Millennial Technology for the Children of Millennials
The types of technology we have in our house for our young kids, and why we use a lot of the same things we had when we were growing up 30 years ago.
Millennials straddle the technological divide. We grew up without social media and smart phones, but were the earliest adapters of that technology when it became mainstream. Our childhoods were mostly tech-free (shout out to AIM), but our adult lives have been saturated with daily (hourly!) tech usage.
I understand how important it is for children to not be sheltered from technology. It’s a huge part of our world, and they need to know how to navigate it responsibly. I don’t want to teach them to fear it, or have them develop a craving for it because we restrict it so much. It’s a balancing act, as every modern parent knows.
My kids are currently 8 and 6. We’re still in the early stages of figuring out how to navigate personal technology with them. While we grapple with this new parenting frontier, we have introduced certain items to them that we grew up with. Why give them access to old, outdated technology? Mostly—because it’s safe. Here’s all the “old” tech we have in our house for our kids.
Home Phone
That’s right, we have a “home” phone. Does anyone under the age of 20 even know what a home phone is? Obviously millennials grew up having a landline inside the house, but until just recently we hadn’t had one since we both moved out of our childhood homes. Why did we get one now?
We realized our kids don’t know how to talk on the phone. They’re so used to Facetime! Holding up a phone to the ear and being responsible for making conversation is a concept they haven’t learned yet, and that’s a life skill we want them to have.
Someday, they’ll be able to stay home by themselves, and there will have to be a phone available for emergencies. Without introducing a cell phone yet, this was the simplest solution.
We want them to have access to friends and family that doesn’t depend on our cell phones. We programed their grandparents into the speed dial, and now they can call Grandma whenever they want.
For anyone who is curious—our home phone is not a hard landline. It’s VoIP (voice over internet protocol), so it’s hooked up through our internet connection. We pay monthly charges for taxes and emergency services, but there’s no fee for the actual phone service. This is the phone unit we bought.
CD Players + CD’s
My husband and I love music. It’s one of the things we’re very passionate about, and we want to pass that love onto our kids. But finding a way for our kids to listen to music was surprisingly difficult. So, we simply reverted to what we did when we were kids: we got them CD players.
Now, each kid has their own CD player in their room. They have a CD book where they keep all their CD’s, which we buy for them for holidays and birthdays. If I happen to be at a thrift shop, I always end up bringing home tons of CD’s because they’re so inexpensive. Not only are CD’s safe (no internet), but we’re the ones buying them, which means we’re the ones approving the music.
I will say—this has led to a few conversations about swear words :) I didn’t think twice about streaming Noah Kahn in the car with my kids, until one day my daughter asked for that CD. I went to buy it for her, and I was so surprised to see “Parental Advisory” on the front of it. In hindsight, it makes sense—there’s a lot of “fucks” in his songs. But that kind of label didn’t even occur to me! So I bought her the album (she’d already listened to it a million times lol), and we had a long talk about bad words, and how she’s not allowed to repeat bad words, even if she hears them in songs. In my opinion, a good chat and valuable life lesson came out of it.
Cursive
Yes, I’m making my kids learn cursive. I know people think this is an obsolete skill, but I refuse to believe it. First of all, how will kids have a signature if they don’t know cursive? Are they just going to print their name for the rest of their lives?? Unacceptable.
Cursive isn’t a type of technology, it’s a physical skill. But the physical ability to learn cursive is (I believe) being impacted by how much touchscreen technology kids use nowadays. They’re poking screens, and their fine motor skills are suffering.
Reserved for the summer months, I use this workbook for my eight year old. She especially liked learning how to write her name “fancy.” A lot of her friends in second grade want to learn how to write their name in cursive, so I think the interest is still there!
Keyboard Typing Lessons
Along the same lines…my kids will be learning how to type on a keyboard this summer. Recently I watched my kid use a desktop keyboard for the very first time, and it was PAINFUL. I realized that out of all the technology we do allow them use, all of it is a touchscreen. They’ve never had to click away at a keyboard before.
So this summer I’m going to be sitting them down in front of our computer and turning on a kids typing program for them. I distinctly remember taking typing lessons in third grade in the computer lab at our elementary school. This is the vibe I’m going for.
I will not raise children who poke single fingers on a keyboard. Not on my watch!
Any other millennial technology that you’ve reverted back to for your kids? Have you been using “old” tech for your young kids?
Love this!
Both of my boys did the typing programs when they were younger and now my 8th grader loves to type and does typing tests all of the time. He even bought himself a special typing keyboard (on his Christmas wishlist he had two kinds of keyboards, he's a bit obsessed, ha!). He types between 90-110 wpm with little errors on the tests. I really think that playing video games on a pc and using a keyboard has also really helped. I did teach them both cursive and my oldest signs his name in partial cursive.