Thus far, this book has reviewed the history of technological advances, given a synopsis of Piaget’s and Erickson’s developmental theories, and presented the Medline, CDC, and APA cognitive and social milestones and factsheets highlighting the most common movements children acquire at different stages. Now, it is now time to assess, in a general way, how and when to introduce infants, children, adolescents, and adults to texting, streaming, social media, and videos, in an age-appropriate manner, on computers and smart devices.
An article by the Harvard Graduate School of Education titled “When to Give Your Child a Smartphone” states, “Deciding when to get your child a smartphone has less to do with age and more to do with action on both the parent and child’s part, according to experts.”
The article continues saying, “Psychologist Catherine Steiner-Adair, author of The Big Disconnect, says the real question is not about the ‘right’ age or about the phone itself but about whether your child is developmentally ready to have ‘full access to the adult world’ and whether you’ve laid the groundwork to prepare them for healthy and responsible device use.”
The article continues: “You know your child is ready for a device when you’ve talked about responsible use and modeled the behavior on your own device,” says Kerry Gallagher, a digital learning specialist at St. John’s Prep in Danvers, Massachusetts, and director of K-12 education at ConnectSafely.org. “If you haven’t done any of this work, then it might make sense to wait another year.” These are important statements that should be addressed.
This chapter will cover what age-appropriate time is ideal to introduce your children to technology. For the most part, we will give an overview of the situation. Children need to be ready to use the devices you give them. This book does not cover each technology individually or when to give children each gadget or media because for the most part it is thought that this is up to the parent, the child or the young adult, and the family unit to decide. Also, all technologies are constantly changing, and new inventions are coming onto the market every day. The parent or guardian should work with their children and young adults to develop age-appropriate moral guidelines and virtues that are understandable and within reasonable limits. As Kerry Gallagher states, the foundation needs to be established before introducing the technology.
Recognize and Identify Your Circle of Unity Values
Understand what your family values are and keep talking to your children about those values and virtues. Erik Erickson gives essential virtues that can be addressed at every stage of development.
First, it is essential to understand, talk about, and embrace your family values. Set aside some time to think about them by yourself and with your family so that the entire family can more or less define what they are and be active participants in creating them. Of course, as time goes by, values change, and people get older, so they should be assessed every now and again and adapted to age-appropriate ones. Erikson gives a good starting point for how to review these virtues at each stage. It is important to allot time and energy to understand what your families goals are and how they will add value to advance, at each stage of your children’s development, their cognition and psychosocial development. Do not worry if there are differences in your family goals and opinions. Use this time as an exercise to understand what others are thinking and feeling and why they are thinking and feeling a certain way. This is one aspect of what Piaget called abstract thinking. At young ages, it may be even more important to help your children to learn how to communicate using different modes so that they can express their feelings and competences at various stages as they develop.
Think of important values and virtues to you and your family.
Think about advancing creativity in the family.
Think about encouraging and showing sympathy, kindness, empathy, and responsibility in your household.
Think about creating innovative ideas together and encouraging your children to develop ideas independently.
Think about activities the family can do together and play together.
Think about the quality of the media children are exposed to and the time spent on these technologies.
Decide which technologies will advance goals you have and how and why these technologies may do that.
Introducing smart device practices is the parents’ and guardians’ responsibility at first and can be treated as an opportunity to educate children’s moral development. As the American Psychological Association (APA) says, children do not grow in a one-size-fits-all approach. Every family is unique and needs to allow themselves space and time to decide which technology to let their children use, and when to use and how often the device should be used in an appropriate and high-quality manner.
There is no magical age when children are suddenly able to watch streaming videos, talk with their friends on Zoom, or use a computer; this will be dictated by their parents, teachers, and friends. Setting up the values at each stage will be a continuous activity the whole family can participate in. There may be struggles with family members along the way, but that is a learning experience as well and can be handled with care, consistency and empathy. Parents can learn from the children what the new technologies are and what they do and how the children’s friends use them. Then, if possible, they should check them out for their children. Give the children freedom to talk about what is going on in their world, and, in response, the children may freely talk about their technology activities. Always be mindful that your children need to keep up with learning such as reading, writing, and arithmetic and not just playing games on the computer. In other words, their cognition and real-life play need time to develop for healthy growth, as discussed by Piaget. The cognitive and psychosocial skills of children can be fostered by age-specific technologies by the parents and later in life by the children’s friends and teachers who may have input to introduce certain age-specific technologies.
Children can use a computer at a young age because it may give them time to learn and grow with the technology and ask questions with their parents by their side who can encourage them to think positively and with confidence. This includes letting your infants or children who are young learn through pushing and pulling, sucking, trial and error, or egocentric behaviors to play with your phones. Keep your smartphones clean because children do put them in their mouths. As these actions are happening, it is an ideal time to talk with your children about the phone and its uses as they play with it. As children grow up, it is important to answer questions in a positive, honest, and clear manner. They will want to know what is this thing, why is it important, and how is it used.
Keep the Conversation Going with Your Children
Tom’s Hardware was founded in 1996 by Tomas Pabst and is now owned by Future Plc. Future is listed on the London Stock Exchange and was founded in 1985 as a British media company. Tom’s Hardware is an online high-technology and computer hardware publication. The website has reviews, news, and videos. Discussed here are its breakdown of age groups and relevant technological skills children can acquire at the various stages. We go into when and how to introduce the computer and other technological advances and review at each stage how to add new technologies relevant to your children. The following sections will review Tom’s Hardware’s stages for introducing children to technologies along with Piaget’s cognitive stages and Erikson’s psychosocial stage and the virtues associated with each stage.
Infants: Ages 0–2
At this stage infants do not have the physical or cognitive ability to understand computers. Infants do seem to look at videos of familiar faces chatting. As infants get a bit older, they may also start to press keys and mimic what they see parents and siblings doing.
The Mayo Clinic encourages during this time unstructured playtime instead of electronic media, which they believe is valuable for young children’s developing brains. This is because children aged 2 and younger are learning when they interact and play with parents, siblings, and other children and adults.
For children under 18 months, avoid screen-based media except video chatting.
For children 18 months to 24 months, parents should choose high-quality programming and watch with their children.
Perhaps this is because with video chatting children can see and learn from the responses of the person they are talking to. Shows that are programmed do not display responses or interact with the child, and this could lead to a distorted understanding of situations. According to Piaget, at the sensorimotor developmental stage, infants are figuring out object permanence and who is who depending on where they are located. It is important to work with the infant to let them know who is in the video and when they see the person in real life to know that it is the same person. The infant at this time is curious about the world and uses their motor skills of pushing and pulling and puts objects in their mouth to learn. At this stage, children imitate what parents are doing and learn this way as well.
In addition, in line with Erickson’s developmental theory, infants need to understand that what they are touching is fine and that they should not be afraid of that hardware. The virtue that should be remembered is how to give hope to the infant so that it will lead children to have trust in themselves and their parents.
Toddlers: Ages 2–3
At this stage toddlers begin to show curiosity. The toddler will start “button pushing” on the computer and smartphone they move into this stage.
Tom’s Hardware suggests at this age toddlers should co-use technology with adults. This means that adults need to help and guide the toddlers by navigating their hands to the right places on the keyboard and/or mouse.
Toddlers should be given minimal computer time, and this time should be limited to minutes each day. Toddlers at this age may be able to start recognizing letters and numbers on a keyboard, and each letter and number should be pointed out to toddlers as they look at the keyboard. As the toddler moves from preschool to elementary, they can start to use the mouse; it is important to use imitation so that the toddler learns the proper way to use it.
Tom’s Hardware suggests that games for toddlers can be simple and cause-and-effect games like pressing a button, which causes another event to occur. The parent needs to show the toddler how to be gentle so that they do not bang, hit, drop, or throw the keyboard, mouse, or monitor around or at anyone. The toddler at this age does not necessarily need their own computer. Show the child how to share on your PC.
Even the Mayo Clinic encourages by age 2 that children may benefit from some types of screen time, such as programming with music, movement, and stories. By the toddler watching the media with you, you have an opportunity to explain and talk with children so that they see quality screen time and how to use these skills they learn in real-life experiences. Passive screen time where the parent leaves children to watch the video should be replaced with letting children have downtime and allowing them to read a book, play with friends or by themselves, or problem-solve with toys.
The APA reiterates the American Academy of Pediatrics’ digital guidelines technology use for children 2 to 5: limit their screen time to 1 hour per day with high-quality programming.
Erikson stated that the virtue at this stage is will, and allowing it to develop in toddlers will give them a sense of control—control over touching and physically controlling these devices and their environment—that will be a success for these children.
Preschool: Ages 3–4
At this time, according to Tom’s Hardware, preschoolers start to play with software and often show a willingness to play games and other creative and more complex activities such as puzzles, drawing, and matching.
The preschoolers may still co-use the computer, mouse, and keyboard with an adult and even take control of these devices. Preschool children need time to play a few games or activities a day. At this age children may look for certain keys and are capable of moving a basic mouse. During this age children can use a word processor for learning letters and spelling names, and they may use computers even in school for a few tasks. Continue to reinforce that children use clean hands and gently push on buttons.
Good hygiene needs to be taught to children as well. Teach them not to eat by the computer and to wash their hands before they use it.
Erikson used the virtue of purpose during this time because the preschooler is exploring and trying to control the environment. At this stage, the parent needs to balance when and how the preschooler touches the devices. The parent needs to let children know through firm and gentle physical movements when the device is to be used or not to be used. Try to be as consistent with your instruction as much as possible.
Elementary: Ages 5–7
At this stage, elementary children can use computers independently and can play even more complex and time-based games and activities independently and with friends. Elementary children are even able to start coding with simple tools. Parents or teachers should be present, and they need to retain control of the mouse and keyboard. Children at this age can be by the computer for longer in order to work on their schoolwork and age-appropriate activities. Children at this age learn how to use a mouse with basic comfort and are likely to be using a computer regularly in school as part of their learning process. Encourage children to learn how to type. Start to talk with your children about Internet safety and family technology rules. Help your child build confidence. Help children to find games and activities that they find fun and that are developmentally appropriate for them for their own skill level. Otherwise, it may become frustrating for children. The APA reiterates the American Academy of Pediatrics’ digital guidelines for promoting technology use for children 6 and up, which is to establish consistent limits on the time spent using media and the types of media.
The virtue that Erikson’s theory talked about for elementary and tweens is competence. This is when the children interact more with school and friends. Be cognizant about this and encourage this behavior. Give your children time to interact with their peers and possibly play with the technology with them and explain to them what it is used for and how it should be used both with and without their friends around. Do this so that you get a feeling for what the community around you feels about the devices and how your child feels about the devices.
Tweens: Ages 8–12
Tweens at this age start to want more independence and privacy and may be rebellious, but they need guidance to help them understand what is the best course of action, particularly with online activity and social interactions. As parents start to buy their children personal devices, it is even more important to encourage clear and understandable rules and expectations of why those rules are needed. The parent should be able to open communication with the tween about family Internet safety expectations. The parent can filter or use some Internet management software as children start to explore the Internet.
At this point, tweens can work independently, but an adult should not be far away so that when children have a question, they can ask. If your children did not learn how to type at school, teach them to type properly. Also show them how to open, save, and print files. By this age children will use the computer in many different ways, including for standardized testing and everyday school activities. They may play games on the computer that involve skill.
When buying a computer, make sure it is durable, that children are able to travel with it, that the computer can handle their daily needs, and that children can play games and edit videos for their enjoyment.
Piaget’s developmental theory of concrete operational thoughts, which is between the ages of 7 to 11, describes when a tween starts to think concretely or they start to use logical operations in their reasoning. It is a prime time to discuss with your child what is proper behavior as they start to work independently. Be patient and consistent when creating and establishing the rules. You could establish the rules with and without them at this point, but it is good to include them in the conversation so that they understand what and why you are establishing those rules.
Teens: Ages 13–18
At this stage, teens are able at this age to create artwork or use the computer to do assignments. Parental support can help encourage teens to be competent in these areas. Parents still need to make sure teens do not run into risky situations on the Internet.
Teach children to use the computer for high-quality searches, communication, and use. Continue to communicate with your children about their activities, and make sure that their computer can do the type of work and challenges that the teen has an interest in doing and includes the essentials they need to use at school.
At this developmental age, according to Piaget, teens and older individuals are developing abstract thinking. They are developing a moral compass and a strategy to deal with life. Encourage and talk with your children to learn in a meaningful way with others in their age group and older.
Erikson’s developmental stage virtue for the ages 12 to 18 is fidelity. It is an important time for your children to realize that personal relationships matter and that they may talk with others in a meaningful and impactful way. Spend the time and effort to discuss with your children what they think they want to do in life and what they enjoy doing while encouraging them the importance of having friends and friendship values in which they could grow into.
Although age-appropriate expected skills go up to age 18 for some of the milestone’s developmental stages, adults, the role models, also need some guidance. The APA gives guidance for how adults should deal with some potentially stressful situations with children.
This section talked about what values and virtues parents and caregivers can instill in their children to use technology in a useful, productive, and positive manner and at what ages different virtues and ethics should be discussed, from infant to young adult, so that they can understand them at the appropriate age.
Summary
Even for the very young who cannot even hold on a conversation it is important to explain in simple movements and words the various technologies. Use age-appropriate terms and basic concepts about the computer and devices as they develop. Begin an ongoing conversation about how teachers use technology, how friends use it at school, and even how you use it. Ask questions about what your child enjoys about technology. If there is a game or video that your children like, ask them to explain why they like it. In some cases, it might be a signal that your child is interested in actually doing a similar activity or even something more creative. Also think and talk with your children about the effects technology has on us. All this will not only help you understand what your children like to do but also make you more aware of the benefits and risks of the media children are using.