By Gavin Boyle
A study from Pew revealed that many parents who turn to online forums for parenting advice do so to seek wisdom about current parenting challenges such as technological advances or child-rearing responsibilities.
“My 9-year-old keeps telling me he’s the only one in class without an iPhone. I found ways around parental controls when I was young, so I want to wait until he is in middle school. But I do feel bad that he feels left out. If your 9-year-old does have a phone, what type and how often do you check it? What types of controls do you have on it?” one parent asked on a Reddit post that was part of the study.
Nearly one in five posts were in relation to technology, a topic that many parents have on their minds as more studies reveal just how negative technology can be for developing brains.
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Just like this post, many parents feel pressured to buy their kids their own devices simply because that is what everyone else is doing. Experts, meanwhile, advise parents to wait as long as possible and not to allow their kids to access social media until they are at least 13 years old. In the summer of 2023, then U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for a Surgeon General’s warning to be placed on social media for the harm it causes to young users; California has since followed through on implementing such a warning on these platforms.
“Emerging technology like chatbots and social media can inspire, educate, and connect – but without real guardrails, technology can also exploit, mislead and endanger our kids. We’ve seen some truly horrific and tragic examples of young people harmed by unregulated tech, and we won’t stand by while companies continue without necessary limits and accountability,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom. “We can continue to lead in AI and technology, but we must do it responsibly – protecting our children every step of the way. Our children’s safety is not for sale.”
While technology use was a very popular topic on online parenting forums, concerns about parental duties were also a popular topic as users shared their frustration with feeling they were taking on more responsibility than their partners or felt like parenting was just too hard to do.
Thankfully, parenting experts have tips on how to address this problem as well, with parenting coach Dr. Josh Straub suggesting those who feel like their homes are too much responsibility to make a plan on how to bring peace into their family’s life.
“I always talk about fighting for peace in your home,” Straub told Candace Cameron Bure. “You have to war for peace; you have to pray into it, have to fight for it, because the world is trying to create, it’s just chaos, right, and so we have to pay attention to the atmosphere of our home to identify how we can make sure that our homes are that place of [peace].”
“Maybe it’s exhaustion, maybe it’s anger, maybe it’s complaining, maybe it’s fear,” he added. “What is the spirit in your home that you just feel like this is bringing us all down as a family and identifying that and being able to say, ‘Okay, what is one small shift we can make to be able to start shifting the atmosphere?’”
One thing is for certain: parenting is difficult, but thankfully we are not in this alone. Even for the parents who do not have a strong support system in real life, there is a community online where they can find support and advice for the unique difficulties of 21st century parenting.
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