Teleparenting

We are heading towards a braver new world of e-parenting, or tele-parenting. Diminished is the genuinely absent parent; the absent parent is often available virtually, if only a child’s attention span can access them.

For one of my friends with daughters, their father is not available as he frequently is away, working on an oil-rig. But, from the oil-rig, he has data, wi-fi, so he can organise little video chats with them.

For me, virtually my only contact with my child has been online since just before he turned 2, for reasons I shall not go into.

During the pandemic, I worked in care homes, homeless shelters, and was an online tutor. I never had a job that involved excessive Zoom use. I also have this little thing called “autism”.

We spoke virtually before he could even speak. This is not an intuitive way to speak to a non-verbal child. How do you tap into a child’s emotions or practise non-verbal communication electronically?

When my son did learn to speak, I missed his first word, and had to learn how to understand his speech, or see the developments in his speech, via Zoom.

I think, after this situation rages for two years, it is only recently I have begun to learn what to do. I think the key was to incorporate ideas from online tutoring. I’m trying to learn never to just waffle, and keep every single activity, dynamic, reciprocal, and engaged. So it’s not “read stories” but co-create stories – talk about characters, ask if he likes words, ask what he thinks will happen next. I have written stories with my son together online.

Part of this is using the screen share function, and reading an old children’s book while pointing out pictures, slowly reading.

But the problem is that seeing parenting a three year old online as “teaching” is also problematic. It’s extractivist, for one: kids of that age do not need militant educational programs, pushing them to build their vocabulary. At that age, children can, for once, be free of expectations to accumulate knowledge.

So it’s with reluctance, and nervousness, that I’m experimenting more with play, even if there are innate technological limits. Puppets were a great discovery, but can you stage an online puppet show for a three year old? It’s an interesting challenge.

Similarly, can you actually play hide and seek online? Or how hard is it to synchronise different activities, or talk about what would work together, often with difficult emotions and atomised family units after a relationship?

As I actually start to research this, more and more, one of the best resources I have found is this: https://www.socialworkerstoolbox.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Virtual-Family-Time-and-Contact-Fun-Activities-and-Games.pdf. These ideas, often with a bit of coordination and preparation, are all genuinely possible to implement. Many of them are just verbal, and therefore don’t necessarily need embodied interaction.

I used to love taking my son to museums. But it strikes me as I write this that, for a child, it could be pretty much identical to just get the British Museum website up and look through the exhibits online, and respond emotionally to what you see together. What is this? What is that? I’ve often found myself just randomly listening to stuff my son says and trying to approximate what he’s talking about with my own ideas. I spent a long time recently looking up pressure cookers after he was talking about a “flat thing that makes steam come out”.

Yes, it could be fun to write an e-mail together while virtual parenting. Admittedly, it feels so much inferior to being there. But I suppose part of the challenge of the twenty-first century is we will have to get over that sense we have to “be there”. Families will be increasingly divided and learning how to digitally parent may save us all.

And it’s never going to be the same. But it might be, sometimes, as good, as real parenting, if we put enough work into it. But we need to put the work in, to prepare, because nobody knows how to teleparent a child. It’s an unfamiliar concept that our parents and parents’ parents had no notion of. So I’m writing this as a starting point to prepare some idea how of how to parent when forced into a situation when digital conversations are practically all you have.