The countdown is on until school is out, and the summer excitement is in the air. As parents, we’re about to give ourselves permission to slooow right down. We all desperately need it! (That is of course minus the chaos of actual Christmas).
We live in a stupidly busy world – well in Australia – perhaps not in Fiji. Humans aren’t designed for the complexity we’ve created in the last decade or two. Technology was meant to ease the workload, but instead it brings it home and it comes on holidays with us. We’re always switched on, we don’t take natural rest breaks during the day and we pile our kids up with our angst while throwing in extra activities for them too. This is our cultural norm now and, its increasingly compounded by technological design elements – some intentional, others not—that make technology use compulsive and habit-forming, taking on the characteristics of an addiction. We pass this onto our children and it’s not fair, or normal.
Most of us work so hard longing for this break. It’s a time where our body clocks can drift into a more natural state, where mealtimes are unscheduled, where mum and dad can shed their busy corporate cranky skins and relax into being more present and fun. This is where the real parenting happens.
I think most of us stressed robots are doing life wrong. We could make changes to wind it all back, pare things down, but for now – it is what it is.
So over the holidays, when we’re free, let’s be sure to make incredible memories, memories for ourselves when times are tough, and memories for the kids. Who knows what life will be like for these little digital natives in the future? Switch off, be present and play.
