As the summer ends, a new school year is arriving. Like their kids, some parents are excited, and some feel trepidation, but for entirely different reasons. Especially when it comes to phones, it means a shift from slightly looser rules and free time to more rules and stricter schedules. If you need to ease the transition, though, it’s fortunately easy to do with good communication, a little planning, and the help of parental control software.
With smartphones, it’s all about you. Your social media, your messages, your gameplay, your needs, your wants. Unsurprisingly, that can set a tone for how we interact with the world. But are teens particularly susceptible to the “me first” mindset smartphones can promote, and how do you prevent it?
A smartphone can be a useful tool for anybody, even teens. Smartphones can help them get jobs, stay in touch with friends who move away, and can help them with their schoolwork. But they can also trigger reward systems seated deep in the brain that we don’t fully understand, and start cycles it can be difficult to break. When we first encounter these cycles, sometimes called “smartphone addiction,” we need help, and teens need it in particular, since they’re fighting it for the first time. So how can you help?
One of the most unexpected changes to the world smartphones have brought us is that now, cameras are everywhere and can share any image they take to the entire world instantly. The problem is that often this tells the world more about us than we care for it to know, and vacation photos are no exception. When planning a trip with your kids, it’s important to talk about when, and why, to share vacation photos.
It seems like there’s nothing that can pry kids away from their phones, and that can worry any parent. Parental control software can help, but for kids to develop a truly healthy approach to using their phones, they need to break the habit of using them constantly. Fortunately, there’s a simple way to break the habit: Summer camp.
Most teens will argue that they need their smartphones, no matter what, although what they define as “need” is likely not the same as their parents. But when it comes to finding and keeping a job, your teen may well be in the right. Smartphones are becoming more and more useful in the workplace, even if they can be a hindrance to some workplace skills, and parents and teens will need to strike a balance between the rules at home and the demands of the workplace.
