Kids....Just plug them in?

I had the most amazing interaction with a six year old patient the other day. He was in with his nine year old brother and his Mom. This was the first time I had seen him but he had quite a thick chart for such a little guy. He had his tonsils and adenoids out a year ago but Mom had been bringing him in because she thought he must still have apnea. She had somehow talked my doctor into getting a sleep study.

I asked her about his breathing at night and she didn't seem to know anything about it. She said that he just seems to show up at the side of her bed in the middle of the night. The sleep study was normal of couse so I look at the little guy and I ask, "Why aren't you sleeping". He immediately starts rubbing his forehead and says, "I play the video games all day long and when I'm asleep they run through my brain and I can't turn them off, I can't sleep" I look at the Mom and we just stare at eachother dumbfounded. I didn't need to ask how much he was playing or how much TV he was watching. She simply asked, "Do you think we should scale back?". I talked to her a little bit about how overstimulating TV and video games can be and it seemed to be the first time she had heard any of this info.

It was really interesting to me to have a real live case scenerio in the theoretical information that I already know. I don't even know if I have actually read the studies that show that TV and video games contribute to ADD or sleep disturbances. It just seems intuitive. It was a real eye opener to have this "from the mouths of babes" experience.

Flash forward to last night when I went out to dinner with the kids, my husband and my parents. Eating out with my two boys is always a little stressful for me. I never really worry about what I order because I am pretty sure that I won't be able to enjoy it. We had to wait twenty minutes for a table and we were already there a little late for their dinner time. There were kids all over and it was a pretty noisy restaurant. I don't really worry about disturbing others in this kind of situation so I don't really get stressed. The kids did really well. Tristan is just loud but it is a "fun loud". I'm pretty sure we had some dirty looks from a couple of people during some of Tristan's squeels of delight but I didn't really care.

As we were paying the bill I noticed that Adam became very quiet and interested in what was going on at our neighbor's table. Then I noticed there were some kids at the table watching a little mini DVD player while the adults talked happily. There were definately two separate experiences at that table, the adult and the child. I thought it a little odd but my Mom was really offended. Then I noticed that the table behind us had the same thing going on! It seems to be an epidemic. My Mom was completely appalled at this point. I was just down right concerned.

Now, I am always careful about not being judgemental about these kinds of things. I never understood the DVD in the car thing until I had to travel with children. I still try to limit movie watching in the car but when you are on the crazy car rides like we take in the summer it is suicide not to have a little back up!

This DVD at the restaurant thing has me feeling both concerned and a little abandoned. Concerned because it seems to be another version of "children should be seen and not heard". Then there is my concern over the kids' mental health and the possible overdose of stimulation: Loud restaurant, all new people, new foods, frenetic cartoon on the TV. But I am feeling abandoned because as parents we unfortunately sometimes sacrifice what we want (dinner at a nice restaurant) in order to take the kids to a "family friendly" restaurant where we know that most people won't care if the kids get a little out of hand. You like to be in a place where there are friendly nods and smiles, a feeling of "been there, done that, don't worry, just breathe..." But if mini DVDs at the restaurant is going to become the new norm then what then?? Where is my refuge??

Again I don't want to judge. Who knows what those families were going through. Maybe they recently had a loved one die and needed a night out but didn't have a babysitter. Who knows? I'm not upset at them but I am a little worried at the ease of which we just plug our kids in these days. You can find endless distraction just about anywhere. Not to worry, we can always just medicate them when the distractions get to be too much. Our generations version of, "turn on, tune in and drop out". Oooh yeah, you are hearing the judge in my voice now right? I'm sure it will come back to bite me in the butt.