Raising Less Anxious Kids May Start with Becoming Less Anxious Parents
As I thought more about Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, I realized something else. Our phones aren’t just making our kids more anxious. They may be making us more anxious as parents.
Think about how accustomed we’ve become to knowing where our kids are every minute of every day. We have Life360. We have Find My. We text them. We call them. We track them. Then if that little dot isn’t where we think it should be, anxiety starts kicking in. Five minutes go by and we’re texting, “Where are you?” No response, so we call. Then we check Life360 again.
I know a mom who actually left work and drove to check on her child because she couldn’t reach them. Do you know what happened? The kid’s phone had died. That was it. Nothing was wrong.
Think about the irony of that. The technology that was supposed to make us feel safer may actually be making us more anxious.
There was a time when our kids could be away from us and we simply presumed they were fine unless somebody told us otherwise. Now, when we lose access to them for even a short period of time, our minds start running through everything that could be wrong. Why aren’t they answering? Why aren’t they where Life360 says they’re supposed to be? Did something happen? Are they hurt?
Nothing has actually happened, but because we don’t have immediate access to information, our minds begin filling in the blanks. Constant access hasn’t necessarily made us feel more secure. In some ways, it has made us less capable of dealing with uncertainty.
That’s one reason I’m glad schools are beginning to address phones. Here in Missouri, schools are required to restrict students from using personal electronic communication devices throughout the school day. Some parents immediately ask, “What if I need to reach my child? What if something happens?”
I understand the instinct, but think about what that says about us. We’re anxious because for several hours we may not have immediate access to our children.
Those of us who grew up before smartphones made it through entire school days without our parents being able to contact us. If there was an emergency, they called the school. Otherwise, our parents presumed we were okay.
Maybe there was something healthy about that.
Maybe our kids don’t need to be accessible to us every second of every day. And maybe we don’t need access to our kids every second of every day.
Haidt makes another interesting point. We’ve become increasingly protective of our kids in the real world while giving them tremendous freedom in the online world. We’re nervous about letting them walk somewhere alone or go several hours without contacting us. Meanwhile, we hand them a smartphone that gives them access to social media, strangers, pornography, algorithms and virtually the entire internet.
That seems backwards.
And here’s where I think our anxiety starts affecting our kids. If we’re constantly checking, tracking, calling, texting and worrying, what are we communicating to them? We’re teaching them that the world is dangerous, that something might go wrong at any moment and that being out of contact isn’t safe.
We can project our anxiety onto our kids.
Maybe one of the greatest gifts we can give our children is the confidence that says, “I believe you’re going to be okay.”
That doesn’t mean we stop parenting. It doesn’t mean we don’t have rules, boundaries or expectations. It simply means we don’t have to treat every unanswered text, dead phone or unexpected change of plans like the beginning of a crisis.
Let your kids figure some things out. Let them sit through an entire school day without texting you. Let them solve a problem before immediately stepping in to solve it for them. Give them reasonable opportunities to discover that they are capable.
And maybe, as parents, we need to rediscover something too: the ability to live with a little uncertainty.
Jonathan Haidt calls this The Anxious Generation. But maybe raising less anxious kids starts with becoming less anxious parents.
Alex Bryant is a pastor, author, and speaker who writes about race, faith, and culture in America.
