What is the appropriate facial expression to give when you’re sitting at table in a restaurant and your two-year old asks the waiter, “scuse me?! I have coffee & some toast please?” Or how do you react to your kid grabbing his “medical bag” & sweater all while telling you, “I need to find my keys. I need a go to work.”. Which is his reaction to you telling him that he can’t have a car until he gets a job. Oh wait, here’s a good one! Jax asked for a laptop. Yes you read right, my toddler asked me for a laptop. So my answer was perfectly reasonable and true… Or so I thought. I told him that he was too young fora laptop and didn’t know how to use it because it wasn’t an iPad. Makes sense right? Why does my two-year old knows how to operate a laptop? Yesterday he asked to watch LILO & STITCH on my computer. I said okay. Before I could make a move, he pulled my laptop out, opened it. He then found the movies in iTunes, clicked on Lilo & Stitch, started it, put his ear buds in and began watching it. Yes, yes he did. The problems we are facing with this new batch of kids are a little more difficult than the last. Well, maybe not difficult…more like strange! When I was in preschool, I got in trouble for blowing up my friend’s Barbie in the microwave while trying to give her a tan. Now I’m yelling at my son to stop sending out blank emails or instragraming pictures of his feet.
I can’t decide if this new generation is necessarily smarter or if they are just products of their environments. I mean if I was born in the age of tablets and texting I suppose that naturally I would be comfortable with using this technology. Texting started when I was in high school. We as students didn’t find it difficult to use or navigate with…our parents freaked out. Only because it was new and they over thought the technology. The great thing about being a kid is you don’t really think, you just act. Kid’s don’t have braces on their brains or fear holding them back, they stay open to new things…because everything is new. Maybe if we as adults started looking as everything is new, we might act a little more and think a little less. Don’t get me wrong, thinking is good. But sometimes thinking too hard about something will have you talking yourself right out of it. So what I’m saying is for my own peace of mind my son will not be able to take over the world at 5…he’s just a product of his environment. An environment that is saturated in technology. He lives that iLife!