Screen overuse is a major problem. Give your kids a real childhood and get them out into the great outdoors.
I often speak to parent audiences in school settings about screen addiction warning signs and prevention. Recently on my way to the auditorium to give a parent talk I found myself wondering the hallways of a local public elementary school in the K2 halls. I have not been in a grade school in a long time since my youngest child is already in high school.
When I was going through the halls, I thought about how my kids were little. There were similarities: the odor of glue and crayons and little small backpacks and cubbies but I also started to see differences. I even popped my head into a classroom and expected to see those wee desks that had seats built-in.But they weren’t there. Instead, the classrooms had strange hammocks and swinging chairs hanging from the ceiling that looked like cocoons. Instead of little chairs at the desks, they had big balls and wobble chairs that I was told were for “active sitting.” My escort, Kathy, the technology teacher, explained. “Since kids spend so much time indoors on screens, they are entering school lacking the core physical strength to help them sit in a chair and learn.”
Classrooms accommodate kids with gross and fine motor sensory deficiencies.
Everything in the classroom was designed to accommodate kids with gross and fine motor sensory deficiencies. Kathy explained these tools are necessary to accomplish the catch-up work needed to build kids’ core strength. There were floor surfers so kids could slide on their bellies across the room, vestibular wedges, a balance disk, and more.
“This is the regular classroom. This is standard for our younger students,” the teacher said.
Down the hallway, there were art projects strangely different from those I remembered. Very few were made by hand. Instead, they were photos printed from a digital printer, sloppily cut out, and pasted on poster boards.
“Kids do digital art these days. They love the computer,“ Kathy explained.
I did get a glimpse of a few hand-drawn pieces outside the door of the first-grade classroom. Kathy said that this particular teacher dislikes using technology in her classroom. Seeing something a little more familiar was refreshing, but the drawings weren’t the trees, families, and flowers one might expect from young children. Where was the kid art? No houses, no birds or rainbows, and the few families drawn had no detailed faces. Do you remember the wonderful drawing your child brought home on Mother’s Day with exaggerated eyelashes and big earrings? None of those either.
As I continued through the building, I asked about a strange “dirt” line along the entire length of the hallway at waist level. Kathy explained: “When the children walk in single file, they extend their arms to touch the wall so they can get their bearings and not fall over. Their balance is off because their core is weak; they don’t get enough time outside in real physical play.”
Kids’ balance is off in more ways than one.
I began to unravel this elementary school mystery when I got home and called Cris Rowan, a pediatric occupational therapist. She explained that the average child spends more time on a screen than asleep. What Richard Louv in his book Last Child in the Woods describes as nature deficit disorder is befalling them.
Rowan elaborated, human beings have two sensorimotor systems, which is triggered by movement one is the vestibular system inside our brain (usually referred to as inner-ear) and the proprioceptive system within muscles. These two systems integrate with the visual system to provide core stability, motor coordination, and balance. Children who don’t move enough don’t fully develop these essential sensorimotor systems resulting in poor core stability, coordination, and balance with the consequent need to reach out to use the wall for stability.”
Nature stimulates our senses.
Rowan said nature ignites the imagination in ways a screen never could. Nature appeals to our senses: sight, sound, touch, smell, even taste in the optimal proportion to which kids must be exposed in order to grow properly. Kids are sensitive and anxious when they lack the exposure to these stimuli. I got to know that one of the factors that influenced sensory deficiency is due to lack of natural experiences and that brain development is influenced by physical strength. Who knew that holding crayons and learning to read were so dependent on how much time a child spends on the playground? It hit me just how much screen time is robbing our youth of necessary movement and physical exercise. With an increase in sedentary screen time comes attention and learning problems. It made so much sense now.
Our parents knew nothing about children’s sensory or critical core strength needs. Why did we not require cocoon swings, wobble chairs, and balance boards? Why were we drawing pictures of real human faces and trees and birds? Therefore, we played outside in the dirt growing up because nature was our classroom and we interacted face to face and were social in that nature.
Provide your children with the childhood they deserve and get them outdoors.
Imaginations develop outside.
We would know stuff only a classroom did not teach. As an example, my brother and I utilized our imaginations as well as our innovative skills to sufficiently construct a two-story tree home-complete with a trap door-in the avocado tree in our backyard. It was decent where we could go to sleep. Sometimes, we became businessmen, selling avocados to the neighbor and investing our earnings in candy from the drug store.
Gross and fine motor skills develop outside.
We counted splinters, cuts, and skinned knees as badges of honor. Most days, we hung from trees and climbed Mr. Heart’s very tall brick wall (it was only five feet tall, but seemed like 10 feet to us). It came naturally for us to see the backyard as our workplace. Furthermore, we learned to use a hammer, a shovel, and a saw and we rarely complained that we were bored. I do not recall our parents being involved in our outdoor adventures. We felt independent, rode our bikes everywhere, and our parents didn’t track us.
Brains develop outside.
Our minds were enhanced and we made improvements on our imaginations and brain power through working hard as my brother and I did. We learned to have fun, to plan and new ideas to test. Problems were solved and we came up with our own inventions whilst we also learned how things worked physically in the process. We used to do a performance Wild Wild West. I persuaded my brother that we should put a zip line between the tree house and the real house. It was a lesson of gravity and speed and physics.
Together we created huge holes in the backyard (where we could use as temporary swimming pools) and took our dog, Daisy, out to walk up and down the street two times a day, the good weather and the bad weather. Every day we obtained plenty of vitamin D (and dirt). Above and beyond all this was space, and, above all, time to rest and think. The television examined only when the weather outside was rainy, and it took 30 minutes at a time two or three times per week.
My brother and I were allowed to spend all day in the streets till the street lights appeared, we had dinner as a family and went to bed at night to sleep eight hours. We constructed numerous memories as the monarchs of our kingdom in the backyard.
School was fun.
School helped us develop physically.
Recess was our favorite period of the day. We got our energy out and then focused on math. Teachers knew that kids who moved a lot learned a lot. We never sat for hours in front of a screen–and neither did our peers.
School grew our emotional health.
Our emotional health grew alongside our physical strength. We developed confidence and figured out who we were as we became gritty and worked hard. Our identity was based on what our family valued, what we learned, and what we accomplished, not the approval and influence of social media peers or virtual influencers.
School helped us develop our social skills.
We weren’t anxious, we were social. There were no smartphones at lunch, and there was plenty of time to build friendships. Our emotional intelligence grew as we spent in-person time with a few close friends at home and a few more at school. Science would eventually explain why quality is better than quantity when it comes to building friendships.
We were practicing our executive function skills as we worked through awkward conversations with peers without being able to text mom for help or sympathy. We learned to compromise and cooperate and communicate. And the mean girls only got to be mean till three o’clock, then everyone went home for a break and a good night’s sleep.
We shared our feelings with close friends in confidence or by writing them down in the diary we kept under the bed, not on public platforms. Our family stories and secret handshakes were kept private, too, making them more valuable.
Kids are lost in a virtual bubble. Give your kids a real childhood.
Imagine growing up in today’s world without learning to climb trees, build forts, and balance your favorite book, bubblegum, and baby dolls as you climb up to the treehouse. Imagine never feeling the soft but sometimes itchy grass on your bare feet and the feeling of that same grass when it gets wet and slippery as you run through the sprinklers. The sun, mud, and made-up games in the backyard—the average child is missing out on all that today. They are living in a physically sterile and emotionally toxic virtual bubble instead.
Kids today are out of balance and stressed. They are empty and depressed because their lives are void of nature and the most wonderful parts of being a child. What will they tell their children they did when they were children?
How to fill the void?
Today’s kids are starving, empty, and missing out. The only way to fix the problem is to replace the volume of hours spent on screens with the rich benefits of nature, in-person relationships, and purposeful downtime. Remove the toxic screens from our kids’ lives, and replace them with time spent in nature.
The best antidote for screen overuse is to play outside. Give your kids a real childhood.
Removing screens is easier than you think. For younger kids, a few weeks of a new low-screen time routine will reset their brains. It will be more challenging for older teens with brains that the screen culture has already shaped, but it is possible. I’ve seen it happen many times.
To start, try to gather one or two like-minded families and resolve to make a change together. The best place to begin is with one completely screen-free week. Then progress to a month and keep going one step at a time. When toxic screens are removed as an option, kids will be forced to go outside and explore like they’re supposed to. Will they complain at first? Absolutely. But they will also get bored, get creative, and have their own fun. They deserve the opportunity to experience the freedom that the natural world brings.
Aside from stimulating kids’ creativity, imagination, and senses, nature is also a source of comfort. Kids with high levels of screen time are anxious and stressed—nature is the perfect balm for their anxiety. Research in Canada shows that experiences in nature can even treat ADHD. Natural experiences also lower stress levels and decrease blood pressure.
Kids Need the Great Outdoors
It’s hard for kids to be in nature and not move. Outdoor time helps children expend energy and calm down. If they don’t expend their energy, it turns into stress. Proper exercise doesn’t exhaust you; it keeps you healthy and relaxed. And if you’re wondering why kids can’t use screen-based games to relax, it’s because screen-based activities aren’t relaxing. Ask any adult who tries to use Facebook as a relaxation technique: It overstimulates the brain and only increases stress and anxiety.
One of our most important jobs as parents is to take a long view of our kids’ lives because children (even teens) aren’t mature enough to do that themselves. Ask your children what their favorite backyard memories are. If they don’t have any, today is the day to start creating some.
7 Warning Signs Your Child has a Screen Dependency
- Screen activities are the only thing that puts your child in a good mood.
- Your child is unhappy when forced to unplug.
- Their screen use is increasing over time.
- Screen time is the only thing that motivates your child.
- Your child sneaks around to use screens and lies about their use.
- Your child experiences an increase in anxiety and stress.
- Screen use interferes with family activities, friendships, or school.
For more on this, listen to the following podcast: Foundations are the key to your child’s success with Cris Rowan
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