Small Doses: Giving Our Kids To The Internet with Dr. Steve Perry

Dr. Steve Perry shared his concerns about giving kids “unfettered access” to the internet on this episode of the Small Doses podcast. The educator and founder of Capital Prep Schools sat down with host Amanda Seales to discuss how giving children too much internet access is shaping their development. He also offered advice on how to prevent the kids in our lives from developing a digital dependency.

How the internet is shaping childhood development

Working in schools, Perry has observed kids on the extreme end of online obsession. “When you give children complete unfettered access, and so many parents do,” it impacts their development, said Dr. Perry. “We have allowed our children to have too much access to information and as a result, they’re not sure who they are,” he added.

Some children experience the internet too much and too early — some as young as babies, said Dr. Perry. “What they’re addicted to is the speed of images. There’s too much for them to truly internalize.” From social media to gaming apps, these platforms are “designed to draw you in,” he said. “The books don’t go as fast as the internet. The children have not developed the muscle that’s necessary to sit still and read for 45 minutes by themselves.”

How to teach kids about healthy online engagement

Source: Johnny Nunez / other

When it comes to deciding when to give a child a phone, there’s a clear benefit in terms of safety. “Here’s the other side of it: that phone could tell me where my children are at all times,” said Dr. Perry. “So do I risk not knowing where my kids are, or do I risk knowing where they are but not knowing what they just finished looking at?”

There is a better way to go about teaching children how to have a balanced relationship with the internet, he said. “There have to be constraints. There have to be guardrails.” Establishing trust and communication with the children in our lives is key to teaching them how to navigate the internet wisely. “The trust has to be developed, and the context has to be established as much as possible with the children,” said Dr. Perry.

There is a difference between using the internet as a parenting tool to stimulate versus distract a child. “It’s not what we do, it’s why we do it.”

“The point is that it’s not all bad. It’s when we don’t work with our children, when we give them unfettered access, and we don’t help them to understand what it is they’re looking at — then they don’t know what they’re looking at and they don’t know how to make heads or tails of it,” said Dr. Perry.

How to establish good habits early

Source: Mathew Imaging / other

Spending quality time and building interest in offline activities as early as possible will help raise well-rounded kids, Dr. Perry advised. “You could slow their use of the internet by giving them access to other things that they care about.” Soccer, piano, and dance lessons are great examples of offline activities that offer enrichment rather than a mindless distraction, he said. It’s about “keeping them involved in activities so they physically can’t have their phone … Those things still matter far more than we give them credit.”

Get the entire conversation. Listen to this episode of Small Doses with Amanda Seales here.