“Should Parents Check Their Text Messages at the Movies?” and Similar 2010 Parenting Questions

In the past 24 hours, I’ve found myself confronted with two parenting questions that weren’t questions when I was the same age as my kids.  And they got me thinking.

Last night, Mrs. Spidey told me that a few parents of our kids’ summer camp mates had complained that not enough photos were posted on the camp’s website.  Being a bit more old school, I thought about the years I went to summer camp (1974-1981), during which the only contact with the outside world was USPS mail that came once a day.  I saw and talked to my parents at visiting day halfway through my 8 weeks at camp.  No one ever asked “How come there aren’t more photos on the camp website?”

Then earlier today, on the Japers’ Rink Off-Topic Thread, one of the regulars sent through a note from inside a movie theater telling that he had made it in before the movie started.  He was criticized (nicely) for texting from inside the theater.  I agreed, but I noted that I was torn as a parent, because one of my kids might be texting because they were hurt or locked out of the house.  When I posted that thought several jumped in a said I was wrong and pointed out that before texting parents went to movies and the world didn’t end.  “Should parents check their text messages at the movies?” wasn’t asked back in the day.

The reason these questions are relevant and get asked is because times have changed and our expectations have changed along with them.  In 1976, my parents couldn’t get photos of me at camp.  They didn’t even think to ask “How come I can’t see my kid more often?”  In 1980, parents couldn’t be reached inside a movie theater unless you called the theater itself.  Expectations have changed and new questions get asked.  Just because we were satisfied the way things were, doesn’t mean we should be satisfied keeping things that way.

I came up with five other 2010 parenting questions to consider that fall into the same bucket:

1. Why did you get an 88 on your test today? With immediate online grade posting, we parents are more informed than ever.  Our parents learned of grades only when we brought tests home.
2. Why does it take so long for your teacher to respond to my email? Our parents communicated with teachers twice a year at parent-teacher conferences.
3. What store should Aunt Jenny get you a gift card from for your birthday? Gift cards have replaced cash and checks as presents.
4. Why doesn’t little Bobby going to the library to do research? The Internet has ended the practice of going to the library to meet girls for research.  It is faster and more convenient.
5. Why didn’t you tell me you were going from the mall to Taco Bell? Kids who are old enough to go to the mall, usually have a phone and can text or call.

In all five of these examples, there is an understanding that expectations have changed from the past.  I distinguish this from other questions such as “Why isn’t little Susie buckled into her car seat?”  Yes, we all survived no car seat or a flimsy car seat, but that doesn’t mean someone would argue it’s OK to keep Susie out of her car seat.

However, I can easily see someone who thinks it was “good enough” back in the day and answers back:

1. You really need to check your kid’s grades online every day?  When my kids were young we kept track of his test scores, but we’re OK not knowing their final grade until we got the report card.
2. Why should the teacher respond to you so quickly?  They have parent-teacher conferences, don’t they?
3. Isn’t it easier for Aunt Jenny just to send a check?
4. Learning how to do library research is a critical skill.  Don’t let Bobby take the easy way out with the Internet.
5. You don’t need to know where he is always.  What did you do before mobile phones?

All these responses are true.  But they are based in an earlier reality.  To tell me that I don’t need to talk to the teacher between parent-teacher conferences ignores the fact that using email or voice mail makes the communications easier and faster.  I can communicate with teachers outside of conferences, because I can.  Why shouldn’t I?  Didn’t my parents want to know more about my education?  Sure they did, but it just wasn’t done.  Well – it is done now.

So when I hear from a fellow Japers’ Rink poster that I should check not my text messages during a movie ever, I respectfully disagree.  I check because I can. I don’t have to wait until I get home to find out there is a problem, so I don’t.  If the momentary flash of light bothers you, I apologize.  I will not write texts or get on the phone during a movie.  If I need to do either, I’ll stand up and walk out.

I’m not living in 1980.  This is 2010, and I check to see if my child needs me because I can.

Hey Kids!! Your Parents Know. We Just Don’t Say Anything.

Headline for all the children out there – most of what you think you are getting away with, your parents know.  How do they know?  They were once kids themselves.  They know how to get away with stuff, because they once did (or think they did). They may not say anything to you, but that’s part of what a parent does.

As my kids have gotten older and into ages that I remember reasonably clearly, I’ve tried to use my experience in my parenting.  I try to reflect back to put myself in their shoes.  Seems logical, right?  I figure, if I can think like them, then I can determine what to say to get them to understand my teachings.

However, when I think back to being 15, as my son is now, and think about what I was like then, I am afraid.  Someone once told me that it’s a miracle 50% of teenage boys survive adolescent stupidity, and I tend to agree.  However, I now know that I need to get over every little thing and move on, like, I presume, my parents did when I was 15.  And look!  I’m now 43.

I’d like to believe that I was a normal teenager in the mischievous department.  I ate candy and other sugars after I was told not to.  I stayed up later than I told my parents and, far too infrequently in retrospect, stayed out later than I was supposed to.  I “borrowed” money from my parents, usually in $20 increments, always intending to tell them later, but forgetting.  I experimented with cigarettes, also “borrowed” out of my mom’s purse, although I never intended to return those.  I may have, from time to time, told them I was going one place, really intending to go someplace else.  I’m sure there are other things that I’m forgetting.

I used to wonder how my parents never knew $20 was missing and how they never heard me walking on the wooden floor of our old house and how they never noticed that the bag of Halloween candy was lighter than the night before, even though I was banned from eating any more.  Now that my kids are older, I know the answer:  my parents probably always knew, but they never said anything.  They had a “forest-for-the-trees” mentality, which was about teaching us right from wrong, but not assuming we could be good 100% of the time.  It was a measured approach.

My wife and I are doing the same thing.  I know that my wife and I know more about what our kids do than they think we know. They just don’t know that we know, just as I didn’t know that my parents knew.  (Still with me?)

Headlines for the kids again — We know when you don’t go where you tell us you are going.  We know when you don’t wear your helmet when biking or rollerblading.  We know when homework isn’t done.  We know when you play video games all night when you should be sleeping.  We know whether you practiced the piano or not.  When we know you are fibbing about something, but we don’t always make a big deal.  When know when our wallets seem light and when the television is on an odd channel and the web browser is on an inappropriate site.  We just don’t always demand to know what happened.  We have fallen into the same measured approach.  Not everything can be World War III.

What worries (scares?) me as a parent, which I’m sure worried (scared?) my parents and my in-laws, is that we parents can’t possibly know everything.  The best we can do is teach right from wrong and choose when to intervene.  Our only option is to use what we know to the best of our ability and not worry about each and every decision they make at each and every moment.  That’s the right thing to do.

But wouldn’t GPS chips in our kids’ arms be really cool?

You Heard Me. No TV Limits for My Kids.

When I came home from work last night, both kids were home, but I didn’t see them or hear from them for about 90 minutes.   Neither moved during those 90 minutes from the televisions they were watching.  I have no idea what they were watching, but I’m sure it was incredibly inane, like The Suite Life on Disney, to which my daughter has a season pass on our DVR.

Like most parents, my wife and I have struggled and still struggle with the amount of time that 12-year-old daughter and our 15-year-old son spend watching television.  I think we struggle with it not because it’s a problem, but because we’re supposed to struggle.  It is drummed into our heads that watching television should be limited — unless it’s PBS or Discovery Network or something like that and unless it’s only in small amount per day.  As Dana Carvey’s George Bush would say “It’s bad.  It’s bad.”

Was I upset by my kids not moving?  Not really.  In our house, we don’t limit television watching.

Queue the pundits to say we’re bad parents.

I beg to differ, so I decided to look into this problem.  The more I looked at the information, the more comfortable I am with no limit.  Those preaching television limits are, in my opinion, using television data as a way to say we’re bad parents because they can’t find anything else to complain about.  Limiting television isn’t a solution.  Increasing time studying, playing sports or volunteering is.

I did some quick research on television viewing at lunch time today.  I found out that, on average, there are more televisions per household (2.93) than there are people per household (2.54). In the Spidey household, we have an embarrassing seven televisions and three computers on which programs can be watched.  All of our televisions also have DVRs, allowing us to watch what we want, when we want.  The phrase “there’s nothing on” hasn’t been said in our house since the first Tivo came out in 1999.

So – if television watching by children is crime, my wife and I have certainly created the opportunity for our kids.  A motive is needed to complete the supposed crime.

My motive in not limiting television is very simple.  I think kids need downtime.  Instead of limiting television, my wife and I make sure that other activities are done first.  They must keep up grades in school.  They need to get their physical activity.  They have to take a musical instrument.  We make sure they are socializing with friends.  I hope to find a charity for us to support as a family at the end of the summer.  Rather than focus on limiting the negative of television, I prefer to focus on increasing the positive of other things.

To the pundits, I say –

• Don’t tell me how much television the average child watches per week (1,680 according to Nielsen).  Tell me instead how much time they spend on homework, and let’s work to increase that.
• While you are looking at those 1,680 hours, tell me more what they’re watching and whether any of it is as a family.  There is a lot of good happening on television.
• Don’t publish study after study on the TV’s effects on children (4,000 so far).  Study instead the best way to motivate children to be good students or get enough physical exercise.
• Don’t tell me that unhappy people watch more television as a way to say we shouldn’t watch television.  Study instead why these people are unhappy and how we might help them.

What was really going on last night in the Spidey home?  My son was watching TV after 4 hours of summer school (he has an A in both classes) and then an afternoon outside in the heat with his friends.  My daughter was exhausted after a sleepover the night before followed by cheerleading practice in the afternoon and couldn’t really move of the couch.  I have no problem with them sitting there like lumps periodically.  When our kids have accomplished what they need to each day, it’s their right to veg in front of the television.  If that’s more than 1,680 hours per week, I’m good.

Limit television?  Back to Mr. Carvey’s President Bush — “Not gonna do it.”