{"id":38919,"date":"2024-10-17T21:00:13","date_gmt":"2024-10-18T04:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=38919"},"modified":"2024-10-17T21:00:13","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T04:00:13","slug":"anxious-living","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/anxious-living\/","title":{"rendered":"Anxious Living!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anxiety<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had a conversation this week with a client that shared that they suffer from anxiety. They shared it in a conversation that the topic was not their mental health but as an explanation of how they responded or didn\u2019t respond in a situation. The interesting thing about this situation is that I did not find it odd or outside of the norm that they struggle with anxiety. It is quite common and doesn\u2019t carry the stigma that it once did. I actually found it helpful as we were trying to determine the next move for this client. What I did find interesting\/odd is that we were reading about anxiety this week while I was navigating this situation with my client. I\u2019d like to say that the book helped me advise the client, but it didn\u2019t. I did, however, recommend that she read it as she is also trying to understand how to relate and lead her younger staff members.<\/p>\n

Raising Them Wrong<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was fascinated by Haidt\u2019s invitation to view the late 1980\u2019s through a different lens. Although I was coming of age in the late 80\u2019s (I was born in the great year of 1970), I had an absolute ball playing, being outside, and having actual face to face conversations with people. Haidt states, \u201cI propose that we view the late 1980’s as the beginning of the transition from a \u201cplay-based childhood\u201d to a \u201cphone-based childhood,\u201d a transition that was not complete until the mid-2010\u2019s, when adolescents had their own smartphone. [1]<\/a> I have no memory of a \u201cphone-based childhood\u201d. We barely used the phone for actual conversations, it was usually brief just to confirm where we were meeting and what time, especially before call waiting. The conversations were brief and quick because you didn\u2019t want to keep someone from trying to get through. God, forbid they need to get through and have to call the operator interrupt the call. It was a whole process, and we would be in big trouble if someone had to interrupt the line to get through in an emergency, so we avoided it by making quick calls. So, if the transition began in the late 80\u2019s it was a slow snail-paced process and more than likely didn\u2019t speed up until cell phones were readily available in the mid-90\u2019s which is evidenced in my experience as a parent of a child born in the early 90\u2019s, she had a \u201cplay-based childhood\u201d also.<\/p>\n

Haidt states his primary claim\u201d is that these two trends- overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world<\/em>-are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation. [2]<\/a> I immediately began to think of my two youngest children born in 2008 and 2010. Am I overprotecting in one key area and underprotecting in another? Probably! Haidt goes on to describe the \u201creal world\u201d characteristics as being embodied, synchronous, primarily one-to-one and having a high bar entry \/exit and the \u201cvirtual world\u201d characteristics as being disembodied, asynchronous, one to many and having a low bar entry\/exit. This left me feeling a bit anxious about my parenting. I was really interested in the recommendations for fostering a healthier childhood in this digital age. The measuring stick that he uses made it clear that I (we) am not getting this right. Haidt suggests that kids have:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. No smart phones before high school<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 We failed at this. They both had smartphones in middle school.<\/em><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. No social media before 16<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0The 14-year-old does not have social media (at least not that we know of) and the 16-year-old joined Instagram this Summer.<\/em><\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Phone free schools<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Their High School allows phones in school but requires them to be put up during class time. <\/em><\/p>\n

          \n
        1. Far more unsupervised play and childhood independence [3]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          I\u2019m not sure how I feel about this one in this season of life. I want them to be free of devices and have good old fun, but\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0unsupervised play and teenagers is a tricky combination. This one is work in progress. <\/em><\/p>\n

          Depression<\/strong><\/p>\n

          I am concerned about depression in young people and the effect that the isolation of Covid-19 had on their mental health. I am especially tuned in to my children and their peers. It is scary that the reality is that we may never fully understand how they have been affected. They have been socially impacted in ways that we have never seen before. Haidt shares, \u201cAn important feature of depression for this book is its link to social relationships. People are more likely to become depressed when they become (or feel) more socially disconnected, and depression then makes people less interested and able to seek out social connections.[4]<\/a> I worry about this and the connection to overdependence on electronics. Are our young people able to socially engage or is the norm being disconnected from people and attached to technology and virtual experiences? I don\u2019t know but I do know that I want to have more conversations with fellow parents and try to agree on how we all can support our community of children together. Honestly, it scares me.<\/p>\n

          [1]<\/a> Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness<\/em> (New York, NY: Penguin Press, 2024), 7.<\/p>\n

          [2]<\/a> Ibid, 9.<\/p>\n

          [3]<\/a> Ibid, 15.<\/p>\n

          [4]<\/a> Ibid, 29.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          Anxiety I had a conversation this week with a client that shared that they suffer from anxiety. They shared it in a conversation that the topic was not their mental health but as an explanation of how they responded or didn\u2019t respond in a situation. The interesting thing about this situation is that I did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":174,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310],"tags":[3306],"class_list":["post-38919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-dlgp02-haidt","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/174"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38921,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38919\/revisions\/38921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}