We the parents of today’s kids are true pioneers.  We’re facing a situation that no other generation of parents has faced.  People often say that previous parents had to deal with the television and telephone, and that every generation struggles with some new invention that changes everything, and that the Smartphone is really no different than anything that came before it. But in fact, where we are now, with the explosion of technology into every aspect of our lives (and our children’s lives) and our complete dependence upon it, is fundamentally different than any other time in history. Technology is a revolution and not like any other previous invention.

For one thing, the television and telephone didn’t come with us everywhere we went.  We had to be in the world without them; the television and telephone were an addition to our lives, not the center of it.  In addition, the telephone and television were not used for every aspect of our lives, work, social, information, planning etc., as the Smartphone now is.  So too, we didn’t defer our authority and agency to the television, telephone or any other invention, asking it to make decisions for us.  We didn’t hand over our human skills, thinking and tasks to our televisions, rendering us helpless to its knowledge.

Furthermore, the makers of televisions and telephones were not employing neuroscientists and addiction specialists as they are now with the purpose of getting our kids (and all of us) hooked.  Addiction is good for business and our kids are the targets of very smart and strategic plans, by very informed experts, to make them dependent, so they can’t or are too anxious to live without their devices. Never before have our kids had legal access to something so addictive as the substance that is technology.  We’re giving our kids the equivalent of cocaine at a time in their lives when their front brains are not even developed, and they don’t have the skills, discernment or internal resources to be able to manage the drug of technology.

What we know from neuroscience is that using technology floods our brain with the feel-good chemical dopamine. Dopamine delivers pleasure and feeds the reward center in our brain.  This sets up a compulsion loop; we want more of this pleasure and thus want to engage in the activity more. What happens next however, is that each time we have a thought of using or hear or feel a notification come in, our adrenal glands send out a burst of the stress hormone cortisol, which sets off the fight or flight response and we become anxious.  We then opt to get back on our device to calm ourselves down.  Those who are addicted are, therefore, living in a constant state of fight or flight and saturating their bodies with cortisol, which besides causing chronic stress has also been linked to lowered immune function, increased sugar levels and weight gain.  It’s not a good thing.

Today’s moms and dads are stumbling down an untraveled path. More often than not, we don’t know what we’re doing.  How could we know, we’re in new territory, raising addicts in an addicted world.  Day by day we’re trying to understand how to maintain a loving connection with our children when the pull towards technology is so seemingly irresistible. We’re trying to figure out how to do our real job: to help them become happy, confident, grounded people in a society that feels increasingly anxious and untethered.

First, it is important that we honor our intention to help our children and families stay emotionally connected and intact.  We have to be willing to work hard at this endeavor, to be good parents, because it profoundly matters. In some ways, our society depends upon it.  When the family crumbles, all else crumbles.  But also, because we want to deeply know our children, to spend time with them without a thousand other distractions, look into their eyes without the reflection of the screen inside their pupils.  As families, we don’t want to simply brush past each other at the charging station in the kitchen.

9 Tips for Good Parenting in a Digital World

1. Model It

Live the behavior you’re preaching.  If you’re on your device constantly then your guidance is of no value, your rules are irrelevant.  If you don’t walk the walk, your kids won’t either. Limit your time on your device, particularly when you’re with your kids and partner.  Show your kids what it looks like to be engaged in activities that don’t involve technology. And absolutely do not leave your devices on or in sight during family meals.

2. Make a Plan/Set the Rules Ahead of Time. If you want to make God laugh, make plans. If you want to make God roll on the clouds with laughter, make plans with kids and Smartphones.  And yet, we still have to set the rules ahead of time with regard to our kids’ usage. It can be a good idea to do this together as a family.  Write down specifically (and have everyone sign) what hours and under what circumstances device use (and what kind of use) will be acceptable.  For example: first half hour after school: full use including social media.  Next three hours: only computer use for homework, all social notifications off.  Half hour before bed all devices off. Whatever the rules you as parents decide on, make them specific, written down on paper, and hung up where they can be seen.  When the conflict (and screaming) begins, you will be able to point to these established rules without any hesitation or confusion.

3. Create a Context.

Don’t just tell your kids they can’t use their devices, explain to them the larger intentions behind your rules.  For example, share that you don’t want them anxious all the time, and explain the effect that cortisol has on their growing body. Express that you actually want to know them and that technology gets in the way of that happening. Tell them perhaps that you miss them, miss talking or taking walks with them, and that it’s just that simple. Whatever the larger and more loving intentions are behind your rules, share them with your child. Create an open dialogue so the conversation can go deeper and become more connective, rather than simply arguing over screen time.

4. Ask Your Kids About Their Experience with Tech

Be curious about, specifically, how your kids experience their lives in the midst of this technology.  What it’s like for them to be kids in this kind of environment.  You might ask how it feels to be with a friend who’s constantly texting and snapchatting other people when they’re with them.  Or perhaps to be at a party when everyone is staring into their device and there’s no one there to really talk to. Ask what it’s like to have a boyfriend they text all day but feel incapable of talking to in real life. Whatever the issues that they’re pretending are okay, ask about them.  Turn these difficult experiences into something they question rather than just assume is normal.  Remember, there’s still a young person in there who’s probably feeling lonely, insecure, confused, anxious and overwhelmed by all of it.  Invite that young person to the table and give them your full attention.

5. Get Your Kids into Tech-Free Activities

It’s increasingly important to expose your kids to activities that don’t require technology and also allow them to connect with people and themselves in a different way. We need to show them that they can still enjoy experiences (like sports, music, nature) without their devices, and that there really is life outside their Smartphone.

6. Emphasize, Again and Again, the Importance of Hard Work and Time Invested

Kids are now growing up in an age of immediacy and ease.  We value the quickest and easiest route to wherever we’re headed.  The problem is that by accepting immediacy and ease, we’re depriving our children of the invaluable rewards of hard work and time invested.  When our child lands on the top of the mountain by helicopter, he doesn’t reap the same confidence or inner strength as when he’s walked and struggled the path to the top.  As a result, he ends up feeling like imposter.  Encourage, again and again, the importance of putting in time and effort for building a confident and strong inner self, so ultimately, they will know that they can rely on themselves.

7. Be Fierce

A lot of parents these days say that the horse is already out of the barn and it’s a losing battle this technology thing.  When these parents give their kids the device, they claim they’re just giving their kid what he wants.  This is not good parenting.  As parents, we often need to take the harder path, the one our child doesn’t want, make the choice that creates more conflict, but ultimately, is better for our kids and our family.  We need to be able to hold our ground when our child is ranting and raging.  We need to dig deep, be fierce, stand our ground, and remember why we’re choosing this harder path, what’s really at stake.

8. Teach Your Kids Basic Meditation Techniques

Every child, no matter the age, can learn basic meditation practices.  Try teaching your kids the following techniques: 1. Breathing. Notice and feel your breath. Don’t control it, just pay attention to it.  Remember to breathe deeply, particularly when you’re anxious.  2. Body scan: bring your attention into each body part, one by one, and notice the sensations inside. As you go through, invite each part to relax.  3. Run a sense loop: bring your attention to each of your senses, one at a time.  Notice what you are hearing, seeing, feeling in your body, smelling, tasting and the sixth sense, thinking.  4. Visualize an elevator ride from your head down into the bottom of your belly.  Feel yourself getting calmer as you descend, floor by floor, into the stillness of your own presence.  5. Ask yourself if you’re actually here, paying attention to where you are. Notice/Feel what your own presence/here-ness feels like.

9. Bribery

As a last resort, never underestimate the power of bribery or more scientifically, cause and effect.  For every hour, afternoon or day your child stays off their device, consider gifting them with a non-tech related reward. The pleasure or pain they associate with their behavior will affect that behavior. Sometimes it might be the only thing that works and it’s not cheating to use the oldest trick in the book.

Parenting these days is not for the faint of heart.  Although I don’t think there’s ever been a time that parenting was easy, the presence of these devices in our children’s lives makes now a particularly challenging and frustrating time to raise children. We’re living with addicts and they’re the very people we love the most and most want to be happy and well, the very thing that addiction prevents.

We parents have to be kind to ourselves too.  Sometimes we allow our child the device even when we know we shouldn’t, because we also know that it will make them stop whining or bitching (depending on their age) and because we desperately need peace and don’t have anything left in our own tank.  And that’s okay.  We also have needs and are not perfect. But what’s most important is not that we’re perfect, but that we keep trying.  And, that we stay in touch with what really matters to us, and behave in a way that’s in alignment with our deeper priorities. Our children and our families are what’s at stake here, and it doesn’t get more important than that.

And finally, in this distracted and addicted world, there’s something we can do in every moment, and it may be the most important piece in this whole conundrum.  When we’re with our kids, we can really be there, be with them, present. Our grounded, undistracted presence is the ultimate antidote to the anxious, untethered, disappeared world in which they are living.  Land in the moment when you’re with your children.  Give them the experience of what it’s like to be with someone who cares about them.  Remember what they tell you about their lives and ask about it.  Create continuity in a world that appears and disappears faster than memory can grasp.  Be the light in the darkness, the sanity in the insanity.  Love means presence and in that, we, blessedly, have complete control.

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We all know that teenagers text—a lot. But as the mother of a teenager, I am sometimes shocked by how much a lot can be, and more to the point, the impact that all this texting, virtual relating, is having on our children’s real life relationships. Many young people are now experiencing their first “romantic” relationship on their phones. Teenage couples begin texting each other intimately and voraciously often before they are even friends, texting things to each other that they would never (ever) say in person. Having a real life relationship with your boyfriend is no longer a prerequisite for having a virtual relationship with him.

These days, when a girl says she is “dating” someone, it generally means that she has someone with whom she texts around the clock.  It doesn’t however, mean that she talks to that person more (or at all) in real life.  It is not uncommon for a girl to have a boyfriend whom she never actually talks to in person but spends most of her day texting with.  Being part of a couple also doesn’t mean that you do anything in the world together, like go for ice cream or see a movie.

On their own, texting relationships might not seem like a big deal, but the problem that they create is indeed a big deal. Virtual relationships stunt real relationships (and the skills they require).  The pseudo intimacy of the texting relationship preempts real intimacy, which then creates a divide that is difficult to cross.  The virtual romance happens at a pace and rhythm and with a hipness and ease that has little to do with real life romance or, for that matter, the emotional maturity of teenagers.  And furthermore, the closeness that has transpired over text becomes imprisoning; what has been experienced in the device is not appropriate to the real-life relationship, which then becomes reason to avoid one other in actual life. The real relationship not only can’t catch up with the virtual relationship, but also becomes its hostage.

This is not just a young person’s issue.  Adult relationships are also getting caught in the chasm between virtual and actual reality. After a first or second date, it is common for would-be couples to begin texting with a frequency, casualness, and intimacy that doesn’t fit the level of the relationship; they share their thoughts, feelings, and everyday experiences as if communicating with a best friend or maybe more accurately, a part of themselves. They share their lives, as well, without the discomfort or effort that a phone call or in person exchange might require. This false and immediate intimacy then impedes the possibility of the relationship blossoming into something more real as the connection gets waylaid in a kind of texting purgatory: a fast-paced, uber cool, pseudo-sexy, nowheresville.

It’s also not just romantic relationships that are being transformed as texting becomes the first language of human relationships.  In some friendships, even those that are long-term, texting allows for a creative, exciting and newfound conversational dance, a verve that is often not possible in the face to face familiarity.  So too, texting feels easier and less stressful than real life relating; the conversation pauses or ends when we want it to and can happen in bite size, manageable chunks, with no awkward silences.  Texting relationships feel in our control while real relationships often don’t; we can be who we want in text relationships but not always in real ones.

I know people who now get anxious when they meet their friends in real life because they feel that the actual interaction can’t possibly be as fun or entertaining as the text exchanges. As one woman expressed, I can’t be as fabulous in person as I am on text.  And our friends can’t be as fabulous either, which means that the whole real life relating experience can become a kind of disappointment—ultimately lacking what the texting relationship can offer.  Once again, the real can’t compete with the virtual.

I wonder, will the gap between our virtual and real life relationships grow so wide that we will opt to give up real life relationships altogether. Will there come a time when we no longer even pretend to want or need face to face interaction?  With the help of procreation technology, will future generations consider romance and courtship to be activities that happen entirely inside their devices?

The larger problem is that virtual relationships don’t nourish us in the same way that real life relationships do. After a full day of connecting through our phone, we don’t feel connected, satisfied and heart-full in the same way that we do after physically sharing a meal or taking a walk with someone.  We integrate interactions in which we share a physical space differently than we do those that happen in our phone; we absorb them at a deeper and more cellular level. Our real life relationships change us in ways that our virtual relationships do not.

I hope that our children don’t forget what real life relating feels like, or one day believe that texting offers the full expression and rewards of human connection. I hope that future generations will not forego real relationships just because their virtual relationships may feel sexier, easier, cooler, and, in the short term, more pleasurable. It is, after all, through the real and sometimes more challenging aspects of face to face relating that we build social skills, emotional intelligence, empathy, and character, and consequently, reap the nourishment and satisfaction that real life human relationships provide.

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