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Tech-Savvy Kids: The M Generation at Home
By Dawn Miller.
If you’ve wondered how your teenager can "do homework" while talking on the phone, instant messaging and watching TV all at the same time – you’re not alone. Lots of parents and stepparents are asking how to handle a generation that is media-saturated.
A new study of 8-18 year olds by the Kaiser Foundation portrays "Generation M" as always wired to media. Four hours a day are spent with television and nearly 2 hours with music. Nearly seventy per cent of all kids have a television in their bedroom and thirty-one per cent have a computer. Today’s youth are efficient multi-taskers – cramming 8½ hours of media exposure into only 6½ hours.
Even though ratings systems have been put in place to help parents monitor children and media use, few of them are using them. Only 6% of kids said their parents use the V-chip. Only 10% of children said their parents check video ratings and 14% check music ratings scores.
And they are using that laxity to access media meant for older audiences. Forty-five per cent of them went to an R-rated movie without their parents. 31% of them pretended to be older to get into a website, 20% listened to music that they know their parents would not approve of. Sixty-five per cent of seventh to twelfth grade students have played the violent and mature-rated "Grand Theft Auto" video game. A little more than half said that their family has no rules about TV watching, even though it is the most common form of media accessed by today’s kids.
When my husband and I got married, the first dispute we had about our new home was not over who would mow the lawn or wash the dishes – but whether or not the kids would have TVs in their bedrooms. Asking his ex-wife to tighten up how her household ran was not an option. We ended up compromising – we got the house rules we wanted in exchange for the TVs. With the kids spending much of their time in a "no media rules" home, we felt it better to push engagement and dialogue with them – because the media floodgate was already wide open.
In an ideal co-parenting world, both households sharing joint custody of the kids would have the same rules about media use. These rules would be agreed on ahead of time by the parents and enforced by everyone, including the stepparents. But If you’re like us and know the other household the kids live in won’t make its rules consistent with yours, you have to come up with a creative solution that addresses reality.
We took a two-pronged approach to the kids and media use - strategic positioning and dialogue. Conveniently, no cell phones will work in our house, limiting chatting with friends to the land lines or the one public computer. We make a point of talking to the kids about television shows and movies. Like most, we don’t use the V-chip, but we check ratings on music and movies.
The computer the kids use to Instant Message their friends sits in the living room in a high-traffic zone by the big screen TV – a guaranteed kid magnet that is easily monitored and promises no privacy. If they are chatting online we ask whom they are talking to and what they are talking about. My husband periodically asks them what web sites they visit and talks to them about their surfing and chatting. It’s not nosy – it’s just asking.
And we do have rules about what’s appropriate content and when people can go online. A few times a year we deliberately pack the whole crew up for a weekend camping trip – and leave Instant Messaging at home.
If you want to get a leash on your child’s media use – the solution may not be to shut it off – which will only make them access the media where you can’t see it – but to start talking instead.
Copyright © Dawn Miller. A thirty-something wife and stepmom of three, Dawn writes a bi-weekly column on life in stepfamilies at TheStepfamilyLife.com. Website links about stepfamilies, a free newsletter and book reviews are available. Reprinted with permission.
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