Before getting to the solution of the children's computer addiction problem, let's analyze this problem first and see why this solution will work. There are numerous articles, websites and endless discussions on the internet on the subject. We all know how serious this problem is for many families with young children. It has been studied in detail by behavioral psychologists, the mechanisms of computer addiction are well understood, and yet a solution to the problem cannot be easily found.
Why is it so hard to deal with computer addiction, after all? There are many suggestions and methods proposed by specialists in dealing with computer addiction among children. The big problem resides in the implementation of these methods. As with any type of addiction, the subject can hardly control his own strong needs, and that's even more so for children. Therefore, children need external enforcements, mostly coming from their parents, consisting in computer access limitations by various means.
Some of the parents are even unable to set strict rules for computer access limitations for their addicted children. And for most of the parents that do set such rules, they don't last too long. Before they know it, parents find themselves in the same helpless situation they were in the beginning, with endless negotiations with their children to limit computer use.
Fundamentally, this failure of enforcing long lasting rules for computer access limitations resides in the complex psychological interaction between the computer addict and his enforcer. A computer addict will never (at least until the addiction is under control) give up his fight for accessing the computer, and will consequently put continuous pressure on the enforcer (parent). Keeping long lasting rules in effect requires a continuous effort from the parents to resist children's requests, and to consistently stick with the rules with no compromises. The reality is that children know best how to speculate parents' weaknesses, and sooner or later parents will start making exceptions to these rules. There may first be small exceptions, but then we all know where it goes from there. Let's face it: children are tougher negotiators than many of us. For example, there may be days when parents are under high pressure from other out-of-family sources, such as a job, and it's then when they usually give up upon children's continuous pressure and start making exceptions. And if the security breach happens once, then it's much more likely to happen again, and then again and again, until the restricting rules are totally eliminated.
AND YET, THERE IS A SIMPLE AND EFFECTIVE SOLUTION TO ALL THIS. Why fighting all the time with your child on limiting the computer time, when the computer itself can do that for you? Your child will put up for a fight with you when you unplug the computer while he is chatting online with his mates, but he can't fight the computer when the computer itself restricts his access. A computer program made to manage children's access time to the computer also has the huge potential of speculating on this addiction by requiring math work from the child, for example, in order to get that limited access. Under such a configuration, if a child wants access to Windows, he would need to perform a certain amount of math or other work, as required by the program. This would be as positive a reinforcement can get to solve math quizzes. And of course, the parent would have control over the program settings as to how strong these limitations can be, going all the way to total unlimited computer access interdiction, if really necessary.
The magic thing about a computer program doing the job for you is that it eliminates parent's involvement in managing the computer addiction problem. No more negotiations, no more discussions on limiting the computer time, no more fights. This method really works because the enforcer of the computer access limitation is not a human anymore, it's a machine. When the time's up and the child is kicked out of Windows and returned to math quiz mode by the program, he would eventually get frustrated and mad at first, but he knows he will never win negotiations against the machine just as he was doing against his own parents. Once this idea is accepted by the child (it doesn't take long), everything is settled and the computer addiction problem is under complete control. The great side benefit is a hugely increased motivation for the child to perform math or other school work, without any parent efforts to enforce such work.
No comments:
Post a Comment