Unplug from your phone to bond as a family

In a recent column, Justin Coulson writes about how he has noticed that parents have become increasingly addicted to their smartphones, to the point that they are ignoring their children while endlessly scrolling during their kids’ soccer games, football practices, or other similar activities — times when children want to know their parents care about them and their lives.

Yet when he took a poll at a parent workshop asking them if their phones were more important than their kids, no one raised a hand.

Sadly, I have also observed this over the years — parents who are more addicted to the small screen in their hands than their relationships with their children. And it goes both ways. Children bury their heads in their smartphones provided by their parents and barely respond to them.

For instance, over the past several years, we have seen incident after incident showing that the “kids are not alright,” particularly among teenagers, whose rates of depression, self-harm, substance abuse, and suicide continue to rise at alarming rates.

The problem has become so bad that Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin just signed an executive order banning smartphones in the commonwealth’s K-12 schools. Other states are also discussing taking similar action.

Why has this happened? Values are “caught, not taught,” and children are often some of the greatest observers in the world. If they see their parents buried in their smartphones and ignoring their relationships, they are likely to do the same — creating a canyon of isolation and loneliness that is detrimental to both parties.

The Institute for Family Studies reports that “about 1 in 7 parents of teens (15%) said they use their phones or other digital devices ‘almost constantly’ during conversations, meals, or family events.” Instead of engaging with one’s spouse or children, they are burying their heads in their screens and not interacting with the most important people in their lives, with devastating consequences.

If both parents and their children have their heads buried in a smartphone, it shuts down all face-to-face communication, which is essential for a child’s long-term emotional well-being. It helps them develop social skills, cultivate empathy for others, and receive the encouragement they need to flourish and thrive.

This is more important than ever as our children face more temptations and peer pressure because of social media and smartphones. They need parents to be present personally, not virtually.

Thus, I do not think it is a mere coincidence that the current “loneliness” epidemic afflicting our country coincided with the introduction of the smartphone. Instead of engaging in meaningful face-to-face interaction, we retreated to 140-character “tweets,” Facebook and Instagram “likes,” and acronyms such as “LOL.”

That is why adults, especially those of us who are parents, need to go on a digital diet to purge the smartphone toxins from our minds and focus once again on what is most important: our relationships with our children and the other people around us.

This does not mean parents should stop utilizing the positive aspects of smartphones, such as texting someone if they’re running late or if they need their spouse to pick up something at the grocery store. Using a GPS instead of trying to read a map while driving has saved many a traveler from getting lost. What it does mean is putting down the phone for nonessential activities and showing our kids we care more about them than the number of likes we can accumulate.

Thankfully, some of our kids are beginning to realize this, either reducing their time on their phones or ditching them altogether.

“Young people themselves are kind of self-censoring and saying, ‘I don’t really need the negative mental health and social harms that come with an always-connected life,’” said Greg Hoplamazia, academic director of emerging media at Loyola University Maryland.

It is time for parents to follow suit.

So if we want to connect with our kids, let’s disconnect from our phones. Let’s encourage our kids to disconnect too, start talking instead of texting, and focus on long-term relationships instead of instant gratification. Let’s make it a goal to ask our children how they are doing rather than just checking in on their Instagram or Facebook page to find out what is going on in their lives.

Parents and children will find out that instead of virtual “likes,” they may start to experience real-life joy not only with each other but with everyone else around them. That is not only good for families but for our greater society as well.

Timothy S Goeglein is vice president of Focus on the Family in Washington, and author of the book Toward a More Perfect Union: The Cultural and Moral Case for Teaching the Great American Story (Fidelis, 2023).