Sorry — another rant. Or maybe it’s more of an admission. It’s this:Giving children phones makes possible the impossible demands on parents, that they supervise, assist, drive, and chaperone their children everywhere, every day — usually while holding down another job.It’s only because we can hand children their electronic devices that we can get this tsunami of stuff, including cooking, commuting, cleaning, and maybe even talking to our spouses once in a while, done. Thanks to phones, the children are quiet. Without phones, we’d be at our wits’ end. They buy us the time we desperately need. That’s one big reason phones are so ubiquitous. And why it’s so hard to take them away from our children, even if we think we should.Only… If we gave children back freedom to do things without adults always watching them, the whole equation changes.We would have more free time.We wouldn’t be so frantic.Children wouldn’t be on their phones as much.Children would be happier.If it were normal again to have the children come home and go play outside, on their own, they’d be out of our hair, interested and engaged like — dare I say it? — we were. They wouldn’t need to be on their phones because they’d be outside, busy. Which means inside would be quiet. We could get stuff done. We also wouldn’t have to drive them to so many activities, because “playing outside” is an activity. And it’s local and free, so we could actually save some money.And free play happens to be great for children. Everyone’s so worried about childhood anxiety and depression, including me. Yet when children play without an adult “helping,” they automatically get practice at solving problems and making life fun. Only… This just isn’t happening much.Currently, phones are serving the role that “go play outside” used to play: a way for children to be out of our hair, occupied, without it costing much.So, to stop children from spending seven or eight hours a day on their phones, people may think we either have to enroll them in a bunch more adult-run activities — and work to pay for those activities and get them to and from those activities. Or, instead of outsourcing the activities, it may look like we ourselves would have to abandon everything else on our plate — work, relationships — to engage them in play, despite the fact that this is boring and we are already stretched thin.Yet the one cheap, time-tested alternative being ignored is letting them go outside and make their own fun. Letting the children simply hang out with … other children. Or a friendly dog. Or a hopefully non-rabid squirrel.Let us therefore strive to make unsupervised free play normal again. Children are hardwired to love doing it. Parents are hardwired not to want to do this nearly as much as children do. That’s why children have always had a separate world from adults.Right now, that separate world has become, by default, a screen.Only open the door and say, “be home by supper,” and that separate “kids world” becomes the neighborhood. When other parents also start saying, “go play,” parenting becomes easier, cheaper and happier. Ditto for childhood. Phones are replaced, at least in part, by a child’s favorite thing: playing with other children, not us, in real life. So, find a local friend also fed up with being their children’s constant playmate, chauffeur, bodyguard, and get-off-your-phone nagger, and both of you open the door and say, “be home by supper.”And when the children get a little older, they can make supper, too.Creators.com
