What Spoke to Me This Month: What Keeps Us Safe
I use the app Life 360 for my kids. I know where they are- and what their movements are. I feel safer when I know that. I rarely check it during the day- only when they are out too late, or I have been working a ton and have not been able to be on my phone.
But as I have been reading this summer, there are some ideas that I can’t stop thinking about. I have been diving into two books this month- that many of us are keenly aware of.
“The Anxious Generation” Jonathan Haidt and “The Magic Pill” Johann Hari. Both are not put-downable- but for this post, I am going to focus on screens and safety (Haidt). The Magic Pill is on deck.
Haidt addresses four things that will keep our children safe in the digital world—four somewhat simple solutions that can be difficult to implement.
Those four things are everywhere- so I am focusing on one that I think is incredibly simple and straightforward. No Phones in Schools.
In my mind, that one is a no-brainer. Working with parents of adolescents, I know that one of the hardest things about enforcing screen limits is the pressure and anguish our kids emit when the restrictions are put on them.
The responses are intense:
‘’All of my friends have full access to their phones all the time”,
“No one else has limits”
They feel disconnected from their communities (the list goes on).
But schools, with the wave of a magic wand, can make phones disappear for seven complete hours in the day.
I brought that up to a close friend, and she countered me with why people may not go for it. She said many parents will be uncomfortable with being unable to be in touch with their children. They want access to their kids at all times.
I thought about what she said- I know she is right.
Parents in many communities become irate when they feel that they have lost access or no longer have the ability to communicate with their children. But I also know- this seems dangerously wrong to me.
Haidt introduced the concept of the loss of a play-based childhood. One where children lose their freedom in the natural world because parents are worried about safety and want access and control over their kids, yet they put a device in their pocket that gives them an entryway into the most unsafe universe we can ever imagine.
A universe filled with pornography, eating disorders, influencers and apps created to target the very things our children are the most vulnerable too.
The other piece that is missing and not often addressed is that access to their children at all times is not for the safety of their children—it is often to soothe the parents' own anxiety.
We have habituated to knowing our children's location all the time. We can casually glance at our phones and visualize where our kids are—we see their little face on the icon that represents them and feel immediately relieved. But I think as parents, we have to manage our own anxiety, to help foster our children's independence and freedom.
Let’s think back to our childhoods.
My parents dropped me at school and then saw me at the end of the day. Certainly, by high school, I had a world with my friends that was important to me and one that was private.
I did not want or need my parents to know if I walked and got something to eat in town or went to my friend's house after school before practice.
They would hear about it at dinner when I talked about my day, but they did not know about it in real-time.
I am aware that there are dangers in our world, but the dangers in the natural world are far rarer than those in the digital. It is a juggling act- but if we look at ratios the likelihood of them facing a real-world danger at school is far lower than facing a digital danger.
By taking away their phones, we give them freedom from distraction. Our kids deserve a slice of childhood that many of them have never known.
By taking away their phones in school we give them a gift of being present and allow them to be in connection. We give them the ability to focus on the people in front of them instead of anxiously checking where other people are.
Who would have known that being in one place without constantly checking to be in another would be a luxury?
Get to KnowDr. Danielle Shelov
Dr. Shelov's therapeutic approach emphasizes understanding individuals within the context of their families, childhood experiences, relationships, and larger systems as crucial to psychological treatment.
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