“Again mobile! Aren’t you sick of using it in morning, afternoon, evening and night? You have books, newspaper, notebooks; why cant you sit and study?”
I had to yell at my teenager son looking at his continuously growing fascination for his gadget.
“Mom, I am happy catching Pokemons in New Zealand, Kuala Lumpur, while sitting in the comfort of my house,” he replied immediately when my pitch got louder. Unaffected, he again went busy in his business of looking after Pokemons.
This scene has become quite regular at my place. He wakes up with his cell, gets ready for school and again sits with his mobile to play games. He becomes so engaged in his usual business that at times, he forgets about his school time too and had to be reminded of the same.
When he comes from school, the first thing he searches is for his mobile. Before eating lunch, after his lunch, before tuition and after tuitions, in evening snacks, before dinner and after dinner, mobile seems to have become his regular partner.
Even if you go for outings, at marriages, parties, picnics, this mobile sticks to him like a glue.
When I try to check him, he shows me all his classmates who are sitting online.
“You look like an outdated mom,” he says when I get after his life. “All kids are online, but no one’s mom behaves like you,” these words give me a shocker.
Am I getting too much harsh? Have mobiles become a part of kids’ life? Have other parents accepted this fact? Am I getting extra worried? There are thousands of questions banging my head with no answers coming from anywhere around.
I discussed this with my friends and they expressed the same plight and pain of theirs. Their kids too are hooked to their mobiles. And they feel helpless too.
Snatching mobiles from them make them feel isolated as they cant exchange their chats. Getting louder makes them anguished; and, I, as a parent, can feel his increasing dependence on mobile, is making him addicted.
I can feel him getting restless and stressed. But am clueless how to get him de-addicted from this addiction. Any help from anywhere?