Pandora’s Blog

This is a look at a new book by Dr. Michael Osit’s called “Generation Text: Raising Well-Adjusted Kids In An Age of Instant Everything”. I have got to read this! As much I try to keep my rantings centered on the need for Internet safety, I can’t help but talk about parenting in general, as so much of a child (of today)’s life is embedded in technology. There is guaranteed to be some overspill.

Thus I find myself talking about the same idea that Osit talks about: parents need to replace “yes parenting” for responsible parenting and discipline.

Osit correctly states, “The goal is to create a balance between possessions and privileges, and for a parent to use what a child is exposed to as a teachable moment.”

This is exactly the same argument (in slightly different words) that I have with people that think just talking to kids is enough and that monitoring is an invasion of privacy. If you believe that, it’s because you are either weak or lazy or have been convinced by your kids that they need privacy.

That is not the case. They do not need it; they do not deserve it… they need to earn it.

Using technology to your advantage, like our PC Pandora monitoring software, will let you know whether or not they really deserve their own privacy and total freedom online. Just remember this: we have NEVER had a parent request a return or refund on our software stating “my child is a perfect angel, I don’t need this anymore” as the reason.

Read this great article and have a great weekend!

April 5, 2009
‘Generation Text’ wants it all

What could be wrong with tuning in to America’s competitive psyche by promoting a child-centered culture?

If clinical psychologist and family therapist Dr. Michael Osit’s new book, “Generation Text: Raising Well-Adjusted Kids In An Age of Instant Everything,” is an indication, nearly everything.

“The inordinate amount of attention, money and chauffeuring showered on our children has empowered them to the point of excess,” said Osit, whose Watchung Psychological Associates has an office in Morristown.

Osit has been in practice for 24 years. His first office in Watchung moved 11 years ago to 5 Mountain Blvd. in Warren. The Morristown office opened two years ago.

While Osit characterizes his practice load as split equally between family and child therapy, “I’m best known for my work with kids,” he said.

Those years of working with children and adolescents crystallized three years ago into the idea for a book after a counseling session with a client — a mother of a 10-year-old.

“This mother came in on a Friday morning annoyed with her son,” Osit recalled, before continuing the narrative that did not as yet sound unique. “She started to relate what had taken place the evening before, on a school night. Her 10-year-old son had called her on his cell phone while she and the boy’s father, each an attorney, were attending a business dinner engagement.

“It’s about 10 p.m. The boy tells the mother he just saw a lacrosse stick on the Internet that he wants, and he wants to order it online right away. And then the son tells the mother to give him her American Express credit card number so he can put through the order.

“The boy’s rationalization for his actions amounts to “I should get it because I’m me.’”

Once the literary fire was kindled, Osit wrote the book in 2007 in about five months of weekends. In the process, the therapist found out something new about himself.

“The writing was more enjoyable than I expected. Some days I would realize I had been writing for 12 hours on a computer,” Osit remembered.

While Osit does not decry the necessity for technology and its evolving and constant marvels in today’s shrinking global village, his book examines what he sees in his practice: increasing conflicts between parents and children over technological devices, and how parents might replace what Osit terms “yes parenting” for responsible parenting and discipline.

“The goal is to create a balance between possessions and privileges, and for a parent to use what a child is exposed to as a teachable moment,” Osit said.

Other experts said that parents who raise their children on excess — technological or not — may be compensating for lack of interpersonal time and commitment.

“While technology may raise challenges to parenting, I think perhaps there are some children raised on excess (often in cases and places where parents substitute excess for interpersonal time and commitment),” Judith Kaufman, a psychology professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, wrote in an e-mail to the Daily Record. “… Quite frankly, there will always be parents who don’t set limits and boundaries for their children and indulge in that excess. I do believe that most parents do place limits and control, and while some do it naturally, others need support and assistance in negotiation limits with their children.”

The difference comes down to helping young children decipher a need from a want, said Lona Whitmarsh, associate professor of psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University. As a parent, she set such precedents for her own children.

“They have been able to internalize that schema and make choices and requests based on their ability to discriminate wants and needs in their lives,” she wrote in an e-mail to the Daily Record.

While discussion of a topic pitched to impressionable youth (Osit used the frank opening scenes in the movie “Juno,” that deals with teen pregnancy, as one example) can be uncomfortable for the parent, Osit implores the parent to talk.

“When distorted behaviors become frequent, they morph into appropriate or normal activities,” he said. A continuing conversation with one’s child that talks through the pros and cons of contemporary culture provides a counterbalance to what the child is exposed to.

Parental modeling of appropriate behaviors also is paramount, Osit said. He has conducted parent-child therapy sessions where the parent was holding an open cell phone and the child was text messaging on another cell phone.

Osit reports he now sees how the recession has affected some of his affluent client families.

“Now the parent is forced to say no to a child’s demand for an expensive purchase the child had come to believe is owed to him or her,” he said. “I’m seeing angry children, who are pushing back against what they are hearing at home, perhaps that their parent is not receiving a bonus. It’s (the economy) adding a lot of stress.

“There are studies indicating 50 percent of kids spend their leisure time in front of screens. Technology is so embedded in our culture, but it can and does cause isolation.”

The fallout from all that one-on-one interaction with circuitry includes poor development of social skills.

“They develop inter-machine interests instead of interpersonal strengths,” Osit said. “Often the initial friendship is founded through social networking Web sites rather than through activities or clubs.”

Having less than good or appropriate experiences on these Web sites or becoming the victim of cyber bullying, where a rumor can be sent out in one punch of a key to 300 peers, leaves more than just an immediate hurt.

“Kids of all ages are vulnerable because they’re forming their identities based on their life experiences,” Osit said.

FDU’s Kaufman also expressed concern over the impact of technology on social and emotional development.

“While technology can have significantly positive impact, I too am concerned about IM, texting and electronic communication,” Kaufman wrote in an e-mail to the Daily Record. “These things have implications academically as well as on social skills and emotional behavior. Technology has a language all its own that does not translate to the classroom in terms of writing or communication skills. Abbreviations don’t make it in a 150-word essay about your pet or summer vacation.”

When technology replaces face time, children and teenagers fail to read body language or social cues, she said.

“Further, dialog is sequential rather than interactive and collaborative, both of which are important social and communication skills,” she said.

Constant electronic interfacing, also removes those living in the “here-and-now” moments.

From telegraphs to Twittering via cell phone, no matter what the gadget, “the impulse to communicate is eternal,” particularly among teens, said Jonathan Rose, a professor of history at Drew University in Madison.

“Adolescents love to communicate with each other,” Rose said. “In the 19th century there were toy printing presses for kids to make their own paper. They exchanged papers. And then the telephone came along, then e-mail and text.”

The father of two said he’s “allergic to technology,” though he said his 12-year-old daughter and his wife are plugged in.

Family time is spent in the common study where he and his wife can keep an eye on their daughters online.

“Yes, now there’s access to questionable literature, but my oldest daughter knows if she finds something ‘icky,’ to click it off,” he said. “It’s about exercising discretion.”

Since its publication in August, “Generation Text,” available at amazon.com, already has caught the attention of the publishing world. The 288-page hardcover book has been selected as a book of the year choice by Instructor Magazine and Work and Family Life, and was one of five finalists in the Child Care/Parenting category for the 13th annual Books for a Better Life Awards sponsored by the New York Chapter of the National MS Society.

The creative process might have only begun for Osit.

“I’m mulling over another book,” he said, “this one directed to the fallout of technology on adult relationships.”

Additional Facts

Raising a child in today’s culture

Dr. Michael Osit offers these tips on raising well-adjusted kids in today’s fast-paced world:

• Re-emphasize family values and involvement. For example, play video games but as a family.
• Proper modeling. Decide to eat meals with cell phones turned off.
• Set proper limits on technological possessions and privileges. A child’s access should be earned, not expected.
• Parents should keep pace with technology so they know the power and reach of the gadgets a child is using.
• Consciously define fundamental values and create balance for your child.

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