It goes like this: parent asks a question about something their kid is doing or wants to do with technology, something they’re worried about, usually the amount of time the child want to use or the kind of tech he/she is using.  I respond with a suggestion or intervention that requires limit-setting and a set of guidelines for incorporating that change.  Parent then says some form of this: “But if I do what you’re suggesting, I’m going to be yelled at or hated by my kid; it’s going to cause a huge problem.”  I usually smile and say yes.  This however seems to confuse the said parent, as if they’re waiting for me to offer a solution to their problem that doesn’t require discomfort or disagreement, a policy that’s easy to implement.  I then deliver the following, sometimes surprising news alert: “As a parent, you’re not supposed to be your child’s friend.”

We are living in a time when, as parents, we’re supposed to be our children’s best friends at the same time we’re being their parents.  Moms and dads hang out with their kids as if they’re hanging out with peers.  When there’s a disagreement, parents believe we’re supposed to negotiate with our kids as if we’re negotiating with equals.  Parents of seven-year-olds report to me (with a straight face) all the reasons their child doesn’t agree with their decisions regarding the child’s behavior.  I see parents of children under the age of five who get an equal vote in setting up the rules of the house, which includes the rules that will apply to the children.  I hear the delight of parents who are friended by their kids on social media.  We’re spoon-fed the message that we’re supposed to be buddies with our kids and that they should like us, all the time.  And, that we’re bad parents if they are upset by our decisions.

We have thrown away the distinction between an adult and a child, undermined the wisdom of our adult experience, all so that we can be liked by our kids. We’re choosing to be our children’s playmates rather than to do what’s best for them.  There’s no wonder kids now hurl profanities at their parents in public places, to which the parents giggle awkwardly, and wonder if this too is part of the new hip friend/parent milieu.

As parents, we’re taking the easy path, the path of least resistance, telling ourselves that if our kids like us we must be doing this parenting thing right.  In the process of trying to be friends with our kids however, we are giving away our authority, depriving them of the experience of being taken care of, denying them the serenity, trust, and confidence that arises from knowing that we can stand our ground and protect them even when it incites their anger.  It is precisely because we love our children that we need to be able to tolerate their not liking us all the time.

When we’re driven by the desire or responsibility to be liked, we’re giving ourselves an impossible task.  We simply cannot prioritize being liked and simultaneously raise healthy, sane, human beings who can tolerate frustration and disappointment.  We are setting ourselves up for suffering and failure.  We survive on the ephemeral crumbs of being liked—liked for giving them what they want, while denying ourselves the real nourishment of the experience of providing our kids with what we know they really need, pleasing or otherwise.  We are, as with many other things, opting for the easiest, most immediate and pleasurable option over the deeper, harder, and more thoughtful and ultimately satisfying choice.

We are also, in this friending over parenting process, doing a great disservice to our kids.  Our kids need boundaries and guidelines.  A woman I work with who was raised by a parent who, above all, wanted to be her friend, put it this way: “I never felt like there was someone to stop me if I got to the end of the earth and was going to dive off.”  Our kids, even though they may scream and throw things, also want us to know things they don’t, to stick with our wisdom despite their railing, to be willing to tolerate their rants in service to their best interests—to take care of them in ways they can’t yet take care of themselves.  Our kids want us to demonstrate fierce grace.  So too, we feel our best when we walk the walk of fierce grace.

Often, children do not know what’s best for them, and almost never do they know what’s best for them when it comes to technology use.  It’s hard enough for us grownups to realize what’s best for ourselves and children have front brains that are not anywhere near fully-developed.  Allowing children to make their own rules around technology is like handing an opioid addict a vial of heroin or a bottle of oxycontin and asking him to make his own rules whether or not to us.  Young children and teenagers should not get an equal vote in matters that relate to their tech use, nor in many other matters. As parents, we usually possess at least a couple or more decades of experience under our belt that our children don’t possess. Put simply, we know things they don’t, and we can tell them this truth. This makes our kids not equal in matters that require discipline or hard choices, ones that go against what their brains’ pleasure centers, hormones, or inexperienced thinking tells them is best.

Remember this: it’s okay for your child to be upset with you; it’s okay if they don’t like or agree with the decisions you make; it’s okay if your child is madder than a wet hornet at you for setting limits and sticking to those limits. You’re allowed to say no; it takes great courage to say no.  You’re not a bad parent if it gets bumpy and your child goes through periods when he/she doesn’t like you—at all—and maybe even says she hates you for a while. It probably means you’re doing your job as a parent.

Assuming your role as the authority in your child’s life is critical and the more you assume that role, the more you will feel the wisdom of your own authority.  Being the authority doesn’t mean turning a deaf ear to your child’s anger, disappointment, or anything else they feel.  We can listen to our kids’ emotions and thoughts while simultaneously holding our ground on what we know is best for them.  Being the authority in your kid’s life doesn’t mean being callous or insensitive, it does mean being brave enough to stay strong in the face of a tsunami that might come back at you, knowing that your role is to be the grown up in the parent-child relationship, to be loving in your willingness to do what’s best for your kids.  Your role is not to be your child’s friend.

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I’ve purchased and participated in a lot of these types of experiences and the feeling I almost always walk away with is one of emptiness and a low-level despair. There’s a depressing quality to the whole experience of experience-chasing. These cool, unique, manufactured experiences feel inauthentic and disconnected and I’m left with a deep feeling of meaninglessness and alienation. I’m supposed to feel like I’m participating in the experience, part of what’s happening, but I actually feel like I’m a witness, and specifically, a witness to the end of the world. The experience itself feels isolated and disconnected and that’s exactly how I feel, no matter how loud the music’s pumping or yummy the snacks taste. So too, I walk away with an awareness of relentless chasing, of getting caught yet again searching for something outside myself to make my life complete. I’m left with a deep sense of the tragedy of the human condition. The emotional residue from these “amazing” experiences is a sense of disappointment, not just for the event, but in myself—that I bit the hook yet again, buying into the dream, the illusion, that my well-being or even happiness could be found in yet another unique experience, which like everything of this sort, will disappear even quicker than the pop-up shop it’s housed in.

We’ve turned experience itself into a product. No longer “in” life or part of the stream of life, we consume our experiences like we would any other object. As a result, we’re cut off, alienated from our direct experience, like fish trapped inside a baggie floating in the ocean—eternally thirsty. We crave the flow experience—full immersion in an activity, with no separation from experience, no separate “I” who’s living it. And yet, the more we crave immersion, the real experience of living, the more we’re compelled to create and consume these “amazing” representations of life, which only intensify our alienation from life.

So too, social media has convinced us that we’re supposed to be living a spectacular life without interruption. “Amazing” should be the norm. Extraordinary should be our ordinary. Why shouldn’t it?  Everyone else seems to be living an “amazing” life. We’re inundated with photos of those hanging off catamarans in Ibiza, clinking champagne glasses in Bali, dining on lobster at the coolest rooftop bar ever created, zip lining through a rain forest canopy, or just floating in the infinity pool of a lifetime. Why not?  It’s up to us to go and get it.

That said, we’re constantly searching for that fabulous experience that will make our life fabulous, and perhaps most importantly, make us fabulous. We’re always trying to keep up with the competition, to not end up the loser in the virtual war of comparison. There’s enormous pressure, all the time, to be doing something uber interesting, different, that no one else has ever done; we’re in search of that great experience that makes it sound like we’re someone who really “has” a life.

The effect of all these “amazing” experiences on us, paradoxically, is to drain the “amazingness” out of our lives. If we’re not experiencing something unique and extraordinary, we feel our lives to be boring, empty, and even meaningless. And yet, so often when we consume these manufactured experiences, we’re left back where we started: bored, empty and without a sense of meaning. Our pursuit of fun and the never-before experienced causes us to stop noticing and appreciating the mundane and routine, which is most of life. We’re putting all our eggs in the “amazing” experience basket and turning away, ignoring the vast majority of what makes up a life.

In the endless search to create aliveness, we deaden our appreciation for our inherent aliveness, the profundity of just being. Here, no matter where we are, disappears in our relentless quest for the next “amazing” there.

The more we chase experiences, the more convinced we become that meaning lies outside of us, in the next experience, the next hashtag.  And, if we could just find the right foam-pit/champagne-bubble/zip-line/haiku combination, we’d be okay. There would be a place we want to be, a place where we can finally be satisfied.

Furthermore, these one-off experiences are not connected to us, not integrated into our lives.  They don’t arise organically out of who we are. And perhaps more importantly even, we haven’t put any time or effort into creating them. We are just the disconnected consumers, ready with our Smartphones to record the sparkly emptiness. Real enjoyment happens, most often, when the experience is connected to us in some way and we have some skin in the game. While interesting in the moment, sometimes, the taste we’re left with is of our own craving and failure to create connection and meaning. But because the message is so strong that we can find what we need outside ourselves, the more we fail, the more desperately we search.

It’s important to ask ourselves what we’re looking for, really looking for, when we chase after experiences. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with doing interesting and fun things, being entertained or even distracted, but we seek experiences, often, with deeper ulterior motives, sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious. We chase unique and amazing experiences to complete us, create an interesting life, believe or prove that we are somebody, satisfy our longing for meaning, and many other reasons. All experiences are impermanent; they will end, and as such, cannot be fully satisfying.

We’re confusing new experiences with life, believing that life is something we have to go out and find, schedule, buy, and usually, post. We’ve forgotten that life is already happening with or without our effort; it’s already here, and the fact that this moment is happening is already “amazing.” We want to remember this and pay attention to what’s here in between the bubble pools and escape rooms. In truth, experience is happening without our needing to do or buy anything.

Where are your feet right now? Can you turn your attention here? What’s happening here? What’s to be learned from here? And maybe even, what’s already amazing about here?

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This morning I was on a train listening to a mother talking to her young son. The mother’s words were unkind and deliberately hurtful, in a way that demonstrated their damage instantaneously.  Yesterday I worked with a couple who came to see me to learn how to communicate better. For an hour, I listened to both of them using their words to criticize and humiliate each other.  Last week I said something to a friend that was not helpful for our relationship and not skillful in terms of expressing myself in a way that she could hear.  Add to all that, I just received an unsupportive email from a family member telling me all the reasons why I was wrong (and he was right) about something we had discussed.

It’s been a week of thinking about words, those spoken as well as those left unspoken. We’ve all had the experience of saying something and wishing we hadn’t.  And, we all know that once we do say something out loud to someone, we can never really take it back.  In Buddhism, there’s an important practice called “Right Speech.”  Right speech is part of the Noble Eightfold Path, the fundamental, eight-part instruction manual for  ending our suffering.  According to the Buddha, our own wellbeing is built upon the practice of not lying, not slandering, not using unkind or abusive language, and not gossiping.  In order to end our own suffering, we’re taught to speak truthfully and use words to promote harmony and understanding, reduce anger, and most of all, be helpful.

Sometimes I read the Buddha’s words on words and think about how radically different our world would be if more people practiced his version of right speech, as a path to happiness.  We’re living in a time when communication is constant and words are cheap; we throw our words around on social media and the like as if they hold no consequences and are without any real or lasting impact on those who receive them, and our world. Because we don’t have to witness or hear the impact of our words online or via text, we’ve forgotten (or are purposing ignoring) the effects of the words we choose to put into our world.

As we age, our relationship with words and speech changes.  When we’re young we tend to believe that what we have to say is extraordinary, original, and right in some overarching, universal way.  We have a strong need to be known and recognized, to establish who we are.  It feels important thus to have our words heard and to use our words to correct any wrongs we encounter.  Our words are representations of our self; without them, we don’t feel we exist.

But as we evolve and hopefully a bit of humility sets in, we often realize how little we actually know, how much less we have to say than we thought.  And, how much has already been said by those before us.  So too, we recognize how many versions of “right” actually exist—in addition to our own. If we’re lucky, we start to lose the sense of awe we have for our own words.  Furthermore, we come to understand how powerful our words actually are, how deeply the words we choose impact our relationships and our own wellbeing.  If we’re paying attention, we assume a greater sense of responsibility for the words we put into the world.

In my own life, I’ve been actively paying attention to and practicing (or doing my best to practice) right speech for some time now.  I do this in many ways but three in particular stand out.

First, I consciously try to use my words to provide support and encouragement.  Before speaking, I think about how my words can point the other person towards something positive in themselves, something they do well or that might feel helpful.  I see my words as having the potential and purpose to remind another person of their own goodness and possibility.

Second, I choose to relieve my words of the burden of having to perfectly and completely capture my actual experience.  Words are powerful and at the same time layers of experience exist that are not conveyable or formulate-able with words. And so, rather than demanding that my words be absolute representations of my experience, and furthermore that I be understood by others, completely, through my words, I now accept that some of what we live internally is simply is not language-able…and that’s okay.  It has to be okay because it is.

Finally, I used to believe that when my partner said something I disagreed with, it was my responsibility to explain why he was wrong.  I felt I had to engage with and correct the wrongs I perceived.

Right or mindful speech, blessedly, has taught me how to say less not more.  I now practice restraint of pen, tongue and thumb.  Not speaking, writing or texting when I feel bothered or perceive a wrong, has in fact been most significant in my practice because of how directly and deeply I feel its results, both in myself and in my relationships.  It turns out that silence, particularly at the times when I most want to use a lot of words, is in fact more powerful than anything I could say.  Saying nothing says a lot.

Practicing right speech, I see that when my partner says something I don’t agree with, remarkably, I don’t have to say anything at all.  I can leave anything and everything just as it is.  I don’t need to change anyone else’s ideas to own my own ideas; my truth does not depend on adjusting anyone else’s truth.  My partner and everyone else can have their experience and I can have my own, simultaneously.  If it’s something that we need to find consensus on, perhaps something about the kids, I can also choose to press the pause button when I hear something that feels very wrong.  I can say nothing in the moment and take time to think about what I want to say, if anything, and how to say it in a way that can be helpful to the situation and that the other person can hear.  I have learned, in fact, that I have all sorts of choices in how to employ the power of speech.

I have discovered that relationships run far more smoothly when I take the path of saying less not more, and even nothing at all sometimes.  And, that the peace I’m trying to create through words, the peace that is always my end goal, is paradoxically maintained through the absence of words.  It feels miraculous every time I say nothing and simply let go without a response or reaction, other than silence.  This, for me, is emotional freedom.  Many moons ago, Mahatma Ghandi beautifully used his words to say this: “Speak only if it improves upon the silence.”  And I would add, before using our words, we can ask, will these words help or harm?

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The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Present (and Sane) in a Virtual World

https://www.opencenter.org/power-of-off

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114: Is Your Partner In Love With Their Phone?

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Do you compulsively check your emails? Are you always plugged in? Let’s face it: Our society has an addiction to technology.  In this interview, Rose talks to Psychotherapist and Author, Nancy Colier, about her new book The Power of Off: The Mindful Way To Stay Sane In A Virtual World, her story of being addicted to technology and what inspired her to make a change.  https://www.rewireme.com/media/rose-interviews-nancy-colier-power-off-mindful-way-stay-sane-virtual-world/

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Surviving a Chaotic World Complicated by Digital Addiction

November 10, 2016

Hosted by Dr. Merle Griff

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Nancy Colier, Psychotherapist and Author of “The Power of Off”

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To list a few, technology promotes education, helps keep us safe, provides a closer reach to those who were once out of reach, saves lives, keeps us connected with instantaneous communications, and most importantly, allows a virtual window for some (you know who you are) to peek in on an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend…just in case you find yourself curious as to how they’re doing.

However, in light of all of the advancements, “Houston, we have problem.”

According to Nancy Colier, author of The Power of Off: The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World, the way we use technology is negatively affecting the relationship we have with ourselves.

“Our lives are filled with more possibilities than ever before to connect, consume, and discover-all good things-but in the face of these possibilities, we are also feeling less connected, less centered and…

Read more… (click on picture)

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