Most parents today had low-tech childhoods, but are faced with the challenge of being high-tech parents. How do we know what to teach our children when our own childhood had very little experience of technology?

Valérie Couderc, owner of Bricks 4 Kidz® in Switzerland, shares her strategies for building a healthy relationship between your children and technology.

1. Accept the role of technology.

Technology is here to stay and there is no point trying to ban it from your home. Not only will your children hate you for it, but you won’t necessarily be doing them any favours as technology skills will be vital for finding work when they’re older.

2. Practise what you preach

We all know that moderation is important when it comes to children and technology, but if you reach for your mobile when you wake up in the morning and check emails during meals, can you really expect your children to behave differently?

Educate your child about their cyber footprints and monitor their online behaviour. Set up parental controls on electronic devices and encourage your child to use his or her tablet or mobile in a room, where you can keep an eye on content and duration of use.

3. Problem-solving tool

Teach your child how to use technology to do research for a school project (whilst also pointing out that not everything you read online is reliable). At Bricks 4 Kidz® we believe that using technology as an educational tool will teach your child vital skills, including S.T.E.M. (science, technology, engineering and maths) whilst also showing them how technology can be used to solve problems.  In our junior robotics workshops children use LEGO® WeDo® software to build motorized models and bring them to life. As their skills improve, they can advance to our advanced robotics sessions with LEGO® EV3 Mindstorms® software for more challenging robot building and programming!

4. Face-to-face communication

Children nowadays need the ability to communicate both online and in person – and both of these methods should be taught, modeled and encouraged.

Face-to-face interaction is not going to disappear any time soon, so teach your child the benefits of ‘real’ vs. ‘virtual’ interactions and encourage them to also take part in activities and meetings with friends, which do not involve technology.

5. Healthy self-esteem

Teach your child that likes, shares and virtual friends are not a true measure of how much he or she is liked or loved.  Make them understand that people only present their positive sides online and often hide imperfections and painful experiences from others, presenting a rosy picture that is not true. Teach them not to compare themselves with others online and not to measure their self-worth in this way.

6. Use technology to create

Show your child the difference between using technology to consume – e.g. wasting hours scrolling through Instagram or Facebook posts or playing online games vs. creating a game or creating a community online for a purpose or writing a blog. 

Teach them to opt for creation rather than consumption whenever they can.

To find out more about Bricks 4 Kidz® approach to children and technology and our Robotics workshops, visit this page and watch our video on our Junior Robotics camp or contact us.