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Six Ways Our Culture Is Out of Touch with Kids’ Needs
Children growing up in the United States today are starving–for personal attention, for verbal interaction, for mundane daily enrichment that our generation grew up taking for granted. Yet there are too many things they are getting that they don’t need:
1. Kids don’t need unfettered technology access. About fifteen years ago, I was surprised to find that one of my daughter’s friends had a VCR in which she could pop in any one of her wide selection of movies to view whenever she wanted. Movies should be a treat, I thought–a treat controlled by the parents to ensure that the child got exposure to other important aspects of life, such as playtime, chores, reading, interaction with family, and so on. The less time the kid sits slack-jawed in front of a monitor, the better. And the little girl’s movie choices weren’t inappropriate. I just thought leaving viewing time completely up to the child was a bad idea–the privilege would spoil her and leave less room for other, more important activities.
Fast forward a few years, and six-year-olds are wandering in public with tablets in front of their faces. Very young children are gifted with sophisticated devices for Christmas. The video game units for preteens were bad enough–now preschoolers are expected to know what to do with a tool that many grown-ups can’t even manage for themselves. Restless toddlers at supermarkets and restaurants are assuaged with their parents’ iPhones. These children don’t even understand what they are holding in their hands. They can’t truly appreciate it, and they aren’t really learning what life is like when interacting with a glossy user interface. The negative effects of missing true learning opportunities, as well as being academically, socially, and emotionally neglected by their parents, outweigh the much lauded “digital native” phenomenon.
2. Teens and pre-teens don’t need smartphones. The first ripple I saw of the upcoming wave of personal devices for adolescents was when I was substituting in a fifth-grade classroom and instructed to collect a couple of phones from students and release the phones at the end of the day. Now it seems that most older children have smartphones–models nicer than my own–and schools are busy trying to deal with the fallout. Do they weave phone use into classroom instruction, forbid any visible personal devices at school, or provide a transparent shoe holder for each student’s phone at the beginning of each class?
In the late 20-teens, my daughters were reporting that no matter how many times the wifi password at the high school was changed, students somehow wrangled it out and happily continued playing “Clash of Clans” during the school day. Without parental supervision, kids are staying up late (because of course they are–adults have a hard time shutting off their laptops at bedtime), getting involved in cruel online drama, being influenced by insidious ideas (even anorexia has a fan club with “inspo” messages for those who are struggling to keep up with the lifestyle), developing porn habits, and feeling more self-conscious about their looks than ever before. Parents who want their children to have a social and academic edge can purchase a cumbersome flip phone or a device that limits activity to calling and texting family members. That way, they’re not handing them communication modes with poisonous edges.
3. Children don’t need to be watching movies made for adults. Americans are light years out of touch about what movies are okay for kids (and Hollywood often seems clueless about what does and does not belong in kids’ productions). Back when the video rental store was a thing, I was browsing when several boys about nine years old started an enthusiastic discussion about the movies in the horror section. The gist of it was that they’d already seen Nightmare on Elm Street and others in that genre–what were they going to watch that night? A mom showed up and helped them narrow down their choice. Another time, coming out of an intense Planet of the Apes franchise film, I seem to have heard a mom asking a small child–three years old or so–what he thought. He said that he “didn’t like the monkeys.”
What’s going on here? Why is it necessary to push big scary movies on our progeny? Is there not enough Disney fare available (if kids have to watch something)? Many of us remember being tender as children. Little things frightened us, like being in our dark bedroom at night and thinking about that black vacuum between the floor and the bed. A ghost story could haunt us for months. Toddlers are petrified of people masquerading as their formerly favorite cartoon characters. Maybe some adults don’t remember or don’t think about what it was like to be a child, and this unawareness dulls their judgment. But rather than exposing children to the darkest and most horrifying entertainment churned out by the movie industry, parents need to be protecting their kids, providing a secure “bubble” where they can grow and develop.
4. Kids don’t need to constantly have movies playing. The ubiquitous on-screen entertainment in every venue bothers me deeply. Again, I think corporations and staff members making decisions about content for kids just aren’t thinking. Children, candy, and movies go together. So you’ll get an attractive play room where little ones can climb, jump, interact with toys, and look at books, and inevitably some Disney offering will be playing in the background, with a young customer or two transfixed. Come on, restaurant play places, doctor’s office waiting rooms, and daycare drop-offs: Get creative. Ditch the screens–do it for our kids.
5. Children don’t need to be deluged with candy and sweet snacks. Two things are going on here: first, there are well-intentioned grown-ups who love to relate to kids by handing out candy. (Grandparents, that’s probably your privilege. I’m not talking to you.) Candy-givers are random school staff or someone else who just (innocently) loves kids and relies on sweets for that easy connection. A much better idea than being the candy king is to just briefly talk to a child: “I noticed you . . .” “What book are you reading right now?” Kids revel in positive adult attention and grow under that light.
The sweet snacks disguise themselves as healthy alternatives: “fruit snacks,” fruit leather, diced peaches in syrup. So much of what is marketed to kids is loaded with sugar. And yet fruit snacks still seem to be a popular choice for those responsible for purchasing what children are going to eat to tide themselves over between meals. Just call it all candy. And then switch it up now and then for an honest chocolate chip cookie.
6. Our kids don’t need to be told that they’re smart. I see examples online where a child asks a couple of astute questions and the adult’s first reaction is, “Oh, you’re so smart.” There are plenty of ways to praise a child without telling him something that will go to his head and set him apart from his peers, as well as foster unhealthy perfectionism to avoid looking anything other than “smart.” How about “You worked hard on that”? Or, “I noticed how you carefully filled in all the details on this.” “That extra attention and care is really going to help you.” “That’s a real strength of yours.” There are dozens of healthy alternatives to lavishing a “smart” label on young people.
What else are we as a culture giving our children that they don’t need? Or what do they need that we aren’t giving them?
Published in Family
People in general are starved for wide open spaces.
The meccas that appeal to young people in terms of career growth and ample possibilities to be self made millionaires, like the many Silicon Valley cities now spread across the USA, also condemn millions of potential parents into small cramped apartments.
After commuting and working long hours, do most young couples have time enough in the day to get over to the local park? This is even more important if the couple has children.
I feel so blessed to be able to live in God’s own very blessed back yard. But with so many young people not able to do that, I worry about their kids.
Also where I live was a place where just ten years ago, I would see kids of all ages playing hide and seek, or climbing tees, or riding bikes. Now so many of them are indeed tethered to electronic devices.
By the time they are pre-teens, parents often try to get their kids to invite the other kids over so all of them can go out and play in the side yard, walk in the creek, and just enjoy some plain old outdoor fun. But even if several different families of kids do show up, they usually end up in the rec room playing video games.
The biggest thing children need are a stable home with a married father and mother. About a quarter of children grow up without this foundational need.
Totally agree with the entire post, but would like to add on to #6.
When you praise a child for being smart (in those words), especially a young child, they begin to believe that it is something innate. That hard work, or attention to details, or logical thinking, or problem solving is not involved, even though that is what you are actually praising.
They can generally cruise through grade school, as ‘one of the smart kids.’ At some point they come up against a problem they can’t solve, often not until high school or even college, and all of a sudden their entire self-image can change. They know they are smart, that’s what they have been told all along. So why are things so hard? This can lead not only to questioning their abilities, but also to anxiety and depression. It can also lead to a lack of motivation, and when things do get hard they don’t have the inner discipline to stick with a problem to its solution.
Likewise with responding ‘good job’ to almost anything a child does well. Make a point of finding what is so ‘good’ and praising that. Children generally want to do well and please others. Acknowledge their abilities but especially praise the work that goes along with it. They will begin to understand that to do anything well, many more things are involved than just being smart.
“unfettered technology, smartphones, unrelenting amount of movies and games….”
Our culture will not allow Our kids to develop and appreciate an imagination.
Excellent post. Fits my thoughts on many of these topics nicely.
So, good job. Have some candy. :)
I regret that I have only one like to give, etc.
A lot of wisdom in your suggestions.
Of course now I feel like the world’s worst mom.
I see kids every day walking down sidewalks, crossing the street, going up escalators and down stairs, and even walking their dogs without looking away from their phones.
I’ll add one that I have seen developing over the decades – Kids don’t need to be driven to school in cars or anywhere else that is within reasonable walking distance. They should learn to use their physical bodies to do useful things so that they don’t become fat and lethargic later in life.
There are long lines of cars dropping off/picking up kids. That wasn’t a thing even when I was in elementary school.
My dad had narcissistic personality disorder, and because of his business he needed me to go into finance. I was the dumbest person in the Big Ten that got a finance degree. Not one word of guidance away from that. It was a disaster. Then over decades I find out he doesn’t know jack about finance or anything else he pressured me into during that period. It’s unbelievable unless you study narcissistic personality disorder. The other thing I learned recently is, I was just way too young to be under all of this fear about complicated things that are way out in the future. Total disaster.
You don’t want to overmatch your education with your brain. The jobs are in the trades. Hopefully you will learn how to diagram sentences and write a complete paragraph.
Kids don’t need to be treated like they are future political activists.
I salute a fellow educator.
If I’d had the time, I was going to add a seventh point about how young children don’t need big, loud, over-the-top experiences. They love predictability and calmness–a walk, time at the park with a parent, story time, conversations. But as a mom, given the time, money, and availability of bigger things, I did plan some elaborate birthday parties and take the kids to Disneyland. A lot of this entertains the parent. But it didn’t hurt my kids too much. Possibly, if you and I could go back in time, we’d make some adjustments in #6 and, for me, #7. But that doesn’t make us the world’s worst moms.
Good one, kylez! I’ve seen board books that try to foster political sentiments in children (e.g., A is for Activist). I don’t like these publications coming from either side of the aisle. Let the kid learn his colors, numbers, and letters first.
And these take plenty of education in themselves.
Yes, you’re right–kids often need a lot more physical activity than they’re getting. Like Carol Joy said, they need open spaces to play in. But if my child were walking to school, I’d avoid having him/her walk alone. They’d need me or an older child to walk with. Young children are just too vulnerable by themselves if the wrong person just happens to be around. I know stranger abductions are statistically small; however, a stranger in a van tried to offer me a ride when I was a teenager. In my sister’s nice neighborhood, a couple was driving around offering children rides.
When the weather was pleasant, I used to walk with my girls to the bus stop and back to the house (about 3/4 of a mile each way). They didn’t love it, and I had to get ready and leave earlier, but we did it anyway.
Thank you, but I never had to stand in front of a class on a daily basis like teachers do, most of whom I admire very much. I was just a school psychologist, trained in observation.
As an aside, is “board book” a newish term? I never heard it until about 2 years ago, and now it seems to be a common descriptor.
Our daughters didn’t get cell phones until they started driving. Once they did, we got them their first cells and put them on our AAA . . .