My comment on a wonderful post regarding childhood, innocence and the modern senseâgrowing upâ:
âThank you for writing this post. I struggle with âgrowing upâ as my kids are getting older, but I keep on trying to figure out what is actually just DIFFERENT about being a kid with instant access to information or touchscreen devices.
I donât believe that our kids brains are being re-wired, but I do believe there is something that changes when you are able to make Siri a part of your everyday inquiry process. For my kids, that is the case.My daughter has already had âthe talkâ and she is 8. She was ready in a way that I was not at that age. Is it because of her âdigital precociousnessâ?
Childhood and innocence are not the same thing, but I donât think we need to limit either in our efforts to prepare kids for their inevitable future. Perhaps, we just need to redefine both for the modern age. Modern childhood entails media literacy. Modern innocence means having a supportive parent to guide your google queries rather than just relying on âsafe searchâ.
We arenât dealing with a new species of child. They still fear monsters. But, their monsters probably have an Instagram account and are willing to post pictures of you making your worst mistakes. It is not too soon to talk about this.â
