Resiliency Skills - Part A

How Electronic Devices Are Inhibiting the Intellectual and Mental Wellness of Children

A fable from our not too distant past....

As a youth, Mr. Innovation entered our home. He wasn’t much of a communicator but watching him was always entertaining. After several years of keeping us company, Mr. Innovation (aka Mr. TV) married his longtime girlfriend Ms. Computer. They continued on with their usual nonverbal form of social intercourse until they had their first child whom they named Cell, last name Phone, from his grandmother Tela’s side of the family. Later, they had a second child they named iPod. iPod’s gang of electronic friends were always hanging around playing violent video games whose ultimate objective is to kill as many bad guys as possible in order to obtain winning scores.

Today, there is a new generation of iPods and their close cousins smartphones. As a result, children with phones are acquiring more dangerous Internet friends, such as, TikTok, Snapchat, Hoop, Yik Yak, Discord (the website for bullies), Tumblr, the annoying Twitter and Instagram. Parents beware! Especially the insidious Instagram. These groups of web weasel trespassers are constantly online with vulnerable children only to destroy them. Too many youngsters become devastated by the insidious consequences that social networking may have on their overall mental wellness. Youngsters participating on social net-working sites has resulted in the sharing of too much personal and intimate information and way too many pictures of skin. As a group, this electronic family is rapidly debasing what is left of our children’s verbal expressive language. This has resulted in the behavioral reductiveness toward conversation with family members, teachers and peer groups. Today’s teens seldom use their phones to speak to one another, they text instead. As one enormous dysfunctional family, tomorrow’s children have it within their power to extinguish most forms of verbal communication and social interaction for years to come.

Which would you consider to be more dangerous in the home, a gun or a smartphone? Responsible parents would secure all guns in a place where children wouldn’t be able to get near them. Sadly, most parents have limited knowledge of the hazardous effects that electronic entertainment devices have on their children’s physical development, mental fitness and intellectual development or they would lock up all the devices along with the guns. Both parents and schools should make it their responsibility to keep them away from children under the age of twelve. Our children need to be protected from the insidious consequences these menacingly malignant devices pose to their safety and intellectual and emotional wellness.

On March 16, 2022, Instagram, the social net’s worst offender, provided parents with "new tools that parents can use to help monitor and limit their kids’ usage." This is like preaching to the converted. It’s those parents who aren’t monitoring their children’s websites and are unaware of the disturbing messages their children are getting from web-sites such as Instagram who need to be informed. Everything that our neuropsychologists have learned about the impact of digital and cyber technology indicates that electronic devices, coupled with the Internet, will be only second to climate change as the most serious threat facing the healthy and intellectual development and futures of today’s youth.

On June 18, 2018, a report from The World Health Organization, clearly stated that "Gaming Disorder," is an addictive behavior and a mental health disease. This is a disorder that is characterized as persistent or recurring. As such, it is a behavioral pattern that will cause "marked distress or significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational, or other important areas of functioning." By adding gaming disorder to the latest classification of diseases, it becomes an official diagnosis that can be used by health workers and doctors worldwide.

Starting immediately, we must begin implementing programs that will inform parents of the dangers that social networking sites may have on their child’s wellness and intellectual development and demand that our schools begin a dialogue to do the same. The most difficult problem for parents will be trying to convince their children to limit the time spent on digital devices. If psychology professors are having problems convincing their children to change their digital diet, parents will need all the tough love they can summon to convince their children. Where are the safety nets to allow our children to live in a social environment that provides access to activities designed to help our children grow both socially and emotionally?

It is everyone’s responsibility to provide our children with a safe path to grow, both physically and emotionally. Let us start by introducing resiliency skills to children before they become overwhelmed by the outside pressures of friends, peer groups and the damaging influence of social media sites. Provide children with sufficient coping mechanisms to adjust to a future more challenging than that which faced us when we were at this vulnerable age. Electronic devices will never get them there!

Although students don’t get grades on their social fitness scale from attending school, their friends, classmates and peer groups constantly remind them how well they are behaving socially; either verbally or through the Internet. For those social networking youngsters, passing this test is of greater value to them than passing any STEM test. When youth do well socially, they are apt to be well liked, happy and not preoccupied with electronic devices. Entertainment devices are responsible for children feeling disconnected, lonely and left out. It will be each parent’s responsibility to provide a life-style that is resistant to the pressures that face today’s youth. We must protect those who are vulnerable from the deceptive impact of social media sites, electronic devices and the disturbing, negative and conflicting influences of their friend’s values which fail to live up to peer group expectations. It is up to us all to provide children with resilience skills that offer coping mechanisms to allow children to protect themselves from consequences that may affect their behavior for the rest of their lives.

The Physical and Emotion Consequences of Digital Devices and Social Media Sites

Further research into digital depression, as of May, 2019, found it was the content of what children watched on TV and the serious nature of their exposure to the digital dangers that caused children to develop feelings of low self-esteem and may be the cause of increasing mental disorders of youngsters. To achieve success while in school, research has shown that "access to these digital media may have detrimental outcomes, such as distraction from work or school, the spread of false information about individuals, online bullying, and reduced face-to-face social interactions, all of which can lead to anxiety, depression, and suicidality."

This last hypothesis of reinforcing spirals, is based on the algorithmic nature of social media. Our educational scientists are telling us, "Teens may be exposed to social media, videos, cyberbullying, etc. that promote depressive messages and if they accessed it once, the site would further send the content of the same type, trapping the young users in a vicious cycle of negative influences." Someone must be held accountable for any invasion of a child’s privacy, children being exposed to offensive and destructive images of nudity and brutality, and the destructive nature of cyberbullying using digital devices to influence the most vulnerable.

It would be wise for parents to heed Mr. North’s tyrannical form of parenting (Why we've said no to smartphones for our kids), "We don’t want them to become the kids who spend five hours or more a day on social media or who check their phones for what seems like every few seconds. Our continuous family joke (which our kids don’t find funny) is that they can get one when they are 22." Both the North’s agree, "When it comes to school, we don't want our kids struggling because they are half asleep after using their phones late into the night. Or because they are distracted in class while trying to covertly text their friends or can't focus on the teacher after becoming over-stimulated by hours of video games." He continues, "My wife and I also try to model behavior, and this again can be tough."

How do we best parent in a smartphone era? North writes "we want them to be kind and happy. We want them to have friends and to socialize effectively and to find interesting hobbies. We want them to achieve success in school and end up in careers they find fulfilling. Saying no to a smartphone probably makes that journey to adulthood a little unusual in today's digital age, and maybe a little more complex and challenging. So yes, we are tyrants, but hopefully the good kind."

Children and many adults are affected by an over-indulgence with computer and smartphone devices. Those who become preoccupied with gaming, social media or those who sit in front of a screen all day because of work will have both their physical and mental health disrupted. Besides the health problems created because of lack of sleep, poor diet and dehydration, they suppress their feelings and become anti-social, which often leads to feelings of anxiety and depression not to mention thoughts of suicide and other co-morbidities.

There are long term health implications for those subjected to such devices beside sleep deprivation and obesity. Overuse often results in vision problems such as eyestrain, macular degeneration, cataracts and eye cancer. Recent studies revealed that middle-age patients who complained of memory loss problems had brain scans that showed plaque deposits similar to patients suffering with Alzheimer’s disease. Television remains the most invasive form of distraction amongst children. Without seeming like a dictator, realize that your child’s choice of viewing has a direct impact on the cognitive mindset of how they view the world. Parents would be wise to monitor their children’s viewing. Introduce them to animal shows, comedy and shows with happy endings. Watching violence on TV with their parents may impact the social and moral values children show toward others. Studies have shown that viewing time is correspondingly associated with obesity, sleep deprivation, anxiety and depression disorders. The smartphone is negatively influencing our children’s lives. Children would benefit if parents choose to exemplify the "tyrannical" parenting practices of the North family. There is plenty of time for kids to own a smartphone. When they do get their first phone let’s hope they are responsible enough to know its limitations. The amount of screen time should be negotiated and no child should be allowed their smartphones or computers in their bedrooms two hours before bedtime. For those parents whose children are already watching more than two hours each day on devices including TV, use some of the tough love strategies mentioned by Mr. North earlier. There are serious consequences for letting your children dictate their own screen time. No parent should have to discover what these consequences are!

Resiliency Skills Part B

"What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger." The maelstrom that awaits our youth will affect the socioeconomic, environmental, as well as the intellectual and mental wellness of children who haven’t acquired the coping mechanisms to deal with the New Normal. Our immediate problem is that the adult community doesn’t recognize that there is a threat to children. Parents can help lessen the risks their children will encounter by providing resiliency skills during the most important developmental phases of their child’s life. Make no mistake, the roof is about to cave in and children will require every skill necessary to help them adapt to a lifestyle that they are presently ill-equipped to manage.

The consequences of the New Normal will make children yearn for yesterday’s lifestyles that at the time were thought to be unfair. How prepared will those affected regions be when in North American towns and cities children are experiencing increasing heat waves that will make classroom temperatures too unbearable to maintain? Will flooding, wildfires and countless weather events destroy the roads necessary to get to class or will there be no schools left for them to attend?

As I write about current consequences of the New Normal, California is being devastated by atmospheric river events that will result in millions of families having their homes washed away by mud-slides and over flowing river banks. At the same time, tornadoes and windstorms are wreaking havoc on the populations of citizens from Kentucky to the Mississippi Valley. Schooling has become irrelevant for families displaced by the chaos that Mother Nature is inflicting upon those who believe there is no such thing as ‘climate change’. The question remains, how have we prepared these children and their families to deal with the wrath of Mother Nature? Schools must decide, which is of greater value to our children, learning how to adapt to climate change or understanding Shakespeare and solving algebraic problems?

Our climate research scientists have known for many years and have provided evidence of the impact that climate change will have on the minds of the unprepared child. Become familiar with what may happen to your child and prepare them for all eventualities. A child’s brain is developing along with their bodies, and the air they breathe and the water they drink may put their physical and intellectual development at risk. Increasing atmospheric events and the damage it will leave behind will be devastating but what is to happen to those vulnerable children without the coping mechanisms to deal with the trauma that will result? David Wallace-Wells reported that "thirty-two weeks after Hurricane Andrew hit Florida in 1992: more than half of the children surveyed had moderate PTSD. In the storms of high impact areas, 70 percent of children scored in the moderate to severe range twenty-one months after the storm." No one has statistics to test their resilience skill levels. ¹

The anguish children along the eastern coast from New England to Florida must be experiencing and the distress and trauma caused by the atmospheric river events in California will have lifelong consequences for the unprepared mind. "It is not enough to track children’s exposure and vulnerability to climate impacts. These metrics must also track their resilience. For instance, they might explore the role of early relational health as a buffer to climate shocks." ¹

Some Suggestions to Help Your Child’s Mind to Be Prepared

To begin, I recommend that your family watch an excellent production on helping everyone to understand the consequences of being unprepared. View kids’ video on climate change, How do we know? Because IPCC, then begin a dialogue for an exchange of the family's ideas of what may occur and the precautions to take in case of an event. I suggest that you keep the conversation positive and re-frame some strategies to deal with poor air quality, suspected unhealthy water, expectations from being relocated because of the dangers of wildfires and flooding.

It will be difficult to deal with the stress that comes from atmospheric events but the point is to learn to be prepared. While bullying may not be a climate cause for concern, how to deal with bullying is. With bullying, whether on the bus ride to and from school or in school, knowing how to manage a difficult situation is something that all children must learn. Bullying and climate events are not their fault. It is not their responsibility to change what is happening to them, but being prepared must be taken seriously.

It’s my suggestion—and I warn you that it will create chaos for those adults who are capable of making "tough love" decisions—create a scenario that everyone will experience brownouts and power failures. Observe how everyone reacts. Your children won’t be able to control a brownout. Observe their behavior when you tell them to give you all digital devices for, let’s say—two hours? Create a scenario where water is shut off and food becomes scarce, along with a power shortage.

These events are not just something that you may have created to prepare your child’s future, there are families in North America and the world over whose immediate life may be at risk as I complete this discussion.

Chance favors only the prepared mind. Louis Pasteur

¹Climate change is threatening childhood as we know it. Joe Waters and Katherine Prince argue that the dangers of climate change are particularly acute for children across the American South.