HONEST DISCUSSIONS ABOUT RESPONSIBLE DEVICE USE
Parenting experts stressed the importance of open communication with their children from a young age about the use of such devices.
Among the questions parents can ask themselves are: why are they overindulging in screen time? Are they missing human connections and are hence seeking companionship by gaming and chatting with online friends?
Using this knowledge, Mr Tantri suggested that parents and children can then intentionally come up with rules together in terms of how they would like to balance online and offline time.
To prevent future disputes, parents also need to be transparent in discussing the types of content that are allowed and actively engage in a dialogue about their children’s media consumption.
Digital wellness educator and family coach Carol Loi said: “Discuss openly who your children are following on social media – why are your children following these influencers and what they are learning from them.
“Listen actively and be open to hearing their perspectives. Building a culture of openness and transparency will reduce disagreements in the family because there will be a focus on how to journey life together.”
She added that when disagreements happen, they can focus on the values that the family holds dear. For example, they can talk about why or why not does a particular influencer creates a positive impact on society.
Ms Lim, who is a mother of a 15-year-old, said she has managed to cultivate this level of trust with her son who shows her his social media feed so that they can discuss what is trending and what he enjoys watching online.
While she sometimes disagrees with the content that he is consuming, her son is receptive to a discussion on the issue.
For instance, she wanted him to stop following a gaming YouTuber’s channel because the influencer used a significant amount of profanity in his speech.
But her son reassured 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 did not insist that he stop following that influencer.
Mr Tantri emphasised that parents have to make their children see that any dialogue comes from a good place and that they do not want the kids to be disadvantaged by the consequences of irresponsible screen use.
Parents should also adapt rules at home as their children grow up. For example, 12-year-olds usually require close monitoring and sensitive communication in explaining strict rules, while 16-year-olds need less of that because they should understand for such rules and the consequences.
TIPS TO KEEP SCREEN ACTIVITY IN CHECK
Beyond conversations and setting boundaries, parents can also turn to a few common applications to monitor their children’s screen activities including Microsoft Family Safety and Google Family Link.
These applications allow parents to set screen time limits and filter any inappropriate content that may be harmful to children of a certain age group.
Parental control software however is not foolproof. Teens may figure out ways to bypass parental control software by looking for loopholes on online discussion forums and those familiar with hacking through their experience in gaming and coding are also likely to know how to handle technical situations such as de-configuring the system, said Mr Tantri.
Tech blog editor Alfred Siew added that parents would do well to change up their passwords once in a while. He said that his children figured out the passwords of other adult family members’ mobile phones because the adults typed the passwords in front of the children.
“They did this many times. This is problematic because they are logged in as an adult and there’s no parental controls,” he said.
Dr Jiow, who is a member of the Media Literacy Council, added that one of his studies found that a child installed a video camera at a strategic location in the house and was able to see the parent typing in the password.
It is not always easy to stay ahead of these techniques but Mr Tantri suggested that parents can start by thinking from the perspective of a child and understanding how they might choose to bypass parental controls.
When it comes to preventing the misuse of education apps as distractions, parents should allocate time to check with their children on their progress to ascertain if the time invested in these learning apps is producing the intended results, said Mr Tantri.
Ms Loi the digital family educator, however points out 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 for themselves, to discern what is right and wrong, healthy or not healthy, on their own,” she said.
