Raising children has never been for the faint of heart.
I suspect it wasn’t easy a hundred years ago. Or a thousand, for that matter. But I also know that we have some challenges connected to raising children in our digitally drenched epoch that didn’t exist even a generation ago.
When my son, Henry, now 6, was born back in 2006, my wife, Jennifer, and I made a commitment to follow the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics not to let him see a TV screen before he turned 2. We weren’t perfect, but we were pretty diligent. He didn’t see much television in his first two years.
Then we had two more kids.
And got a new laptop. And a Kindle Fire as a gift from a friend (with Angry Birds downloaded shortly thereafter). And a couple of smartphones last November. Suffice it to say that keeping that no-screen commitment in the years since Henry’s birth has gotten more difficult, frog-in-the-kettle style. It’s definitely more complicated now.
That said, we still strive to set reasonable limits for our kids and to engage with entertainment media as a family. And when we have a stressed-out day (or week) that leads to too much screen time, we do our best to hit the reset button, to revisit those limits, to re-engage when things have gotten off-kilter.
Setting reasonable and healthy limits for our children in all areas of their lives is one of the fundamental tasks of parenthood. And parents today must set limits for technology that didn’t exist when we were young. It can feel like a losing battle at times—one that our screen- and tech-oriented culture tempts us to just give up at practically every turn.
That’s why I appreciated much of what New York Times contributor Steve Almond had to say in his recent article, “My Kids Are Obsessed With Technology, and It’s All My Fault.” Despite what the guilt-inducing title might suggest, Almond outlines some of the challenges of setting limits and sticking to them when it comes to our kids’ screen time. I especially appreciated his insight into why limiting screen time really is important for our children.
Harkening back to his own childhood, Almond observes,
Back in the day, when my folks snapped off the TV and exhorted us to pick up a book or go outside and play, they did so with a certain cultural credibility. Everyone knew you couldn’t experience the “real world” by sitting in front of a screen. It was an escape. Today, screens are the real world, or at least the accepted means of making us feel a part of that world. And they can no longer be written off as mind-rotting piffle.
But he also rightly realizes that there’s something about engaging in the real “real world” that no screen can ever capture or simulate.
I imagine the iPad [that my kindergartner] Josie receives at school next year will have access to a vast archive of information and videos about cardinals, ones she’ll be able to call up and peruse instantly. But no flick of the thumb will ever make her suck in her breath as she does when, after five excruciating minutes, an actual cardinal appears on the porch railing in a flash of impossible red. I hope Josie remembers that all her life.
Near the end of his article, Almond points out that for all that’s changed with regard to our ubiquitous, instant and portable access to staggering amounts of knowledge and information, some things haven’t changed. “The reason people turn to screens hasn’t changed much over the years. They remain mirrors that reflect a species in retreat from the burdens of modern consciousness, from boredom and isolation and helplessness,” he writes. “It’s natural for children to seek out a powerful tool to banish these feelings.”
But for all the compulsive, perhaps addictive, affinity we may have for our digital devices and alluring screens, ultimately they fail to deliver the sense of wonder that can only be experienced when we’re engaged with that sometimes boring “real world.”
The only reliable antidote to such burdens, based on my own experience, is not immersion in brighter and mightier screens but the capacity to slow our minds and pay sustained attention to the world around us. This is how all of us—whether artists or scientists or kindergartners—find beauty and meaning in the unceasing rush of experience. It’s how we develop empathy for other people, and the humility to accept our failures and keep struggling. It’s what grants my daughter the patience to wait for the cardinal who has taken to visiting the compost bin on our back porch.
I think that’s right. And it’s a good reminder about why we sometimes need to turn off the screens, a reminder I know I’ll need to recall the next time I have one of those overwhelming days or weeks in which I’m tempted to let my kids zone out in front of them … or to do the same thing myself.
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