Let's take an interest in our children's digital practices rather than demonizing them: Meeting with Thomas Rohmer of OPEN
What parent is not torn between fear of the effects of screens on their children and naivety, even laxity, regarding digital practices within the family?
The Observatory of Parenting & Digital Education (OPEN) is an association that supports parents and professionals on this complex subject of digital parenting. For 8 years, OPEN has been leading actions, ranging from discussion groups for disoriented parents to training for professionals as well as interventions in schools.
OPEN also takes legal action, such as the one that led to the Studer law in 2020 to protect child influencers.
We interviewed Thomas Rohmer, the Founding Director of OPEN.
Are today's parents more anxious about their children's digital practices?
We talk about digital parenting, but what we see with parent meetings is that the word digital disappears and we start talking about parenting. I see an increase in anxiety after covid. Families are very anxious in general. What is worrying is that this redefines parenting in terms of an educational function that is limited to risk avoidance.
Parents think they are superheroes and want to protect their child at all costs. It makes us smile but it makes us question the future of our children. We transmit our worries and anxieties to them.
The sad national statistics show that 20% of 12-year-old children are on antidepressants. We blame a lot of things on covid, but it has undoubtedly revealed dysfunctions.
The point is not to burden parents but to think about the society we are building for our children. Sending them the image that the world is only a risk zone is worrying. The educational function includes the protection of our children but life being what it is, the objective is also to empower children because we will not always be there for them.
Today's approaches aim to teach children skills so that nothing happens to them. The challenge is rather to teach them psycho-social skills so that they can manage problematic situations or not.
Are digital practices demonized?
Campaigns that say 'Think before you post (on the internet)' make me laugh because few adults think before they post. Children see the contradiction.
The word addiction is often misused. We create digital tools so that children can follow their homework, their grades and this leads them to connect several times a day. And then we tell them "Get off your screens". The tools are mainly created for parents. Where is the interest of the child in all this?
Today, parents are informed of their grades before their children. To me, this is extreme abuse. They are put under pressure and they do not yet have the results of their grades when adults attack them as soon as they get home.
If we did the same thing for adults at work, it would be a revolution.
Should we support them in digital practices? What to do?
The tools used by children were created by adults and for reassurance purposes. The smartphone that arrives on average in France at the end of CM1 regardless of social background is a tool to follow what your child is doing 24 hours a day.
We move from the umbilical cord to a digital leash with the smartphone.
Should TikTok be shut down because kids have access to it and are doing whatever they want?
Another topic on which there is a lot of inconsistency is bullying. We have gone from putting blinders on the problem of bullying for years to intensive campaigns on the subject. As a result, on the ground, children and parents see bullying everywhere. The police are inundated with calls from parents who want to file complaints against other families because their child was insulted in the playground. We need to educate people and provide nuances.
Seeing harassment everywhere reinforces anxiety and it doesn't help young people to develop themselves.
They need to be prepared to know how to cope and how to react.
The issue of bullying is complex and requires reflection. France likes to lecture other countries and yet it took until 2023 for a Minister of Education to decide that the bullies will be the ones who change schools.
What avenues are you exploring to combat harassment?
The causes must be addressed. Children and adolescents must be taught psycho-social skills based on 3 pillars, namely managing emotions, developing self-esteem and showing empathy, in order to be able to manage problematic or conflictual situations without falling into violence or disproportionate reactions.
Empathy lessons are good and let's give time time.
The Phare programme showed that some children found themselves in situations of harassment by teachers themselves, for example, criticism of a child's work by saying 'Your drawing is a failure.' Adults need to question themselves too.
The general distrust of adults towards the environment in which children evolve leads them to use digital tools as reassurance tools.
In daycare centers, parents are asking for reports on what is happening with their child almost in real time.
In kindergarten, some children have smart watches, so that they can be located and also triggered remotely to listen to what the teacher is saying.
Parents sew air tags into their children's pockets to track their location just in case.
The problem is societal. I constantly come across worried parents who want to attend all of their child's activities.
What advice would you give to parents?
I have two pieces of advice for parents: disconnect from BFMTV and reread the Famous Five!
Why are we more worried?
Today, the media sphere only relays bad news and worrying messages. Adults have the impression that news stories are exploding. However, they have always existed. We are simply better informed.
National Education certainly has its flaws, but let's not forget that it has a very complicated public of parents to manage with a very individualistic vision, forgetting that the mission is collective. Our children will have to interact with others without seeing them as potential enemies. We are building a society of mistrust.
Parenting is ultimately at the heart of many issues. School can't do everything. What is the real role of parents with regard to digital tools and practices?
It's hard being a parent.
The use of telephones within the school is regulated in middle and high schools. I have the testimony of a head teacher who says that she regularly found a second telephone hidden by parents who know that the first telephone will be found.
Parenting must be supported. Education must be a transfer of skills to children to enable them to become independent.
Being independent means living your life on your own without the support of an adult and being ready to face difficult situations.
At the very least, let's take an interest in our children's practices.
Let's ask our children how their video game play is going. It is claimed that they use it excessively. However, it is the parents who pay for the computer, the console, the internet access. And we are content to be in a role of controlling the time spent, of prohibiting, without being interested in what our children do with this time on video games.
When we sign them up for a basketball or dance match, without being an expert, we ask them how the match or activity went. Why don't we do this for our children's digital practices?
This would allow us to regain educational coherence. When we call our child to come to the table and he is in the middle of a Fortnite game and this creates a crisis, it is perhaps because we do not know that a game is played in teams and that we cannot abandon our team in the middle of a game.
We wouldn't do it for a basketball game.
When you observe what your child is doing, you know that the game lasts 20 minutes and if you tell him that you are going to the table in 10 minutes and he says 'no I am starting a game', you can tell him no because the game will not be over in 10 minutes. This way, we are consistent in education.
Is it a generation gap? Parents who did not grow up with digital practices may judge digital practices harshly because they find them uninteresting and a waste of time.
I don't agree with the generation gap. Do you know what the average age of a digital gamer is in France? 41 years old!
It's a story of educational posture, of consistency. I empathize with parents. It's more complicated to be a parent today. We also have to redefine what a family is. There are more and more single-parent and blended families. When you're a single parent, Trotto the donkey is your best friend in the morning.
In our actions, we try to help parents by starting from this reality, to deduce good practices and integrate digital tools without making them demons or living gods. And let us allow ourselves the right to make mistakes, the "educational trial and error".
We want to have a perfect child and we forget that being a teenager also sometimes means going through a complex phase where things progress little by little.
In our discussion groups with parents, we want them to be comforted in their parental role, to know that they have the right to make mistakes and to leave with a smile. Let's find a happy medium for the use of digital tools.
Parenting is at the heart, not digital tools.
Adults are suing each other for lack of educational legitimacy because they confuse educational issues with technical understanding of the tools.
You don't need to be an engineer to have the legitimacy to understand digital tools.
The phrase I hear most often from parents is: “I don’t understand what he’s doing on Tik Tok. So I don’t feel legitimate to intervene.”
And sometimes there are also several children and so we have to forbid the youngest ones what we can allow the older ones.
Digital technology is the hidden face of dysfunctions and educational difficulties encountered by parents.
Is gaming a relevant tool in the fight against harassment?
Any mediation tool that allows adults, children and teenagers to talk about this subject is an initiative to be welcomed.
Any well-designed medium is interesting. It must be designed so that parents and children are together. At the end of the game, it must be possible to open a dialogue. Adults must be involved and put into words what has been observed.
This also allows us to address these issues without being behind a screen.
Should we oppose traditional games and digital practices?
Parents no longer play with their children. Sometimes a simple game of Scrabble is very enjoyable for them. Children like to interact with their parents.
Many adults look at their smartphones at the table, sometimes more than teenagers themselves.
Before, families played games on the train. Now we can't stand the slightest scream or noise from children.
We put them on a tablet in the train, in the car to stop them talking to each other. Nobody talks to each other anymore.
During recess, we put the children in front of a cartoon when it's raining. And we cut them off in the middle to get back to class. Then we're surprised that some children react badly. If we did it to adults during their evening series, their resistance to frustration would not be any better.
For the holidays, parents don't want to go to a place where there is no wifi.
So we can all re-examine our practices, with tenderness and respect for parents. Parents have the solutions within them.
Let us remobilize our educational capacities buried under societal, family and political dysfunctions.
