How to prepare children for greatness and save them from technology
By Katherine Bennett, Catholic Herald.
It used to be that children were given a key to the door when they reached 21 years of age. The giving of this key signified adulthood and independence. Today, though, we do not wait so long and we give a key to be used from the inside, without needing to even open a door.
Nowadays, after living on the earth for only 10 short years, having mastered little more than walking, eating and toileting, children in the UK are presented with something they call a “phone”, but which, in reality, is a key to pleasure island: that “happy land of carefree boys where every day’s a holiday”, as depicted in the Pinocchio story.
And just as in Pinocchio, where Honest John’s promises of endless fun without rules is a trap, so too are the subtle promises which accompany this latter-day key.
“It is this technology that is forming our children, from babies in buggies, to teens in their bedrooms,” says Ciro Candia, the Catholic founder of ProParent, an initiative which aims to guide parents in creating a strong and loving family culture.
“Most parents don’t want to give their kids a phone; they worry about addiction, bullying, distorted self-image and even (as the evidence mounts) suicide. Yet they relent because everybody else has one and they don’t want their child to be excluded.”
Jonathan Haidt, who has been working on the relationship between social media use and mental health, describes this as the collective action problem. No parent wants to be the first one to climb out of the Overton window, so they wait for school policies and government directives to force everyone’s hand.
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