Sometimes You Just Need to Be the Parent

If you don't crack down on a child's screen time, then who will?

A woman asked me an interesting question in an interview yesterday. She said, “As parents, we have no problem cutting off our toddlers when they’re eating too much sugar. So why do we struggle to crack down on older kids and digital devices, despite knowing it’s bad for them? Why does it feel so much harder?”

I appreciated the question because it gets at the root issue, which is that excessive screen time is not so much a kid problem as it is a parent problem. There is a tendency to lament how much time kids are wasting on entertainment-based screen time every day (5.5 to 9 hours, on average—a statistic that never loses its shock value). Societally, we talk about screen time is as if kids are entirely independent and making bad choices for themselves. “Educate them! Explain to them why it’s bad for their brains, their bodies, their self-esteem, their sleep, their relationships!” But this overlooks the obvious related fact that parents enable this behaviour.

Parents are not helpless bystanders—and if they are, they are likely choosing to be. (I realize there are always exceptions.) The role of the parent is that of a trainer for life, a boundary-setter, a rule-maker, an accountability holder. No one else can do that job as well. It is the job every parent signs up for, willingly or not, when they become responsible for a child. To abdicate that responsibility is to leave a child unprotected in a world that can rapidly devour them.

Being a parent is the hardest job out there, so I am loathe to be labeled as a parent blamer. That is not the goal here. I recognize that most parents are putting in a tremendous effort to raise good children, and it can feel like an upward battle these days. But it is not productive to ignore foundational issues; and in this case, I maintain that a shift in parental behaviour would have a more profound and immediate effect on children’s screen time habits than any change in school policy, legal age requirements, or at the level of tech companies. Indeed, none of those really matter if parental behaviours do not shift simultaneously.

Back to my interviewer’s thought-provoking question, I identified two main causes up front. No doubt there are more factors, but we didn’t get into those.

First is that parents themselves are addicted to their phones. They recognize the hypocrisy at play when they tell their teens to get off devices, and then promptly go back to scrolling on their own phone. Implementing strict limits for usage would force parents to model the behaviours they wish to see in their kids, but many simply don’t want to change. It is easier to be lenient than to deprive oneself of that comfortable phone-induced dopamine drip. (You can read more about this in my piece, It’s the Adults, Not the Kids.)

Second, many parents appear to be deeply uncomfortable exercising authority over their kids. It is easier to be the boss when they’re little, hence the sugar example, but if the parent has fostered more of a gentle, friendly rapport with the child than an authoritative, hierarchical dynamic, it gets progressively more awkward to “crack down” as they grow up and become like mini adults. The child feels entitled to do what they want, as they always have. The parent, despite maybe wishing things were different, assumes the child’s freedom of choice overrides what they know to be better for their child. And the status quo reigns.

Kids Need Boundaries

Both issues are serious, but the second one bothers me more than the first, precisely because kids need boundaries. This is not just with screens, but with everything in life. Boundaries define a zone in which to grow and then push up against, at which point they are often expanded in recognition of growth that has occurred. A child without boundaries feels lost and unmoored, unsure of their place in the world.

Boundaries are lacking also in the online environment. As psychiatrist Victoria Dunckley points out in Reset Your Child’s Brain,

“an unfortunate aspect of screen time is the quality of ‘boundary-lessness’; cyberspace and some video games, for example, go on virtually forever… This quality works against what children need. Boundaries are what make children feel safe.”

She adds that when a child feels out of control, they will often “push boundaries in order to force some containment because it’s uncomfortable and unsettling to be without them.”

Her words reflect a surprisingly common theme that, following initial pushback, some children actually feel relief when their parents take away video games and social media. They knew deep down that these influences weren’t making them any happier or healthier, but they could not resist them on their own. Nor should they—that is what parents are for.

Presumed Helplessness

I am struck frequently in conversations with parents by repeated statements of helplessness. It’s as if they don’t trust their own perception of a situation, nor their ability to respond. They want to wait for an official diagnosis, or a change in rules, or a second, third, fourth opinion. They fear their child’s outrage. They are afraid to acknowledge an insidious problem, and so they hesitate, waffle, delay. They appear to doubt their own resilience and capability in problem-solving.

Rather than blaming these parents for a situation that is admittedly not fun, I want to empower them. I want to say, “What you feel is correct! If you suspect your child has a screen overuse problem, then they probably do—and you can do something about it!” There is no need to outsource the tough decision-making to “experts.” No number of credentials will ever make a random professional more qualified to raise your child than you. You are already the expert on your own kid. And more than anything, your child wants you to be the expert, not some stranger.

Abigail Shrier writes eloquently about this phenomenon in her excellent new book, Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up.

“We lost this somewhere along the way: the sense that these kids we raise, they’re ours. Our responsibility and our privilege. We are not the subordinates of the school psychologist or the pediatrician or our kids’ teachers. We are more important than all of them combined—as far as our kids are concerned. We gave our kids life, we sustained it, and we are the ones who bear the direct emotional consequences of how those lives turn out. It’s time we acted like it.”

Believe me, there are many aspects of “old-fashioned” parenting that I do not wish to resurrect, but there is something to be said for reinstating a sense of parental authority at home—not at all in a mean way, but in the firm, kind, loving, no-nonsense way that relieves many children of the burden of making their own decisions about the world. This, I believe, is a merciful thing for children of all ages, to be freed from an excess of freedom (from too much screen time!) and be reminded of what is right and good for them now, despite what their more primal urges may crave.

Whether it’s sugar or social media, toddlers or teens, our children still need us to be their parents, every single day. It’s the unquittable job.  

You Might Also Like:

Move With Purpose
The Engagement Tax
Be a Lifeguard Parent

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