Digital Parenting Week: How Do Software Engineers Support Their Children in This Connected World?
We live in a connected world where children can access any information at their fingertips. In this digital age, parents need to guide their children in the right direction. Digital parenting requires a set of efforts to support and regulate children’s online activities. It is an important component of modern parenting dynamics.
As parents, software engineers can find it hard to strike a balance between childcare and professional commitments. Parents must keep a close check on their children’s online activities and help them reap the benefits of the digital world.
Here are some impactful ways in which software engineers can support their children in the digital world:
1.Set boundaries between work and personal life
Being a parent and software engineer doubles your responsibilities. Despite these responsibilities, you only have 24 hours to devote to work, children, and yourself. As tech professionals, you need to set boundaries between work and child responsibilities.
By setting these boundaries, you can delegate tasks that are not very important and make time for children. In the same way, you can delegate some child responsibilities to caregivers.
By delegating responsibilities, you can leverage your supporters like family, friends, and your subordinate employees. Also, you will have more time to devote to your children and support their development in this digital age.
2. Look for mutually advantageous scenarios
There is a huge difference between software engineering and parenting. Yet, software engineering and parenting are both about developing new skills in two different spheres of life.
Both parenting and software engineering requires constant learning and discipline. To balance both, ensure that you give more importance to a pressing concern in the area of parenting or work as and when it arises.
3. Letting go of parental guilt
Letting go of parental guilt can help you to be mindful and focus equally on your children and work. The guilt of not doing enough often limits your potential.
Never set unrealistic expectations for yourself as parents and working professionals. When you let go of parental guilt, you become mindful to support your children. Also, you become more productive at work when you do not worry about your children.
4. Ensuring balanced use of digital technology
We live in a digital world surrounded by handheld devices that make it easy to spend a lot of time online. Instead, you should keep a watch on how your children spend their time on the web.
You should also regulate your child’s screen time and limit it. By limiting screen time, you will help your child to focus on other useful things. The shift in focus will definitely help your child grow.
You can set house rules on internet usage and prepare a timetable that includes physical activities and put a child lock on some applications to prevent your child from accessing unsafe content.
5. Refrain from developing a communication gap
All of us maintain a connection with the world through social media and other digital channels. This easy connectivity keeps us busy at times, and we tend to make less time for our kids. You can leverage this easy connectivity to regularly communicate with your kids.
If you spend a lot of time at work, you can support your child’s growth by connecting to them through phone calls, chatting apps, or video calls. This way, you can help your child feel that you are around them even during work hours.
6. Switch to a remote profile to be available for children
As a software engineer, you can switch to a remote profile if your work life is hindering your connection with your children. As a software engineer, you can look for long-term job opportunities with the flexibility of remote work. This is possible with Turing, which is a dedicated platform that offers growth-oriented remote job opportunities for software engineers.
Summary
The digital world is a place full of distractions, and the content children consume has a big impact on their life. As a parent, you must ensure that your children make the best use of technology. So, it is important that you strike a good balance between work and parenting.
