise you. Be flexible and keep your values in mind.

Some parents say, “I won’t put a time limit on screen time because that encourages them to use it every day.” That’s one approach. Another approach is to encourage other activities. Announce: “It’s a beautiful day outside. Screen time is over. It’s outdoor time. Go outside and play.”

I love Swidey’s statement: “They crave power.” He’s referring to children, and of course, all of us crave power. Children instinctively associate power with electronics because they are skillful observers. They watch what we DO more than what we SAY. When they see us carrying a cell phone everywhere in the same way we wear underwear, of course they associate power with cell phones.

Family meetings are also the ideal venue to divvy up power. To empower your children, they must be given power in small doses, from birth forward. The sooner they learn to manage their personal power, the better their decisions will be in the long run.

Shut off the cell phones and get children running a family meeting and doing chores around the house. That’s good for 3-year-olds, so they develop into teens who make good decisions.