The power is off at my house. The circuit breaker panels must be replaced for safety/insurance reasons. We have battery backups, of course, where I write from being hurricane territory. But when the iPad dinged, and it showed an item from Holly MathNerd, I jumped to log in. Moreover, I saw that a post I had written had gotten a ‘like’. I’m in the choir, too, I find. Thanks for the reminder.
Smart phone addiction by parents and other family members is a huge issue ... my baby gets upset when one of us is on our phone while holding her.
Yesterday, while I was in the kitchen prepping dinner and my MIL (she lives with us) was watching the kids, I heard the door. Ran into the living room and didn't see my three-year-old, baby is playing by herself while my MIL stares at her phone. I realize my older daughter ran outside (she didn't make it far before I caught her) and my MIL didn't even notice because she was so fixated on her phone. I've seen kids who have given up on trying to get their parents' attention at the playground etc because the parents never look up from their phones.
I was a nanny for a year before I moved to New England. I took enormous pride in never, ever, ever doing that — I literally NEVER ignored her for my screen. But goddamn if the playground wasn’t full of kids whose parents — whose actual parents — were ignoring them. I brought more than one stumble-and-fall-injured child to a parent who hadn’t looked up.
What I've noticed with my kids is that if I'm busy doing something they can understand as important -- cooking, cleaning etc -- they aren't that bothered I'm paying less attention to them. But the computer, a book, or a phone? They don't like that, understandably. I'm worse about this with my younger daughter than I was with my first because of Substack (I was taking a break from writing while I had my first so I was far less distracted). I'm trying to be better, getting up early and taking advantage of naps to nerd out, etc.
I've noticed that on average nannies seem to be a bit better about this than parents, but I'm actually in a neighbourhood now with quite a lot of part-time and STAH mothers who are very attentive. The parents at my daughter's preschool are never on their phones when the kids stay to play at the playground afterward. Though we sometimes flake on paying enough attention to the kids because we're talking to each other! My three year old will come up to us and yell "STOP TALKING"!
“There are few experiences in life more revelatory of how stupid the internet collectively is, and how deranging our digital lives are in general, than being a woman who is presently having a gracious, kind male friend who really listens, who takes your thoughts and ideas and opinions seriously, make you an excellent keto breakfast…while you’re scrolling on your phone and seeing the comment section call him a misogynist.”
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Agent K
"But most weren’t thoughtful. Most were just digital yelling. They wanted me to know how insulting, ignorant, or stupid I was for even entertaining the idea."
Gee, whodda thunk? Back in February I posted something that garnered an Instalanche, and a large proportion of the comments were people who actually took time out of their busy lives to just call me an idiot. Then I posted a short, snarky post on Medium and LinkedIn showing David Hogg with his arm raised and commenting about people claiming every arm gesture was a Nazi salute. With that one, I got a bunch of comments about my parentage or my spouse or claiming that I'd never work again. (Like most of the recruiters on LinkedIn, they didn't notice that I'm retired.) Of course those 2 posts got thousands of views as opposed to my typical traffic on my website that garners about 4 or 5 views each day. Fortunately I don't care.
I guess I'm old enough not to care and not to be addicted to my phone. I only give the number to my actual friends and doctor's/dentist's offices, so they can send me mildly annoying reminders about my upcoming appointments. I rarely turn it off in church because it never dings during those several hours, and, when I do turn it off, I usually forget to turn it back on.
I do miss the days when I used to share an office with a co-worker, and we would get to know each other. As a fiction writer, I do envy those writers from the twentieth century who didn't have to write peril scenes and come up with lame excuses why the victim's cell phone wasn't working or didn't have reception.
I meant to respond to your previous post on the smartphone/autism relationship, but never got around to it.
My eldest daughter is mildly autistic; she has what used to be known as Asperger's Syndrome but is now considered Autism Spectrum Disorder Level I. I do not doubt this diagnosis, as she was always wired a bit differently than my other kids right from the start.
Anyway, she was born in 2000, so smartphones and tablets were not a thing back then. What was a thing, in those days, was Baby Mozart. These were videos designed for infants and young toddlers, which showed a number of engaging little videos of balls rolling down tracks, animals frolicking, etc. set to classical music. There was some sort of study in the late '90s that showed that babies who listened to classical music had higher IQs than those who did not, so the hospitals started sending new moms home with a Baby Mozart music CD, and naturally when the videos came out anxious parents seized upon them gladly. Here was something that would keep a young toddler occupied for 30 minutes, and we wouldn't feel guilty because it was improving their brains!
I think my daughter was about a year old when we got a Baby Mozart videocassette. I can't remember if I bought it, or if someone gave it to her as a gift. At any rate, she LOVED it.
She loved it SO MUCH, in fact, that when the videocassette ended, she would howl hysterically and go into full autistic-infant-meltdown mode, and would be completely inconsolable. This went far, far, FAR beyond the normal baby fussing or crying for a few moments when they don't get what they want; it was more like 90 minutes of absolutely hysterical screaming (I timed it one time - more on that later). The only thing that would calm her down was MORE Baby Mozart.
There was thus a very strong temptation to purchase numerous Baby Mozart videocassettes, and a separate cassette-rewinding device, and achieve a peaceful home by allowing her to watch Baby Mozart for all her waking hours.
However, as a GenX with Silent Gen parents, I was raised to view television in general as "the idiot box" - something that was mildly entertaining, but watching too much would "rot your brain." So, my daughter's INTENSE mood issues after watching Baby Mozart for 30 minutes confirmed my suspicion that this was probably NOT increasing her IQ, and was in fact causing major behavior issues.
So, we eliminated Baby Mozart, and all television in general, from her life. Initially, this resulted in the aforementioned 90 minute screamfest; but after few days she adjusted and her behavior and mood improved considerably. Mind you, she still had a lot of autistic behaviors and sensory issues - but she was overall a lot calmer and able to cope with life better.
I continued with this policy for my other children; eventually relenting to allow one video per week:
on Friday nights, we ordered pizza and all watched a movie together. I also did not allow computer use until they were in elementary school, my reasoning being that they had their entire lives to sit in a cubicle and stare at a screen, but you only get one childhood. Also, my husband and I had both grown up without computers at all, but still managed to pick it up easily as adults and go into careers in the tech field. Unfortunately, our elementary school had other ideas and insisted that five-year-olds needed a Technology class; my daughter came home crying because all the other kids knew how to use a mouse but she had never done it before. So, I relented - mostly because she had fine-motor dyspraxia as part of her autism, and needed more time than most to master moving the mouse around properly.
My point in all this is that for a certain type of brain wiring, whether it is borderline autistic or ADHD, there can be an extremely intense response to certain stimuli. My daughter is 25 now, and I notice that she'll still get very sucked into cute animal videos, cookie-decorating videos, or those sped-up recipe videos (even though they are foods she would never consider making or eating). Fortunately, she does not use TikTok and is aware she has a tendency to get REALLY fixated on things like that. In fact, she does not use social media at all and tries to channel her extremely obsessive single-mindedness into more productive hobbies such as crocheting and birdwatching.
As an autistic child, my daughter needed a lot more practice and support than a typically-developing child with things like learning to cope with change or unexpected events, interpersonal skills, how to talk to others, how to play with others, handling her emotions, tolerating physical sensations and unfamiliar foods, etc.. I will be honest - it was a LOT of work and quite draining, and when I found an activity that engrossed her completely and gave me a few moments of peace (in her case, jigsaw puzzles and, when she was a bit older, reading) I was delighted to let her do that as long as she wanted. So I can only imagine what it would have been like had well-meaning grandparents gifted her a tablet at a young age. Children with autism and/or ADHD can really suck the life out of their parents or caregivers; and it is an enormous temptation to just plant them in front of something that will keep them from screaming, carrying on, or engaging in destructive or dangerous behaviors for a period of time.
By the way, I would also point out that autism has a strong heritable component. Parents of autistic children often have a collection of autistic traits themselves and thus are likely to share some of the same fixations. That might account for some of the vehemence which greeted your post.
In my case, the apple did not fall very far from the tree - I see a lot of myself in my daughter, albeit at a much more subclinical level. Still, I thank my lucky stars that I was born in the late '60s, and thus grew up with just a few channels on broadcast TV, no computers, no cell phones, no video games, etc.; because I'm not sure what would have happened with my brain if all that had been available to me.
I had undiagnosed ADHD as a child (in those days, ADHD was considered something only little boys had, and it was generally thought to be a result of too much sugar and bad parenting). There is a lot of overlap between ADHD and autistic traits; so I'm not 100% sure that I would have grown up and become capable of functioning in normal society if I had access to all the technology of today.
GenX here too and no question that I would have gone WAY down the internet rabbit hole had it existed during my formative years. Towards the end of high school, in the late ‘80s, I did go through a period of staying up way too late playing video games on our home computer, but more insidiously, chatting over an early online dialup system with people around the country I’d met in connection with a summer job for an early tech company. They had given us this online forum so we could compare notes and had to slap us all on the wrist for over-using it on their dime through the dial-up modems they’d given us. (Wasn’t just me who got sucked into it.) Unfortunately, I didn’t see the danger and my GenZ kid was handed a Chromebook in middle school (and the same district now starts the kids from Kindergarten I think) and it’s not doing any of them any favors. So frustrating.
I'm trying to determine if my 2 grands, age 14 girl and age 11 boy are headed for trouble with regard to tech fixation or if my concerns are related to being a generation removed from childhood behaviors. My son is a late GenX and my d-i-l is early Millennial. Both grands have iPhones and iPads. No cable t.v. but some streaming services for kids. My grandson just got an iPhone for his birthday this month. My granddaughter has had hers for 2 years. Both phones have all social media blocked, no YouTube or internet access. All parental controls are engaged, and the phones are in parental possession at bed time. They both do well in school and participate in sports and other activities. They read a lot, actual physical books! They are very well-behaved in school and out. They are self-directed and require very little in the way of direction regarding their areas of responsibility. Almost never need reminding or prodding. They have harmonious relationships with both parents as well as between themselves. I don't see addictive phone use with the parents, but my granddaughter is rarely seen without her phone in front of her face. Grandson lives in front of his iPad. Neither of them will hold a conversation with me, either initiating or answering beyond a one or two word answers most of the time.
I asked my son if he knew what my granddaughter was doing on her phone and he said yes, that she has a text thread with several friends and they all text back and forth about their areas of interest, one of which is math, and other activities. She also has a foreign language app she's using to learn French. I haven't seen my grandson pay much attention to his phone, since he mostly plays games on his iPad.
All that sounds pretty good, so maybe I'm looking for something to be worried about? What do you all think?
If you want to be very sure, then offer the kids $50 for every trick they can teach you to get around the parental controls. I’m serious about this — they’re young enough that that will work.
Smartphones are dangerous for kids in different ways. For boys, they’re universally dangerous due to porn. For girls, they CAN be ok-ish, if the girl is of the sort who eschews the usual adolescent girl traps — if she tends towards being goth or is a serious athlete or otherwise has Her Thing That Defines Her As A Teenager, and it’s something that serves as a kind of buffer from some of the social stuff, then at least some of the downsides can be avoided, at least potentially.
My regular reminder to fall on my knees and thank God that my youngest kid was 15 the year the first iPhone was released. There were plenty of holes it was possible to fall in, but I was spared that one at least.
I've been lucky, in that every place I've worked has asked us to lock cell phones up when we sign in, otherwise, I'd have been on mine all the time.
For a time, I gamed on mine, so the screen time was off the charts.
However, lately, I've weaned myself off mine. Now I only grab it when I go out, in case of emergency, and when I don't think about it, I find myself leaving it on the table.
It feels good not to have to follow the endorphine rush.
I hope it gets better for you. But I think you've got a handle on it.
"how your phone does not keep you from being a present parent"
My take on this is a little different. I appreciate your point about autism as well as your point about being a present parent. I had a student who struggled with math, as much because she didn't think she could do it and fought tooth and nail using that excuse for not trying. That is not really germaine to the story other than you would have been a God-send for her!
As a high school student, she was addicted to her phone. So much so that she feared missing a text or phone call. (She likely thought I never "caught on" to why she had those "bathroom emergencies" but I knew). She tucked her phone routinely into her bra so she could feel the vibration and know that an "emergency" was about to take place. Same place every time. She graduated and moved in with her boyfriend. They later married. They had a daughter who was the center of their lives. In a routine exam, they discovered a lump--right where she kept her phone. By the time they discovered the lump, she had stage 4 metastatic cancer. 19 years old. She fought it valiantly for a few years while loving her daughter and husband as much as possible every single day. A few years later, cancer won.
Your statement (quoted above, reminded me of that sweet young woman and how badly she wanted to be a present parent and a present wife. Thinking about her brings tears to my eyes.
I have always heard that actions have consequences. This is one consequence that still rattles my soul!
I have watched my grandkids try to speak to their parents, whose eyes and brains are glued to their phones or laptops. They receive partial attention and partial answers. These children also have their own tablet devices, and when we grandparents are in charge and try to limit their time on device, we are on the receiving end of full-on melt-downs and disproportionate anger. They don’t know how to play unless directed. And when they go to school, (kindergarten and preschool!), they are given tablets to use in class. As soon as the kids are in bed, the adults pull out their phones or tablets or laptops. The only conversations happen in cars. My preschool grandchild has been diagnosed with ADHD already and I really believe the screens are partially to blame. I know that screens have done nothing to help my own short attention span.
I’m just as guilty, in spurts, but I try to keep my phone in my pocket around all of my grandchildren. When I am around, they have my full attention. It’s no wonder kids want to spend time with Grandma!
I strongly suspect that ADHD is insanely rare. 99% of the time, what gets called ADHD is really just the natural consequences of device use before a brain is fully developed.
And… kids being kids, being forced to sit through something boring, something they don’t understand, or as you note, something they are not developmentally ready for.
A much abused term toted about like a terrific distraction for being lazy and tuned out to the increasingly dangerous world most stumble through. How many times has a mobile device zombie walked into a crime or other harmful situ due to their not being aware?
I'm actually surprised you didn't get more angry emails from actual high-functioning autistics, who seem pretty set on the idea that autism must be 100% genetic. (I'm autistic.)
Otherwise, I agree with all of this. My wife and I are trying to be less screen-dependent before our baby arrives, not just for attention reasons, but to model healthy behaviour. I'm an Orthodox Jew and not being on the phone for 25 hours for the Sabbath is fine, but it's much harder to stay away the rest of the week. The religious prohibition feels more of a red line. But it doesn't feel like being *forbidden* to do something; it feels like being liberated to think about other things and to read books attentively. Yet, as soon as it's over, I want to see what emails came in.
I've been thinking a lot about what you wrote about "emotional whiplash" too and just how I generally feel happier away from the phone, but it's hard to keep away.
Agree with pretty much every word, Holly. I'm about a month into learning RDI therapy to support my little lad who's been flagged as possibly being at risk for autism (it's a framework with some pretty good evidence-backing for promoting neural re-wiring of deficits).
The first thing that's being hammered home is CREATE AN "US". In everything you do, create an "us", you-and-me, doing something together. I don't think there's any way to more effectively fracture the continuity of an "us" than a smartphone. I'm not sure there's a lonelier feeling in the world than wanting to talk to someone, but having to wait until they're finished smiling into their black glass square. So uncomfortable, the longer it goes on, that you reach for your own black glass square...
I imagine you're also going to get much the same response to this article as last time, though I hope I'm wrong. There's this linking of parenting and identity in a really weird, sticky way where you can't talk about some things being better than others without people hearing "you said I'm a bad parent!" and firing off. If I tell anyone I have contributed to my son's difficulties by the way I have been parenting (which is true, responsiveness and mirroring are not enough for a child who did not develop shared interest and preparedness for guiding at 4ish months as normal), I always get "NO! It is NOT your fault! Don't say that!" I never actually said that, I said I did what I thought was best, with the knowledge I had, and it was suboptimal. Now I am learning, and doing better. This should not be a controversial statement.
That approach makes a lot of sense to me, and your attitude is refreshing.
My therapist and I talked about this (in a general sense) once. A kid I was babysitting regularly was being evaluated for everything under the sun and the parents asked me to write a letter describing my observations. I talked it over with him. In his opinion the only thing that was likely wrong with the poor kid was that his parents were busy and distracted. The way he put it was: if the mean 4-year-old needs 300 hours of one-on-one nurturing to hit the normal 5-year-old milestones by the time he turns 5, that means that some 4-year-olds will need 400 hours. It’s the job of parents to meet the needs of their child, not to meet the standard of “what would have been enough for the average child.” I got almost nothing in the way of nurturing as a kid, but it’s quite obvious now what the areas were where I needed more than I could figure out on my own — the areas where I would have needed much more or much less than the mean child.
Thank you. That's an excellent point about hours and means, and everyone needing something a bit different (and some needing a lot more, and the importance of being sensitive and intuitive around this).
There's something in the discourse I can't quite translate into coherent words about how assessment and diagnosis has somehow taken central focus over everything else. Which I think is illustrated in what was happening with the kid in your story.
Yes. My therapist and I have discussed this. I have obvious disorganized attachment issues, but I somehow ended up okay in a few areas anyway. The minimal time I got with a good grandmother and the parents of friends was enough because I just had below average needs in those areas.
A few good people, even in small amounts, can make such a difference even when so much has been lost and missed (the words "disorganised attachment" are such a sterile label for the thing, aren't they?) Sounds like you've been a good person for more than a few kids along the way, too.
This is one of the things for which I a grateful to have become an Orthodox Jew. Every week, on Shabbos, we put down all of our electronics for a day. I know very few people outside this world who are able to go 24-hours without their phones, but it is part of our rules. Some weeks we go longer, as the same rule applies to holidays, so this coming Sunday evening, we'll away our devices for two days in a row -- and at least once each year, that means that we are offline for three straight days. It makes a difference.
It forces us to be present, and socialize with people who are doing the same thing. Who expected that a religious rule could have such benefits?
The power is off at my house. The circuit breaker panels must be replaced for safety/insurance reasons. We have battery backups, of course, where I write from being hurricane territory. But when the iPad dinged, and it showed an item from Holly MathNerd, I jumped to log in. Moreover, I saw that a post I had written had gotten a ‘like’. I’m in the choir, too, I find. Thanks for the reminder.
Smart phone addiction by parents and other family members is a huge issue ... my baby gets upset when one of us is on our phone while holding her.
Yesterday, while I was in the kitchen prepping dinner and my MIL (she lives with us) was watching the kids, I heard the door. Ran into the living room and didn't see my three-year-old, baby is playing by herself while my MIL stares at her phone. I realize my older daughter ran outside (she didn't make it far before I caught her) and my MIL didn't even notice because she was so fixated on her phone. I've seen kids who have given up on trying to get their parents' attention at the playground etc because the parents never look up from their phones.
I was a nanny for a year before I moved to New England. I took enormous pride in never, ever, ever doing that — I literally NEVER ignored her for my screen. But goddamn if the playground wasn’t full of kids whose parents — whose actual parents — were ignoring them. I brought more than one stumble-and-fall-injured child to a parent who hadn’t looked up.
What I've noticed with my kids is that if I'm busy doing something they can understand as important -- cooking, cleaning etc -- they aren't that bothered I'm paying less attention to them. But the computer, a book, or a phone? They don't like that, understandably. I'm worse about this with my younger daughter than I was with my first because of Substack (I was taking a break from writing while I had my first so I was far less distracted). I'm trying to be better, getting up early and taking advantage of naps to nerd out, etc.
I've noticed that on average nannies seem to be a bit better about this than parents, but I'm actually in a neighbourhood now with quite a lot of part-time and STAH mothers who are very attentive. The parents at my daughter's preschool are never on their phones when the kids stay to play at the playground afterward. Though we sometimes flake on paying enough attention to the kids because we're talking to each other! My three year old will come up to us and yell "STOP TALKING"!
Truth hurts. To be confronted with screen addiction is particularly painful.
“There are few experiences in life more revelatory of how stupid the internet collectively is, and how deranging our digital lives are in general, than being a woman who is presently having a gracious, kind male friend who really listens, who takes your thoughts and ideas and opinions seriously, make you an excellent keto breakfast…while you’re scrolling on your phone and seeing the comment section call him a misogynist.”
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Agent K
"But most weren’t thoughtful. Most were just digital yelling. They wanted me to know how insulting, ignorant, or stupid I was for even entertaining the idea."
Gee, whodda thunk? Back in February I posted something that garnered an Instalanche, and a large proportion of the comments were people who actually took time out of their busy lives to just call me an idiot. Then I posted a short, snarky post on Medium and LinkedIn showing David Hogg with his arm raised and commenting about people claiming every arm gesture was a Nazi salute. With that one, I got a bunch of comments about my parentage or my spouse or claiming that I'd never work again. (Like most of the recruiters on LinkedIn, they didn't notice that I'm retired.) Of course those 2 posts got thousands of views as opposed to my typical traffic on my website that garners about 4 or 5 views each day. Fortunately I don't care.
I guess I'm old enough not to care and not to be addicted to my phone. I only give the number to my actual friends and doctor's/dentist's offices, so they can send me mildly annoying reminders about my upcoming appointments. I rarely turn it off in church because it never dings during those several hours, and, when I do turn it off, I usually forget to turn it back on.
I do miss the days when I used to share an office with a co-worker, and we would get to know each other. As a fiction writer, I do envy those writers from the twentieth century who didn't have to write peril scenes and come up with lame excuses why the victim's cell phone wasn't working or didn't have reception.
I meant to respond to your previous post on the smartphone/autism relationship, but never got around to it.
My eldest daughter is mildly autistic; she has what used to be known as Asperger's Syndrome but is now considered Autism Spectrum Disorder Level I. I do not doubt this diagnosis, as she was always wired a bit differently than my other kids right from the start.
Anyway, she was born in 2000, so smartphones and tablets were not a thing back then. What was a thing, in those days, was Baby Mozart. These were videos designed for infants and young toddlers, which showed a number of engaging little videos of balls rolling down tracks, animals frolicking, etc. set to classical music. There was some sort of study in the late '90s that showed that babies who listened to classical music had higher IQs than those who did not, so the hospitals started sending new moms home with a Baby Mozart music CD, and naturally when the videos came out anxious parents seized upon them gladly. Here was something that would keep a young toddler occupied for 30 minutes, and we wouldn't feel guilty because it was improving their brains!
I think my daughter was about a year old when we got a Baby Mozart videocassette. I can't remember if I bought it, or if someone gave it to her as a gift. At any rate, she LOVED it.
She loved it SO MUCH, in fact, that when the videocassette ended, she would howl hysterically and go into full autistic-infant-meltdown mode, and would be completely inconsolable. This went far, far, FAR beyond the normal baby fussing or crying for a few moments when they don't get what they want; it was more like 90 minutes of absolutely hysterical screaming (I timed it one time - more on that later). The only thing that would calm her down was MORE Baby Mozart.
There was thus a very strong temptation to purchase numerous Baby Mozart videocassettes, and a separate cassette-rewinding device, and achieve a peaceful home by allowing her to watch Baby Mozart for all her waking hours.
However, as a GenX with Silent Gen parents, I was raised to view television in general as "the idiot box" - something that was mildly entertaining, but watching too much would "rot your brain." So, my daughter's INTENSE mood issues after watching Baby Mozart for 30 minutes confirmed my suspicion that this was probably NOT increasing her IQ, and was in fact causing major behavior issues.
So, we eliminated Baby Mozart, and all television in general, from her life. Initially, this resulted in the aforementioned 90 minute screamfest; but after few days she adjusted and her behavior and mood improved considerably. Mind you, she still had a lot of autistic behaviors and sensory issues - but she was overall a lot calmer and able to cope with life better.
I continued with this policy for my other children; eventually relenting to allow one video per week:
on Friday nights, we ordered pizza and all watched a movie together. I also did not allow computer use until they were in elementary school, my reasoning being that they had their entire lives to sit in a cubicle and stare at a screen, but you only get one childhood. Also, my husband and I had both grown up without computers at all, but still managed to pick it up easily as adults and go into careers in the tech field. Unfortunately, our elementary school had other ideas and insisted that five-year-olds needed a Technology class; my daughter came home crying because all the other kids knew how to use a mouse but she had never done it before. So, I relented - mostly because she had fine-motor dyspraxia as part of her autism, and needed more time than most to master moving the mouse around properly.
My point in all this is that for a certain type of brain wiring, whether it is borderline autistic or ADHD, there can be an extremely intense response to certain stimuli. My daughter is 25 now, and I notice that she'll still get very sucked into cute animal videos, cookie-decorating videos, or those sped-up recipe videos (even though they are foods she would never consider making or eating). Fortunately, she does not use TikTok and is aware she has a tendency to get REALLY fixated on things like that. In fact, she does not use social media at all and tries to channel her extremely obsessive single-mindedness into more productive hobbies such as crocheting and birdwatching.
As an autistic child, my daughter needed a lot more practice and support than a typically-developing child with things like learning to cope with change or unexpected events, interpersonal skills, how to talk to others, how to play with others, handling her emotions, tolerating physical sensations and unfamiliar foods, etc.. I will be honest - it was a LOT of work and quite draining, and when I found an activity that engrossed her completely and gave me a few moments of peace (in her case, jigsaw puzzles and, when she was a bit older, reading) I was delighted to let her do that as long as she wanted. So I can only imagine what it would have been like had well-meaning grandparents gifted her a tablet at a young age. Children with autism and/or ADHD can really suck the life out of their parents or caregivers; and it is an enormous temptation to just plant them in front of something that will keep them from screaming, carrying on, or engaging in destructive or dangerous behaviors for a period of time.
By the way, I would also point out that autism has a strong heritable component. Parents of autistic children often have a collection of autistic traits themselves and thus are likely to share some of the same fixations. That might account for some of the vehemence which greeted your post.
In my case, the apple did not fall very far from the tree - I see a lot of myself in my daughter, albeit at a much more subclinical level. Still, I thank my lucky stars that I was born in the late '60s, and thus grew up with just a few channels on broadcast TV, no computers, no cell phones, no video games, etc.; because I'm not sure what would have happened with my brain if all that had been available to me.
I had undiagnosed ADHD as a child (in those days, ADHD was considered something only little boys had, and it was generally thought to be a result of too much sugar and bad parenting). There is a lot of overlap between ADHD and autistic traits; so I'm not 100% sure that I would have grown up and become capable of functioning in normal society if I had access to all the technology of today.
GenX here too and no question that I would have gone WAY down the internet rabbit hole had it existed during my formative years. Towards the end of high school, in the late ‘80s, I did go through a period of staying up way too late playing video games on our home computer, but more insidiously, chatting over an early online dialup system with people around the country I’d met in connection with a summer job for an early tech company. They had given us this online forum so we could compare notes and had to slap us all on the wrist for over-using it on their dime through the dial-up modems they’d given us. (Wasn’t just me who got sucked into it.) Unfortunately, I didn’t see the danger and my GenZ kid was handed a Chromebook in middle school (and the same district now starts the kids from Kindergarten I think) and it’s not doing any of them any favors. So frustrating.
I'm trying to determine if my 2 grands, age 14 girl and age 11 boy are headed for trouble with regard to tech fixation or if my concerns are related to being a generation removed from childhood behaviors. My son is a late GenX and my d-i-l is early Millennial. Both grands have iPhones and iPads. No cable t.v. but some streaming services for kids. My grandson just got an iPhone for his birthday this month. My granddaughter has had hers for 2 years. Both phones have all social media blocked, no YouTube or internet access. All parental controls are engaged, and the phones are in parental possession at bed time. They both do well in school and participate in sports and other activities. They read a lot, actual physical books! They are very well-behaved in school and out. They are self-directed and require very little in the way of direction regarding their areas of responsibility. Almost never need reminding or prodding. They have harmonious relationships with both parents as well as between themselves. I don't see addictive phone use with the parents, but my granddaughter is rarely seen without her phone in front of her face. Grandson lives in front of his iPad. Neither of them will hold a conversation with me, either initiating or answering beyond a one or two word answers most of the time.
I asked my son if he knew what my granddaughter was doing on her phone and he said yes, that she has a text thread with several friends and they all text back and forth about their areas of interest, one of which is math, and other activities. She also has a foreign language app she's using to learn French. I haven't seen my grandson pay much attention to his phone, since he mostly plays games on his iPad.
All that sounds pretty good, so maybe I'm looking for something to be worried about? What do you all think?
If you want to be very sure, then offer the kids $50 for every trick they can teach you to get around the parental controls. I’m serious about this — they’re young enough that that will work.
Smartphones are dangerous for kids in different ways. For boys, they’re universally dangerous due to porn. For girls, they CAN be ok-ish, if the girl is of the sort who eschews the usual adolescent girl traps — if she tends towards being goth or is a serious athlete or otherwise has Her Thing That Defines Her As A Teenager, and it’s something that serves as a kind of buffer from some of the social stuff, then at least some of the downsides can be avoided, at least potentially.
That’s a good idea snd I never would have thought of it. THANK YOU.
You are very welcome!!
My regular reminder to fall on my knees and thank God that my youngest kid was 15 the year the first iPhone was released. There were plenty of holes it was possible to fall in, but I was spared that one at least.
Keep up the good work, Holly.
I've been lucky, in that every place I've worked has asked us to lock cell phones up when we sign in, otherwise, I'd have been on mine all the time.
For a time, I gamed on mine, so the screen time was off the charts.
However, lately, I've weaned myself off mine. Now I only grab it when I go out, in case of emergency, and when I don't think about it, I find myself leaving it on the table.
It feels good not to have to follow the endorphine rush.
I hope it gets better for you. But I think you've got a handle on it.
"how your phone does not keep you from being a present parent"
My take on this is a little different. I appreciate your point about autism as well as your point about being a present parent. I had a student who struggled with math, as much because she didn't think she could do it and fought tooth and nail using that excuse for not trying. That is not really germaine to the story other than you would have been a God-send for her!
As a high school student, she was addicted to her phone. So much so that she feared missing a text or phone call. (She likely thought I never "caught on" to why she had those "bathroom emergencies" but I knew). She tucked her phone routinely into her bra so she could feel the vibration and know that an "emergency" was about to take place. Same place every time. She graduated and moved in with her boyfriend. They later married. They had a daughter who was the center of their lives. In a routine exam, they discovered a lump--right where she kept her phone. By the time they discovered the lump, she had stage 4 metastatic cancer. 19 years old. She fought it valiantly for a few years while loving her daughter and husband as much as possible every single day. A few years later, cancer won.
Your statement (quoted above, reminded me of that sweet young woman and how badly she wanted to be a present parent and a present wife. Thinking about her brings tears to my eyes.
I have always heard that actions have consequences. This is one consequence that still rattles my soul!
Well done. Well done. I am guilty too, but well done.
I have watched my grandkids try to speak to their parents, whose eyes and brains are glued to their phones or laptops. They receive partial attention and partial answers. These children also have their own tablet devices, and when we grandparents are in charge and try to limit their time on device, we are on the receiving end of full-on melt-downs and disproportionate anger. They don’t know how to play unless directed. And when they go to school, (kindergarten and preschool!), they are given tablets to use in class. As soon as the kids are in bed, the adults pull out their phones or tablets or laptops. The only conversations happen in cars. My preschool grandchild has been diagnosed with ADHD already and I really believe the screens are partially to blame. I know that screens have done nothing to help my own short attention span.
I’m just as guilty, in spurts, but I try to keep my phone in my pocket around all of my grandchildren. When I am around, they have my full attention. It’s no wonder kids want to spend time with Grandma!
I strongly suspect that ADHD is insanely rare. 99% of the time, what gets called ADHD is really just the natural consequences of device use before a brain is fully developed.
And… kids being kids, being forced to sit through something boring, something they don’t understand, or as you note, something they are not developmentally ready for.
A much abused term toted about like a terrific distraction for being lazy and tuned out to the increasingly dangerous world most stumble through. How many times has a mobile device zombie walked into a crime or other harmful situ due to their not being aware?
I'm actually surprised you didn't get more angry emails from actual high-functioning autistics, who seem pretty set on the idea that autism must be 100% genetic. (I'm autistic.)
Otherwise, I agree with all of this. My wife and I are trying to be less screen-dependent before our baby arrives, not just for attention reasons, but to model healthy behaviour. I'm an Orthodox Jew and not being on the phone for 25 hours for the Sabbath is fine, but it's much harder to stay away the rest of the week. The religious prohibition feels more of a red line. But it doesn't feel like being *forbidden* to do something; it feels like being liberated to think about other things and to read books attentively. Yet, as soon as it's over, I want to see what emails came in.
I've been thinking a lot about what you wrote about "emotional whiplash" too and just how I generally feel happier away from the phone, but it's hard to keep away.
Agree with pretty much every word, Holly. I'm about a month into learning RDI therapy to support my little lad who's been flagged as possibly being at risk for autism (it's a framework with some pretty good evidence-backing for promoting neural re-wiring of deficits).
The first thing that's being hammered home is CREATE AN "US". In everything you do, create an "us", you-and-me, doing something together. I don't think there's any way to more effectively fracture the continuity of an "us" than a smartphone. I'm not sure there's a lonelier feeling in the world than wanting to talk to someone, but having to wait until they're finished smiling into their black glass square. So uncomfortable, the longer it goes on, that you reach for your own black glass square...
I imagine you're also going to get much the same response to this article as last time, though I hope I'm wrong. There's this linking of parenting and identity in a really weird, sticky way where you can't talk about some things being better than others without people hearing "you said I'm a bad parent!" and firing off. If I tell anyone I have contributed to my son's difficulties by the way I have been parenting (which is true, responsiveness and mirroring are not enough for a child who did not develop shared interest and preparedness for guiding at 4ish months as normal), I always get "NO! It is NOT your fault! Don't say that!" I never actually said that, I said I did what I thought was best, with the knowledge I had, and it was suboptimal. Now I am learning, and doing better. This should not be a controversial statement.
That approach makes a lot of sense to me, and your attitude is refreshing.
My therapist and I talked about this (in a general sense) once. A kid I was babysitting regularly was being evaluated for everything under the sun and the parents asked me to write a letter describing my observations. I talked it over with him. In his opinion the only thing that was likely wrong with the poor kid was that his parents were busy and distracted. The way he put it was: if the mean 4-year-old needs 300 hours of one-on-one nurturing to hit the normal 5-year-old milestones by the time he turns 5, that means that some 4-year-olds will need 400 hours. It’s the job of parents to meet the needs of their child, not to meet the standard of “what would have been enough for the average child.” I got almost nothing in the way of nurturing as a kid, but it’s quite obvious now what the areas were where I needed more than I could figure out on my own — the areas where I would have needed much more or much less than the mean child.
Thank you. That's an excellent point about hours and means, and everyone needing something a bit different (and some needing a lot more, and the importance of being sensitive and intuitive around this).
There's something in the discourse I can't quite translate into coherent words about how assessment and diagnosis has somehow taken central focus over everything else. Which I think is illustrated in what was happening with the kid in your story.
Yes. My therapist and I have discussed this. I have obvious disorganized attachment issues, but I somehow ended up okay in a few areas anyway. The minimal time I got with a good grandmother and the parents of friends was enough because I just had below average needs in those areas.
A few good people, even in small amounts, can make such a difference even when so much has been lost and missed (the words "disorganised attachment" are such a sterile label for the thing, aren't they?) Sounds like you've been a good person for more than a few kids along the way, too.
One of the things that broke my heart with my kids was when one walked up to me and said, "Daddy, put down your phone."
Even after seeing the video of how kids respond to parents on their phones or off of them.
This is one of the things for which I a grateful to have become an Orthodox Jew. Every week, on Shabbos, we put down all of our electronics for a day. I know very few people outside this world who are able to go 24-hours without their phones, but it is part of our rules. Some weeks we go longer, as the same rule applies to holidays, so this coming Sunday evening, we'll away our devices for two days in a row -- and at least once each year, that means that we are offline for three straight days. It makes a difference.
It forces us to be present, and socialize with people who are doing the same thing. Who expected that a religious rule could have such benefits?