Put Dat Phone Down

Do you ever have one of those ah-ha moments where you realize that you are teaching your kids terrible lessons? I do. All of the time.

The latest one I had is a doozy. But I’ll bet you do it, too.

I was madly playing Soda Crush on my phone, laying on the floor of our playroom. My daughter was cooking me lunch in her kitchen, and asking what I wanted.

“Do you want some chicken?”

“Mmm Hmm…” I mumbled, still staring at my screen.

“How about some grapes?”

“Yes, please.” I was still staring down.

She brought the finalized dish over to me on a plate, and shoved it between my face and the screen.

“It’s done! Eat it.”

Ruh roh. AH-HA MOMENT. Here I am trying to teach my kids good manners and how to be polite to other people. Respectful. And yet I am inadvertently teaching them not to make eye contact. By being on my phone and not breaking away from looking at the screen when talking to them, I’m modeling one of my biggest pet peeves– someone “talking” to me while they are clearly doing something more interesting on their phone.

It’s hard to be in the moment and not on my phone throughout the day, because sometimes playing with two kids under the age of three can be, I’m gonna say it, BORING. They’re super cute. And they say hilarious stuff. But I’m also a grown up…and I’ve developed some serious A.D.D. when it comes to just sitting.

I’m not going to sugar-coat it– I’m still bored. But I’m sucking up my selfish need to save the bears in Soda Crush, to pay full attention to my kids while we’re playing. And I’m trying to remember that I really don’t want to raise a generation of kids who think it is acceptable to be rude, game-addicted, brats who can’t take a moment away from their phones…like their mother.