Digital Kids

                     

“What’s the parental security code on the tv?” I ask my 11 year old daughter. She rattles off the four digit pin. After a couple more questions about HDM1 versus HDM2  I’m happily watching my recording of Grand Designs while my daughter wearily shakes her head and goes back to her ipod. 

Digital kids eh, if they’re not filling up the recording box, they’re laughing at your lack of followers on twitter or, worse than any of that, giving YOU a tutorial about how to use your own TV!

Ever since the heady days of being allowed to eat sausage rolls in the living room while watching The Generation Game I’ve held a few unshakeable beliefs about television.  These are mostly centred round the principles that too much is bad for you and it shouldn’t be on if you’re not watching it. Recently I’ve added a couple more such as the more channels you have, the less there is to watch and don’t let the dog have the remote but overall the sentiment remains, use it properly and it’s a force for good.

But that’s the problem, what is “proper” use of the big/small screen for the digital generation? It was easy for my parents, children’s programmes were only on for a short time each day and even the presenters on those were urging us to go out and do something more interesting than watching TV. I wasn’t allowed to watch ITV just the BBC (because “we were paying for it”), imagine trying to stop the kids watching X Factor with that logic!

Now, even babies have 12 hours of TV just for them and that’s before they can talk or walk.  Throw in other screen distractions such as addictive birds with anger issues, war games and any number of ways to interact via screen time and it’s a heady mix of free babysitting and 24/7 entertainment. So when does harmless entertainment become a health risk? And, more importantly, if too much time on the sofa is bad for healthy kids how much more complex are the issues for youngsters already living with health problems? Limiting screen time for kids who can easily go and do something else is tough enough but what about youngsters with more complex needs?

It might not feel like it when all you want to do is watch your favourite programme and can’t quite break into your own security settings but TV, and screen time in general, is not the enemy. The challenge is how and when to use it. Social media can be a lifeline for anyone with communication problems, as the daughter of campaigner, Tony Nicklinson described movingly in a radio interview shortly before her father’s death. Twitter, she said, had given him a voice and he loved being able to talk directly to his thousands of followers in a way he couldn’t with any other medium. Similarly there are stories of youngsters who love one particular show, character or game with powerful and liberating results such as sharing that common interest with others and escape from anxiety or pain.

This digital generation has an unlimited and thought-provoking world of education and entertainment at its very fingertips. The best we can do is make sure they know how to use the off switch. Let’s face it, they’re more likely to know which remote to use for that than we are.

Bringing up Britain – challenges facing the digital generation – BBC Radio Four

Lynne Wilson
Guest Blogger

Compassion is costly

The Duchess of Cambridge used her first official speech on foreign soil to praise hospice care.  

While visiting a centre in Malaysia she described the support given to the terminally ill children as, “life changing.”  What a great way of putting the work of the hospice movement onto the world stage. What better way to raise awareness and appreciation than the backing of such a high profile Royal and the positive media coverage it would attract. Ahh, coverage, there was the problem.

When the Duchess walked forward, looked at her audience just a little nervously and delivered her carefully prepared speech, all about care and compassion, she could have little idea that on the other side of the world a magazine Editor was planning to disregard any notion of care or compassion for her and was making calculations of an entirely different kind, based on money, sales and sensation.

Within a few hours of the speech being given the front pages were not devoted to the ringing endorsement of hospice care, they focussed on coverage, or rather lack of it, of a very different kind. Even though newspapers in the UK didn’t print the actual photos it didn’t stop the issue dominating the news agenda.  That, in itself, is not the problem. Privacy and the treatment of the young royals is an important issue, not least because of what happened to the Prince’s mother,  but we have a media in this country that tends to underestimates the ability of the audience to understand multi layered stories  so “topless” became the story almost to the exclusion of everything else.

The Duchess’ speech was important, not just because it was a first, not only because of who she is, how she sounded and what she was wearing but because centres providing hospice care are relatively rare in the Far East. Palliative care is a growing area of expertise and is becoming increasingly available and understood. This makes the Duchess’ support even more important and raises some big questions. Could she become a worldwide champion for palliative care, able to highlight the difference it can make to children, adults and whole families? If so, what global impact might that have? What possibilities for the care of the dying around the world? These are big questions with potentially life changing answers.

Topless sunbathing,  peeping tom photographers, privacy for the Royals? There could be an answer to those questions in the French courts this week but it won’t change my life and I suspect it won’t change yours and it certainly isn’t as “life changing”  as what’s going on in the hospice in Kula Lumpur, and hospices around the world, right now.

Useful reading:

http://www.malaysianhospicecouncil.org/

Lynne Wilson

Guest Blogger

"I am what I am"

Over recent weeks we have been introduced to some of the fittest and fastest humans on the planet. And yet they are also some of the most disabled and impaired. The Paralympics has raised all sorts of questions about our understanding and our attitudes and also, our use of the word, “disability”. How can people so breathtakingly able, be described as disabled? One Paralympic swimmer pointed out that he was far better in the pool than most able bodied people so who’s got the disability?”

The word inspiration has also come in for some stick. A caller to BBC Radio Five Live said he was fed up with people coming up to him in his wheelchair and asking if he’d been inspired to run or swim or play sport as a result of the Games. His reply?  “You’ve got two legs,  does that mean you’re gonna start running like Usain Bolt.”

We could spend the next decade debating the pros and cons of all the available words and how inadequate they are, we could waste that time and still the world would be no fairer, no more equal. I’ll never be able to run like Usain Bolt or Jonnie Peacock for that matter but it doesn’t mean I can’t be inspired by them. Fresh from watching Bradley Wiggins I did what a lot of people did and dusted off my bike. I haven’t cycled for about a year but as I pushed up the hill, resisting the urge to get off and walk, I had Bradley’s flat back and grim determination in my mind. I made it to the top and my teenage son was very impressed (and slightly relieved that the heavy breathing wasn’t life threatening!) Small steps, but isn’t that how every journey begins.

Let’s not get stuck on the sidelines with a list of words in one hand and a big red pen in the other. Words are never going to be enough for the feats of strength, agility and speed we’ve been watching. Feel the moment, cherish that feeling and if it makes a difference to you consider yourself a hero, or even an inspiration.

Some good listening......

BBC Radio Five Live, have the Paralympics changed attitudes toward disability? 

BBC Radio Five Live, Beyond Disability: Adventures of a Blue Badger 

Lynne Wilson

Guest Blogger