Grown-ups hardly ever put their phone down – something that doesn’t escape the kids. Since smartphones have become such an integral part of our daily lives, teaching your child the do’s and don’ts of phone use is a must, say experts. — dpa
BERLIN: “Hello, Mummy? Hello?”
Toddlers love to babble away while holding a toy block to their ear. When they’re a bit older, they graduate to a toy mobile phone with lights and sounds. But what most kids really want is the real thing, of course.
It captivates children that you can speak into a little box and hear another person’s voice. And adults’ behaviour around mobile phones tells them that these doodahs must be very important – after all, grown-ups hardly ever put them down.
So even young children often show no inhibitions when it comes to speaking on the phone. And though this is perfectly natural, they should learn a few rules, especially considering that a growing number of kids already have a smartphone by the time they’re in primary school.
“Children should be made acquainted with phones little by little,” says Iren Schulz, a German media educator.
The first step could be instructing the child to summon a parent when the phone rings. The second could be letting them make a call themselves, for example by pressing their grandparents’ number saved on the phone. When they’re of pre-school age, they could be allowed to pick up the receiver or press the receiver icon on the phone themselves.
Should they answer the phone by giving their name? “I’m undecided on this myself,” Schulz admits.
Not so Joachim Auer, a business coach whose work includes teaching young trainees phone etiquette: “It’s customary later in working life to answer with your full name,” so children might as well get a head start, he says.
The more freedom that children are given in regard to phone use, the greater the importance of clear rules, says Schulz – for example, that mum’s business mobile is off limits, and that they should only answer when the caller’s name is recognisable – and hang up if it’s a stranger.
“What children divulge is always key,” Schulz says. “It must be crystal clear that sending photos to strangers is impermissible.”
Sensitising children to this issue is now even more critical, she adds, as photos and videos have proliferated in everyday communication since the start of the Covid pandemic – be it Zoom chats with grandma or daily photos of the newborn cousin in the WhatsApp family group.
Even young children are quite skilful at handling mobile devices, Schulz notes, and “it's easy to lose sight of the fact that they naturally have no idea yet of the range of possibilities and dangers”.
She recommends explaining the dangers to them in terms they can relate to: “We don’t simply open our home to every stranger, do we?”
Issuing blanket proscriptions in an effort to protect them is no solution, however, she says. “The older the children are, the more you can dispense with technical constraints. The children keep getting better at circumventing them anyway.”
Auer points out that many adolescents prefer to communicate via messenger services such as WhatsApp rather than phoning. Later, when they’re in training or on the job, they struggle to conduct a phone conversation. He says many seem to have trouble “forging a relationship on the phone”.
But the ability to do so is often crucial in professional settings: “Only those who win favour with their interlocutor will be remembered positively, and for this reason perhaps win that coveted order, get a better price or be able to profitably resolve a complaint.”
This is why Auer also teaches the art of small talk in his courses. “Many young people are no longer good at it,” he says.
Small talk can easily be trained at home with family members, says the expert: “Always remaining in conversation with each other is instrumental. In the evenings at the dinner table, parents and children could talk about the pleasant and positive things they experienced that day, for instance.”
And they shouldn’t constantly glance at their phones while doing so, because a cardinal rule of smartphone etiquette is not using them when inappropriate, such as in restaurants and particularly during face-to-face conversations.
Children will only follow this rule when their parents do too though. – dpa
