Too often lately I’ve been asked by fellow moms to pray for their children who are struggling with mental health issues. The stories are eerily familiar. They tell of a timespan of marked change in their teenager’s behaviour, culminating in breaking point (often threats of suicide), followed by a trip to the emergency department, subsequent assessments, and, more often than not, medication.
As the moms talk out their concern and desperation to help their children, they inevitably bring up the contributing factor of social media. They describe children who are basically addicted to screens and social media platforms, whereon their lives play out. These kids live and breathe by what happens on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, and whatever the newest fad app is. Young reputations are constantly on the line via the internet. The pressure is too much. Hopelessness sets in.
To be clear, I am not downplaying or simplifying mental health, nor am I claiming social media to be evil. I believe there is a real crisis for our children today, and it is a complicated one. But there is a significant elephant in the room, which is that allowing our children to spend so much time tethered to their phones is one of the biggest social experiments ever conducted. We have allowed this to happen without having any idea of the detrimental effects on our children’s mental, social, emotional, and physical development.
I recently discussed this at length with a friend who is a psychological therapist. She is highly concerned, not only from what she sees in her line of work, but also as a mother. She says every day she counsels people, many of them youths, who are feeling totally hopeless and disconnected.
We talked about how many people, especially young people, don’t know how to interact with each other anymore. When most communication is done via social media or text chats, face-to-face conversation is becoming a lost skill, and with that comes feelings of isolation, which leads to desperation. We reminisced about our own teenage days. They were filled with their own drama and growing pains, but at least we didn’t have to deal with the 24/7 clamouring temptation of social media. We had hope.
I asked my friend what her family device policy is for her young children of 12 and 10. She says they have devices, such as iPads and laptops in the family living room for everyone’s use and that’s where they stay. The children are free to use those devices when they like, but not outside of that room, and mom and dad periodically check where they’ve been on the Internet. Their children don’t have phones, yet.
In our home, phones are not allowed until age 16, all devices must stay in an open area, and screen time is limited. Should we have more restrictions? Probably. Are there days when I would like to ban all screens from the house? Definitely.
As we all prepare for back to school season, now is the perfect time to set limits on screens in our homes. The fact of the matter is, if your teenage children have friends (hopefully), then chances are if they ever want to talk to their friends they will need access to some kind of device. Even schools and sports teams communicate via social media or text messages, which offers convenience but plays right into the screen mania.
Consider setting up access hours in your home, and placing a basket near the door where all handheld devices “live.”
The bottom line is that we need to have discussions with our children about the right and wrong uses of devices. They need to know that their lives do not revolve around a cell phone app, no matter how urgent they think their friends’ posts are.
Parents need to model good screen behaviour and recapture the face-to-face moments that are essential to parent and child bonding. I like to gently remind my children that when our journey on this earth is over, we will have to account for all the time we were given on this earth. I’m pretty sure St. Peter won’t be asking us how many likes our posts got, or if any of our TikTok videos went viral.
Above all, our children need hope, based in a solid foundation of faith so they can have the strength to pull away from the screens, to take time to pray, reflect, spend time in God’s beautiful creation, and cultivate real relationships with real spoken words.
God made us in his image and gave us the gift of each other so that we can better know, love, and hope in him.
Lazzuri writes from her home in Nova Scotia, where she lives with her husband, six children, and her mom.
