Parenting.
I am pretty sure it is illegal for humans to eat their
young. I am aware of some species of
animals that do this. Mostly, I believe,
because the animal parent wants to avoid the complaints from the animal child
of not having the newest iPhone.
I don’t have this issue.
My kids are aware of technology, but luckily I’ve kept them in the
proverbial dark about how awesome technology is. I mean, it can do everything. My phone can unlock my car, and if I spend
enough time working at it, my phone can unlock your car. It can order pizza, translate language and
show me how to apply a tourniquet.
That’s cool, and by laws of usage and phone wielding power,
it makes me a little cooler as well.
Recently, I had some experiences with my two older children
Katie and Brandon. For her birthday, I
was able to get a hold of one of those $99 HP Touchpad’s from Wal-mart. Don’t ask me how, aside from pure Jesus power
was I able to get one of these from Wal-mart customer service rep Chris. I got home and started setting it up for
Katie to use when I gave it to her on her birthday which was in 2 weeks.
Within 5 minutes of working on it in my bedroom, Katie comes
walking in and says “WHAT’S THAT?!?!”
Now, as an aside, I did have the door open, and I wasn’t
really doing this in secret. But she saw
I had something that resembled an iPad.
I explained to her that it was an HP Touchpad and that I was trying it
out since they stopped making them that day.
She was a little saddened and said “So it’s just for you?” I replied that it was the families and that
we all could share.
You might be one of those people who say “Why would you give
an 11 year old something so expensive?”
I have a philosophy…well it’s more like guidelines…not really; it’s more
like a leaflet of rules. You see, tech
to our kids will be what appliances are to us now. A tablet is the same as a toaster; it’s just
an object that serves a purpose.
Remember the jokes that Grandpa had to call his Grandson to set the
clock on the VCR? Yeah, we are a little
bit beyond that in society now. The VCR
is now a mini tower running a Linux kernel OS with an encrypted Hard
Drive. They might even move them to
solid state soon. Programming the clock is the least of your troubles.
As a Christian, I have sat in sermons where a preacher or
even talking to lay people who would say the computer is from Satan, and not to
have one in your home. You people can
not be my friend, because you don’t view these devices for the tools that they
are. You limit your ability to see the
possibilities of having access to vast amounts of information to better your
understanding of the environment you live in or even to just read a book
(please some of you, just read a book) online.
Should you always be connected?
No, but don’t succumb to the Salem Witch trials of 2012.
Back to Katie. This
daughter of mine. Oy. She picks up a musical instrument and like a
Keanu Reeves wannabe sitting in a Matrix chair and gets the operating manual on
how to play these things downloaded into her head by some chord I am sure is in
her room. She’s smart, and I don’t mean
just book smart, oh no, she’s that, but she is rocket fuel making kind of
smart. Today we were discussing
neutrinos and their ability to possibly travel faster than the speed of light,
thereby negating the laws of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and mass density. Physics could be rewritten.
Yeah…that’s what I got.
So, she was given this tablet for her Birthday, and last
night she decides to write on her FB wall “I’m bored out of my mind.” (Yes I
let her on Face Book, yes I police her friends, and yes I go through everything
she does. If you feel the need to
question me as a parent, I’ll question your intelligence for judging me by 1
sentence in a paragraph)
Bored out of your what?!?!!?
I sat there and stared at it for a good 2 minutes. WHAT?!?!
You have close to 200 books to read, or in her case RE-read. A kindle app that can download anything you
want to read. FOUR musical instruments
you know how to play! A microscope with
slides! Or puzzles! You have a DOG! Play…with the DOG! Vacuum your room!
I called her into the bedroom, and like every good parent
asked her “What is this?!” As I held up
my laptop showing her status update and my brilliant daughter looked at me with a
blank vacant stare where only crickets could be heard she enunciated what I
think was “I unno”
Followed by a shoulder shrug.
I did the normal parent thing for 3 minutes lecturing about stuff and
opportunities and benefits and yadda yadda yadda then dismissed her back to her
room.
Something turned in me and I knew I wasn’t done. I waited a few minutes to calm down my
disappointment in this person, my daughter.
The one I would rock at night to sleep and sing songs to while she was
sick. No, I wasn't being a dad there, I
was just someone who corrected her for a mistake but I didn’t correct what
caused the mistake.
Something happens to us as people. When we grow up, I have no idea what it is
but something happens were we go from hopeful to negative; where the positive
is a necessity to apathy as a reality.
I called Katie back in to my room and we talked. We covered how people perceive outside
comments like that. I asked if she
wanted to be known as someone who complains.
Someone who focuses so much on self that what is wonderful and fantastic
passes you by. I gave her an
assignment. Find something, anything,
once a day that is positive and brings joy to you or others and think about it
and post that. For 1 week, correct your
thinking from negativity to something edifying.
You see, that’s application in Christianity.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever
things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever
things are lovely,
whatsoever things are
of good report; if there be
any virtue, and if there be
any praise, think on these things.
I need to do more than to train my daughter to be
exceptional scholastically and in body.
She needs to be spiritually sound too.
If not, she ends up like every other kid that falls down the path of
negativity and with the attitude that what they do in life doesn’t matter. That sense of disconnection starts somewhere
with kids. As a parent, it’s my job to
make sure it is corrected.
