Kids vs. Electronics

I will admit, I love my phone and all the technology connected to it probably as much if not more than the next guy. It is my life line to my kids, to family, to school, to work, I rely on it heavily. And while I stress on those occasional days, or hours, the phone dies, or I leave it at home, I can also admit it is actually nice being out of touch with the world briefly. But this is not one of those posts, to disconnect.

I also admit that I am one of those mom's who allows her children to be involved in everything they want to try, making it tough to get to every event with with kids who each have a couple extra curriculars. And while I am secretly glad when a child decides to discontinue something expensive and time consuming, it is a relief. But not one of those posts either.

Why do we as parents invest so much into our kids extra curricular things, but then choose to focus on our flappy bird score rather than our little girl who is checking every 5 minutes making sure we are watching them? It breaks my heart a little when a 3 year old stops dancing because she can't se her mom or dad watching, when the other girls parents are fully attentive. It makes me even more sad when the number of observing parents dwindle as the child ages. Or because it is not a full contact sport, it doesn't hold their dad's attention.

I know that this is not every parent, but it is enough of a pattern I see it with every class I teach. Parents pouring over their phone, or other technical device, while their child is trying her best to compete for a brief glance.

I am guilty of this with my boys, I am clueless when it comes to football, so when my son isn't on the field, I am reading one of my school books. (A full time mom and student, I have to find time to study where I can, I'm not proud of this choice though.) I see the hurt in my son's face when I accidentally miss a great play, and it crushes me. It is the same look I see on my little dancers when their dad disappeared out of site of the window. But still we pile our whole family to watch weekly sports games, why can't we support the arts the same? Watch a weekly class, and by watch I don't been glance up everytime you need to reset your angry bird game.

Why can't we as parents give our children our full attention when we are allowing them to participate in these activities? We are showing our kids that what they care about is not as important as the technology on our phone. We need to show our children we are invested in them, myself included.