Those of us who are modern parents do not want to leave our children alone, even at school, and thanks to WhatsApp it is very easy to be aware of their movements, both in terms of tasks and their behavior, but is this a good thing?
People of yesteryear, when smartphones appeared, did not stop asking how this or that was done, now they even use it with the same frequency as the youngest, who were so harshly criticized.
Without a doubt, this is not a problem, on the contrary, it is something positive since it implies that many people will now use technology to their advantage and will take great advantage of it. However, the conflict comes when that means that can be profitable becomes a «harpy cage»as are some parent groups in schools today.
When the chats become a means to ask about all the tasks and details of the children’s day-to-day, they become somewhat harmful and intrusive. Being aware all the time of what children should or should not do is a great lack of trust in them and is, at the same time, a deprivation of their freedom. Now children not only have to deal with problems with peers or teachers, but with nosy parents who constantly fight or compete in this medium and usually end up making it all public.
Parents constantly give their opinion as if they were absolutely responsible, not only for the children, but for the school as such. Various comments and recriminations regarding how the school is run, exams and homework, are present. However, it is possible that this opinion is external and that the children do not necessarily agree with it. Shouldn’t the child’s opinion count above all else? If he is well with his surroundings, why should the father butt in and say otherwise? It is easy to intuit that this happens, in general, because adults believe that children are incapable of having a valid opinion in matters “important”. However, we lose sight of the fact that they have a much more objective and clear vision than adults in many cases.
This represents a type of overprotection that, according to the Mexican Psychoanalytic Society, has consequences in children, such as: feelings of uselessness, lack of self-esteem, dissatisfaction with their own achievements, self-centeredness, excessive need for attention, lack of initiative and creativity, among other things, that will affect their way of relating to the environment. This intrusion into the lives of children may be related to the desire to keep one’s honor and pride intact; that is, parents try to control their children to look good in society.
In these cases, the father will try to ensure that each task is done on time and with great quality so that, obviously, his son is the best in the class and the others are left speechless. In this way, the one who will do the homework will be the child’s father or mother, who not only should not do the homework, but will only do it for her own benefit. This will encourage in the child an apathetic and disinterested attitude towards his duties. After a few months it will not be uncommon for the same parents to question the teacher about it, since they will assume that the fault lies with the school.
The next step is to start comparing test scores and any assignments. That competitiveness in which children have nothing to do, harms them more than we think. The classic: «Let’s see Juanito, show them how you already know how to add before everyone in the room»it is stressful for them from a very young age, which can lead them to withdraw emotionally and obsessively seek their parents’ pride, even if this means not doing what they want.
As if the rivalry between dads wasn’t enough, teachers often get involved. The reasons are varied and they may not even have to do with teaching methods, but with personal reasons. This group of voices in the style «thousand-headed hydra» virtual, has no mercy with these apparently soulless entities called teachers. Endless insults will rain down on them if for some reason it occurs to them to draw attention to one of the “saplings” from mom
This is how, suddenly, the child suffers from terrible stress not only because he must deal with that tremendous burden that growing up implies, but because his parents have made his life a chaos in which he had little to do.
Whatsapp is not to blame for this, it is the parents who have not learned to use the means that technology offers them in a responsible and careful manner.
Taken from Mira Magazine