HONEST DISCUSSIONS ON RESPONSIBLE USE OF DEVICES

Parenting experts have stressed the importance of open communication with their children from a young age about the use of such devices.

Questions parents may ask include: Why do they spend too much time in front of a screen? Do they miss human connections and so seek companionship through gaming and chatting with friends online?

Using this knowledge, Tantri suggested that parents and children can then intentionally develop rules together for how they want to balance online and offline time.

To avoid future conflicts, parents should also be transparent when discussing the types of content allowed and actively engage in dialogue about their children’s media consumption.

Carol Loi, digital wellbeing educator and family coach, said: “Discuss openly who your children follow on social media – why your children follow these influencers and what they learn from them.

“Listen actively and be open to hearing their perspectives. Building a culture of openness and transparency will reduce disagreements within the family, as the focus will be on how to live together.

She added that when disagreements arise, they can focus on the values ​​the family holds dear. For example, they can explain why or why a particular influencer creates a positive impact on society.

Ms Lim, mother of a 15-year-old, said she has managed to cultivate this level of trust with her son showing her his social media feed so they can discuss trends and what he is likes to watch online.

Even though she sometimes disagrees with the content he consumes, her son is receptive to a discussion on the issue.

For example, she wanted him to stop following a video game YouTuber’s channel because the influencer used a significant amount of profanity in his speech.

But her son reassured her by telling her that he would not start swearing like the YouTuber. She kept a watchful eye on his language and since he kept his promise, she didn’t insist that he stop following this influencer.

Mr Tantri stressed that parents need to make their children understand that all dialogue comes from the right place and that they do not want children to be disadvantaged by the consequences of irresponsible screen use.

Parents should also adapt the rules at home as their children get older. For example, 12-year-olds typically need close supervision and sensitive communication to explain strict rules, while 16-year-olds need less because they need to understand those rules and their consequences.

TIPS FOR KEEPING SCREEN ACTIVITY UNDER CONTROL

Beyond conversations and setting boundaries, parents can also turn to a few common apps to monitor their children’s screen activities, including Microsoft Family Safety and Google Family Link.

These apps allow parents to set screen time limits and filter inappropriate content that may harm children of a certain age group.

However, parental control software is not infallible. Teenagers can find ways to circumvent parental control software by looking for vulnerabilities on online chat rooms, and those who are familiar with hacking from their experience in gaming and coding are also likely to know how to deal with them. technical situations such as system deconfiguration, Tantri said.

Alfred Siew, editor-in-chief of the tech blog, added that parents would do well to change their passwords from time to time. He said his children discovered the cell phone passwords of other adult family members because the adults typed the passwords in front of the children.

“They did this several times. This is problematic because they are logged in as adults and there are no parental controls,” he said.

Dr. Jiow, a member of the Media Literacy Council, added that one of his studies found that a child had set up a video camera in a strategic location in the home and could see the parent typing in the password.

It’s not always easy to stay ahead of these techniques, but Tantri suggested that parents can start by thinking from their child’s perspective and understanding how they might choose to bypass parental controls.

When it comes to preventing the misuse of educational apps as distractions, parents should spend time checking in with their children on their progress to see if the time invested in these learning apps is producing the expected results, a said Mr. Tantri.

Ms. Loi, the digital family educator, emphasizes, however, that the most effective parental control software is “heartware”.

“Invest time and energy to build a strong bond…The best tools are the internal filtering and monitoring tools that our children build themselves, to discern for themselves what is right and wrong, healthy or not healthy,” she said. .