Casey+O’s+2015+OpEd+Article




 * Our Nation in Epidemic **

Our nation’s parents, who are responsible for nurturing and caring for our Future, are slacking on their job. Instead of using the blessing of technology as an advantage, they are using it to silence and debilitate their children. Instead of using Ipads, Iphones, and other technology as resources, they use it to appease and pacify their children. This is a dangerous downfall. This prevents children from self-soothing, learning how to communicate and act in a mature adult environment, and ultimately deprives them from many freedoms.

When parents welcome a precious bundle of joy into this world, they are presented with multitudes of decisions and choices. One of these decisions is how they soothe their child. A method called the Ferber method is a form of “baby-training”. This is when parents allow their child to cry-it-out for a specific amount of time before soothing them. This allows the child to be sort of independent and learn to be content. But recently with the boom of technology, a child, no matter what age, will whine and cry and the parent will simple hand the child their phone to keep them quiet and calm. Is that what you really want to do as a parent? Do you really want to have your child cry and you simply give them what they want? This is a recipe to raising a spoiled rotten child and depicts the parent as the child’s servant.

The first image above is a photo of my cousins at my sister’s wedding this past fall. These kids were glued to their Ipads and would not come out on the dance floor. This was a tragedy! Their oldest cousin had just gotten married and they could not appreciate nor participate in the moment. Now, I recognize that four and eight year olds do not fully comprehend the importance of the event, but not even their parents changed the kids’ actions. The kids actions were in a sense rewarded. These children missed out on the opportunity to enjoy and learn that there are specific times and places for technology.

Around Christmas I was spending time with my family, as you do around the holidays, and currently I have four younger cousins who are all between the ages 4-8. They are all adorable, rambunctious, annoying, and fun. Our large family would all go out to eat, and yes it would be difficult, but however, that is what families do in order to be together. One night, as we packed everyone up to go out for dinner, my aunt said, “Oh! Don’t forget the Ipad, we need to keep Rory quiet.” Rory, my cousin, is four. I understood where my aunt was coming from, in the sense that she wanted a respectful and polite evening, but do we really want to quiet young children? These children are our future, do we really want to silence and suppress our Future? When I was younger, it was a lucky day if I got a coloring Kid’s menu.



Giving these kids technology that oppresses them so young, deprives them of childhood freedoms. It forces them to grow up too soon, and that is already an issue without us forcing it upon them. Kids should be outside playing all the time. Parents should not have to beg kids to go get in some physical activity outside; kids should be begging their parents to let them stay outside longer. Now kids have phones so young, and it is all they want to use. The only cell phone I had when I was younger was the one my neighbors and I would make out of Legos.

This is not to bash upon technology, because it is so important. Technology is our future; we cannot just run and refuse to integrate it into our lives. However, there does need to be specific moderations in our lives with technology, especially with our youth. But in moderations, we must make sure that our parents do not simply use Ipads as a bargaining chip for their children’s silence, use it to suppress children, or deprive kids the simplicity and freedoms of childhood.