Being an intimate parent to your children growing up in the 21st century is a hard thing to achieve now. Technology is relentlessly growing up in this age. It is becoming a necessary part of everyone’s social life, even parenting. You have to compete with the gadgets you bought for them and exert more effort in communicating just to get a moment of their attention.
From a research, teens spend at least 9 hours a day facing digital technology while tweens, children from 8 to 12 years old face, spend at least 6 hours a day. That is already half a day’s worth of family time.
This is no doubt, a big deal for parents. Well, what kind of parents would not want to spend time with their kids? But, given this situation where children would rather play video games or surf the social networks than laugh with their parents, attaining a sense of family intimacy seems hard. Technology is already ahead of one step forming a deeper relationship with your kids. However, there are still ways to turn the table around and to get closer to them using the very modern innovations to your advantage.
Ask them
People feel happy and proud once they are made important. You make them feel valued because they know you are asking for their knowledge and opinion. This is in a higher case for children or teens. By now, they are more oriented with the technology in your house. Try asking them how to navigate through your smartphone, how to download an episode of your favorite series, how to create an online account, or even how to select the best laptop you plan to buy on your salary. In these ways, you both create a relationship with each other through the time you conversed with each other.
Get asked too
Every day, advertisements about new technological products or information go out in many platforms: televisions, radio, internet, and newspapers. This news may be about the new model of Samsung smartphone your daughter could be waiting for or the update in the popular Playstation game your son does not know yet. Being a parent who knows a lot about gadgets and troubleshooting and having prior knowledge of new updates could prove a powerful measure to initiate a talk with them. With the passing time, they might just go to you all the time to ask about new stuff or help fixing their phone connections. Now, wouldn’t that feel great as a parent?
Win their friends
Think of it like courtship, you also have to get close to your love’s family. The same goes with you children. When your kid brings home his or her friends, take the chance and talk to them about the new device accessories, about how hyped your son is in playing that certain game, or about the latest app trending online. They’ll just love you for how much you know about the latest stuff and about your child. You’ll become an awesome dad in their eyes and your kid will know that too.
Get connected
Easy enough use the innovations to communicate with your young ones at home or at school. This is especially useful for parents who can’t leave work and also can’t leave their children too. Text messaging and Messenger are just some or avail that PLDT Home Fam Cam to see children at home. By this, parents and children can contact each other anytime.
Get on the field
As a parent who wants to have a quality time with their young ones, you can immerse yourself in their world and know more about the stuff they spend so much time on. Research tells that 62 percent of teen boys are so connected to playing video games, such as Playstation, Xbox, and the downloadable gaming applications. Additional statistics provided video games conclude that 42 percent of people play with family as a way of strengthening family bond; this supports the idea that to play games in computer like Dota or gaming console like Playstation is to build family bond with their kids. For parents who bring their children to office works where games are prohibited, try accessing websites with unblocked games, games that are playable anywhere whether in office, school, or still at home.
Meanwhile, 44 percent of girls are so hyped when it comes to social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), spending about 40 minutes more than boys in average. Try to be active in the social networking sites and catch up with your daughter like taking photos together and posting them to newsfeed.
Make a project
Technology has a lot of way of affecting us. And also in the other way around, we have a lot of ways to use technology for our advantages. Try requesting you’re your son or daughter to make a video about a topic you or she likes. A slide show will also work and so are collages or digital diaries using your cameras. After all, an engaging activity together is a very effective way to build bond with someone else, especially your family.
Technology may affect family lives dramatically, but being very intimate, supportive, and amazing parents to sons and daughters in 21st century is still not impossible. Parents just need to be understanding, creative, dynamic, and most of all loving. And that’s enough to build that perfect relationship with your children.
