Deputy Principal

Over the last two weeks, I have had the pleasure of teaching a Year 10 Commerce class. I use the word ‘pleasure’ as the young men in the class have been interested in the concepts that I have been teaching and genuinely engaged in their learning. We have been engaged in content covering Economics, which I love, and there have been some very good discussions around inflation and interest rates. The topic moved onto technology and work/life balance. As adults, we know how much technology has changed the way we work. Emails are on our smartphones; we are always contactable and sometimes it is hard to wind down. For our young men growing up, they know no different as smartphones have been around almost as long as they have been alive. Your sons have grown up with technology - it is their norm. 

Now, I know I have written about this before but as we discussed work/life balance, I asked the young men in this class how many of them sleep with devices in their room. To my surprise, nearly two-thirds of the class admitted to having their phones/computers in their rooms at night. It is certainly not my job to tell parents/carers how to manage their own homes. I have been involved in running boys’ boarding houses for the last 20 years and my days of parenting young men in their homes/dorms are over. However, in all my years of education, listening to numerous child psychologists and cyber safety experts, I am yet to hear one that advocates allowing children to have their devices in their rooms. One thing we do know is that our children need sleep to work at full capacity at school the next day. Staying up until late at night unmonitored on devices is not conducive to our young men’s learning. I often wonder what young men are looking up or watching on their devices late at night. There are millions of YouTube and TikTok videos that are aimed at them which are designed to get them to consume quickly and then scroll to the next one. I also worry about the opportunity for cyber bullying to occur. Being connected constantly means that there is more opportunity for our children to be targeted online. Often this activity is something that we as parents do not see. 

I am certainly not advocating that we take devices off our children completely. I am simply saying that we need to ensure that there are clear boundaries around their use. I realise that it is not easy. I have three children at home myself and have the same battles as I am sure a lot of you do daily. My children are not allowed to have devices in their own room overnight and as I mentioned, that stems from the years of professional development I have done around this issue. Given any opportunity, my own children will try to sneak them into their room overnight. I always check before bed and I am quite happy to wake my children up in the middle of the night if they have decided to choose to do the wrong thing. 

I offer this advice as food for thought. I encourage all our families to do their own research and set their own boundaries to ensure that their children are getting enough sleep and are protected from cyber bullying to ensure that they all grow up happy and safe.

Adrian Byrne

Deputy Principal