Do Your Kids Read?

I’m wondering if this is just my kids, or is it a new phenomenon growing amongst the teens and preteens of our country?  Do your kids read?  Mine do read, they read novels, homework, and anything presented to them on Youtube.  But, do your kids read things like labels, signs, or instructions?  Mine definitely don’t.  I’ve started noticing this on and off recently and then had an epiphany.  You see, we would be out in Target (of course) and I would pick something up and inevitably one of my children would ask me what it was, even if it had a clear as day label on it.  Or, mean Mommy that I am, I will make them microwave or bake their own snack and…they won’t read the instructions, they’ll ask me how long to cook it.  They still can’t comprehend what the shampoo vs. the conditioner is for, and will very often not check to see who the package is for that was left on our steps.  How did this happen?  My hypothesis?  It’s Youtube, Google, Alexa, and Siri!  Have a question ask one of them and they get the perfect answer right away.  It could be partly me, though, too, as I may have been blindly answering them without thinking about it.  Now, after my epiphany, I am determined that my kids will be able to READ.  Really, read.  Like the kind of reading that we all have to do every single day.  Emails that you have to decipher, ingredients within food labels, or how to bake a box cake!  We all have to do this, every single day, and I am going to get them back on the path of us “old fashioned” people who still use our eyes and our brains to get through instructions, not Youtube.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  We have a couple of Echo Dots in our house that we use often, and I like to ask Google a lot of stuff.  I’ve also noticed that my attention span has really waned the last few years as there seems to be this almost constant stream of media input.  I get it.  I’m not getting rid of my tech, nor my kids’, but what I am going to do is start taking a beat when these opportunities come around and engage my kids into really reading what is going. 

There, Mom soapbox over.  Just don’t get me started on texting, spelling, and autocorrect!

Now, some obligatory pictures of my sweet babies...

My gorgeous girl having some downtime with Mom.

Joe and I had a giggle over finding a small bag of coffee at Michaels.

April 10, 2018