If you go out to a restaurant, a shopping mall, or any public place these days, you’re bound to see one familiar sight over and over and over again. Kids with their faces stuck in their phones.
There’s no doubt this is an epidemic (and not only with kids) that parents need to try to get control of so they can set guidelines and boundaries.
The man who wrote this piece, Chris Cochran, is an assistant principal in a middle school. So you better believe he sees the good, the bad, and the ugly on a daily basis when it comes to kids using and abusing their cell phones.
Cochran writes:
“Parents: I am an assistant principal in a middle school (grades 6-8).
My number one job is to create and sustain a school environment where both students and teachers feel safe (physically, emotionally, and mentally) to teach, learn, innovate, and socialize.
I take my job very seriously, as do my colleagues, and we work very hard to grow in our capacity to do our jobs on a daily basis.
I can’t begin to describe how much time I spend every day dealing with issues that stem from unsupervised cell phone usage by our students. In situations where I have to search a student’s cell phone, I often get sick to my stomach at what I find (highly inappropriate photos, videos, messages, social media usage, etc). The things our students are willing to try and be a part of at such a young age gets worse and worse every year.
When I call parents to inform them of what is going on, I always ask them how often they search their kid’s phone. The shock gets even worse when 90% of them say hardly ever or never.
And then they get upset at me, accuse me of lying to them about their kid’s role in certain situations, or expect me to somehow fix the situation…”
You can read the rest of Cochran’s interesting piece here…
Alright parents, we want to hear from you.
Do you limit how much access your kids have to their phones?
What do you do to try to control it?
Talk to us in the comments! We want to know what everyone is doing in this department!
