From Diaper Blowouts to Web Filters: The Two Extremes of “First-Draft” Parenting.
When we first opened our home to foster care, my husband and I were navigating a new reality: we had an infant and a teenager under our roof simultaneously. One evening, I found myself in a moment of irony—I was cleaning up a truly spectacular, all-consuming poopy diaper blowout in autopilot mode, while simultaneously mentally problem-solving a slightly inappropriate search history discovery on one of the teenager’s devices.
Parenting: We Learn as We Go
One of these tasks was completely new territory for me; the other was deeply familiar. Cleaning up the infant’s mess felt like a mastered skill, something my body and brain handled without effort. But navigating the unexpected exposure to adult content required me to stop, take a breath, and figure out an entirely new toolset for digital boundary-setting. It was a stark contrast between an ancient, physical parenting challenge and a modern, moral one. This experience showed me clearly how we as parents are learning to parent as we go. Those first children get our first attempts. Our parenting is refined as we go with each future child. It’s the idea that our first children, regardless of age, become the “first draft” of our parenting journey.
The Research Behind Our Learning Curve
This concept—that our initial children shape us into the parents we become—is more than just an observation. Researchers Whiteman and Chen (2012) directly address this in their work.
They found, through longitudinal studies with parents and their first- and second-born adolescents, that parents actually experienced less conflict with their second-born compared to their firstborn at the same age. This isn’t about the second child being inherently easier; it’s about the parents having already developed better skills, confidence, and expectations.
Early Intervention on one child will have a spillover effect on the others in a family.
The power of this learned experience is demonstrated further in studies like Hohman, 2022. This research tracked mothers who received responsive parenting training for their firstborns and found a significant “spillover effect” to their secondborn children. The secondborns, whose mothers had mastered better feeding and sleep techniques with the first, ended up sleeping longer at night and were more likely to self-soothe. The initial, intense effort with the first child—the “first draft”—created competence that automatically benefited the next.
Our firstborn children are the trailblazers. They force us to build on our existing knowledge, and by the time baby #5 comes along, diapers are easy, but filtering the internet to age-appropriate content becomes the new frontier that requires fresh, focused skill acquisition.
Implementing Our Learned Skills in the Digital Age
When facing the new challenges of digital life, a parent’s instinct is to implement the parent controls, but each device handles those control settings differently, and it can be overwhelming. For me, the solution to the internet dilemma was to implement a comprehensive system: Circle. They are not paying me to say this, by the way, but Disney Circle, if you are listening, I am open to offers.
Circle works by providing parents with the ability to manage and monitor every internet-connected device in the home and on the go.
- Web Filter: This feature allows parents to block inappropriate content.
- Time Limits & Usage Monitor: parents can set specific daily time limits for various apps, or for total screen time across all devices, promoting balance.
- Internet Pause: This provides the ability to instantly pause the internet connection for individual devices or for the entire home, ensuring that family activities like mealtimes or bedtimes are protected.
- History Monitor: This offers transparency, allowing parents to track the sites and apps their children have visited.
In essence, Circle provides control over when, what, and how long children use the internet across all devices.
What Are Your Go-To Digital Tools?
Our experiences with the first child—whether navigating the physical milestones of infancy or the digital dangers of adolescence—shape us profoundly. We learn, we adjust, and we seek out tools that help us create loving boundaries for all our children. Let me share my “First Draft” parenting lessons with you, so you can we can enjoy the spillover effect together.
What other resources, apps, or strategies do you rely on to help protect your teens’ and tweens’ young eyes from adult content and manage screen time effectively? Share your experiences so we can all continue learning from each other!
All Things Early Intervention 