Our Daughter's Friends Have Phones

hard conversations with our 3rd grader

Friends.

I’m reading “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt. Have you heard of it? The subtitle is “How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness” and …

Wow.

I would label myself as a somewhat anxious parent when it comes to the topic of children, phones, and social media.

(You too?)

The other day, in fact, I was talking to another parent in Jordan’s school and somehow the conversation went to phones and screens and when I told her our decision to “wait a bit” until we got Jordan a phone (she’s in 3rd grade, by the way), the other parent looked at me like I had 6 heads and said, “oh, we got our kids phones when they turned 5 and it’s been great!”.

5?

FIVE?

Some of Jordan’s friends have social media accounts, all of them scroll YouTube ENDLESSLY throughout the day, and the majority of them play Roblox (which is a whole other discussion) where they create worlds in an endless virtual world that is filled with children and ADULTS from all over the real world.

Phew.

And so, yeah - the thought of Jordan having a phone with access to social media and (let’s face it) the worst of what society has to offer gives me a huge amount of anxiety.

In his book, Jonathan goes into great detail showing the harm that social media can have on kids (and adults), but one thing he pointed out has really, really stuck with me.

He says this …

“Social media trains people to do judge quickly and publicly, lest ye be judged for not judging whoever it is that we are all condeming today. Don’t forgive, or your team will attack you as a traitor.”

I mean, think about this.

Earlier in this section he quoted the Torah where God told the Israelites to “not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.”

Do you see that?

Don’t seek revenge.

Don’t bear a grudge.

Love your neighbor.

But social media? Is it really set up (or being used by most of us) to do anything close to that?

I mean.

IF we’re being honest.

It literally trains us to the opposite, right? To seek revenge (often with our words), to hold grudges (“I’ll just block people I disagree with!”), and to NOT love our neighbor (“the guy with the Trump flag is such an idiot!”).

A few months ago, for instance, I took some heat when I said on my blog that I refuse to “hate” and “shame” people who voted for Donald Trump. I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would vote for him, but I also know that 3/4 of the people on my street voted for him …

People I see every day.

People who have lent me their lawnmower when mine broke.

People who brought me flowers when my father passed away.

People who have shared some deep hurts with me.

People who have a special gift for Jordan every Halloween when she Trick-or-Treats at their house.

… People who I don’t see eye to eye with on some political and religious issues, but who I love and am grateful for nonetheless.

I tried to explain in this post that I don’t want to use my “platform” (as small as it may be) to attack people who voted for Donald Trump and label them as morons, Christian Nationalists, stupid, Nazis, racists, etc. because my inner voice tells me that this isn’t the Way - it’s not the Way of unity, it’s not the Way of Christ, it’s not a Way that I want to live and move through the world.

Maybe other people disagree - and that’s FINE.

Read that again: it’s FINE if you or someone else disagrees.

I don’t expect everyone to think like me. I respect how other people choose to use their platforms and the ways in which their own inner voice is leading them.

But.

For me?

This is where I’m at because when the Right attacks the Left and the Left attacks the Right, both sides bring the same energy against the other side … and what good does it do? What sort of change does it create? What sort of lasting change? What sort of lasting change for everybody? I mean, if I leave my place on “the Right” to take a stand on “the Left” but I bring the same judgemental energy with me … have I really changed all that much or have I just changed who I direct my energy at?

And so back to the quote from Jonathan …

“Social media trains people to do judge quickly and publicly, lest ye be judged for not judging whoever it is that we are all condeming today. Don’t forgive, or your team will attack you as a traitor.”

… I vocalized that I will not use my platform to judge quickly, to judge publicly … and the result?

I received some scathing emails that (honestly) really surprised me.

I received some hurtful comments.

I was called weak.

I was called “a special kind of vile” for not “shaming” my “Trump supporting neighbors”.

In other words, because I opted not to judge and hate on the people that my “team” was judging and hating on, I (as Jonathan says) was seen as a bit of a traitor.

And this is the way of social media, isn’t it? If the LEFT is in an outrage about Trump or Driscoll or celebrating the death of Dobson - YOU (as a left-ish thinker) are expected to as well. And if the RIGHT is an outrage about Obama or Bell or whoever - YOU (as a right-ish thinker) are expected to be too.

BUT.

It gets even more complicated with teenagers and kids, doesn’t it? Because if you’re 13 and your friends are on social media picking on that “nerdy” kid, you’re expected to pick on that “nerdy” kid too. Or if you’re in a group chat and all your friends are railing on someone because of their clothes or their smell or their hair or whatever, you’re expected to chime in. And if you say “no”? If you choose not to use your platform (however small it may be) to make fun of or bully someone else? If you choose not to jump into the conversation? Or choose to leave the chat? Then you are labeled or seen as a traitor to your friend group. And so lots of kids end up doing things they wouldn’t normally do because they feel pressured to and don’t want to lose friends, be kicked out of friend groups, and be forced to navigate middle school or high school as a loner.

All of this makes raising kids incredibly complicated, doesn’t it?

And this is what I wanted to tell the parent at Jordan’s school, but it just didn’t feel like the time or place. I wanted to share everything I just shared above and emphasize that (I think) when we put a phone in our kid’s hands at such early ages and allow them to create social media accounts, interact with all of these random people in various kinds of games - it may seem harmless, but we’re actually putting a weapon in their hand that (if left even the slightest unchecked) will end up doing way more harm than good to them and their small part of the world. Not only does it dramatically impact their social interactions, but it very much hinders healthy brain and nervous system development (much more of that in Jonathan’s book).

As an adult, I see all of this in myself too. As we inched towards the last election, I noticed myself being quick to judge who everyone else was judging (even if I had ZERO information about the person in question other than what everyone on my “team” was telling me) and I found myself focusing on lots and lots and lots of negative things (some of which were grounded in reality, some of which was blown out of proportion by the media, Facebook “friends”, etc), which was (in turn) making me feel all the more negative inside.

And so I have REALLY limited my social media use dating back to the Spring. I don’t even have the apps on my home screen anymore and so if I want to open the app for whatever reason, I need to consiously go and search for it. I don’t do much scrolling, I reserve the majority of my “ideas” and “thoughts” for this space on Substack or over on Patreon … and my mind feels different.

Better.

Clearer.

Hopeful.

All that to say, we talk about these things WITH Jordan. She has already asked for a phone because lots of other kids have them. She has already talked about social media because other kids have accounts and she knows we have accounts too. She asks about Roblox all the time because all of her friends play the game. Some kids, she told me the other night, even make fun of her because she doesn’t have the things they have, play the games they play, etc.

Sigh.

And so we’ve had some hard conversations and we’ve told her that …

“Mommy and daddy will say no to some things that other parents say yes to not because we’re being mean, but because we’ve read things or have information about things that other parents might not have and with that knowledge, it’s our job to keep you as safe as we can. You will have those things someday. You will have a phone one day. You will have social media one day. But that’s not today. And it’s OK to be sad about it. It’s even OK to be mad about it. We wish we could say yes to everything you want, but we can’t. And we know how much it hurts when someone else makes you feel ‘less than’ because they have something you don’t. That’s a horrible feeling. But when someone does that to you (and, honestly, it happens when you’re an adult too), it says much more about them than it does you and we will always be here with open arms if you need to cry or yell or scream. Your emotions (whether directed at someone else or at us) are always safe here.”

Being a parent is no easy task, am I right?

Much love.

• Glenn || PATREON / ART STUDIO

PS - I wrote my doctoral disseration, by the way, on how the church can use social media to connect people together and connect people to God. Social Media is a wonderous things that has the power and potential to do exponential good in the world.

Left unchecked, though?

Left in the hands of middle schoolers and high schoolers whose brains are still developing? Who don’t yet have the best decision making skills?

Well.

As an analogy: fire is great when it’s burning on the wick of a candle, right? But it becomes quite a different thing when it’s tossed into a garbage can full of paper in a garage, next to a gallon of gasoline.

Social media is the same: it’s great when it’s used in appropriate ways, but becomes quite a different thing when it’s mismanaged.