In a social occasion I bumped into a very successful entrepreneur, of whom I read an article about how she had arrived in Canada in 1994 and has had achieved great career success through hard work. However, in my conversation with her, I sensed her avid and deep envy of the close relationship and affection I have enjoyed with my son who now studies in University. She complained that her sons who are in high school never listen to her and apparently have better relationship with the nanny than with her.
This is actually a common problem for a lot of parents. When the children gradually grow into adolescence, the parents find the relationship with them also grow apart, and it becomes harder and harder to communicate. With the popularity of personal electronic devices, the difficulty in fostering good relationship within the family has escalated even more.
Nowadays we can see kids over 2 or 3 years old holding smartphones or tablets in many restaurants or any public places. "Technology nanny" has obviously invaded our family lives and has taken over our relationship with our children. My son who is in grade 7 and doesn't have an iphone was once teased by a friend, "Without an iphone, how do you even have a life?" Apparently, the personal electronic devices and technology has been shaping the value of our next generation.
Imagine this picture: the whole family sitting together in a restaurant table, each person ducking his head playing with his smartphone in his palm. Their facial expressions change as the content displayed in the screen the changes, but sadly there’s little or no interaction with the person sitting right next to each other. What a boring and pathetic family!
If we are alert of this crisis, it would be our job to take actions and correct the problems! We should spend more quality time with our children in painting a colorful childhood together. While they are still young, why don’t we influence them by being a role model ourselves and by using teachings from the Bible? As was said in the Bible, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it "(Proverbs 22:6). Many successful Bible characters actually built up their faith little by little through continuous family altar which was set up by their faithful patents. Because their parents’ good examples had brought significant impact to their faith, they were able to withstand all kinds of trials by fire and eventually become the purified gold.
Let’s build up our children with a positive value system -! We should spend time with our children in playing, meaningful conversation and in doing various activities together! This would be quality time well spent in building intimate relationships and crafting wonderful memories with our children. Do not let our personal electronic devices easily replace our parental responsibilities and obligations which was entrusted to us by God just because it’s easier and more convenient this way. If we give up the time we should spend with our young children in their childhood, it would be extremely difficult to become their close friends and ask them to listen to your advice later on when they grow into adolescence. The kind of relationship we are going to build depends on how we spend our time and effort to cultivate our families!
