Every crisis in society has a root cause, a beginning, a 'why' if you will. This cell-phone crisis I believe started many many years ago...when we stopped keeping score at little league sports games, when everyone started getting trophies just because we didn't want anyone to be left out.
This crisis of children feeling suicidal and parents just handing this powerful devices into hands of children who are not even tall enough to reach the top shelf in the pantry isn't because of the device itself. It's us. The parents.
A month ago I wrote a blog post about Aspen and my experience in taking her out of junior high to homeschool her. This was my final paragraph "The inspiration for this post comes from the things I have seen from Collin Kartchner share on his Instagram stories. Society is failing. We as parents are failing our children. We are failing them because we care too much about what the world thinks. We are failing them because we are not intentionally parenting. We are failing because we don't have our own foundations of spirituality and emotional health firmly set. We are more invested in how we look, how our homes look, the sports our kids are in, what kind of car we drive and what the world thinks about all that than we are about the future, or the emotional and spiritual wellbeing of our children. We as parents are insecure. We are all still in 8th grade hoping someone will tell us we look pretty or that we are enough. We cannot help our children navigate this world if we ourselves are drowning in the chaos of it. We are the problem. We must reevaluate our priorities, our why, our purposes. If our foundations are not firmly set we cannot help our children set theirs. If you are drowning in the chaos of the world your children will drown too."
We as parents are failing, but we have been, collectively, for quite some time.
I know that sounds all doubting debbie like and it may be overwhelming to even consider, but if we are truly going to save the children, we need to start with ourselves.
Why is it so important that our children don't feel left out? that they have their wants and every desire and why do we make life so comfortable for them? Because if we don't it makes them sad? Or because it makes YOU sad? Because there is some unresolved issue from your childhood that causes you to own the feelings of your child?
Now before you demand that my post be deleted and that I be blocked for causing any kind of controversy, please stop and take a moment and think. Are we owning our children's emotions? Are we working too hard to make sure that they have all their wants and desires and if so, at what cost? Are we parenting out of reaction or we are parent with intentional, purposeful and directed action?
As I read comments and watch parents tip toe around making sure to not offend anyone I post this with a risk of being completely blocked. But someone has to stand up and say something.
I repeat IT IS US!!! It won't matter if your kid has a flip phone or a smart phone, if you block everything under the sun, or how many parent controlled apps there are, if we do not address how we parent and improve our communication with our children, and improve our own self awareness with the issues we face personally we will still fail our children.
If we do not face our own insecurities, our own doubts and weaknesses as parents this epidemic will continue.
These kids are not just insecure because of phones, they are insecure because we abandoned them to their phones. Once we take the phones and apps a void will be created and if we do not fill the void with something intentional, beautiful and purposeful the world fill that void for us and it will be much of the same.
If we do not each personally get to the root of our own insecurities, failings, and weaknesses there are not enough Collin Kartchner's to save us.
He is a voice. A voice of warning. He is bringing awareness to an issue that has resulted an epidemic proportions of childhood depression and suicide.
We must be willing to ask critical questions about this situation, because the phone is the tip of a very large iceberg.
How did we get to the point that we just handed these small humans a device, that is really out of our control despite what we think, and not consider the consequences?
I am not saying we are bad parents. I am saying we MUST be better parents. We must evaluate our 'why'.
I know some people will feel this is an attack on parents. It is not. It is a call to arms. I am pleading with us all to stop and take a moment and ask ourselves the hard questions. It isn't about the phone. It is about our relationship with ourselves, with our children and with God.
We all know the saying "you can't see the forrest for the trees". Let us not get hyper focused on the screens but instead take a step back look at the whole issue. Let us be willing to be wrong, to see where we can improve and be willing to take those steps so that we can indeed 'save the children'.
Go. Fight. Win.
This crisis of children feeling suicidal and parents just handing this powerful devices into hands of children who are not even tall enough to reach the top shelf in the pantry isn't because of the device itself. It's us. The parents.
A month ago I wrote a blog post about Aspen and my experience in taking her out of junior high to homeschool her. This was my final paragraph "The inspiration for this post comes from the things I have seen from Collin Kartchner share on his Instagram stories. Society is failing. We as parents are failing our children. We are failing them because we care too much about what the world thinks. We are failing them because we are not intentionally parenting. We are failing because we don't have our own foundations of spirituality and emotional health firmly set. We are more invested in how we look, how our homes look, the sports our kids are in, what kind of car we drive and what the world thinks about all that than we are about the future, or the emotional and spiritual wellbeing of our children. We as parents are insecure. We are all still in 8th grade hoping someone will tell us we look pretty or that we are enough. We cannot help our children navigate this world if we ourselves are drowning in the chaos of it. We are the problem. We must reevaluate our priorities, our why, our purposes. If our foundations are not firmly set we cannot help our children set theirs. If you are drowning in the chaos of the world your children will drown too."
We as parents are failing, but we have been, collectively, for quite some time.
I know that sounds all doubting debbie like and it may be overwhelming to even consider, but if we are truly going to save the children, we need to start with ourselves.
Why is it so important that our children don't feel left out? that they have their wants and every desire and why do we make life so comfortable for them? Because if we don't it makes them sad? Or because it makes YOU sad? Because there is some unresolved issue from your childhood that causes you to own the feelings of your child?
Now before you demand that my post be deleted and that I be blocked for causing any kind of controversy, please stop and take a moment and think. Are we owning our children's emotions? Are we working too hard to make sure that they have all their wants and desires and if so, at what cost? Are we parenting out of reaction or we are parent with intentional, purposeful and directed action?
As I read comments and watch parents tip toe around making sure to not offend anyone I post this with a risk of being completely blocked. But someone has to stand up and say something.
I repeat IT IS US!!! It won't matter if your kid has a flip phone or a smart phone, if you block everything under the sun, or how many parent controlled apps there are, if we do not address how we parent and improve our communication with our children, and improve our own self awareness with the issues we face personally we will still fail our children.
If we do not face our own insecurities, our own doubts and weaknesses as parents this epidemic will continue.
These kids are not just insecure because of phones, they are insecure because we abandoned them to their phones. Once we take the phones and apps a void will be created and if we do not fill the void with something intentional, beautiful and purposeful the world fill that void for us and it will be much of the same.
If we do not each personally get to the root of our own insecurities, failings, and weaknesses there are not enough Collin Kartchner's to save us.
He is a voice. A voice of warning. He is bringing awareness to an issue that has resulted an epidemic proportions of childhood depression and suicide.
We must be willing to ask critical questions about this situation, because the phone is the tip of a very large iceberg.
How did we get to the point that we just handed these small humans a device, that is really out of our control despite what we think, and not consider the consequences?
I am not saying we are bad parents. I am saying we MUST be better parents. We must evaluate our 'why'.
I know some people will feel this is an attack on parents. It is not. It is a call to arms. I am pleading with us all to stop and take a moment and ask ourselves the hard questions. It isn't about the phone. It is about our relationship with ourselves, with our children and with God.
We all know the saying "you can't see the forrest for the trees". Let us not get hyper focused on the screens but instead take a step back look at the whole issue. Let us be willing to be wrong, to see where we can improve and be willing to take those steps so that we can indeed 'save the children'.
Go. Fight. Win.
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