Communicational Changes Between Parents and Children. Social Essay

Communicational Changes Between Parents and Children
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Communicational Changes Between Parents and Children
The manner parents interact with their young ones has continually changed due to the rapid advancement of technology, among other things. In particular, one type of communication all individuals cannot avoid is between parents and children. This type of communication is crucial since it nurtures children’s behaviors and future career paths. However, many parents in the digital era feel as if they are losing control of their children since young people are using technology that their parents do not understand. In reality, millennials prefer using electronic devices to communicate with their colleagues as opposed to traditional methods such as physical interaction. The methods of communication between parents and children have changed over time due to various reasons. First, encouraging diversity through thoughts and behaviors has significantly contributed to this change. Second, on-going development with technology makes children interact in ways that their parents cannot comprehend. The new multimedia, audiovisual, and other numerous technologies are affecting people’s daily lives. Moreover, they affect the way that parents relate to their children. Parents who do not know how to use electronic gadgets to reach out to their children might miss a lot of things since traditional methods of communication are becoming obsolete. For this reason, communication methods between children and parents have changed over time due to the encouragement of diversity via behaviors and thoughts and the rapid advancement of technology.
Compare and Contrast
The methods and processes of how parents and children communicate have shifted over time. Traditionally, the family atmosphere used to be a positional system. In other terms, there was a hierarchy in communication where the flow of information was from top to bottom. Besides, at the top were parents and children at the bottom. Due to the lack of many sources of information at that moment, this strategy of communication was effective. Casas et al. (2001) argue that binary determinism is the one that has affected the positional family system adversely. That is the reason why many parents encounter new challenges when communicating with their children since there exist multiple sources of information. At this point, pessimists are correct by asserting that technology comes with various risks (Casas et al., 2001). One of the risks is that young people are no longer keen to listen to advice from their parents since they can get more information on the Internet. In some cases, one might find that children know more than their parents, particularly if they are regular web surfers. As such, the notion that adults have acquired more knowledge since they are older is gradually becoming obsolete since the Internet makes this information readily available for children.
The positional family system required children to obey messages from their parents who have more experience with society. This communication method between children and parents worked well in the past since they spent more time together. Due to the lack of technology, guardians were busy only during the day, and they did not usually work while at home. In most cases, one of the parents stayed at home taking care of the children, which is the reason why young people had no other option rather than to respect what they were told. According to Dalsgaard et al. (2006), currently, numerous families are busy, and parents are separated from their children by either distance or time. The time that parents are spending together with their young ones nursing family relationships has significantly decreased in the last decade (Dalsgaard, Skov, Stougaard, & Thomassen, 2006). For instance, many parents are now working while at home to generate more income so that they can live comfortably with their families. For this reason, they do not have enough time to talk to their children. Parents leave young people to know various things from the Internet.
On the contrary, today, the family atmosphere is a personal system where parents bring up their young ones using different communication methods. Unlike in the traditional method where the flow of information was from top to bottom, children now have the opportunity to share their ideas and thoughts with their parents. Jessie Rudi, Susan Walker, Jennifer Doty, and Jodi Dworkin (2014) claim that family communication has continually changed due to the rapid expansion and diffusion of new communication formats and social media devices. For example, currently, children have access to smartphones. As such, they can send text messages, chat with their friends via Facebook, email, and videoconference with others using Skype (Rudi, Dworkin, Walker, & Doty, 2014). Different families have adopted distinct technologies. In essence, some adults use Skype to video call their children when they are not at home. Others use Facebook, email, or other social networks available. Specifically, since young people have access to different technologies, in the same way, with adults, they learn various things that their parents might not understand. On that note, they get an opportunity to speak up their mind and ideas, as a way of informing their guardians.
Furthermore, the position of dominancy in communication can be interchanged between children and parents in different situations. Rudi et al. (2014) found out that 93% of married couples who have children under the age of 18 years had at least one computer at home. Approximately 94% of these individuals surf the Internet while at home. In particular, 95% of them admitted using smartphones to access the web (Rudi, Dworkin, Walker, & Doty, 2014). In other terms, it is clear that many families have electronic gadgets that enable them to connect to the Internet without restricting children. Indeed, take a scenario where parents are farmers, and they have a child studying a degree in computer science. In this case, the couple must buy a laptop for their young one so that he or she can study without difficulties. That way, it means that the child has a high likelihood of learning how to develop various software apps and websites. Therefore, if parents require assistance in managing their dairy or farm produce, they can consult the young person who can come up with a system to solve the problem. However, when it comes to other things, the child would usually seek advice from his or her parents. That is the reason why the position of dominancy can be switched from children to parents and vice versa, depending on the situation at hand.
Understanding the change in communication methods is important because it can better situations in the household and prevent any unnecessary altercations. Children are no longer the same as they used to be in the past. Currently, they begin to experience society earlier than how they used to do traditionally. Ledbetter et al. (2010) affirm that preventing children from using technologies lead to conflicts at home and school. The researchers call it a parental invasion, which results in defensive behaviors by young people (Ledbetter et al., 2010). In reality, by the age of five years, many children already know how to use a computer or smartphone to connect to the Internet. The majority of these young people access the web so that they can play video games or entertain themselves by watching cartoons, among other things. When they get online, children learn various things, some of which they should not know at their age. However, no Internet policy that regulates young individuals from accessing things that are not of their age. Overall, nowadays, children start experiencing things in society earlier than they used to do in the past due to the availability of technology.
Some parents insist on parenting their children in the traditional way, which can result in the portrayal of defensive behaviors by children. Ledbetter et al. (2010) make it clear that telephone invasion can raise problems at home. Notably, maintaining the parent-children boundary management is hard in the digital era (Ledbetter et al., 2010). Specifically, parents who want to bring up their children in the traditional way must be ready to address defensive behaviors depicted by these young people. For instance, assume a scenario where a child is restricted from playing video games or using any electronic device at home. The young person will be pressurized to defy the regulation since his or her friends are using these gadgets. Besides, the child becomes isolated from the social circle because he or she cannot interact with her or his friends online. As such, the young individual develops defensive behaviors such as buying and hiding a smartphone in his or her bedroom to use when the parents are not present. Consequently, the child might engage in other immoral things on the Internet to defy his or her parents’ rules.
Parents can obtain...