The Newest Form of Parenting Neglect
We may have all been guilty of doing this from time to time and not realizing that we were being neglectful toward our children. However, for some parents, this has gotten out of hand, and children are suffering from their parents’ actions. We put far too much focus on our cell phones to either “entertain” ourselves or to “distract” ourselves instead of focusing on the people around us and placing our attention where it belongs, which needs to be our children.
Our phones have taken us away from engaging with our children and being present at any moment. We are missing out on prime opportunities to primarily teach our children proper behavior, including phone etiquette; what is acceptable, what is not acceptable; and what is just plain rude to those around you. Secondly, our current phone behavior tells our children that whatever is happening on this device is more important than they are…why our attention is focused on the phone instead of on them.
We might be unaware of it, but by using our phones constantly, we are teaching our children very poor manners, terrible social skills, and a misleading sense of reality. Just the other day, while having dinner at a restaurant and because I was not engaged with my phone, I witnessed two cases of this that was mind blowing to me. The first incident was a couple and their daughter waiting to be seated. Both the mother and the father never looked up from their phones for about an hour while their daughter, who was probably about 9 or 10, sat in the middle of them completely bored and completely ignored. She had no communication with her parents throughout that entire hour. Her parents were entertained, but she was left out completely. And weirdly, she wasn’t acting out trying to get their attention. So, this told me that she was VERY accustomed to this behavior and felt defeated to even try to connect with them….
