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When even the youngest children are spending the equivalent of a full work day looking at screens, it is perhaps no surprise that parents are wondering how to teach their children to communicate in the digital age. Since the parents themselves did not grow up with tablets and smartphones, the situation is even more challenging.
This is a multi-faceted problem. On the one hand, children need to learn how to have traditional, face-to-face conversations unmediated by technology. On the other hand, they also need to learn how to communicate appropriately using technology. Both of these kinds of communication will be vital to their success as adults.
Traditional communication requires extensive screen-free time in order to develop the ability to communicate well. Children need to be taught, for example, the importance of eye contact. They should also understand that there is some cultural variation on the appropriateness of eye contact in different contexts, and they should be prepared for that reality. They will also need time to develop an understanding of non-verbal aspects of communication—something that is foreign to most kinds of digital communication.
