Digital technology is one of the most exciting advancements of our time. Computers, cell phones, and the internet have changed our lives in unimaginable ways. These devices have closed the global divide and simplified almost every task we perform.
Our children, too, are experiencing the trickle-down effect of all this technology.
Dr. Gordon Neufeld, world-renowned psychologist and best-selling author, is raising a red flag, reminding parents of the “insidious dangers that live in the shadows of this potent technology.” Neufeld’s book, Hold On to Your Kids, was the focal point of a presentation he gave last month, on February 21, at the Steinbach Regional Secondary School. About 700 adults parents and grandparents attended the lecture.
After just a couple of decades of use, Neufeld says, digital devices have come to replace the most essential component of a healthy childhood—relationship—and it’s up to parents to not only recognize it but take the power back.
“The issue… is these digital devices answer certain human desires and needs,” Neufeld says. “They are a quick fix to problems, but it’s in the fact that it’s a quick fix that the problem lies… [The devices] provide us with the solution to basic human problems that have been with us since we began to walk this earth… The essence of the problem here is that these quick fixes compete with natural solutions, and that is the concern.”
Attachment, connection, food, and information, he says, are the most basic needs of any human being. The process of building physically and emotionally healthy children, who are ready to face the onslaught of the world’s challenges, begins at a young age.
Using food as an analogy, Neufeld says that parents relinquished their control over their kids’ food intake with the introduction of the refrigerator. The availability of quick food has allowed our children to take charge of their own eating.
“We haven’t really understood the implications for children feeding themselves and already there is a huge movement in Canada that realizes that we made a mistake about teaching our children about food,” says Neufeld. “The more we don’t teach them about food and the more they take it into their own hands, the more eating disorders that we have.”
Similarly, parents and teachers were once the source of a child’s need for information, and it was delivered at a rate at which the child could safely absorb it. Technology has replaced caregivers in that regard, too, removing them as the authority for information in a child’s life.
But while the cord of parenting hasn’t been completely cut, it has taken a number of big hits.
“When we ingest more food than we can digest, we get sick,” Neufeld adds. “When we ingest more information than we can process, we get sick.”
Human attachment and connection, too, are under technological attack. While our digital devices were once useful tools for business and communication, developers eventually started marketing them to teenagers. Within a short period of time, social media sites arrived on the scene which have become our mainstay of connectedness, taking the place of family.
Neufeld also says that technology has also followed on the heels of the introduction of a peer-oriented society, a system developed in the mid-twentieth century which taught that children needed other children for social well-being and healthy development. Entire programs were created for children from the youngest age to increase their connectedness with other kids and decrease their connectedness with parents and grandparents.
“I was one of the first generation of peer-oriented kids,” says Neufeld. “What I became aware of as a university professor is that, when these students started orbiting around each other, they were being pulled out of orbit from their own families, from their churches, and around their leaders and hierarchies.”
The effect, he says, is that we’ve moved from a parent- and grandparent-centric society to a peer-centric one, creating a world where children derive their sense of self-worth and meaning from their peers.
“Most children today don’t go to school to learn about life. They go to school to be with their friends… seeking relationships in non-hierarchical [settings] rather than hierarchical ones.”
Thus, the end of a school day means an intolerable separation from friends, causing intense feelings of disconnection. By putting digital devices in their hands, parents have reinforced the peer-centric notion. In turn, they are losing quality time with their kids.
“If kids weren’t revolving around their peers, if they were revolving around the adults who take care of them, these would be very handy instruments,” Neufeld says. “So we can’t solve this problem until we win our kids back. You can’t solve the problem superficially as long as you’ve got a kid who’s revolving around his peers… If you try to intervene between the person and their attachments, you’ve got trouble. These are powerful attachments… We need to get back into the equation. We need to get our grandparents back into the equation. That is our challenge.”
Like a plant, the health of a child’s roots is key to their well-being long into adulthood. Building strong roots begins early in childhood. Unfortunately, technology is busy finding ways to provide all of the root-building components, too, leaving a child empty and searching for connection and meaning in all the wrong places.
According to Neufeld, this begins as early as the first year of life, a point at which sight, smell, touch, and hearing become the backbone of healthy development. Electronic devices today can fill all of those needs.
As toddlers, children desire a sense of belonging to something bigger—a family unit where protection and security reign. Short periods of separation become easier when that belonging is reinforced. Being connected to parents and grandparents is how a child establishes their sense of value and worth. It’s how psychological intimacy is formed. It’s here, in the early years, when a child forms the basis for healthy, long-term romantic relationships later in life.
These ideals aren’t things we teach. They must be lived, away from the distraction of devices. When kids and parents become preoccupied with technology, they become less involved in relationships.
When these basic early needs aren’t met, Neufeld says that children turn to technology for fulfillment. Video games, movies, and pornography can replace a parent’s loving guidance. Constant access to entertainment can reduce the opportunity for parents and grandparents to tell their stories to their children; their children then listen to someone else’s stories, and these stories are often lived in fantasy.
Advancements in entertainment technology can also blur the divide between what’s real and what’s fantasy. Addictive behavior is the result of this lack of differentiation.
“There’s nothing more addictive than something that almost works,” Neufeld says. “Research has found over and over again that digital intimacy is as addictive as cigarettes and alcohol. Why are [cigarettes and alcohol] addictive? Because they almost work… [They] soothe us situationally.”
Therefore it’s imperative, he says, that we recognize that for every advance in human or societal evolution, there is an equal and opposite loss.
“If we’re going to deal with a digital device in a digital revolution,” Neufeld says, “we need to get [our children’s] hearts back.”
The challenge, he adds, is twofold. First, parents need to exercise oversight in their children’s use of digital devices. Second, they need to conscientiously provide natural solutions within the family unit to meet a child’s basic emotional needs.
“If they develop a capacity for real relationship, play, and natural solutions, the attraction for digital devices will dissipate,” Neufeld says. “We can reduce the attraction of that quick fix.”
The how-to lies in another analogy—cookies. Cookies represent empty food, much like the empty emotional fulfillment derived from technology. Parents have long realized the importance of denying their children a cookie before supper, restricting its enjoyment to a time when their nutritional needs have already been met. So, too, do devices and screens need to be restricted until after a child’s need for personal connection and family intimacy have been met. While cookies are an unhealthy shortcut to feeling full, screen time can be a shortcut to false emotional fulfillment.
The best way to achieve that, Neufeld says, is by returning to the family meal where stories are told and connections are reinforced through active interaction in each other’s lives.
“The sit-down meal has to be screen-free,” says Neufeld. “You cannot afford to bring the competition right into the place where you do family… You have screen-free zones, you have screen-free meals, you have screen-free playtime. Trying to get rid of it altogether is not going to work. Not in this world.”
One immediate problem, he adds, is that parents can be so in love with technology themselves that they unwittingly lead their children into it rather than create a buffer from it. The normalcy of technology is masking the enormity of the problem.
On top of that, parents today seem to be experiencing a “crisis of confidence.” Neufeld suggests that parents, too, are seeking information online rather than relying on their basic instincts. The prolific amount of self-help information available is blurring the truth: parents need to step up and take charge once again.
“[Children] need an invitation to exist in our presence,” says Neufeld. “We gave birth to them, but how will they know [they matter unless] they are invited?”
As well, Neufeld touched on a few basic principles to keep technology from dominating children’s lives. Keep temptation out of their way, he says. Just as we wouldn’t store alcohol in a child’s room, we should keep electronics out of their rooms, too. Learning self-control at a young age will help them when faced with other addictive substances down the road.
Also, he suggests that parents work at creating a culture of family play away from devices, and give them regular reminders that they matter. Eye contact, smiles, and conversation should be a regular part of any day. Parents should know the signs of unhealthy peer attachment and learn how to redirect their attachment to the home front, and then teach their children not to use devices to share emotional intimacy. Devices can’t replace real relationships.
Finally, Neufeld says that parents must use “bridging rituals” to remind children that their separation from parents is temporary. Rather than saying “Goodbye,” a parent could say “I can’t wait until I see you again later.” The words we choose can build on a child’s need for long-term attachment to the parent and provide solace against the angst of separation.
The roots of all of today’s societal problems, Neufeld says, are relational.
“The challenge about raising children in a digital world is about timing,” Neufeld concludes. “It’s about being the answer. Its about stepping up to the plate.”