Kids don't hear sh*t, what are we gonna do about it?
What are the odds that your kid will hear anything you say to them on the first time? In my house, there's a 50% chance they will hear me and a 50% chance they won't. I don't know about you, but that's HORRIBLE. Think about it. You call your kid down for dinner, to get the doorbell or just to come and see what the hell you want (we're parents, the list is endless) and there's a 50% chance they won't hear you so you'll have to scream their name, twice or even a third time. That's very annoying; especially for parents. Nothing drives us crazier than screaming for your kids at the top of your lungs because they can't hear you.
I quickly found out that the reason behind my kid's brief hearing impairment was mobile devices accompanied by headphones. Like most, my teens are glued to their cellphones. They are either watching videos & movies or listening to music. On top of that, they're wearing headphones. So they literally don't hear anything. And because today's Smartphones (a vast difference between the Primeco cellphone I had in my late teens) are so..."smart" and they can do everything on them, their cellphones definitely keeps them occupied; a lot! According to the Washington Post, teens are spending over a third of their day on their mobile devices. That's about nine hours on average. So even if they aren't listening to music or watching videos; they're still pretty preoccupied with surfing the internet and accessing social media sites. It's really exhausting trying to get their attention. What's a parent to do?
You have some parents that scream,"Just take their phones from them!" Yeah, that may work sometimes. But if you're a realistic parent like me, you know that it won't last. Why? because let's face it. Teens rely on their cellphones for a lot including homework, their social life and communicating. This is a whole new generation and their learning behaviors are pretty different from ours. There's a great book by Larry D. Rosen, Ph.D called Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way they Learn that speaks in depth about this. So we have to be reasonable and take these things into consideration before just taking their phones away. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for setting limits on cellphone time, I just think as parents we should look for more creative ways to get our kids attention. Is that not what we really want?
