#1 19-20: We Have Ruined Childhood

For youngsters, these days, an hour of free play is like a drop of water in the desert. Of course, they’re miserable.


ImageCreditCreditJoão Fazenda

According to the psychologist Peter Gray, children today are more depressed than they were during the Great Depression and more anxious than they were at the height of the Cold War. A 2019 study published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology found that between 2009 and 2017, rates of depression rose by more than 60 percent among those ages 14 to 17, and 47 percent among those ages 12 to 13. This isn’t just a matter of increased diagnoses. The number of children and teenagers who were seen in emergency rooms with suicidal thoughts or have attempted suicide doubled between 2007 and 2015.
To put it simply, our kids are not O.K.
For a long time, as a mother and as a writer, I searched for a single culprit. Was it the screens? The food? The lack of fresh air and free time, the rise of the overscheduled, overprotected child, the overarching culture of anxiety and fear?
Those things might all contribute. But I’ve come to believe that the problems with children’s mental and emotional health are caused not by any single change in kids’ environment but by a fundamental shift in the way we view children and child-rearing, and the way this shift has transformed our schools, our neighborhoods and our relationships to one another and our communities.

The work of raising children, once seen as socially necessary labor benefiting the common good, is an isolated endeavor for all but the most well-off parents. Parents are entirely on their own when it comes to their offspring’s well-being. Many have had to prioritize physical safety and adult supervision over healthy emotional and social development.

No longer able to rely on communal structures for childcare or allow children time alone, parents who need to work are forced to warehouse their youngsters for long stretches of time. School days are longer and more regimented. Kindergarten, which used to be focused on play, is now an academic training ground for the first grade. Young children are assigned homework even though numerous studies have found it harmful. STEM, standardized testing and active-shooter drills have largely replaced recess, leisurely lunches, art, and music.

The role of school stress in mental distress is backed up by data on the timing of child suicide. “The suicide rate for children is twice what it is for children during months when school is in session than when it’s not in session,” according to Dr. Gray. “That’s true for suicide completion, suicide attempts and suicidal ideation, whereas for adults, it’s higher in the summer.” But the problems with kids’ mental and emotional health are not only caused by what goes on in the classroom. They also reflect what’s happening in our communities. The scarcity of resources of every kind, including but not limited to access to mental health services, health care, affordable housing and higher education, means that many parents are working longer and harder than ever. At the same time that more is demanded of parents, childhood free time and self-directed activities have become taboo.

And so for many children, when the school day is over, it hardly matters; the hours outside school are more like school than ever. Children spend afternoons, weekends and summers in aftercare and camps while their parents work. The areas where children once congregated for unstructured, unsupervised play are now often off-limits. And so those who can afford it drive their children from one structured activity to another. Those who can’t keep them inside. Free play and childhood independence have become relics, insurance risks, at times criminal offenses.

Tali Raviv, the associate director of the Center for Childhood Resilience, says many children today are suffering a social-skills deficit. She told me kids today “have fewer opportunities to practice social-emotional skills, whether it’s because they live in a violent community where they can’t go outside, or whether it’s because there’s overprotection of kids and they don’t get the independence to walk down to the corner store.” They don’t learn “how to start a friendship, how to start a relationship, what to do when someone’s bothering you, how to solve a problem.”

Many parents and pediatricians speculate about the role that screen time and social media might play in this social deficit. But it’s important to acknowledge that simply taking away or limiting screens is not enough. Children turn to screens because opportunities for real-life human interaction have vanished; the public places and spaces where kids used to learn to be people have been decimated or deemed too dangerous for those under 18.


And so for many Americans, the nuclear family has become a lonely institution — and childhood, one long unpaid internship meant to secure a spot in a dwindling middle class.
Something has to change, says Denise Pope, a co-founder of Challenge Success, an organization based in Palo Alto, Calif., that helps schools make research-backed changes to improve children’s mental health. Kids need recess. They need longer lunches. They need free play, family time, meal time. They need less homework, fewer tests, a greater emphasis on social-emotional learning.

Challenge Success also works with parents, encouraging them to get together with their neighbors and organize things like extracurricular-free days when kids can simply play, and teaching them how not to intervene in normal peer conflict so that children can build problem-solving skills themselves. A similar organization, Let Grow, helps schools set up unstructured free play before and after the school day.

Dr. Gray told me it’s no surprise that the program, which he consults for, has been well received. “Children are willing to get up an hour early to have free play, one hour a week,” he said. “It’s like a drop of water if you’ve been in the desert.”

These groups are doing important work, but if that kind of desperation is any indication, we shouldn’t be surprised that so many kids are so unhappy. Investing in a segment of the population means finding a way to make them both safe and free. When it comes to kids, we too often fall short. It’s no wonder so many are succumbing to despair. In many ways, America has given up on childhood, and on children.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/17/opinion/sunday/childhood-suicide-depression-anxiety.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

At Your Wits' End With A Screen-Obsessed Kid?

This story is based on an episode of NPR's Life Kit.
Geoff and Ellie live in a suburban Chicago neighborhood that looks familiar from movies like Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller's Day Off — both filmed in the area.
They have three kids — Nathan, 5, Benji, 11, and Abby, 14 — and they're worried that all three are too into their screens.
An all-too-common experience
Ninety-eight percent of families with children now have smartphones. Young children Nathan's age consume over two hours of media per day on average, tweens take in about six hours, and teens use their devices for nine hours a day, according to the nonprofit Common Sense Media.

Technology overuse ranked as the No. 1 fear of parents of teenagers in a national survey last year.

As we sit in the family room, Ellie tell us how it feels to have a houseful of tiny electronic devices that travel with her kids into their bedrooms, to the table, in the car — everywhere.
"We're the first generation of parents that has to do this monitoring," Ellie says.
Case in point: Nathan, her 5-year-old, is tugging at her sleeve:
"Mommy, Mommy. MOMMY, CAN I PLAY ON YOUR IPAD? CAN I NOW?! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!"

The problem with time-based rules

How did Geoff and Ellie get here? They are not hands-off parents, nor are they lacking in rules. In the kitchen, Ellie has posted color-coded schedules for all three kids, which show when each child is allowed to use screens.
But the kids don't listen. They fight back and complain. And sometimes, with dad working full time, mom part time, and three kids with three different schools and three different schedules, the rules fall through the cracks. "Give them an inch, and they'll take a mile and you're in trouble," Ellie says. "It's exhausting."
At one point, all three kids are sitting in separate corners on the sectional couch in the family room, each on his or her own device. Nathan, the little one, is playing on his iPad, totally hidden under a blanket — head and all. As I talk with Abby, Benji looks up and comments, "This is the most I've heard my sister say in a while."
Ellie puts it this way: "I lost my daughter when I gave her the cell phone."

I've brought an expert to observe and to give Geoff and Ellie some tips. Devorah Heitner has a Ph.D. in media, technology and society from Northwestern University and is author of the book Screenwise.

Heitner says she hears this kind of thing all the time. "I think all parents are like, 'Can you just tell me how many minutes?' Or I'll go speak at schools, and people will say, 'Can you just tell me the device I can use to fix the problem?' "

This misconception comes in part from the media, she says, and from companies — Apple, Google, Amazon — that advertise parental controls and settings as a magic solution.
Heitner and other experts do say to draw a bright line — and be a little authoritarian if you have to — over two times of day: bedtime and mealtime. Research says that more than two hours a day of screen time for young children doubles the risk of childhood obesity. Staring at screens can interfere with sleep, not only because of blue light but because of the emotional excitement of media content and the feeling of urgency about responding to messages.

But in general, Heitner advises that families like this one need to switch from monitoring to mentoring. Policing their kids' device use isn't working. They need to understand why their kids are using devices and what their kids get out of those devices so they can help the kids shift their habits.

The relationship between teens, screens and mental health is complex and multidirectional
The real lightning bolt of wisdom on this comes from the oldest child, Abby.
Abby, who has braces and a short crop of curly hair, is snuggled in a hoodie. She starts our conversation speaking softly, but when asked what she wishes grown-ups knew about the phone, she speaks right up.
"Taking it away won't eliminate problems, 'cause it's not the sole reason that they existed in the first place."
Abby's mom has sent her articles about research linking teen depression and suicide to screen use. A 2017 article in The Atlantic magazine — "Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?" — drew a link between negative trends in teens' mental health and the rise of smartphones and social media.
But Abby has a point: The relationship between screens and kids' mental and emotional health may not be so simple.
"[People always say] the iPhones are the only reason kids are depressed and can't sleep and have all of these problems — not stress from school, from other people, from other things happening," Abby says. "It's never the only reason."
More recently, a paper from Oxford University analyzed the same data featured in that Atlanticarticle — more than 350,000 participants in three huge surveys — and arrived at a different conclusion.

The negative relationship between teens' mental health and technology use is real — but tiny, the researchers found.
"It is extremely, extremely small," says Amy Orben, the lead author of that paper and two other related studies. "A teenager's technology use can only predict less than 1% of variation in well-being. It's so small that it's surpassed by whether a teenager wears glasses to school."

In Orben's view, Abby is dead-on. As Heitner says, "If you hand a happy kid a phone, they're not going to turn into an unhappy, miserable kid."
Heitner does caution, however, that devices can "turn up the volume" on existing issues. Children who have special needs or mental health challenges are also more likely to have problems with screens.

This goes for Benji, the middle child. He has anxiety, ADHD and emotional disabilities, and he is prone to meltdowns. Heitner says, in cases like his, parents should consult a professional who knows the child, be it a psychiatrist or occupational therapist.
But there's another side to that dynamic as well. Some children and teenagers who struggle with mental or emotional health may find that zoning out and playing a game helps them regulate their emotions and avoid meltdowns. For this family, for example, letting Benji bring his iPad allowed him to sit through his big sister's eighth-grade graduation, and that's a trade-off the family is willing to make.

And kids can use smartphones to connect with others and therefore feel better too.
In a national study of teens and young adults, Vicky Rideout, a longtime media-effects researcher, found no significant relationship between the young people's self-reported mental health and how often they used social media.

The young people in the study who were depressed didn't use social media more often — but they did use it differently, sometimes to feel better. "One of the things that teens are doing online is searching for information and tools to help promote their well-being," Rideout says.

This has been Abby's experience. "When you're really upset, you can use your phone to distract yourself, or contact a friend who can help you, or use it to get your mind off the bad thoughts."

How to strike a balance? To start, try mentoring, not monitoring

Heitner's work emphasizes a concept that's also put forth by the American Academy of Pediatrics in its guidelines for parents: media mentoring.
As opposed to monitoring — with charts, schedules and parental controls — mentoring means understanding the media that kids use.

"Mentoring is knowing the difference between Minecraft and Fortnite. Mentoring is looking at the emotional effects of playing in a competitive mode versus a collaborative mode," Heitner says.
"It's understanding that ... what your kids are doing is part of their identity, whether it's through the kinds of people they follow on Tumblr or the kinds of things they share."
Abby, for example, follows YouTubers who talk about important issues — emotions, mental health, body image, self-esteem. It's important that her parents understand what she is looking at so they can talk to her about it, share their own values and offer support if needed.

This goes double if your kids encounter stuff that is more questionable — porn, video bloggers with hateful messages or bullying or drama with peers online. Parents can't step in and solve social problems, but they can be sounding boards for advice.

Look for the good in your kids' media interests

For Benji, Minecraft is a social space where he plays with other kids and pulls pranks. He says he wishes his parents understood more about his screen use — "why it's entertaining and why we want to do it. And also, for YouTube, why I watch other people playing games. When you watch sports, you're watching another person playing a game! Why is it so different when you're watching a person play a video game?"
Abby points out that as kids get older, having their own private worlds online is kind of the point. "There's a language that teenagers have formed though memes — it would be hard to explain" to adults, she says. But Geoff, her dad, jokes with her about it: "There are things that I understand, even though I'm super old."

Heitner reminds Geoff and Ellie that the distance they feel from their oldest is also a normal part of growing up. Ellie responds, "That's a really important fact. I didn't think of it that way. I just thought of it as it's the phone's fault."

Work together as a family to make changes.

A few days later, Heitner gets on the phone with Geoff and Ellie.
She tells them to get the devices out of sight and out of mind more often. This goes for mom and dad too, she says. Her advice:Ban devices at mealtime.Take Abby's phone away at night.
Impose more chores. Even the 5-year-old can put away his own toys, Heitner says. The older kids can do their own laundry and load and unload the dishwasher. Send the 14-year-old into the grocery store with a list. "It's a source of self-esteem to get things done for the family and to be valued in the family."

Introduce new interests. For Benji, Heitner says, set a goal this summer to try to reduce screen time and add something else in.

Try more screen-free whole-family activities like board games, a trip to the water park, or just a walk after dinner to get ice cream.

Ask Benji to monitor his own mood after he plays video games, say, on a color chart. Heitner says this can help him develop self-regulation skills. Instead of just fighting against the limits his parents set, "it would be good for him to start to see, OK, an hour is good, but two hours starts to make me a little crazy."

Little changes, big differences

Two weeks later, we checked back in with Geoff and Ellie to see how things were going.
They said that they sat down with all three kids with "a bribe" — their favorite Ben & Jerry's ice cream — to talk about making some changes to the screen-time rules.
Nathan, the little one, was pretty easy — he's playing more with his toys now and reading books during snack time.
Benji has made the most progress. He tells us he has been reading a lot more. He found a book series he loves, Wings of Fire, about dragons.

He has advice for parents who want to help their kids cut back on screen time. "If you have kids who are interested in fantasy games, maybe they'll like fantasy books, or if they're interested in sports games or animals, maybe they'll like realistic fiction."
His parents say his mood is much better. They're amazed.
Abby, the oldest, has been the toughest nut to crack. But she has been helping out more around the house and doing more projects like cooking.

She made edible cookie dough from a recipe she found online, and the whole family ate it together while watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off — a bit of sanctioned screen time, because it counts as a whole-family activity.
https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/53910/at-your-wits-end-with-a-screen-obsessed-kid-read-this?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=ExactTarget&utm_campaign=20190707MindShiftNewsletterSubscribers&mc_key=00Qi000001WzNqREAV

3 fears about screen time for kids that aren't true

In September ISHCMC will be part of Cognita's Be Well Day. One of the strands that we are expected to talk about is Screen Time. Here is a good TED that questions the dogma that screen time is bad for children.

Why are screens make us less happy.

What are our screens and devices doing to us? Psychologist Adam Alter has spent the last five years studying how much time screens steal from us and how they're getting away with it. He shares why all those hours you spend staring at your smartphone, tablet or computer might be making you miserable -- and what you can do about it.

Twelve Ideas for Student Activities This Summer

Summer is upon us. The time when school is out for a few months (although it seems shorter every year) and kids of all ages—even teens—have to figure out what to do with their free time. Some, of course, have it all mapped out in the spring. They plan to play travel ball or do gymnastics or attend summer camp. Most, however, don’t do much thinking about it, and find themselves vegging out in front of a video game console or on their phones all day. It’s not a healthy scenario. So, below I offer some ideas that a student could find fun and engaging, yet at the same time grow a little in the process. You can offer a list of suggestions for activities that will develop their social, emotional and intellectual muscles in the process. It was inspired by Suburban Simplicity. See if any of these may work for you. Twelve Ideas for Student Activities This Summer 1. Make your own music video or movie. This will get their creative juices flowing and consume more time than they think it will. Challenge them with a deadline to make a music video, or write their own screenplay and shoot their own movie. The result? Work ethic. 2. Work a very different summer job. Most teens don’t work summer jobs, sometimes because they believe those jobs are beneath them. I believe jobs offer the best preparation for adult life. Challenge your teen to find a job, even if it’s part time for spending money. 3. Invent a new type of pizza. If your teens like cooking or fancies themselves as creative, challenge them to list some unique ingredients and to build their own pizza pie. This can be lots of fun (I’ve done it before) and it taught me what flavors go well together. 4. Start your own business. This idea cultivates so many social, emotional and intellectual muscles. What if your teen considered what they did well and found a way to monetize it for folks in your community or on a website? The result? Accelerated maturation. 5. Eat a food you have never tried before. This is a great idea, especially if your teen isn’t used to trying new things. Have your teen shop for groceries (with or without you) and find something they’d typically not eat and try it. This will help them venture out from the familiar. 6. Host a car wash (or some fund raiser) to raise cash for a good cause. One of the best ways to invest their time is to find a great cause they believe in and come up wit a way to raise money for it: car washes, bake sales, e-bay sales, mowing lawns, you name it. This builds altruism and work ethic. 7. Grow some vegetables you can eat with the family. If you have a backyard, why not challenge your teen to identify a vegetable they like, cultivate a garden and grow the plant as summer begins. This builds patience, perseverance and becomes a tangible goal to anticipate and enjoy. 8. Offer to read to children at the local library. If your teen is good with kids, why not challenge them to sign up to read to younger children at the library? Often librarians need people to volunteer for an hour or two at a time. This builds empathy and teaches them to add value. 9. Help plan the details of your family vacation. When vacation time arrives, what if you challenged your kids to help plan the details? If you take a road trip, for example, they could choose the hotel spots, the stops for gas, meals and the site seeing locations. This builds ownership. 10. Make your family dinner once a week. What if you challenged your teen to get creative and both plan and cook the meals for the family once a week this summer? This develops planning skills and may even cultivate creativity in them. Also, it builds a servant-leader. 11. Redecorate your bedroom. If they are into their personal brand, they could actually take some time to plan and decorate their room in a new fashion. New posters, new knick-knacks and even new rugs. This can develop their creativity and design thinking. 12. Volunteer at a local non-profit organization. Finally, one of the best uses of summertime as far as I’m concerned is to volunteer time at an organization they believe in. This can develop good qualities like service, compassion, passion and purpose. Any other ideas you can think of? The post Twelve Ideas for Students to Try During Summer Break appeared first on Growing Leaders.

What you should know about Vaping and e-cigarettes

"E-cigarettes and vapes have exploded in popularity in the last decade, especially among youth and young adults -- from 2011 to 2015, e-cigarette use among high school students in the US increased by 900 percent. Biobehavioral scientist Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin explains what you're actually inhaling when you vape (hint: it's definitely not water vapor) and explores the disturbing marketing tactics being used to target kids. "Our health, the health of our children and our future generations is far too valuable to let it go up in smoke -- or even in aerosol," she says."

"Jerry Mintz has been a leading voice in the alternative school movement for over 30 years. In addition to his seventeen years as a public and independent alternative school principal and teacher, he has also helped found more than fifty public and private alternative schools and organizations. He has lectured and consulted in more than twenty-five countries around the world.

In 1989, he founded the Alternative Education Resource Organization and since then has served as it’s Director. Jerry was the first executive director of the National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools (NCACS), and was a founding member of the International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC)."

What makes me smile is the type of education that Jerry Mintz and many other educational thinkers are advocating for is not alternative, but is based around how we learn most effectively as humans. The alternative system is the one that was introduced in Church schools in the 15th Century, expanded again at the time of the agricultural revolution in the 18 Century and finally set in stone by the Prussians and the Committee of 10 for the post industrial  revolution world of the 19th Century. The system we have today is based around obedience, compliance and subjugation to a higher authority. Is this what we want for our children and their future?"