A Message From the Director
“The Best Connection Doesn’t Come From a Phone”
When I heard this statement on a recent NBC news report, the words caught my attention. It was about a day care center in Texas that had posted a sign on the door “Get Off Your Phones” aimed at parents who were dropping off or picking up their children. The best things in life that we can give children are time and attention and, unfortunately, that’s what cell phones take away. And then there’s the supervision issue. According to the CDC, cell phone use may be behind a 10% increase in unintentional childhood injuries.
Let’s take this a step further and look at the use of cell phones in child care programs. Consider this scenario:
Newly engaged toddler teacher, Holly, is on the playground with the children when she feels her cell phone vibrate. She glances to see it’s her fiancée, Jim, who had promised to text her immediately when he found out about the house they desperately wanted to rent. Holly has to know the answer right away and she sees that the children are all busy and happy. Reading Jim’s lengthy text, Holly is outraged that another couple has offered to pay a higher price to secure the place! Angry and frustrated, she texts Jim with a reply.
The scream from the teacher’s aide jolts her back to the playground. Sam yells that Nick is bad. Nick has pushed Sam into Joey and Joey is on the ground, bleeding from his ear. Holly drops her phone and runs to help, thinking “How could this happen? I was just texting for a minute.”
When child care providers are in charge of watching multiple children, things can quickly go wrong if the provider is distracted – even momentarily – by a phone call or a text. If a child gets hurt, the program may be held legally responsible for negligence and may even be considered out of ratio during the time that provider’s attention is diverted from the children. And then there is the overarching fact that children learn and thrive when adults are fully present and interactive.
For these reasons, some child care programs have developed cell phone policies in addition to the electronic media device regulation issued by OCFS. These are some dos and don’ts that I researched:
Don’t confiscate teachers’ cell phones. You should have and enforce a policy that personal cell phones may not be used during work, except during breaks. Teachers are adults and should be treated as such. If they can’t follow the policy, they shouldn’t be caring for children.
Do enforce your policy – for everyone. If teachers and children are on a field trip, ideally you would have business cell phone for this purpose. If not, allow one or two teachers to bring personal cell phones to be used only in an emergency.
Do reassure teachers that even with a no-cell-phone policy, people can get in touch with them during the day, usually by calling the program’s main number.
Do include parents in the policy, not so much for safety reasons but so they can give their children the full attention they deserve at the beginning and end of the day.
The best connection is not the hand-held device, but holding the child’s hand.
