Technology is constantly advancing in our day and age. It seems that something new and better is coming out everyday. With this people are spending time and money learning and playing with their newest toy. While technology has improved life in many different ways, it has also created problems in our world today.
To often I have seen people trying to carrying on three conversations at once using their phone, and computer. Conversation are held more and more over text or facebook. In doing this emotions and not seen or shown and people learn only how to communicate over technology and not face to face. The overuse of technology can be overcome. Here are some ideas:
Decide to have a family focus rather then technology focus
Have a no technology Dinner. (Leave the phones and ipods in a box in the kitchen)
Set a crew few for technology.
Set aside time to go and do something with family that does not involve technology.
Again technology is not completely bad. It allows us to communicate easier, and connect to people all around the world. The most important thing is to not have technology focused life but have a family centered life.
I love this video! This brings back all the memories that I have spending time with my Dad. It is seriously the best when parents take time just to be with you.
Family has been an important aspect throughout all of my life. My family loved to do many activities together. We loved to play games, go backpacking, watch movies, make dinner, eating together, go swimming, play outside, and we loved to go to each others events. Although my family isn’t perfect, they are perfect for me and I love the memories that I created with them. Now that I am growing up, I am grateful for what I have learned in my family while growing up. They have taught me so many valuable lessons. One of the main lessons that I learned is family time is crucial to the strengthening of the family and the development of the family members.
Quality family time is becoming rare opportunity in our society. This is affecting families more then we realize. In research collected by William J. Doherty, he found that:
In 1997 conversations amongst the family decreased by one hundred percent.
Family members were only talking to each other for around forty-five minutes a week.
In year two thousand a national poll showed that twenty-one percent of teens felt they didn’t spend enough quality time with their parents. (Doherty 2001)
Much of the lack of family time is caused by the increase of dual-earner families. “With more single-parent households and many more dual-earner families, a much higher proportion of 21st century households then in the past had all adults employed and, thus, had limited flexibility in meeting demands at home such as the care of sick children. (Bianchi, Milkie 2010) Although the demands are high on the parents, many have the desire to be at home with their children. “Families yearned for high-quality ‘family time’ that was difficult to achieve in practice…”(Bianchi et. al., 2010)
Lack of family time causes:
Little time for parents to teach, model, and bond with their children.
It can cause a high increase of risky behavior in adolescents, and children are more likely to have problems in school. (Bianchi et. al., 2010)
Latchkey children. This refers to children who come home to an empty house because their parents are either at work or just constantly gone throughout the day.
Children are more likely to fall into peer pressure (such as smoking and drug abuse).
Strain in relationship between spouses.
It was said “a father’s long work hours were negatively associated with the breadth of activities he did with his children, less time with spouse, lower marital quality when he felt high role overload, and less positive involvement with adolescent
children.”(Bianchi et. al., 2010)
Information about programs being implemented:
A article by Pipper Frog showed that...
“The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation gave $420,000 in March to the University of California at Berkeley to develop a family-friendly package of policies for tenured faculty members. The plan comprises more family-leave time; more child-care opportunities; temporary modified duties after childbirth or adoption, such as fewer teaching hours; a centralized fund to pay people on leave; extended tenure; and a permanent part-time track, both pre- and post-tenure.” (Pipper 2003)
Ohio State University has also been striving to help faculty, especially mothers, spend more time at home. They created and implemented a Women’s Place. This program helps give women the support they need and help individuals find information they might be looking for. (Pipper 2003)
In Norway there is program set into place to help increase time spent together as a family. The program that “paid parents to care for their own young children increased parental time with children and was correlated with increased marital stability of the couple. Government provision of child care increased the pace at which women became first time mothers, at the same time as it increased maternal employment and made it easier for low-wage mothers to meet employers' expectations for additional work hours.” (Bianchi et. al., 2010)
In the United Sates research is now being done to discover programs that will reduce work family stress by easing the requirements to work long hours. (Bianchi et. al., 2010)
What can we do?
On a personal aspect- individuals need to find time to set apart for the family. Let this be a family date where the family can go and just have fun with one another. For example let Saturday mornings be a time where you make breakfast for your family and eat together. Another thing we can do is set traditions with our family and get everyone involved.
The society that we live in should encourage reasonable work hours so that parents can get home to their children earlier. The community should also have activities specifically for families. This could be a family fair all the way to cheaper prices to get into events when with your family.
The government should implement a family day, just like a service day, only on this day families just get to spend time with one another. This would not be a mandated day to spend time with family, but it can be encouraged.
