Technology is such a great tool for children, however, we do need to teach them how to use it. This is something that is very personal for each family. I am only sharing our family’s perspective and what has worked for us in the hopes that maybe it will help you find a way to balance technology with your children.
**A few excerpts of this post were written over a year ago on my family blog…
Over Christmas break, my mom entertained Lanae a lot using the iPad. Before our trip, Scott and I had been struggling with how to balance technology and so we just said “no technology.” But we knew that we would need to introduce technology in a positive way at some point.
We know that technology can be a good thing, and yet, too much of a good thing can sometimes be bad. We have both seen plenty of ‘technology obsessed’ children… and over Christmas break we saw that technology was good for Lanae (with the right apps), but Lanae could easily spend way too much time on it. It was very hard to pull her away from it as well.
After we were home for a week, Lanae was driving me crazy because she missed her Oma and Opa. She kept taking her loneliness out on poor Owen. And I was getting really tired of putting her on time out.
All the negative was really getting to me. I felt like I was being negative with Lanae ALL the time and I wanted to find a way to be more positive with her.
I prefer positive reinforcement… but I don’t necessarily like to give unnecessary rewards. A lightbulb turned on and I thought, “Hey, what if she could earn her iPad time?” We wanted to give her opportunities to use the iPad anyway, so why not make it something she is motivated to work for!
So we created the Random Acts of Kindness chart. The chart was very simple. We used contact paper
The random part just meant that she wouldn’t necessarily earn a magnet every time she did something good. We didn’t want to condition her to believe that she would get something for being kind. However, we did try to pick out a few things each day–like helping empty the dishwasher, giving brother hugs and listening the first time I asked her to do something.
She was very motivated. But of course, that meant we had to be pretty consistent, or it just didn’t work. When we were consistent, iPad time was very successful. And she learned a lot.
She was even really good about putting the iPad away as soon as the timer went off. I was really worried it would be a fight, but it wasn’t. I blame consistency… 🙂
Teaching kids to use technology can seem overwhelming, especially if you aren’t sure how much technology you want your kids to be using. This is a great way to introduce the iPad or other technology and help kids understand that it is a tool and a privilege.
If technology isn’t something that you want to use to motivate your child, you could also use this chart for kids to work towards other rewards.
We no longer use the RAOK chart for Lanae, however, we will start using it with Owen in a couple of months to introduce him to iPad time. Lanae has graduated onto The Gem System.
However, I do want to add that today Lanae is amazing when it comes to iPad time. She uses the iPad for educational activities and games and the occasional kids show (less than once a week). I don’t have to put a timer on for her anymore, she will normally play for about 20-30 minutes and then close the iPad and let me know that she is done on her own.
I love that she can monitor herself when it comes to technology. I don’t know if that’s just her personality or if its because we trained her for that amount of time. I guess we’ll find out in the next year or so as we start training Owen.
Be sure to check out our most recent behavior reinforcement plan.
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