I will also admit that sometimes, when I'm looking at my phone, I'm not working. I might be just chatting to a friend, or reading an article, or, if I'm really being honest, checking Facebook.
It's never for long, and I am careful to keep an eye on my kids. I'm okay with this. I don't need to join in all of their games, and they wouldn't want me to anyway.
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Most of the time, I feel like I am getting the balance right. But now and then, the scales tip and I realise that I am spending too much time with my face in my phone and not enough time engaging with my kids. Sometimes it takes one of them saying, "Mummy, put your phone down!" for me to realise that balance has gone out the window.
If my experience is anything to go by, it isn't a huge surprise that a recent study found smart phone use at the park was a significant source of parental guilt. The study, which was carried out by researchers at the University of Washington, documented more than 40 hours of interactions at playgrounds in north Seattle and collected data from 466 adult caregivers.
Researchers found that 44 per cent of caregivers (a mixture of parents, nannies and babysitters) felt they should restrict smart phone use while watching children in the park, and felt guilty for failing to live up to the ideal.
The study found that most people were using their smart phones to text message family and friends, take pictures and use email. Only 28 per cent of caregivers reported using their phones to do work, and there was no noticeable difference in smart phone use between male and female caregivers.
Lead author of the study, Alexis Hiniker, said that a lot of people reported feelings of guilt about their smart phone use. However, he also noted that in contrast, some parents were not concerned about smart phone use at all.
"There's also a group who resents the idea that they should have to put their phones away when their child is safe and happily engaged in something else," he told .
Family therapist Martine Oglethorpe says there are several factors to remember when it comes to using your phone at the park. Firstly, as parents, it's important for us to role model the behaviours we want our children to develop.
"If we don't want our kids to have their heads in a device all the time we have to be sure this isn't something we're doing," she says.
However, Oglethorpe also notes that when our children are happily playing with friends and not looking for attention then checking a few things on our smart phones is not going to be too detrimental. "Balance is key," she tells me.
Smart phone use around our children, be it in the park, at swimming lessons or at home is a very 21st century issue, and we're the first generation of parents who have had to grapple with it. For me, it still comes down to balance.
But perhaps now and then I'll tip those scales the other way, and leave my smart phone at home.相关的主题文章：


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