The author of 'Educate in amazement', which has already sold more than 100,000 copies, is one of the most respected voices in the world of education. Catherine L 'Écuyer has been warning for years about the danger of children's screens and the huge bill we are going to pay.
What do parents do wrong today? Letting ourselves get entangled by the packaged council industry. We have to recover the sensitivity that allows us to tune into the real needs of our children, to understand them. Many parents have abdicated their responsibilities in the hands of educational gurus - in many cases sponsored by non-educational industries - who continually dictate what they have to do to be "acceptable parents." There are no perfect parents, that utopia only creates frustration. You are very critical of "the packaged council industry." When you tell a father what to do or not to do without entering the rationale of education, you treat him like an idiot. It's like teaching someone to navigate by giving him a helm without a map. Give the map with a compass and let the wind blow. What is the advice you can't stand? "Quiet, woman." Normally, it is said by men who lack educational sensitivity when addressing attentive and outstanding mothers, portraying them as hysterical. Unfortunately, there are many of those men in management positions in the educational field and I know that many mothers suffer from that cheap paternalism in their children's school. Tell me which is the main educational myth to be undone. The digital native. We cannot deny that young people were born in the digital age, but there are studies that confirm that this does not make them more intelligent or more capable of technological multitasking. Nor do they learn better through technology. On the contrary, it is proven that the so-called "Google Generation" depends too much on search engines and lacks the critical and analytical skills to understand the value of information on the web. Digital literacy without context is butter without bread. Children are playing less and less. That happens to buy toys with buttons and batteries. It is the child who has to get going through the game, not the toy through the child. They also do not fall to the ground or have injuries. We do not leave them. Overprotection is the order of the day. But sometimes we confuse overprotection with the role we play, as a father or mother. Being afraid of a flower causing an allergic reaction or not letting them get dirty in a puddle of water is overprotection; Breastfeeding or delaying the use of technologies is not. Giving in to whims or obsessing with controlling every last detail is not the same as giving them what their nature demands. Why have we endeavored to lock them in ball parks? Perhaps it is a combination of lack of time, comfort and eagerness to control But then we give them a smartphone ... How can we stop this frequent protective hyperpaternity? It is important to take care of our children's environment. But once they are in that "prepared" environment, they must be allowed to explore freely. We tend to do just the opposite: we don't take care of the environment, and then we try to control each one of its steps. Are we taming them and don't let them be wild? I'm not Rousseaunian. I believe as Montessori in the role of education and in the importance of the transmission of culture. But, that education must take into account the specificities of childhood. The adult becomes obsessed with productivity. Instead, the child's masterpiece is internal. Why is the child able to go up and down the stairs 20 times? He is busy "making himself" through everything he does. Another of the obsessions is that they don't get bored for a minute.The astonishment is the desire to know, that makes boredom the preamble par excellence of astonishment. It is time to stop thinking about fatherhood as a kind of provider of new and sensational experiences. Parents are not animators of playroom, providers of new experiences for a wonderful childhood. Childhood is itself magical. Has the use of technology got out of hand? "God always forgives, men sometimes, nature never." Children learn through interpersonal relationships and sensory experiences. What are mobile phones doing to our children's brains? When we ask the brain to do things for which it is not prepared to do, such as multitasking continues, it takes its toll. The brain is plastic, but not a gum. There is no study that supports the introduction of technologies in childhood. That is what the main pediatric associations say, but few parents know it because the technology industry has infinite means to spread slogans that encourage its use. For example, that education in responsible use is done with the device in hand. Giving a responsibility to someone who is not prepared to assume it is to betray the very meaning of the notion of freedom. The best preparation for the online world is the offline world. At what age should you start? As late as possible. If our children are agile with the smartphone, it is not because they are intelligent, it is because the person who designed it is. You argue that it is no longer a matter of education, but of health. Are we endangering children's health? I think the bill will be very expensive: inattention, hyperactivity, addictions to speed and pornography, loss of sense of relevance, reality deficit and the list goes on. But society prefers to punish, put on bandages and play the police with endless lists of rules, than to prevent. How can we turn back? I have no doubt that, within a few years, the generation that was born in the digital age will rebel against the dictatorship that has been imposed on it from the cradle. All human beings have the right to release reality offline before doing it online. Interestingly, digital gurus raise their children without screens. Yes. They have the financial means to pay for the luxury of interpersonal relationships. Meanwhile, their companies digitize the classrooms of public American schools in the US and export devices in developing countries. The argument of the digital divide - according to which universal access to technology is the answer to reduce socioeconomic inequalities - is a lie. Studies show more abusive consumption of technology in disadvantaged groups. Why are tablets introduced into the classroom when children are already in front of the screens all day? Because it is a symbol of progress and modernity. Recently, they asked the Prime Minister of Canada for the reason for a specific policy, and the answer was "is that we are in 2019". With that logic, it is not necessary to demonstrate the merit of absolutely nothing. The fact of the novelty becomes an argument in itself. To ask teachers to uncritically accept all that derives from the cycle of technological obsolescence, which is becoming shorter and shorter, is to make them slaves of modernity. Innovation is a commercial, non-educational concept. The use of mobile phones also causes them to mature earlier and lose their innocence. There are 12-year-old girls dressed as if they were 16. That was 5 or 10 years ago. Now on Instagram, many of them don't even wear anything, they go naked. They are not the children who live in a bubble, we are the parents regarding what they do online. You are very combative with this issue, have you received any pressure or suggestion from the technology giants? I have received several offers of "collaboration as expert "by several technology companies, including two industry giants. In both cases they put me in conditions to do the job: my approach should be kind and positive regarding the use of technology in childhood. I told them that they don't need experts, but people who are complacent about their business model. Unfortunately, many "experts" that parents trust lend themselves to this game. Education was before the tribe. Now, if an adult comes up with the attention of a child, his hair falls out. Common sense and solidarity, two robust principles of human societies, are increasingly scarce. Perhaps because we express our humanity less and less. Why is it so hard for us to set limits? Because we confuse judging or condemning with discerning. For a misunderstood "tolerance", we have given up calling things by name. The educational result is a catastrophe. The truth is that there is enormous permissiveness. Children 12 or 14 years who can get home at dawn. Is that positive for teenagers? The child needs time with his parents, and if he does not have it, he seeks life outside the home, or in his digital cave. And if we do not dedicate the hours you need when you play, we will end up dedicating them solving more serious problems. Adolescence is not a disease, nor does it have to be an ordeal, what happens is that it becomes a nightmare when there is not enough time investment in the previous stage. As the mother of four children, tell me what are the three basic rules that you apply with them. The first rule is to have few. The second is to have an environment that does not require many. The last is that everything we have and do in life has to make sense. When my children ask me for something, I always ask them "what's the point of that?" If you are able to articulate an answer, then go ahead. If not, they know they don't need it. In education, nothing is neutral. To educate is not to "go pulling", it is to seek excellence, meaning and beauty.According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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