Jessica Fleming - Visionary Child: How To Raise a Focused, Visionary Kid That Can Change The World

Kids today need more from their parents than ever before, because there is an absolute explosion of distractions competing for their attention in the modern world. Granted, the technology can be very useful and facilitate greater productivity, but probably more often than not, it works in the opposite direction and all the gadgets represent distractions from what kids should really be doing with their time.

Of course not all children are slaves to game systems and play video games til the wee hours of the morning, eschewing homework assignments and a good nights sleep. And not every kid has the newest cell phone with all the latest features for sending text, taking pictures, capturing video, and having video chats. Nor are all kids addicted to the social media, spending countless hours on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

But, and this is a big but, these and many more distractions are available to them every day, for twenty-four hours of each day. Its getting harder and harder to keep kids focused on doing those things that need to be done in their daily lives, because there are so many things competing for their attention. The screaming voice of the concerned parent is often drowned out by the subtle allure of technological attractions.

So what can be done? I s this a battle that simply cannot be won? The simple answer is NO! there really are strategies that can be used to combat the hypnotic call of technology. What many parents dont realize is that this is a challenge that absolutely must be confronted and beaten, because all the distractions represent much more than just competition for your kids time. Its easy enough to see that a good deal of time is wasted when a kid is heavily involved with cell phones and video games, but other issues are raised which may not be quite so obvious.

For instance, socializing through online media like Facebook is really a substitution for real-life socializing, and when kids adopt the online version in preference to personal interaction, social skills dont really have a chance to develop.

Loss of social skills is not the only hazard presented by some of the social media either. There are news stories almost daily about teens being threatened, bullied, and having hate messages directed at them online, and some of these have had catastrophic endings. In the fall of 2013, the case of Rebecca Ann Sedwick shocked the world when she leaped to her death at a cement factory after being bullied online by a group of girls. Even more shocking, after Rebeccas death, one of the girls posted that she was one of the responsible bullies, and felt no remorse whatsoever over the death she had helped to bring about.

All this is not to say that social media is totally harmful and is influencing youngsters to become internet zombies and terrorists as adults, but it does mean that parents need to be aware of the potential dangers, and set some parameters on the amount of time spent. If handled properly, the use of social media can actually be a benefit and remove some of the awkwardness that young people typically encounter during emotional growth years.

Then too, there is the question of what kids see and hear when they are online. There are almost as many negative influences on the internet as there are websites, many more than just the obvious sexual stuff. Kids can learn the best ways to grow marijuana, how to construct a simple home-made bomb, even watch live feeds of combat operations and resulting casualties, like in the 2003 Iraqi war.

While it s often been posited that violent video games de-sensitize kids to real-life violence and lead to aggressive behavior, there is little evidence to support this, at least not through solid scientific studies. But what has been demonstrated is that the attraction of the underlying challenge-reward foundation of most video games taps into young minds so powerfully that the appeal can become downright addictive to would-be conquerors of the universe.

There is a second aspect to the discussion on modern challenges to parenting the altered landscape in the adult world of the parents themselves. These days, most parents are not stay-at-home parents its a luxury many households simply cannot afford. This means parents generally spend less time with their kids, and maybe even bring work home to stay competitive in a tight job market. When parents are home with kids, they are often not as engaged, and tend to be receptive to the idea of kids finding ways to amuse themselves what used to be the TV babysitter is now the internet babysitter.

Parents who are more concerned with the progress of their careers become correspondingly less concerned with the development of their children, and parenting takes a back seat to financial success.

Compoun ding this problem, its more likely than ever before that the foundation of family life will develop cracks during the formative years of a childs life. Divorce rates are at an all-time high, and the structure of family life is simply not as solid as it was many years ago. This means that children spend significant amounts of time with substitute parents or caretakers, and in some cases, are alone altogether. Either way, this is likely to be unsupervised time where all parental control flies out the window.

In the following chapters, we will examine some of the strategies that can be undertaken by parents to combat all these negative factors that influence children. The task confronting parents today is the same as it has always been, so the aim is not just to limit the amount of time allocated to distractive activities, although that has to be part of the approach. The real goal at stake is to do everything possible to ensure that your child grows up as an emotionally well-adjusted young adult, with a good education, useful social skills, and a solid work ethic.

These are some of the attributes which will prepare him/her to successfully meld into society as a productive citizen and to have the best chance for meaningful relationships within a family circle and in an extended group of friends and acquaintances. The real trick to making this happen in a world full of distractions is to find ways to make those distractions work for you instead of against you to the greatest extent possible.

Assuredly, this can be a daunting prospect, but parents throughout the ages have found ways to raise children properly in the climate of the times. Not only is todays climate very different from anything in the past, its changing at roughly the same pace that technology is forging ahead. The material in the chapters ahead may provide some helpful tips to keep you one step ahead of that breakneck pace.