Nanny to Mommy

Post millennial, Gen Z or iGen are some categories associated with kids aged between 6 and 23. Raising them as a parent is quite challenging as compared to millennials. If we analyze millennials, they have seen everything from doing manual jobs to automated ones. However, post-millennials are those who opened their eyes in the digital age.

The struggles of raising a millennial child versus Gen Z has taken a 360-degree turn. In fact, the child’s development and education in today’s digital age are quite challenging for parents. They have to look so many things that were not present at the time of millennial. For instance, Smartphone and tablets are prime examples.

A study found that the average age for a child to get the first Smartphone in the United States is 10.3 years old.

It's not that I am totally against YouTube. I watch it myself and have a few accounts that I subscribe to and actively follow, but between pedophile comments on kid content and suicide tips for kids hidden in videos on YouTube, I decided that enough was enough and I removed YouTube Kids from both of my kids' iPads. My daughter cried. Seriously. But I explained to her that some recent stuff had come out about bad content that she or her brother might accidentally see. I told her that it could get fixed, but there are videos that I just don't want to have to worry if she would see or not right now. She seemed okay with that explanation and moved on to her educational apps that she enjoys as well.

And hopefully the algorithm will get fixed. And it wasn't just the bad press that YouTube has had recently that made up my decision. My children were becoming like little electronic zombies. Looking at a screen too long is bad for eye sight and my son already has vision problems. Thankfully my children still play outside, but the weather has been so poor this past week and they were on Winter Break from school. They ended up watching YouTube almost non-stop. My daughter who normally loves arts and crafts, wasn't asking at all to create anything. But yet she did ask to start her own YouTube channel and she is only 8!

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of SmartMom.

Everyone needs a little parenting advice every now and then. It's okay to admit it. I know I do. When my daughter was a baby we struggled with breastfeeding so much. And I had NO physical support around me. I didn't know where to turn to and although we managed to make it to 14 months, it was a LONG battle. But why? Because I didn't have an access to easy support like SmartMom. Parenting has been easier this time around because now there's an app where advice is available 24/7, right from your smart phone.