The Book of New Family Traditions (12 page)

Shoot Your Own Show

One way to keep your family active and creative is to turn the camera on yourselves. The tools for doing this are everywhere, and not terribly expensive or hard to operate. One of my absolute favorite things to do as a kid was to perform “shows” in the basement with my siblings. We might have a variety show or I’d write a short play; everyone would dress up, and we’d make paper tickets and invite our parents and neighbors to watch. Many families today have a digital movie camera of some sort or a video camera built into their smart phone. So why not get creative? There are endless options: Write a sitcom with five- or ten-minute episodes, film it yourselves, then post it on You Tube if everyone is okay with that. Or do a “reality show” about your own family, with everyone taking turns as cameraman and narrator.

This all just scratches the surface, but you get the idea. In addition, here are a few rituals shaped around television watching.

Dance to the Music

Gail Prince says her family always used to dance like maniacs to the theme music at the end of a program they all watched together “It was the ’80s, and the music was always happy and upbeat and fun to dance to,” says Gail. Now that she is a mother, she does that with her kids, including during the credits for a movie.

Because television watching is generally sedentary, it’s not a bad idea to create some sort of action ritual to get the whole family off the couch after every show they watch. Create a “playlist” of favorite pop songs—from any era—that make you want to move, and get everybody shaking and jumping and grooving for at least one entire song before sitting back down for more TV.

Mom’s Oldies: A Crask Course in TV Classics

Michelle Olson lives in Minnesota, where the winter nights are cold and long. A few years back, she started a ritual of watching one episode at a time of an old sitcom with her daughters. This is always done after homework is finished, with everyone gathered in their favorite spot on the couch. “We have watched every single episode of
I Love Lucy,
in order,” says Michelle. “And now we are in the middle of
The Brady Bunch
.” I can relate: One of my family’s summer vacation rituals is finding a lauded TV series we missed and watching every episode in order. We especially love sci-fi shows like the short-lived
Firefly.

Oscar Night Fun

One woman I know, a single mom with a teenage son, loves to make a big deal out of the Academy Awards telecast. They eat a fancy dinner in front of the TV, using silver, fine china, and crystal. Another family tries to make up a menu that is themed to the movies in the running for best picture.

Other ideas: Dress up for the show like movie stars, cast your own ballot to predict the winners in major categories, then give a prize to the family member who got the most predictions right.

Technolgy and Traditions

Double-edged sword is what comes to mind when I think about the high-tech times we live in today. What parent of a child far from home isn’t hugely grateful for the existence of cell phones? What grandparent doesn’t give thanks for Skype and other chat services that provide the chance to have a conversation with the grandkids while getting to see them at the same time, to watch as they play with the toy just sent, or observe their newfound skills in acrobatics or reading? Because of her daughter-in-law’s blog (
theDailyLil.blogspot.com
) my friend Janell Byrne got to see a video of her grandbaby, Lil, crawling—on the first day she reached that milestone.

Kids born today will never know what life was like before all the information in the world was at one’s fingertips. They’re experiencing a form of instant gratification that we are not wrong in thinking could be detrimental to maturity and discipline. And they are becoming accustomed to a form of multitasking that makes it harder for them to focus deeply.

Although he’s not allowed to do this while completing homework, my teenage son rarely has just one screen going when he’s on his own. He likes to watch a TV show on the computer’s screen while playing a video game in his lap on a handheld gaming device. When he’s sitting on the sofa watching TV with us, he’s often still playing a game with his hands. We were always adamant that Max couldn’t have either a television set or a computer in his bedroom. Ironically, now that he has an iPhone, he’s taking a mini-TV and computer everywhere he goes.

More and more, the multiplying and captivating screens in our lives are keeping people disengaged from one another, even when they are in the same room. It bothers me when I see a young couple eating dinner in a nice restaurant while staring into their laps instead of each other’s eyes.

If anything, that disconnection gets worse on the home front. We love our families, but we also argue with them, ignore them, and often take them for granted. Kids who have a screen in their hands are usually paying more attention to that than their siblings and parents. The addiction starts earlier and earlier: Toddlers are handed smart phones with videos playing to distract them from meltdowns. Teenagers, well, you do the math. The average teenager, studies show, sends more than 100 text messages a day.

What’s a Parent to Do?

First off, don’t panic. There are pluses as well as minuses for families when it comes to this technology explosion. Just ask Anne Collier, a tech expert who chaired an Obama task force on online safety and serves on Facebook’s safety advisory board. The mother of two teenage boys, Collier founded the website
NetFamilyNews.org
to provide “kid tech news for parents.”

“The Internet is neutral: it’s how we use it that counts,” says Anne Collier. “You know your family’s values and rules and those need to extend into technology and cyberspace.”

Exactly. Parents need to have a strong sense of what they value and translate that into a clear and consistent policy about tech devices. Sometimes, I believe, it’s important to declare screen-free times and places, such as the family dinner table and during homework hours. On the other hand, it’s worthwhile exploring the very positive ways in which tech tools can be woven into existing family traditions, and even help start new ones.

Two Trusted Websites for Keeping Your Family Safe While Connected

To get specific details about how to control your kids’ use of all types of screen technology, you will find lots of resources at
www.NetSmartz.org/Parents
(run by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) and
www.PTA.org/mediasafety
.

As stated earlier, it’s much easier to start out with very strict limits on tech use with small children, and then relent only gradually.

Picking and Choosing Which Screens and When

Theresa Routh Chapman and her husband are both teachers and made the joint decision not to allow their sons, at seven and four, to own any video game devices. They also strictly limit the amount of time their sons can watch television, sticking to family fare like Nature on PBS, which the whole family watches together.

The family isn’t opposed to technology per se: The boys join in for video chats to grandparents and send e-mails to cousins, aunts, and uncles. The ban on video gaming is getting tougher now that the older boy is in school, but the parents have clearly explained their priorities. “We would rather have him playing outdoors, or with his brother, or creating, reading or imagining,” says Theresa.

Setting Weekday and Weekend Time Limits

Julie Buehler, a mother of two in Yardley, Pennsylvania, has a baby and a nine-year-old, and the older child is allowed just thirty minutes of screen time on weekdays, and that covers television, computer, and iPod. On the weekends, her maximum time to be on-screen is two hours per day. Like many parents, Julie worries about how hard it will be to keep these limits as her daughter ages.

Choosing for Interactivity

In a
Wall Street Journal
column titled “Baby’s First App Store Download,” technology reporter Michael Hsu wrote about checking out some Montessori-themed iPhone apps. He says he didn’t like them as much as some simple apps that inspired his three-year-old daughter to explore the world by taking simple photos with the phone’s camera. He said they also liked to view family photos together that are stored on his phone and talk about the people. And, she loves a free Apple app called Voice Memos that allows her to record her own voice and then play it back. Michael says he plans to restrict his children’s use of the devices but admits it’s hard to strictly ration cell phone use when kids see their parents with the devices constantly.

Discriminating among the endless offerings available is very important, especially for really young children.

Finding the Right Software

The tech tools we have today are just the baby steps in a revolution, and they are drastically changing how children learn and interact with the world and other people. There is no denying that among a vast amount of commercial dreck, there are some compelling and very educational games and apps coming out constantly. Find some local resources and gatekeepers to help you sort the good from the bad, including tech-savvy local librarians and teachers at your children’s school.

To name just a few outstanding examples, iPad games like Monkey Preschool Lunchbox teach kids their colors and numbers by counting out fruit and other items for a monkey’s lunch. A software firm launched by parents in 2010 called Montessorium is creating groundbreaking math and reading apps based on lauded Montessori educational principles.

Another very popular app helps families to play a game called “Geocaching,” a global treasure hunt that encourages kids to be both physically active and curious about the real world. Hidden containers called geocaches can be found by following clues to outdoor locations: Once a container is found, the person who discovered it takes out the tiny prize inside and places another token item inside for the next person, perpetuating the game. To find out more about the sport of geocaching and the app, go to
www.geocaching.com
.

Some Tech Tools for Creating New Family Traditions

By necessity, this can only scratch the surface and the technology keeps changing, but the idea is to bend these devices to your family’s needs and values.

Family Blogs

A family blog can become a virtual scrapbook that is also a source of creativity and fun for the whole tribe, getting your kids more involved in contributing text, photos, and videos as they age. It’s a great and not expensive way to keep your far-flung family and friends on top of your news.

Before starting a blog, browse around online and look at other family blogs to get an idea how varied they can be. There is a difference between a blog that is someone’s home-based business (Soulemama.typepad .com), and a blog that’s meant to be a virtual bulletin board for extended family, like the Crumley Family Blog, “a blog for the whole fam damily” (
crumleyblog.com
). A blog whose purpose is to generate income requires a different focus, high-quality photos, constant postings, and negotiation of business relationships, whereas a blog that is for simple family enjoyment and memory preservation can be extremely simple and casual.

Crumley Family Fun Blog

As the Crumley family of four from Chattanooga, Tennessee, explains on the blog, “Our intent in keeping this blog is to keep family and friends up to date on our lives.” The postings, mostly by Alli Crumley, the mother, consist of a bit of description of family outings and events, plus photos and short videos. Alli posted about a St. Patrick’s Day ritual, for example, with a short video showing how she created a “rainbow” using streamers, which she stretched and taped all through the house and down the stairs: They ended by dangling over the dining room table, and underneath she left a “pot of gold” (a gold-painted pot with candy inside). Visitors to the blog can type in a comment after a posting, and there is one from the boys’ grandmother saying she hasn’t been feeling too well lately and is happy the family had a fun holiday.

Spring Break Blog

You may be thinking a blog is a huge commitment that needs to spotlight every meal and moment in your family life. But some blogs are created to mark a single event or experience, like the Miller Keithley family’s blog from 2009, which mostly covers the adventures of the family of five on a vacation to the Grand Canyon. The kids got to post their own comments on the trip, saying what they liked most, and there are inserted short videos. You’ll find it at MillerKeithley .
blogspot.com
.

Living Abroad Blog

Wags Party of 6: Trying to Get Beyond Status Updates is the name of the ongoing blog kept by Susan Wagoner about her husband, who serves in the military, and their four daughters and their daily life in Japan. Living so far away from extended family, she uses the blog to share holiday celebrations, the first day of school, or her daughter Claire’s first ballet lesson. It certainly comforted everyone to see postings right after the earthquake and tsunami in 2011.