Parenting Pearls

Prioritizing Your Home Over Your Phone

By Sara Rayvych, MSEd

When I was a kallah, the message we were often told was “get off the phone when your husband comes in.” In those days, the phone was really just a phone, but it was still a potential distraction from those closest to us. Ignoring your spouse to speak to a friend was not properly prioritizing this special relationship.

Most phones today are cordless. I don’t know if the modern-day child realizes that phones ever had a cord in the first place. A short cord meant you were standing close to the wall, while a long one meant your siblings could jump rope over it as they passed.

Today, our phones are a home office where you can communicate simultaneously with everybody and nobody. Rather than competing for attention with our other family members, our children are finding social media, news sites, text messages, emails and anything and everything taking away our attention. We’ve gone from “just one minute sweetie, I’m speaking to Bubby” to “just one minute, I’m checking Instagram.”

Technology has brought much good along with the challenges. I am not debating the pros and cons of any given device. I just want to take a few paragraphs to focus on two points about the use of technology and parenting: keeping our children prioritized and the example we’re setting.

Throughout this article the assumption is that every website, contact, and text is 100% kosher. I will not be discussing the inherent dangers of inappropriate content. Such a complex topic is beyond the scope of this article. There are many organizations and professionals available for those finding themselves experiencing difficulties in this area. I urge all those who need assistance in this to overcome any embarrassment or shame and get the appropriate help.

I am not here to tell our chashuve readers how they should or shouldn’t use their devices, nor how much time is appropriate for electronics on any given day. This is up to each person to determine for themselves, and it would be completely inappropriate for me to even suggest I know best – what is necessary for one person may be unnecessary for others.

The Challenge

I recently read a Jewish weekly publication that challenged a group of women to read a particular book on the science behind the addictiveness of cell phones along with a systematic program to drastically reduce their usage. I think the book is called How To Break Up With Your Phone by Catherine Price; unfortunately, I don’t know for sure since I eventually threw out the article and never read the book. The article consisted of these women sharing their experiences and thoughts after this challenge.

It was interesting to read the women’s responses in this article. These were frum women who were clearly focused on their family and avodas Hashem yet they still were finding themselves excessively drawn to their cellphones. They described many of the techniques they used to successfully bring down their screen time usage, all while keeping their phone as a functional device.

I’ll give just a few of the many examples. What I found helpful was that it wasn’t just “throw it out” or “drop everything.” Some women felt they still needed social media for business purposes. With this in mind, they created set times they used it or set other parameters to keep it controlled. Many charged it away from their sleeping areas, turned off alerts or kept it on silent. Checking their time usage gave them a clear indication of how they were doing.

Many of us have taken the time to contemplate the role modern-day technology plays in our lives. I’ve long debated back and forth over bringing up this topic in an article but have been very hesitant. Seeing the benefits these women and I have experienced from reining in the technology in our lives, I finally decided to humbly begin just a small portion of the discussion that is at the forefront of our generation’s challenges.

Feeling Special

As adults and parents, there are so many things we need to do each day, most of which our children fail to appreciate. On any given day, our “to-do list” may feel more like a “wish list.” Particularly with the yomim tovim in our rearview mirror, many of those routine tasks had to be put aside to prepare for the Days of Awe; now we are playing catch-up.

Our children, despite our many required roles and tasks, still want to feel like the center of our universe. Even if those many items on our to-do list revolve around them, our little ones often fail to realize that we’re only doing those things for them. We pay the mortgage to have a house to raise them, tuition is for their education, healthcare for their many pediatric visits, and the grocery bill is so high because they’re continuously hungry.

With the many obligations we have it’s crucial that our children still feel they’re important to us and central to our day. We need to carefully prioritize our time. It’s hard enough to make a child feel special as we go about our daily day and those necessary tasks; it’s even harder to accomplish this goal if our children are fighting for our attention with a tiny screen playing a funny video, frequent text messages, or social media.

Attention Competition

It’s a fallacy to think we can divide our attention limitlessly. While the reality is that we often have to multitask, there’s a clear difference between our child talking to us as we stir the pot as opposed to when we’re staring at a screen while trying to type a coherent message. (Sadly, text messaging has destroyed spelling, grammar, and punctuation, but that’s another topic.)

Many of the jobs we do simultaneously require minimal focus, and our loved ones don’t feel it detracts from our ability to concentrate on them. In contrast, using our phones or tablets creates a competition between our child and an electronic screen. How sad for a child to feel their parents find the device more interesting than their child.

There are definitely times that we need the information on the screen, and these items can be very useful. There is incredible convenience in doing your banking, finding a recipe, or being able to make a phone call from wherever you are. Many of our readers may remember the days before cellphones when you always kept a quarter in your pocket and had to search for a pay phone – something our children can’t even fathom. We just need to keep our priorities prioritized and our children feeling like the priceless gems they are.

Living By Example

Our children are growing up in a world very different from ours when we were young. They’ve never experienced a time without the constant bombardment of high-tech. It’s a tremendous

challenge for us to learn how to balance our time and avoid the addiction (yes, many professionals acknowledge the addictive properties) of these devices while maintaining their usefulness. It’s nearly impossible for our children to do so. We can teach them by living the example we expect from them.

If we prioritize our loved ones over the phone, hopefully they will, too. We want them to have healthy relationships, and too many of our youth are relying on electronic relationships over in-person ones.

We want our children to use their time wisely. We want them to do their schoolwork, learn Torah and focus on

their inner self – sports, hobbies and arts are all fun, too. Do we want them to spend their day with their eyes glued to a small screen? We can only expect our children to enjoy themselves sans technology if we set that example ourselves. Sadly, I’ve seen too many adults crossing streets on the red while typing, unaware of the passing vehicles. At a simcha, I saw the family members of the baalei simcha all typing on their phones and ignoring each other. The endless list of examples are all an indication that perhaps we’re not setting the example we’d like our children to follow.

Each individual, knowing their own needs, can take the time to assess what role technology should play in their lives. Our children’s needs and the example we are setting for them should be among the criteria we take into consideration. As we wade through the new terrain technology presents us, we can pave a path for the next generation to follow. May Hashem help us in our goals.

And if you text me but I don’t see it right away, please be understanding; I’m trying to follow my own advice.

There’s a clear difference between our child talking to us as we stir the pot as opposed to when we’re staring at a screen while trying to type a coherent message.

Sara Rayvych, MSEd, has her master’s in general and special education. She has been homeschooling for over 10 years in Far Rockaway. She can be contacted at Rayvych Homeschool@gmail.com.

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