The invention of the iphone and other smart gadgets are great for business, pleasure, etc. What they aren’t good for is playing with and staring at when you’re at the park with your son or daughter. It drives me crazy to go to the park and see mom’s and dad’s more focused on their phones then their kids. Personally my daughter has hit that age where she’s started saying “Watch me Daddy!”…..”Did you see me Daddy!” It reminds me of when I was younger and saying the exact same thing to my mom and dad who were always watching. They might not have approved of the dumb stuff I was doing but I know they were watching because I heard things like “Don’t hurt yourself!”, “Put the tanbark down!” and “No cannonballs in the pool!” If they had their faces buried into phones or computers I might have cannonballed onto someone’s head during “adult ONLY swim!” I will admit, however, that I do sometimes send a text while at the park which is no better. Don’t you think our kids deserve our complete and undivided attention?
It doesn’t just stop at the park either…..it carries over to home as well. For me it doesn’t get any better then my little girl saying “Want to come play in my room daddy?” ABSOLUTELY I DO! I’m not exactly sure what the various studies show for how far back children can remember (i’m sure it varies) but I at least want my daughter to remember me playing with her dolls, throwing Super Grover into the fan and drawing terrible photo’s on her eezel versus me having my nose buried into a piece of hardware that will be obsolete tomorrow!
If you’ve read this and thought to yourself “yeah, I’m guilty of that!” I’d like to challenge you to a game called “Don’t check my phone when I’m at the park with my kids!” If you do (and honesty counts) you need to put a dollar in a jar/piggy bank for everytime. At the end of the month add up the dollar bills and do one of the following:
A) Buy Toys
B) Save up for Disneyland
C) Invite my wife and I out for dinner and buy drinks ALL NIGHT!
I would shoot for B myself!
Parenting on the Peninsula – The Website