By Claralynn Schnell of Contemporary VA

Back when I was a kid….that is a sentence that I heard all of the time growing up, I remember rolling my eyes at my parents, assuming they were so old that they had no clue what it was like to be a kid in the 1990’s and that they were far from out of touch with what being a kid was really about.  Now that I am 32 with 2 kids of my own, I feel myself saying…when I was a kid. Cue all eye rolling now!

There have been some major changes in the 20 years since I was a kid and teenager.  When I was young, when the sun was up you were outside, playing, creating, exploring and playing with your friends.  There were no scheduled “play dates” we simply knocked on a door and played with each other.  We were not a gaming generation, all though Nintendo was introduced.  We did not spend countless hours on a computer (we didn’t have internet until I was in middle school), or attached to a cell phone (do you remember the first cell phone from Saved by the Bell).  We had conversations with people, we looked them in the eyes and could be social individuals.  I find that lacking in our current generation.

You hear the excuses, they have too much access, it’s not safe to be outside, and life is just different now.  But really, is it? I am not advocating for you to let your kid run the streets wild, I am simply saying we have become a generation of parents who parent with digital technology so that we do not have to interact with our children.  We have become an age where a 2 year old can navigate an iPhone better than the iPhone user.  It is because of these things that I worry.

As a parent of an almost 4 year old and 18 month old, I find the simple things the most important, manners, eye contact and being respectful.  I feel that if I can instill these attributes into my children at a young age, they will grow to be amazing little people.  That they will grow up with a foundation and understand that life is about more than a new digital toy but that it is about building relationships and friendships that will last beyond technology.