Advice from Digital Kids to Parents

Given the chance, kids can offer remarkable insight — good ideas for their parents to consider.

I’ve heard many kids reflect thoughtfully, and not so thoughtfully, on their parents’ digital skills. I often hear my students wonder aloud about why parents don’t always model the digital citizenship expectations that they want their children to learn and apply.

Below are the nine most common “I Wish” statements expressed over the past several years by digital children that I teach. Two of them, I’ll admit, were even mentioned to me by my daughter some years ago. Mea culpa…

Kids Wish Their Parents and Other Adults Would

Try to learn a lot more about computers in particular and technology in general.
Stop saying they don’t know much about technology (mom’s especially)
Not use Blackberries and phones at sports games and school events.
Don’t talk on the phone so much in the car.
Learn to play some of the kids’ online games.
Understand more about helping with searches on the Internet.
Understand how hard it is to learn the technology rules and regulations and not always threaten to take away technology access when there’s a problem.
Stop automatically saying that new things like Wikipedia are questionable.
Try not to act dumb about technology. Even if you don’t understand something, please act like you want to learn new things.

To learn a bit more read 4 Lessons for Parents in a Constantly Connected World over at the Mashable site.

Books that Address the Monumental Digital Changes in Our Lives

(and help parents and other adults understand more about digital kids)

Sticks and Stones by Emily Bazelon
Hamlet’s Blackberry – William Powers
Alone Together – Sherry Turkle
Born Digital: The First Generation of Digital Natives – John Palfrey
Net Smarts – Howard Rheingold

One thought on “Advice from Digital Kids to Parents”

Hi! I am a student doing a health project on how technology affects a child’s social skills. In my research I found a lot of different effects- both positive and negative. One of the more negative effects that I have found in my research, is that technology changes the typical role of a parent-child relationship. I really like your blog because of the way that it focuses on the more positive effects of parenting with technology. I really liked this article because it shows that children are not always the technology obsessed party in the relationship. I found this piece of information really interesting, and helpful in providing a contrasting opinion to some of the research I found. It took me a little while to find this particular post, and I was curious if you had done a posting on cyber-bullying. This is another topic I had mentioned in my research. Thank you for having such creative and interesting insight on this topic!

Abby says:

May 14, 2014 at 11:52 am

Hi! I am a student doing a health project on how technology affects a child’s social skills. In my research I found a lot of different effects- both positive and negative. One of the more negative effects that I have found in my research, is that technology changes the typical role of a parent-child relationship. I really like your blog because of the way that it focuses on the more positive effects of parenting with technology. I really liked this article because it shows that children are not always the technology obsessed party in the relationship. I found this piece of information really interesting, and helpful in providing a contrasting opinion to some of the research I found. It took me a little while to find this particular post, and I was curious if you had done a posting on cyber-bullying. This is another topic I had mentioned in my research. Thank you for having such creative and interesting insight on this topic!