Palladino - Parenting in the Age of Attention Snatchers

ABOUT THE BOOK

Are your kids glued to their screens? Here is a practical, step-by-step guide that gives parents the tools to teach children, from toddlers to teens, how to gain control of their technology use. As children spend more of their time on tablets and smartphones, using apps specially engineered to capture their attention, parents are becoming concerned about the effects of so much technology useand they feel powerless to intervene. They want their kids to be competent and competitive in their use of technology, but they also want to prevent the attention and behavioral problems that can develop from overuse.

In this guide, Lucy Jo Palladino doesnt demonize technology; instead she gives parents the tools to help children understand and control their attentionand to recognize and resist when their attention is being snatched. Palladinos straightforward, evidence-based approach applies to kids of all ages. Parents will also learn the critical difference between voluntary and involuntary attention, new findings about brain development, and what puts children at risk for attention disorders.

LUCY JO PALLADINO, PhD, is an award-winning clinical psychologist, researcher, and author. She wrote Dreamers, Discoverers, and Dynamos: How to Help the Child Who Is Bright, Bored, and Having Problems in School and Find Your Focus Zone: An Effective New Plan to Defeat Distraction and Overload, which has been translated into seven languages. Shes been featured in national media, including CNN, Fox, Family Circle, Cosmopolitan, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and extensively online. She lectures about attention issues and trains educators and parents to teach kids how to pay attention.

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PARENTING IN THE AGE OF ATTENTION SNATCHERS

A Step-by-Step Guide to BalancingYour Childs Use of Technology

LUCY JO PALLADINO, PHD

SHAMBHALA

BOSTON & LONDON

2015

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

2015 by Lucy Jo Palladino, PhD

Cover art by Royalty Free/Masterfile

Cover design by Jim Zaccaria

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Palladino, Lucy Jo.

Parenting in the age of attention snatchers: a step-by-step guide to balancing your childs use of technology / Lucy Jo Palladino.First edition.

pages cm

eISBN 978-0-8348-0032-8

ISBN 978-1-61180-217-7 (paperback)

1. Parenting. 2. Attention in children. 3. Distraction (Psychology) 4. Technology and children. I. Title.

HQ755.8.p338 2015

306.874dc23

2014031198

For Arthur, Julia, and Jennifer

Contents

PART ONE
Technology, Attention, and Your Childs Brain

PART TWO
Seven Steps to Teach Your Child to Pay Attention

PART THREE
Your Childs Future

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Charles Dickens could easily have been talking about parenting in the twenty-first century.

It was the best of times. A mom I know was telling me that she and her family had gotten together with friends. The grown-ups visited, and the kids were on their iPads. It felt so good to have some adult conversation without constantly getting interrupted, and the kids were doing what they wanted, too. It felt like a total win-win.

It was the worst of times. Later on, I thought about it some more, she explained. When I was a kid, I liked being in on grown-ups conversations.... Are my kids learning its OK to ignore other people?... Most of all, I worry about their brains.

It was the best of times. Every student can now access the worlds storehouse of information. Preschoolers are reading-ready or already reading by the time they get to kindergarten. Kids use apps and social media to learn independently and stay connected with their friends.

It was the worst of times. As kids grow up attached to their devices, their attention spans for listening diminish. Attention problems proliferate. Digital media grabs kids attention and doesnt let go of it easily.

Todays technology gives children powerful tools for a promising future. This same technology weakens their ability to pay attention without them, putting their future at risk.

INTO THE GREAT UNKNOWN

New technology finds its way into our homes faster than we can comprehend its effects on our families. For better or worse, its altering our childrens habits and brain development. With kids glued to their screens, it may appear that children today have more, not less, attention. But as youll learn in chapter 2, attention thats captured (involuntary attention) is not the same as attention thats chosen (voluntary attention). Involuntary attention, like watching TV, and voluntary attention, like studying for a test, build different habits and different brain pathways.

The strength of your childs voluntary attention determines his future success. He needs it right now to control his use of technology. Attention snatchersthe digital devices that use high stimulation to grab your childs attentioncan be friend or foe. To a child who can use them productively and turn them off, they are friend. To a child who cannot, they are foe.

ATTENTION

What will the world be like when our children reach our age? Will they work at jobs that havent yet been invented? Will they be able to keep up? Since we dont know what lies ahead, how can we prepare our children to succeed? The answer lies with how we guide their budding ability to practice voluntary attention.

The lifelong benefits of attention learned in childhood cannot be overstated. Your child doesnt have to know what exact problem the future will bring, only how to give it his undivided attention. As a parent, you can be confident in your childs ability to succeed if youve raised him to control his own attention.

As your child navigates his way through life, if he gets stuck in a dark place emotionallysad, hurt, angry, anxious, or afraidif he can then withdraw his attention from his feelings of helplessness and redirect it to a more hopeful path, he can turn things around. He can adjust his attitude or mood from within.

Voluntary attention is primary to your childs sense of purpose in life. He can stay true to the priorities he sets for himself. With it, he can listen and relate to others. Without it, he can be in your presence yet still be absent.

ONE MORE THING, REALLY?

As a parent, you have a right to feel frazzled. Because of technology, when you leave the office, you dont. Youre still plugged into your job at home, where youre also a household manager, finance officer, chauffeur, chef, homework monitor, social director, and more.

Ive been asked more than once, Why do I need to teach my child to pay attention? No one had to teach me. Its true that parents have always had to set limits, but attention snatchers are game changers for raising kids today. As a child, you didnt have the same sensory overload your child has now. The only way your child can benefit from this overabundance of digital media is if she can become selective and self-controlled.