The smartphone trap: How parents can reconnect with their kids

Remember when you got your first smartphone? It was so shiny and new, so exciting to be able to log into your social media accounts on your phone, download and play fun apps (word games are my favorite), and of course, text using all those hundreds of emojis! I remember those days. 

I also remember the fact that my cell phone usage started small but grew and grew and soon that phone was not only connected to me at the hip but I was opening it up to look at it way more than I would want to admit. I have a feeling you have a similar story. 

Eventually, I came to a realization: I used my phone way too much. But I didn’t realize what using my phone did to me — or would do to my kids — until I started educating myself. 

We know now that overuse of social media, generally via our phones, has serious negative effects on girls’ mental health and social well-being. Young boys suffer as well, though more often with feelings of isolation.

Despite the promise of connection, our kids seem disconnected, distracted and increasingly fragile. But Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation opened my eyes to tech’s effect on me, too — and to my role in helping protect and re-connect my kids. Every adult has a critical role to play, if we want to help prevent and repair the harm tech has done and is doing to kids. 

One important way we help our kids is by modeling safe and healthy tech use. I realized this pretty quickly. 

If I’m going to help my kids figure out boundaries with their devices, I need to have those boundaries with my own device! I have to know how to establish and maintain boundaries with tech. So, I learned. I put boundaries in place, bit by bit, that helped me prioritize connection with my kids over my own desire to pick up my phone. 

I use my phone for work, as almost all of us do these days. But kids don’t think about the fact that we’re using our phones for work. They just see us using our phones. They see us not paying attention when they’re talking to us about their day or trying to show us something.

So, these days, if my kids start talking to me, I put my phone down. It isn’t in my hand at all. This is in part to make sure they know I’m listening to them and prioritizing them, and partly because it’s so tempting for me to multitask.  

It’s tempting for all of us. And it’s supposed to be tempting. The tech is designed to make it almost irresistible to pick up and open your phone! So start by putting your device down as often and as intentionally as you can. 

Another important way we can help kids is by proactively helping them develop safe and healthy tech use of their own. 

If this seems overwhelming — maybe because your kids already have strong attachments to their devices — know that small changes can still make a big difference. Start where you can. 

In our house, we impose a tech curfew. All devices are inaccessible after 9 p.m., and no devices ever go into anyone’s room. We make use of parental control apps to make sure our kids aren’t encountering adult or harmful content while they use their devices.

We even put our devices away as a family on Saturday afternoons and have game night every week. Nobody gets their phones back until after church, and nobody even asks for them anymore! 

It took us a lot of reading, prayer and work to get here. But I would encourage every parent to educate themselves and begin the process of connecting with themselves and their own kids.

Reel it back in. See how it works. Slowly restore a family life that you like. Expect that it will be hard and that it will take time and resolution. If you’re married, make sure you are working together with your spouse. 

And for the first little bit — a month, maybe two months — you’re going to get whining and pushback. But at some point, it will become normal. 

Anything you can do for your family to make their “normal” better, healthier, more connected and more resilient is worth doing. So, figure out what you can do, and do it. 

Re-connecting our kids starts with us connecting with them.