Just Ask Alice

What would YOUR relationship with your child feel like if…

…they were regularly falling apart, melting down, having tantrums over, well, just about anything? No matter how calm, consistent, patient you were?

…their struggles in school escalated. Understanding math was real work. Reading was something they always needed help with. Writing–both the physical act and the creative–was near on impossible?

…they found it difficult to make friends, were teased and bullied often, maybe WERE the bully, themselves, or just refused to interact much with anybody? 

…they were increasingly physically challenged, overweight, uncoordinated–noticeably so and to the point you enrolled them in whatever activity you could with them constantly melting down about it all?

…many of your attempts to engage your child, connect with them, truly enjoy them were resisted, ignored, or just not even recognized?

I think you’d feel frustrated, anxious, worried–deeply worried. I think you’d feel angry, resentful, exhausted. And I think, if this kind of behavior was increasingly the norm, your anxiety would be over-the-top.

How would your CHILD feel if…

…they often fell apart, melted down, had tantrums over, well, just about ANY thing? That their “norm” was always REACTIVE?

…they felt like a failure in school. That everything about math, reading, writing was just HARD?

…they were teased and bullied, ignored, alone. Or if they could only “make” friends by being the bully?

…they KNEW they were physically challenged, overweight, and uncoordinated–mostly because all the kids around them told them so?

…they couldn’t feel the connection and engagement you were trying ever so hard to have? That it just wasn’t “there” for them?

I think they’d feel at a total loss in life. Adrift. Confused. Unhappy. Angry. Depressed. A real lack of self-confidence. All of it.   

And I KNOW–with no dancing around it any more–that what are now being called Sensory Deprivation Devices (aka Digital Devices) are becoming the greater and greater cause for the failure of truly healthy and optimal development for our children.

Stay with me, here. All of the relationship challenges I shared at the start? All are increasingly felt and experienced by parents, teachers, and children alike.

Something we know as a fact is how young children learn best–with their whole body, all their senses, within a secure and connected relationship with us.

Learning with their whole body makes them active learners, imposing their ideas, imagination, actions on the world around them. And it grows a brain that is incredibly rich in all the necessary neural pathways for all learning.

Enter in a digital device. Of which is an integral part of many children’s lives now. All the “learning” from a digital device? For young children there is little to no real learning.  All that IS learned is that they are no longer active learners, imposing their imaginative ideas and actions on the world around them.

Instead, they become passive.

They sit (or wiggle or get antsy while all the while UN-able to disconnect) and stare at the screen. Maybe poke and swipe and tap and giggle, as they see they can make things happen. But those things? They really mean nothing, for our young children do not have the brain development to understand these symbols on a screen represent anything in real life.  And by continuing on with so much screen use, they cannot develop the necessary and deeper understanding of and around these symbols. 

Yes, they can recognize numbers and letters–makes us feel quite proud that they can! And yet, by continuing on with “learning” this way, we are actually displacing the ability to truly LEARN at the deeper, important level that grows our children well.

Think about this. When you think of a ball, for instance, maybe you think of a certain kind of ball because of your experience with balls. Maybe you can imagine holding one, bouncing one, rolling one. You can sense the weight as you consider a basketball or a bowling ball. You even have a memory of how one smells, often. You think about the catch game, the bowling game, the loud thunk of the volleyball on your arm and how it stung. 

Talk about rich and meaningful and ESSENTIAL.

When you now see the symbol of a ball on a screen, all your hands-on experiences allow you to truly enjoy, relate to, understand that ball on the screen. Now take your child’s experience with the screen version–our child sitting on an app “playing” ball. NONE of what you know about balls is being learned.  And now, because they are on a screen, the time they could be playing with a real ball has just been displaced. Again. Now they take their passive, one-dimensional “experience” with a ball and it becomes the filter by which they see and experience balls in the three-dimensional world. Very limiting. Especially when it comes to brain health.

This is extremely detrimental to your child’s healthy and optimal growth. And it has become the norm. We have bought into screens and all things digital as an essential part of our child’s life and, hence, development.

Consider brain development.

Between birth and age 3 the brain grows to 80% of its final adult size. 90% by age 5. And all that growing? It is about neural pathways being developed. What grows these neural pathways?Hands on, sensory and language rich, relationship based, whole body experiences. In front of a screen? It is a fairly limited landscape, the brain. How scary is that? We see the results as our kids move through school…life…and they struggle. More and more. And it’s becoming “normal” to many, all this struggle. The cumulative effects of all this screen time is being seen–in schools, in homes, within relationships.

What CAN we do?

Oh it really is so very simple. It may take some adjustment for those who are immersed in digital devices, and yet it really is still simple.

PLAY. A child’s most important work is play.

Really, this is what it comes down to for young children–and I will include kids well into elementary school for this. PLAY. REAL play. Play that is non-adult directed. Play with open-ended items rather than commercialized figures–you know, all those toys that represent something someone else made up, and what someone else determined what to do with them.

Play with balls, blocks, Lego. Play with paper and crayons and markers. Play with play-dough and popsicle sticks. Play with dirt and water and rocks and moss and leaves. Play with books books books. Play with blankets and boxes and daddy’s big boots. Play outdoors, under tables, with flashlights. 

PLAY that allows them to process feelings, upsetting experiences, changes in their lives. It is through play that kids learn to understand and manage LIFE. As we increasingly take it away, they are left adrift. unable to manage themselves in so many ways. Hence so many troubles increasing for our children, and for us.

PLAY IS the way children grow best. And it is being taken away. As time with devices accumulates:

Children struggle with learning. With math and numbers and quantities and spatial concepts. They struggle with comprehending stories, words, lessons. They have a hard time imagining and creating pictures in their mind as they listen.

Children struggle connecting with others–building friendships, being a friend, negotiating, problem solving.

Children struggle with feelings–they just don’t have the inner resilience as things disappoint or fail and they melt down. Tantrum. Fall apart. Act out and hurt another or themselves.

Children struggle with weight, physical well-being, coordination.  How can they truly know how their body works in space when they’ve spent so much time on a screen? Talk to high school coaches for their take on this one…

Children struggle with relating to US. To parents. We begin to lose them. Ask parents of teenagers.

I ask each and every one of you to PAUSE and truly consider the real and life-changing deprivation caused by over-use or inappropriate use of digital devices.

To think about just how and why apps are advertised as something that will “spark your child’s imagination!” or “grow their math skills!”. Consider the marketing and who is doing the marketing. Think about how you really hope to “see” your child as they head off into the world as an adult. Consider what kind of relationships you intend and thoroughly relish. Consider your child’s ability to think, reflect, imagine, create, problem solve, focus, persevere, connect, feel strong from the inside out.

Mostly, consider what YOU can do differently to be sure your child is being enriched by plenty of hands on, sensory and language rich, relationship based, whole body PLAY. Take steps to keep all device time minimal or if you feel already lost to all of it and want to know WHAT to do, start with giving your child time to squish play-dough at the dining room table. Alongside you, initially, if they need practice at playing. Or coloring. Or just reading books. Stick with it, as you create a bit of change in your house-hold. Trust your child to want to play. It is their work, it is what they are wired to do. Give them the space, time, and environment in which they can and watch the magic begin.

That’s all. Start there. Keep incorporating more time for PLAY and less–WAY less–time for devices.

In time you will notice things to feel better–for you and your child. You will notice they manage themselves a bit better, feel more encouraged in school, want to connect with you, have friends over, know themselves better, eat and sleep better, everything. It really does change for the better–the MUCH better–as you intentionally make regular time to step away from all those Sensory Deprivation Devices.

It is essential we do so. Our children need us to KNOW what’s healthy and good and say NO to all things screens…and YES to being Tech Intentional in all we do.

Take steps today to help your child thrive. Need more? Check out the Screen Time Network. Full of community, resources, research–so much that can help you feel confident in bringing digital wellness into your family. Check out Dr. Nancy Carlsson-Paige‘s video on Technology and Young Children, and her guide for parents, as well.

Alice

Author and Parent Coach

©2018 Alice Hanscam