All I can say is: I want to see more of this! More teens without smartphones (and in nature!) flourishing. Bravo to the journalist/mother who had the courage to do this.
My oldest is 14, and when he is biking in our neighborhood or at a church activity, I'm tempted to wish I had a way to reach him. But then I remember that I'm building trust in him, and he is building confidence in himself, and if he can't call me every time something goes wrong, he'll build more independence, which is the point of raising children after all: to turn them into capable adults.
What a fantastic example and hard truth you're living, and setting for others! Amazing Shannon. When did you start feeling comfortable letting him go without a phone? Was it due to you learning about the harms of social media/ EMF?
None of my children have smartphones, because they don’t need one. Their lives are richer, fuller, and happier because of that decision. They enjoy doing real things in the real world: reading physical books, drawing, painting, baking, cooking, gardening, camping, biking, swimming, hiking, knitting, embroidering, etc. Hopefully that list continues to grow.
My husband and I didn’t decide to not give our children phones out of fear— it was because of what we *wanted* them to experience. Real life is better than online life, every time.
Thank you for sharing all that Shannon. We need more parents like you - I'm sure you'll inspire others to take action. Life actually improves without a smartphone! Thank you for your kind reply.
Since apparently Substack’s blocking feature isn’t like Twitter (and so I still have to see your replies going on about EMF on every one of these threads even though I blocked you long ago), I’ll actually post out loud here and ask you to please stop. We’re trying to build a real movement around something — phone-based childhood — that is now definitively proven to cause harm to children. This movement is now building momentum in the real world for government and others to take action and I think we’re close to a tipping point.
I’m a firm believer in movements jettisoning their fringes in order to have more effective results in the real world. Tying the hundred-year-old woo-woo about non-ionizing radiation to this movement does nothing but harm it. Please, just stop posting about it.
"Tying the hundred-year-old woo-woo about non-ionizing radiation..."
There will never be any scientific studies which prove wireless technology is safe, because it is not safe. There are thousands of studies that show it causes harm. But we don't even need scientific studies because more and more people are getting sick, including children exposed to wifi enabled schools.
Yuri Grigoriev who helped with the cleanup of the Chernobyl disaster said non-ionising radiation is WORSE than ionising radiation. That argument is as unscientific as claiming 'trench foot' isn't a real condition because only boiling water can cause 1st degree burns.
EMF denialism (for that is what it is) is not serving anybody's interests. The fact is the wireless industry is already collapsing anyway, even with a culture of denialism. Court cases are being won. Wifi is getting banned from public spaces (including schools) on health grounds. Insurers won't touch it with a barge pole. The industry warns shareholders to expect a tsunami of health related lawsuits in the near future. Trump and Gates (who both promote the tech) have blocked planning for new 5G infrastructure near their homes. Studies show insect and bird populations are being decimated by microwave pollution (and these studies specifically rule out 'climate change' and habitat loss). Millions of people are so sick from these toxic gadgets they have to trash them, move to rural areas, live in camper vans or even their cars.
If the media didn't ACTIVELY censor all of this health and environmental carnage then wireless tech would already be consigned to the 'great dumpster of stupid technologies' along with asbestos and radioactive face cream.
The media's censorship of this topic is really the only thing propping up the industry right now.
In an age when we are supposed to value 'public health' and 'environmental responsibility' there is no excuse for anyone to hand wave this topic away. To dismiss the harms it is causing is immoral. We have a responsibility to future generations and all life on this fragile planet to not microwave everything to death for the sake of a bunch of social media apps which are giving everyone mental health issues anyway.
The 'oh but we must not say anything controversial because it will harm our cause' argument is nonsensical. NOT microwaving the planet is the normal, sane, sensible, scientific, grown up thing to do. Deploying hundred of thousands of radiation towers, satellites and routers and microwaving every square inch of the planet and thinking you can somehow get away with it is the 'fringe' or 'woo woo' position. Put some cress seeds in front of a wifi router and they will either not grow or grow sideways to get away. There's your science. An 8 year old can prove it is toxic to life.
This technology should never have been deployed to begin with... but it has. There is no 'reducing screen time' or 'minimising usage'. It all has to go. We have to revert back to wired technology again.
Children and young people now have a golden opportunity to REJECT a technology outright, for the sake of all life on this planet. This is more than a mere responsibility as custodians of this planet, it is a delight. Actively choosing not to pollute the world is a delight, and it is the opposite of empty, online social media virtue signalling about imaginary oppression or fake environmental issues.
Young people are naturally idealistic and full of imagination. They love to get involved in a cause bigger than them. Why are you so keen to deny them this opportunity?
EMF sickness is not going away, it's going to have to be addressed soon, even if that means rebranding it as 'bird flu'. Is that what you want?
I hope that this experiment will serve to inspire and be replicated by families who recognize the need for a "new normal". It was interesting to note that it was the adults who were quick to try and put limits and oberservation on the camping trip, "The editor declared any campfire a “no-no.” The lawyer wanted to GPS the teens and send a chaperone to shadow them."
True independence cannot flourish if we remove all risks.
Switzerland is a place where personal responsibility is encouraged and expected. One place where this contrast is apparent is in the public swimming pools. In Canada a pool of approx 25 by 15 meters is observed by a minimum of six to eight lifeguards who frequently count heads, berate youths who summersault into the water, and stop and running or rough play, and control the timing of going down the slides. In contrast the public swimming pool we visit each summer in my hometown has three pools (25 by 25; 50 by 25; and 10 by 25 meters), diving boards, a climbing wall, and waterslides. How many lifeguards? Two to three. Swimmers are allowed to run, dive in any which way they like, and wait of their own accord at diving boards and slides.
Public pools are only one example of a princliple that permeates the culture. This "lack of supervision" does not result in more accidents, and instead produces citizens of independence and self-responsibility. Not tracking our children or constantly checking in on them and instead spending time listening to the stories they tell us about their day, can be a simple first step in a direction of independence.
In defense of The Sunday Times, I would say it is certainly reasonable for them to want to eschew any possible culpability from a disastrous outcome. Suppose there did end up being an incident on the A-road between a driver and the teens, the firestorm on the The Times would be quite severe.
Although in relation to your point about supervision, indeed unsupervised periods are essential for adolescents to develop into adults. Personal development is quite difficult without any personal time. The Hawthorne effect is apt as ever.
However, saying that 'This "lack of supervision" does not result in more accidents, and instead produces citizens of independence and self-responsibility.' underscores the split problem with supervision. Safetyism has largely been in regards to the physical realm while many of these mental health issues amongst the youth stem from years of unsupervised conduct in digital realm. The lack of supervision in regards to the child's usage of social media and internet is what has allowed its most pernicious outcomes to flourish.
The "wild camping trip" is definitely an upsell given that the experience was tantamount to sleeping in a backyard overnight. I would imagine that there were adults on call in the house if disaster were to transpire. Having a nearby lavatory also simplifies the logistics of such a camping trip.
Obviously an adult took the photos, but they need not have been on-site all the time to do so; The portraits and some of the staged candid shots were done in London, while the camping photos were probably taken from periodic check-ins rather than from tailing the kids. I surely don't think any adults were sleeping in the tent to monitor them.
I love this movement. I love Haidt’s work and Skenazy’s. But man, that video about the Let Grow Project is wild. It’s sad that we’ve come to a point where we have to consciously encourage kids (and their parents) to just play in the park or walk home from school unsupervised. To cook a meal? To do laundry? These are basic household tasks that kids should have been doing all along. Listening to the parents in the video, it’s clear that they are the problem. I just…I don’t know. I’m a mom of four kids in NYC. They’ve been skipping over to the bodega on their own since about age 7. They go to Central Park by themselves and meet up with friends. They ride the subway independently at about age 10. I send them to the grocery store and the library. They all cook meals for the family and can bake bread and treats. I guess I’ve just always operated under the basic assumption that my kids are competent and can do whatever I need them to do.
Sometimes I wonder if this is a result of people having fewer kids, and at older ages. When you have a lot of kids, you HAVE to count on them to help with real life things like taking care of younger siblings, cooking meals, running errands, etc. One person can’t do it all for a big family. Also, in my observation as someone who grew up in a culture of young parenthood (Utah, Mormon) and now lives in a place of older parenthood (NYC), I have observed that older parents are just way more up in their kids’ business all the time. I think they think it’s good parenting to guide their kid’s every move, to narrate and “teach” at every moment. Younger parents tend to be better at just letting the kids BE. The accumulation of “over parenting” over years produces kids who are too anxious to take a single step without being guided and instructed. Honestly? I’ve often looked at these older parents and thought they’re working too hard. Ease up. Kids are wired to grow and learn pretty much on their own if just we LET THEM.
Monroe, I have been thinking the same thing. Mom of 8 here, and we know quite a few families with 4+ kids. The more kids in a family seems to equal more responsibility as well as more independence for each person. This isn’t always true, but it seems to be the case. Our kids are still relatively young (our oldest is 16), but we’ve had no problem having kids take on home duties we didn’t have to learn until much later—and both my husband and I agree that we learned many things FAR later than we should, me more than him (he’s Gen X, I’m an old millennial). We came from families of two kids and three kids respectively, and our moms did a lot. Our household of ten wouldn’t function without our kids doing a sizeable chunk.
And knowing other families like ours is huge. Most of our kids’ friends don’t have phones or have flip phones (like our oldest). They also have to do laundry, cook, clean, and provide childcare. They’re learning to be adults the way people used to do so, by having the actual experiences as children first.
Precisely because of their experiences with these things, we have confidence that they can take on other things as they get older. And they do, too. Our oldest got on a plane this summer, just after his 16th birthday, and flew halfway across the country on two flights. No help in the airport; he and we decided against using the unaccompanied minor provision the airline offered. He’d flown before; he can read; he can ask questions. We knew he’d be fine. And he was. Our 12-year-old just left with our 9-year-old; she’s running to prepare for cross-country, he’s riding a bike and timing her. I have no idea exactly where they’re going, but they do.
The Anxious Generation, Let Grow, and so many other people and organizations are doing the right thing by spotlighting generational problems and solutions related to the rise of smartphone usage and ubiquity. It would be great to see more research and writing on how demographics, family size and home life also affect kids’ independence. Keep up the good work!
We’re in Wyoming. But there are other places like this all over the US, just usually not on the coasts (as you know). I know of good places in Indiana and Missouri like ours, but there are so many. Finding a good church is key; then finding or developing a community from there. Good homeschooling communities are also great oases.
Nail on the head! 100%! So well said. Those two points are always missed in the conversation. I find the one-two punch of older parents with one child to be the worst because often the child is put on a pedestal because the parents put a lifetime of effort into getting to the place where they feel confident they can have a child, afford a child, manage a child and career, securely.
Honestly I think a sequel or pre-quel to the anxious generation could be about demographics as much as social media. I had an interesting experience having my oldest daughter as an only child (gen Zl 10 years before my other 2 daughters. Having 2 together is an entirely different experience because, as you pointed out, they HAVE to be independent or they simply wont get fed, rides, clothes, etc. I cant be in 3 places at once... so they figure it out. The irony is thats also why they have phones at age 9 & 11. But I have Troomi phones from Utah. They were like "whats this gospel app?" ...i dont know. Lets learn something new? 🤷🏽♀️😆
You are definitely on track with demographics being a major defining factor of the anxious generation. I know that from my own work that much of the generational shift in adverse effects seems to be product of intra-generational shifts in demographics amongst Gen Z rather than inter-generational shifts amongst demographics in Millennials.
Excellent. It’s so easy to do if only adults can let go. I used to take teenagers on service immersion trips to Mexico, New Orleans (after Katrina), and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. It would last one week and no smart phones were allowed. In fact, no phones were allowed at all. We would collect them and lock them up in a box. We even developed a ritual around letting the phones go. If a student needed to contact a parent, they used one of the chaperones’ phones. It worked out just fine. By the end of the week, some students didn’t ask for their phones back! They were happy to be free of them. They were happier and seem to mature as well.
These were some of the most exciting experiences of my teaching career and I know how valuable they are because other adults in the school would remark how happy and transformed the students were. Yes, it was a lot of organizing and work. Yes, there were risks because students had free and independent time, especially in Mexico where they stayed with local families who didn’t speak English.
I started such service trips in 2004 and the last one I organized was January 2020. I retired later that year. I intuitively knew what Jon Haidt proved in his research about phone-based children and teens needing to be free of such technology together, not individually and needing to engage in real world activities that provide meaning, purpose and independence. It always led to beneficial outcomes provided the students and the parents took it seriously - for the most part they did.
I would love to know any suggestions from Prof Haidt about how to handle it when you haven’t provided your child a phone but their friends come over who have one. I want my 11 year old to fill some of her afternoons after school playing with friends - and she eagerly does so. But to me, it’s a distraction and detraction when the kids spend their time in her room playing on her friends phone (although they do use some of the phone time enjoying making silly videos together, that DONT go on any social media, which seems still like engaging cooperative interaction). I’m worried if I make my house a phone free Zone, her friends won’t want to come over. Any tips or suggestions to navigate that would be so welcomed! Trying to balance the play we’re looking to promote with the phones that keep working their way in!
I can't read the Sunday Times article because it's paywalled, so what follows only applies to this post here, and the comments I've scrolled:
Mrs Aitkenhead has, basically, simply "reinvented" scouting (just compare what she did with the first scout camp in Brownsea in 1907 to see what I mean). So, it's amazing to me that scouting is not mentioned at all here.
Now for a professional assessment of a friend group of teens who didn't have smart phones or social media until around age 15 who also had a more free range childhood until then...like mine (simply because they were free range teens already when smart phones came out.)
I am all for getting kids off screens and increasing independence! But I also read articles about this topic and have to assume some of these proponents have the connections or the affluence to never fear a child services investigation.
From the article:
“The biggest highlight of all was the discovery that spraying aerosol deodorant onto the fire made it blaze ‘like crazy’.”
That should not be referred to as a “highlight”. It could certainly be a teaching experience for the teen once the parent learns of it. But I am concerned when even the parent considers it a “highlight” of the experiment. This attitude will not win over to the cause the critics with safety concerns. The time between “fun” and “life altering burns” with this activity is measured in milliseconds. Thankfully the kids merely had ill-advised fun. But this activity could have ended tragically and it would have been exceptionally avoidable. Of course teens push boundaries and make bad decisions. But playing with aerosol cans around a fire would suggest to me these kids needed more guidance from their parents before being set loose with matches. I was capable of building a fire and cooking a meal over it before their age. That early (but structured and earned) independence with fire made me cringe reading this because those kids clearly did not have the life skills yet to be trusted to manage a fire on their own. With experience and education comes a healthy respect for dangerous tools like fire.
Independence is great and necessary but it does no good for the writer’s cause to be nonchalant about teens using their independence poorly. Mistakes and bad ideas do happen with teens. But serious and completely avoidable risk taking should not be treated as a mere funny memory. This article would have likely never been published if the wind shifted and that flame flashed in one of the teens’ faces, resulting in traumatic injuries.
Perhaps many people do not worry about the impacts of a child services investigation after something goes wrong. But for many across a variety of ethnic and socioeconomic groups, a child services investigation can be emotionally and financially devastating to a family even if the parents are ultimately deemed innocent of the accusations.
I do believe kids need more independence and less screen time. But we need to emphasize that the independence must carry high expectations of responsibility to be provided or maintained. The goal is healthier children through greater independence. Only then do I think the critics and the helicopter parents will start to relent. Plenty of parents truly cannot afford to take the risk of a child services investigation if a child makes bad decisions and harms oneself or others while out of an adult’s sight.
Your point on the power wielded by Child Services (where even an investigation is a life-altering bad event) is a good one. This needs to be a reform priority in every country.
Your point on aerosols and fire is less helpful, though. My friend burned his eyebrows off when we were teens being stupid with aerosols and lighters. We all learned from that event. Trying to prevent every element of risky teen behaviour in the real world is exactly what has gotten us into the current predicament. Overprotective in real life and underprotective online. If you come down like a ton of bricks on this author for the aerosol thing, you’re sending a message to everyone of “don’t let your teens out into the real world, keep them online”. Yes, it should be a corrective event but let’s not overreact to something that every teen did in the 1970s-1990s.
I’m definitely not advocating to bubble wrap anyone. But to your point that “every teen did it in the 70s and 80s” I want to point out that back then kids weren’t less prone to injuries. Society only saw the kids that turned out fine. I had a relative working as a special education teacher back then and she had a student one time with extensive burns. She loved her students and believed in them. She was horrified by the awful name someone used to refer to that little girl. But society was not very accommodating of seriously injured children in that era. People don’t remember a lot of kids with serious injuries and disabilities from accidents because many of those children were not brought out in public as often. Public places were far less accessible and the public’s attitudes were often less accepting.
We cannot prevent every risky bad decision teens make. But we can avoid calling them a “highlight” when trying to convince critics or those on the fence to let their children have more independence. I feel safer with my children risking a snakebite playing in fields and woods than I do letting them online in many popular spaces unattended. The snakes, spiders, etc. are far more predictable creatures than internet dwelling humans. But if my kids are taking highly unnecessary risks around animals I would not think it is exciting and fun for them.
Hi Shannon, I appreciate your concern with regards to Decca's phrasing of the aerosol incident.
I personally would give Decca the benefit of the doubt in regards to her understanding of the dangers of situation as part of this exercise was to do a task that would be unsupervised, but not unfamiliar given that she notes all of the teens as having had prior camping experience. I would trust that they have been educated in fire safety.
Of course with adolescents, rules exist to be flouted. For some, the only way learn about the dangers of playing with fire is to get burnt. It is not as if the play-based childhood is without its side effects. Indeed, the return of play-based activities carries with the increase of negative outcomes associated with those activities. The double-edged sword of Safetyism is that although it will reduce the chance for kids to make poor decisions, it also reduces their ability to make good ones as well.
I’m all for everyone in general trending this way, but I also don’t think any decent parent should wait for “society” to create the right atmosphere to protect their kids. There ARE other parents who care out there; you have to find them and band together and create your own society. Our kids spend time running around in the woods with friends and cousins (all raised phoneless), swimming, lighting bonfires, building forts, etc., and they all have a blast. I fully expect they could safely camp together without adults for a few days by the time they are in high school. It’s like culture shock to spend time with other kids we know who have more tech / less freedoms. Those kids seem years younger and are shockingly irresponsible, and they whine a lot.
I'm so glad my dad took us camping. One time in the early 80s I had a Walkman with me. He calmly said, "How about you turn that off, talk to me and your brother, and listen to nature?" Great advice.
That night was so gorgeous, we took our sleeping bags out of the tent and slept under the stars, listening to the fire crackling and bubbler of water over the rocks in the creek.
My twin granddaughters, age 15, are more than willing to spend the month of July at camp without any cell phone service. My daughter says the cost is worth the benefit of knowing they can leave their phones at home.
I'm a mom of 3 girls: 8, 5, 1. No devices, no phones, no iPads, no social media. We let them watch cartoons on TV when they have TV time. We plan to avoid social media until high school & will get them non-smart phones (no data phones) in middle school. We do no activities, just free play all the time. I allow them independence as much as possible. Biking & walking around the neighborhood.
All I can say is: I want to see more of this! More teens without smartphones (and in nature!) flourishing. Bravo to the journalist/mother who had the courage to do this.
My oldest is 14, and when he is biking in our neighborhood or at a church activity, I'm tempted to wish I had a way to reach him. But then I remember that I'm building trust in him, and he is building confidence in himself, and if he can't call me every time something goes wrong, he'll build more independence, which is the point of raising children after all: to turn them into capable adults.
What a fantastic example and hard truth you're living, and setting for others! Amazing Shannon. When did you start feeling comfortable letting him go without a phone? Was it due to you learning about the harms of social media/ EMF?
None of my children have smartphones, because they don’t need one. Their lives are richer, fuller, and happier because of that decision. They enjoy doing real things in the real world: reading physical books, drawing, painting, baking, cooking, gardening, camping, biking, swimming, hiking, knitting, embroidering, etc. Hopefully that list continues to grow.
My husband and I didn’t decide to not give our children phones out of fear— it was because of what we *wanted* them to experience. Real life is better than online life, every time.
Thank you for sharing all that Shannon. We need more parents like you - I'm sure you'll inspire others to take action. Life actually improves without a smartphone! Thank you for your kind reply.
Since apparently Substack’s blocking feature isn’t like Twitter (and so I still have to see your replies going on about EMF on every one of these threads even though I blocked you long ago), I’ll actually post out loud here and ask you to please stop. We’re trying to build a real movement around something — phone-based childhood — that is now definitively proven to cause harm to children. This movement is now building momentum in the real world for government and others to take action and I think we’re close to a tipping point.
I’m a firm believer in movements jettisoning their fringes in order to have more effective results in the real world. Tying the hundred-year-old woo-woo about non-ionizing radiation to this movement does nothing but harm it. Please, just stop posting about it.
"Tying the hundred-year-old woo-woo about non-ionizing radiation..."
There will never be any scientific studies which prove wireless technology is safe, because it is not safe. There are thousands of studies that show it causes harm. But we don't even need scientific studies because more and more people are getting sick, including children exposed to wifi enabled schools.
Yuri Grigoriev who helped with the cleanup of the Chernobyl disaster said non-ionising radiation is WORSE than ionising radiation. That argument is as unscientific as claiming 'trench foot' isn't a real condition because only boiling water can cause 1st degree burns.
EMF denialism (for that is what it is) is not serving anybody's interests. The fact is the wireless industry is already collapsing anyway, even with a culture of denialism. Court cases are being won. Wifi is getting banned from public spaces (including schools) on health grounds. Insurers won't touch it with a barge pole. The industry warns shareholders to expect a tsunami of health related lawsuits in the near future. Trump and Gates (who both promote the tech) have blocked planning for new 5G infrastructure near their homes. Studies show insect and bird populations are being decimated by microwave pollution (and these studies specifically rule out 'climate change' and habitat loss). Millions of people are so sick from these toxic gadgets they have to trash them, move to rural areas, live in camper vans or even their cars.
If the media didn't ACTIVELY censor all of this health and environmental carnage then wireless tech would already be consigned to the 'great dumpster of stupid technologies' along with asbestos and radioactive face cream.
The media's censorship of this topic is really the only thing propping up the industry right now.
In an age when we are supposed to value 'public health' and 'environmental responsibility' there is no excuse for anyone to hand wave this topic away. To dismiss the harms it is causing is immoral. We have a responsibility to future generations and all life on this fragile planet to not microwave everything to death for the sake of a bunch of social media apps which are giving everyone mental health issues anyway.
The 'oh but we must not say anything controversial because it will harm our cause' argument is nonsensical. NOT microwaving the planet is the normal, sane, sensible, scientific, grown up thing to do. Deploying hundred of thousands of radiation towers, satellites and routers and microwaving every square inch of the planet and thinking you can somehow get away with it is the 'fringe' or 'woo woo' position. Put some cress seeds in front of a wifi router and they will either not grow or grow sideways to get away. There's your science. An 8 year old can prove it is toxic to life.
This technology should never have been deployed to begin with... but it has. There is no 'reducing screen time' or 'minimising usage'. It all has to go. We have to revert back to wired technology again.
Children and young people now have a golden opportunity to REJECT a technology outright, for the sake of all life on this planet. This is more than a mere responsibility as custodians of this planet, it is a delight. Actively choosing not to pollute the world is a delight, and it is the opposite of empty, online social media virtue signalling about imaginary oppression or fake environmental issues.
Young people are naturally idealistic and full of imagination. They love to get involved in a cause bigger than them. Why are you so keen to deny them this opportunity?
EMF sickness is not going away, it's going to have to be addressed soon, even if that means rebranding it as 'bird flu'. Is that what you want?
https://odysee.com/@CoronaStudies:3/CS-BLINDED-BY-TV:c
Let's collaborate?
Geoff, please message me offline if you'd like - info@thepowercouple.ca
My point is that EMF is the primary danger, and way that kids get addicted in the first place. Then social media keeps them hooked.
Are you aware of how safety limits set on non-ionizing radiation aren't safe at all?
Are you aware that blue light is an EMF, and the dangers behind light?
https://romanshapoval.substack.com/p/safetymyth
I hope that this experiment will serve to inspire and be replicated by families who recognize the need for a "new normal". It was interesting to note that it was the adults who were quick to try and put limits and oberservation on the camping trip, "The editor declared any campfire a “no-no.” The lawyer wanted to GPS the teens and send a chaperone to shadow them."
True independence cannot flourish if we remove all risks.
Switzerland is a place where personal responsibility is encouraged and expected. One place where this contrast is apparent is in the public swimming pools. In Canada a pool of approx 25 by 15 meters is observed by a minimum of six to eight lifeguards who frequently count heads, berate youths who summersault into the water, and stop and running or rough play, and control the timing of going down the slides. In contrast the public swimming pool we visit each summer in my hometown has three pools (25 by 25; 50 by 25; and 10 by 25 meters), diving boards, a climbing wall, and waterslides. How many lifeguards? Two to three. Swimmers are allowed to run, dive in any which way they like, and wait of their own accord at diving boards and slides.
Public pools are only one example of a princliple that permeates the culture. This "lack of supervision" does not result in more accidents, and instead produces citizens of independence and self-responsibility. Not tracking our children or constantly checking in on them and instead spending time listening to the stories they tell us about their day, can be a simple first step in a direction of independence.
In defense of The Sunday Times, I would say it is certainly reasonable for them to want to eschew any possible culpability from a disastrous outcome. Suppose there did end up being an incident on the A-road between a driver and the teens, the firestorm on the The Times would be quite severe.
Although in relation to your point about supervision, indeed unsupervised periods are essential for adolescents to develop into adults. Personal development is quite difficult without any personal time. The Hawthorne effect is apt as ever.
However, saying that 'This "lack of supervision" does not result in more accidents, and instead produces citizens of independence and self-responsibility.' underscores the split problem with supervision. Safetyism has largely been in regards to the physical realm while many of these mental health issues amongst the youth stem from years of unsupervised conduct in digital realm. The lack of supervision in regards to the child's usage of social media and internet is what has allowed its most pernicious outcomes to flourish.
Who made sure none of the adults cheat/supervised?
No one. Who took the pix?
The "wild camping trip" is definitely an upsell given that the experience was tantamount to sleeping in a backyard overnight. I would imagine that there were adults on call in the house if disaster were to transpire. Having a nearby lavatory also simplifies the logistics of such a camping trip.
Obviously an adult took the photos, but they need not have been on-site all the time to do so; The portraits and some of the staged candid shots were done in London, while the camping photos were probably taken from periodic check-ins rather than from tailing the kids. I surely don't think any adults were sleeping in the tent to monitor them.
Newer Light Phones have cameras. Also, cameras that aren't internet machines exist.
The photos were each credited as "Dean Belcher for the Sunday Times Magazine".
Dr. Haidt, Lenore, et al
What about Love? Who considers that Maria Von Trapp was forced to face her problems and ...
FEAR OF CAPTAIN BECAME LOVE OF CAPTAIN
FEAR OF 7 MOTHERLESS KIDS BECAME LOVE OF 7 MOTHERLESS KIDS
In high school fear of heights became LOVE OF CLIMBING IN THE RAFTERS ABOVE THE STAGE:
psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-therapy/200901/seven-questions-david-d-burns
2.
Who considers that Purdue Pharma subverted Ms.FDR("Do one thing every day that scares you") and was thus inspired by
GETTING AMERICANS ADDICTED TO VALIUM...to launch...
GETTING AMERICANS ADDICTED TO OPIOIDS... STILL KILLING BUT A MILLION DEAD?
...aka "Who considers that GULLIBILITY, PLACEBO, etc are avoided by (abundant?) Exposure?
I'm guessing Switzerland doesn't have armies of trial lawyers willing to take a case on a contingency fee?
It is not a litigious country, and the type of lawsuits that plague the US are not common there.
Great point on the public pools Ruth. The best way to build resilience is at the level of the individual - trust begets trust.
I love this movement. I love Haidt’s work and Skenazy’s. But man, that video about the Let Grow Project is wild. It’s sad that we’ve come to a point where we have to consciously encourage kids (and their parents) to just play in the park or walk home from school unsupervised. To cook a meal? To do laundry? These are basic household tasks that kids should have been doing all along. Listening to the parents in the video, it’s clear that they are the problem. I just…I don’t know. I’m a mom of four kids in NYC. They’ve been skipping over to the bodega on their own since about age 7. They go to Central Park by themselves and meet up with friends. They ride the subway independently at about age 10. I send them to the grocery store and the library. They all cook meals for the family and can bake bread and treats. I guess I’ve just always operated under the basic assumption that my kids are competent and can do whatever I need them to do.
Sometimes I wonder if this is a result of people having fewer kids, and at older ages. When you have a lot of kids, you HAVE to count on them to help with real life things like taking care of younger siblings, cooking meals, running errands, etc. One person can’t do it all for a big family. Also, in my observation as someone who grew up in a culture of young parenthood (Utah, Mormon) and now lives in a place of older parenthood (NYC), I have observed that older parents are just way more up in their kids’ business all the time. I think they think it’s good parenting to guide their kid’s every move, to narrate and “teach” at every moment. Younger parents tend to be better at just letting the kids BE. The accumulation of “over parenting” over years produces kids who are too anxious to take a single step without being guided and instructed. Honestly? I’ve often looked at these older parents and thought they’re working too hard. Ease up. Kids are wired to grow and learn pretty much on their own if just we LET THEM.
Monroe, I have been thinking the same thing. Mom of 8 here, and we know quite a few families with 4+ kids. The more kids in a family seems to equal more responsibility as well as more independence for each person. This isn’t always true, but it seems to be the case. Our kids are still relatively young (our oldest is 16), but we’ve had no problem having kids take on home duties we didn’t have to learn until much later—and both my husband and I agree that we learned many things FAR later than we should, me more than him (he’s Gen X, I’m an old millennial). We came from families of two kids and three kids respectively, and our moms did a lot. Our household of ten wouldn’t function without our kids doing a sizeable chunk.
And knowing other families like ours is huge. Most of our kids’ friends don’t have phones or have flip phones (like our oldest). They also have to do laundry, cook, clean, and provide childcare. They’re learning to be adults the way people used to do so, by having the actual experiences as children first.
Precisely because of their experiences with these things, we have confidence that they can take on other things as they get older. And they do, too. Our oldest got on a plane this summer, just after his 16th birthday, and flew halfway across the country on two flights. No help in the airport; he and we decided against using the unaccompanied minor provision the airline offered. He’d flown before; he can read; he can ask questions. We knew he’d be fine. And he was. Our 12-year-old just left with our 9-year-old; she’s running to prepare for cross-country, he’s riding a bike and timing her. I have no idea exactly where they’re going, but they do.
The Anxious Generation, Let Grow, and so many other people and organizations are doing the right thing by spotlighting generational problems and solutions related to the rise of smartphone usage and ubiquity. It would be great to see more research and writing on how demographics, family size and home life also affect kids’ independence. Keep up the good work!
Where do you reside if I may inquire ☺️ I m in a desperate search for a healthy community for our family..
We’re in Wyoming. But there are other places like this all over the US, just usually not on the coasts (as you know). I know of good places in Indiana and Missouri like ours, but there are so many. Finding a good church is key; then finding or developing a community from there. Good homeschooling communities are also great oases.
Nail on the head! 100%! So well said. Those two points are always missed in the conversation. I find the one-two punch of older parents with one child to be the worst because often the child is put on a pedestal because the parents put a lifetime of effort into getting to the place where they feel confident they can have a child, afford a child, manage a child and career, securely.
Honestly I think a sequel or pre-quel to the anxious generation could be about demographics as much as social media. I had an interesting experience having my oldest daughter as an only child (gen Zl 10 years before my other 2 daughters. Having 2 together is an entirely different experience because, as you pointed out, they HAVE to be independent or they simply wont get fed, rides, clothes, etc. I cant be in 3 places at once... so they figure it out. The irony is thats also why they have phones at age 9 & 11. But I have Troomi phones from Utah. They were like "whats this gospel app?" ...i dont know. Lets learn something new? 🤷🏽♀️😆
You are definitely on track with demographics being a major defining factor of the anxious generation. I know that from my own work that much of the generational shift in adverse effects seems to be product of intra-generational shifts in demographics amongst Gen Z rather than inter-generational shifts amongst demographics in Millennials.
Let's collaborate?
This made me a little weepy! Amazing experience that should be normal.
Totally agree. It’s finding and supporting the right people to lead such experiences. Of course, leadership has to see the value in them.
Excellent. It’s so easy to do if only adults can let go. I used to take teenagers on service immersion trips to Mexico, New Orleans (after Katrina), and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. It would last one week and no smart phones were allowed. In fact, no phones were allowed at all. We would collect them and lock them up in a box. We even developed a ritual around letting the phones go. If a student needed to contact a parent, they used one of the chaperones’ phones. It worked out just fine. By the end of the week, some students didn’t ask for their phones back! They were happy to be free of them. They were happier and seem to mature as well.
These were some of the most exciting experiences of my teaching career and I know how valuable they are because other adults in the school would remark how happy and transformed the students were. Yes, it was a lot of organizing and work. Yes, there were risks because students had free and independent time, especially in Mexico where they stayed with local families who didn’t speak English.
I started such service trips in 2004 and the last one I organized was January 2020. I retired later that year. I intuitively knew what Jon Haidt proved in his research about phone-based children and teens needing to be free of such technology together, not individually and needing to engage in real world activities that provide meaning, purpose and independence. It always led to beneficial outcomes provided the students and the parents took it seriously - for the most part they did.
We need you to be back, RJ! or people like you! 🙏🏻
Thank you. It was difficult to leave and I so miss the service experiences. They worked wonders every time.
Let's collaborate?
Not sure how we could collaborate. What are you thinking?
I would love to know any suggestions from Prof Haidt about how to handle it when you haven’t provided your child a phone but their friends come over who have one. I want my 11 year old to fill some of her afternoons after school playing with friends - and she eagerly does so. But to me, it’s a distraction and detraction when the kids spend their time in her room playing on her friends phone (although they do use some of the phone time enjoying making silly videos together, that DONT go on any social media, which seems still like engaging cooperative interaction). I’m worried if I make my house a phone free Zone, her friends won’t want to come over. Any tips or suggestions to navigate that would be so welcomed! Trying to balance the play we’re looking to promote with the phones that keep working their way in!
https://katherinemartinko.substack.com/p/how-to-handle-other-kids-with-phones
I can't read the Sunday Times article because it's paywalled, so what follows only applies to this post here, and the comments I've scrolled:
Mrs Aitkenhead has, basically, simply "reinvented" scouting (just compare what she did with the first scout camp in Brownsea in 1907 to see what I mean). So, it's amazing to me that scouting is not mentioned at all here.
Just as an oyster turns a grain of sand into a pearl, so does hardship allow a person to grow.
——Sense and Sensibility (written by Jane Austen)
Now for a professional assessment of a friend group of teens who didn't have smart phones or social media until around age 15 who also had a more free range childhood until then...like mine (simply because they were free range teens already when smart phones came out.)
I am all for getting kids off screens and increasing independence! But I also read articles about this topic and have to assume some of these proponents have the connections or the affluence to never fear a child services investigation.
From the article:
“The biggest highlight of all was the discovery that spraying aerosol deodorant onto the fire made it blaze ‘like crazy’.”
That should not be referred to as a “highlight”. It could certainly be a teaching experience for the teen once the parent learns of it. But I am concerned when even the parent considers it a “highlight” of the experiment. This attitude will not win over to the cause the critics with safety concerns. The time between “fun” and “life altering burns” with this activity is measured in milliseconds. Thankfully the kids merely had ill-advised fun. But this activity could have ended tragically and it would have been exceptionally avoidable. Of course teens push boundaries and make bad decisions. But playing with aerosol cans around a fire would suggest to me these kids needed more guidance from their parents before being set loose with matches. I was capable of building a fire and cooking a meal over it before their age. That early (but structured and earned) independence with fire made me cringe reading this because those kids clearly did not have the life skills yet to be trusted to manage a fire on their own. With experience and education comes a healthy respect for dangerous tools like fire.
Independence is great and necessary but it does no good for the writer’s cause to be nonchalant about teens using their independence poorly. Mistakes and bad ideas do happen with teens. But serious and completely avoidable risk taking should not be treated as a mere funny memory. This article would have likely never been published if the wind shifted and that flame flashed in one of the teens’ faces, resulting in traumatic injuries.
Perhaps many people do not worry about the impacts of a child services investigation after something goes wrong. But for many across a variety of ethnic and socioeconomic groups, a child services investigation can be emotionally and financially devastating to a family even if the parents are ultimately deemed innocent of the accusations.
I do believe kids need more independence and less screen time. But we need to emphasize that the independence must carry high expectations of responsibility to be provided or maintained. The goal is healthier children through greater independence. Only then do I think the critics and the helicopter parents will start to relent. Plenty of parents truly cannot afford to take the risk of a child services investigation if a child makes bad decisions and harms oneself or others while out of an adult’s sight.
Your point on the power wielded by Child Services (where even an investigation is a life-altering bad event) is a good one. This needs to be a reform priority in every country.
Your point on aerosols and fire is less helpful, though. My friend burned his eyebrows off when we were teens being stupid with aerosols and lighters. We all learned from that event. Trying to prevent every element of risky teen behaviour in the real world is exactly what has gotten us into the current predicament. Overprotective in real life and underprotective online. If you come down like a ton of bricks on this author for the aerosol thing, you’re sending a message to everyone of “don’t let your teens out into the real world, keep them online”. Yes, it should be a corrective event but let’s not overreact to something that every teen did in the 1970s-1990s.
I’m definitely not advocating to bubble wrap anyone. But to your point that “every teen did it in the 70s and 80s” I want to point out that back then kids weren’t less prone to injuries. Society only saw the kids that turned out fine. I had a relative working as a special education teacher back then and she had a student one time with extensive burns. She loved her students and believed in them. She was horrified by the awful name someone used to refer to that little girl. But society was not very accommodating of seriously injured children in that era. People don’t remember a lot of kids with serious injuries and disabilities from accidents because many of those children were not brought out in public as often. Public places were far less accessible and the public’s attitudes were often less accepting.
We cannot prevent every risky bad decision teens make. But we can avoid calling them a “highlight” when trying to convince critics or those on the fence to let their children have more independence. I feel safer with my children risking a snakebite playing in fields and woods than I do letting them online in many popular spaces unattended. The snakes, spiders, etc. are far more predictable creatures than internet dwelling humans. But if my kids are taking highly unnecessary risks around animals I would not think it is exciting and fun for them.
Hi Shannon, I appreciate your concern with regards to Decca's phrasing of the aerosol incident.
I personally would give Decca the benefit of the doubt in regards to her understanding of the dangers of situation as part of this exercise was to do a task that would be unsupervised, but not unfamiliar given that she notes all of the teens as having had prior camping experience. I would trust that they have been educated in fire safety.
Of course with adolescents, rules exist to be flouted. For some, the only way learn about the dangers of playing with fire is to get burnt. It is not as if the play-based childhood is without its side effects. Indeed, the return of play-based activities carries with the increase of negative outcomes associated with those activities. The double-edged sword of Safetyism is that although it will reduce the chance for kids to make poor decisions, it also reduces their ability to make good ones as well.
Adults quake, kids flourish.
Shocked!!
I’m all for everyone in general trending this way, but I also don’t think any decent parent should wait for “society” to create the right atmosphere to protect their kids. There ARE other parents who care out there; you have to find them and band together and create your own society. Our kids spend time running around in the woods with friends and cousins (all raised phoneless), swimming, lighting bonfires, building forts, etc., and they all have a blast. I fully expect they could safely camp together without adults for a few days by the time they are in high school. It’s like culture shock to spend time with other kids we know who have more tech / less freedoms. Those kids seem years younger and are shockingly irresponsible, and they whine a lot.
I'm so glad my dad took us camping. One time in the early 80s I had a Walkman with me. He calmly said, "How about you turn that off, talk to me and your brother, and listen to nature?" Great advice.
That night was so gorgeous, we took our sleeping bags out of the tent and slept under the stars, listening to the fire crackling and bubbler of water over the rocks in the creek.
I wish all children could experience this.
My twin granddaughters, age 15, are more than willing to spend the month of July at camp without any cell phone service. My daughter says the cost is worth the benefit of knowing they can leave their phones at home.
Very good. We need more of this.
I'm a mom of 3 girls: 8, 5, 1. No devices, no phones, no iPads, no social media. We let them watch cartoons on TV when they have TV time. We plan to avoid social media until high school & will get them non-smart phones (no data phones) in middle school. We do no activities, just free play all the time. I allow them independence as much as possible. Biking & walking around the neighborhood.
https://www.waituntil8th.org/
Five pages of waivers? Sounds like the "grownups" need some debugging too.