When Jonathan Haidt’s, The Anxious Generation appeared, I had mixed thoughts and strong feelings. So intense was my reaction I half-jokingly told my friends that I needed therapy to unpack it all. Not so much his message. To me, it makes sense that what kids spend most of their time doing will influence them. My frustration lies in Telling parents what to do about tech issues. It drives me nuts because it’s downright ineffective.
Since a wide range of variables will affect choices, attitudes, and behaviors, books are limited in how much they can truly help parents make meaningful changes. Tech issues (and most parenting challenges today) are too personalized, unique and complex. Distinct variables abound: such as the child’s or teen’s maturity level; the parental values in place and in action; the parents’ economic means and stress levels; the kids’ overall physical health, their love (or abhorrence) of learning; the presence or absence of a supportive adult and peer community; the time families spend together with tech and without tech and what they do during both times. To name a few. If we want parents to help kids grow up using screens and social media wisely, we have to take into account a multitude of variables within the complex system. That notion led me from being a parenting educator to becoming a parent coach.
I want to be clear: Books such as The Anxious Generation can be helpful. But we can’t expect a book, any book, mine included, to effect significant, sustainable changes for most. Sure, some individuals will benefit. And the conversations spurred by such a popular book gets important issues out in the open. But at the end of the day, after reading the book, most parents are left without specific guidance for their unique, complex situation. Like everything else, the telling strategy has its place for sure—I want my doctor to tell me directly what the heart stress test results mean, but I may need a personal trainer to help me with increasing my aerobic capacity.
Take 2 of Haidt’s 4 key points:
No smartphones for kids before high school — give them only flip phones in middle school.
No social media before age 16.
Most parents I know, and work with, would want to implement these limits. But in my experience, most flounder and lack confidence and conviction on HOW to get there. How in the world in this society could this possibly be accomplished and still keep my kids talking to me?
In my book, Parenting Well in a Media Age: Keeping Our Kids Human, I described the tech world as an “industry-generated culture.” In a nutshell, what I meant by that: The tech industry significantly influences the values and norms of what is important for individuals to do in order to be a participant in society. The tech industry gives “signifying systems” that we as a collective have come to know as normal for how best to live in current society. This re-arranges parental decisions. Through no fault of parents, of course, they follow what is prescribed by the larger society as a way to belong and feel relevant, as way to help their kids be accepted by the mainstream, too.
The industry-generated culture determines what is normal for and expected of our children. Gone are the days when the tribe agreed on what is normal and acceptable or the elders put forth societal rules. This indigenous upbringing meant that the people created their norms for living and being—not mass media, not social media, and certainly not mediated experiences. Direct experiences in a three-dimension reality, not a two-dimensional one, proved to be the educational ones—where the people learned and grew from exploration, invention, and real-world feedback. I termed this the “personally-generated culture” and I called for communities of parents to get together and make the rules they want around screens and kids. Start their own village and expand it.
Today we can find pockets of dissenters willing to be outliers. Even some schools decided to go against the grain and ban cell phones. No one should be surprised by the positives seen in the kids such as increased enthusiasm for learning, more focus, healthier socialization, and a kinder school atmosphere. Yet many are surprised, even dumfounded—which goes to show just how the industry culture can abnormalize what used to be normal. Many don’t even recognize that our surprise is an abnormal reaction to what would naturally be expected! Hopefully these few schools will lead the way for many more to follow. And to its credit, The Anxious Generation has spurred momentum in that direction.
So how do we help parents make meaningful change when they feel adrift 24/7 battling their kids every step of the way?
Luckily 20 years ago, I had a huge a-ha moment, realizing that behavioral changes, along with making tough decisions and sticking to them are all more effectively accomplished using a relational approach based on compassion, non-judgment and curious inquiry, especially in a complex tech society that continues to convolute our essential humanness. As a result, I started the Parent Coaching Institute (PCI) and parent coaching.
In my research for PCI’s coaching model, I learned important distinctions between a telling strategy vs. a transformative one—and by transformative, I mean applying something that will cause a deep change, mostly positive, mostly wanted, and importantly, mostly sustainable. I learned about this from the world of business. PCI’s 20-year track record shows that our coaching offers new possibilities and fresh approaches. Usually, a deep change occurs. Parents appreciate that because during their coaching experience with a PCI coach, their parenting shifts and they see their kids flourish before their very eyes.
Intuitively I had always balked at the telling strategy. As a mom, a teacher and as a parent educator, I saw first-hand the limitations of a telling strategy to move children and adults to change. Now, that’s not to say I and my husband didn’t tell our kids what to do. We did. My husband, though, taught me the value of asking questions, even when they were very young: “When we cross the street, do you want to hold my hand or should I hold yours?” As they grew, an inquiry stance morphed rule-based compliance into authentic cooperation as we stayed curious, asking questions to understand their perspectives. When they felt heard and unjudged, they naturally gravitated to what we wanted them to do!
I used inquiry-based learning in the classroom and found it energizing and engaging—not only for my students, but for me, too. And I radically resisted giving parents a specific game plan. After my workshops parents lined up out the door to ask questions about their particular situation. I did my best. Mostly I asked questions. In that brief amount of time, I couldn’t possibly learn enough to help with any meaningful solutions. While I completely understand the allure of the quick fix, I also know it usually doesn’t work.
Just like many tech elite make sure their kids go to Waldorf schools, these folks also have a pulse on how people change. (Of course, they do!) Fortunately, Robert Quinn, Distinguished Professor of Organizational Behavior, does as well. His trilogy of books on deep change has been particularly useful in helping me understand why we humans can ignore something someone tells us, even when we know it is for our own good. In Change the World: How Ordinary People Can Accomplish Extraordinary Results, Quinn uses the telling strategy (!) to explain the limitations of the telling strategy to help people change:
“The telling strategy assumes that people are guided by reason. If they decide it is in their best interest to change, they will gladly do so. Further, it is reasoned that any resistance to change could only be the product of ignorance or superstition. To counter that resistance, the change agent simply needs to persuade people or educate them to the truth. Their resistance should then resolve. Unfortunately, this strategy does not work…. The telling strategy has a narrow, cognitive view of human systems. It fails to incorporate values, attitudes, and feelings. Although people may understand why they should change, they are often not willing to make the painful changes inherent in many complex situations.” (p.10)
He goes on to provide a guide to transformative strategies that consist of eight principles, synthesized from decades of research. I integrated these principles into PCI’s parent coach training program.
A transformative process usually begins with clarification of purpose. And according to change expert, Robert Fritz, clarification of purpose makes a fundamental meaningful choice—a decision to live committed to some aspect of our own highest potential.
For me a fundamental choice to help parents make significant changes to support their children’s healthy development would be to answer:
How do we define what is meaningful and what is essentially human? Do we even want to?
I hope we, as individuals and as a collective, can answer those questions before the robots do it for us.
Copyright, Gloria DeGaetano, 2024. All rights reserved.