About a month ago, my family, which includes my wife and two boys, ages 8 and 14, were having a barbeque with two other families from our church who also have boys. That means seven boys in all. You can imagine the noise levels, chaos, and energy when they were all together.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Ironically, my friend Larry and I were talking about how protective we should be as parents with our rowdy boys. We were discussing how far up we should let them climb trees and how close we should be when they do certain activities. We were concluding that we should let our boys be boys, within reason of course. Then it happened…<\/p>\n
Right in the middle of this conversation, essentially about \u201csafetyism\u201d, I see Larry\u2019s eyes get huge while saying an explicative. My 8-year-old son had swung a metal bat to hit a ball, and his 5-year-old son walked behind him at the wrong time and got the front of his head split. Wailing started as blood poured down this little guy\u2019s face, and the night took a significant turn to the E.R.<\/p>\n
Five hours, six stitches, and a \u201csorry I hit you in the head with a bat\u201d gift later, we were all back at the house, rehashing the event and even laughing after we knew everyone was alright. What a night, though.<\/p>\n
There is a tendency after these types of events to hover more. \u00a0Not only to keep our kids safe but to avoid the anxiety, stress, and suffering we go through when we see our kids hurting. My wife and I were at Vanderbilt for two weeks after our youngest jumped out of a grocery cart when he was four. This event started a four-year journey with seizures for him, and it takes a constant toll on our emotions. He had his latest seizure last week.<\/p>\n
Although I take pride in growing up on a farm, having a lot of free play, and playing contact sports, with all the broken bones, stitches, and hospital visits it came with, I find myself wanting to protect my children from these types of things. I understand now why my Mom was a wreck with all that my brother and I got into growing up.<\/p>\n
However, after all that, I still agree with much of what Jonathan Haidt says about overprotectiveness in this week\u2019s reading, The Anxious Generation<\/em>. While reading, I couldn\u2019t help but think about the saying:<\/p>\n Hard times create strong people.<\/p>\n \u00a0Strong people create good times.<\/p>\n \u00a0Good times create weak people.<\/p>\n \u00a0Weak people create hard times.<\/p>\n \u00a0Cycle Restarts.<\/p>\n On the one hand, I believe our ceiling should be the next generation\u2019s floor. On the other hand, there are some things they need to experience themselves to grow and develop into mature and resilient adults, which is the main argument in not only this book by Jonathan Haidt, but also his other duel project with Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind.[i]<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>This week’s deals with much younger people, and the other deals with college students and the trend of safe spaces and mislabeling uncomfortable concepts, history, conversations, and language as trauma. This does make me wonder if \u201cgood times are creating weak people\u201d and what part of all this shifting is human evolution. A hardened WW2 veteran might likely be considered weak or soft in some areas by a Persian soldier in the Iron Age or an Egyptian soldier in the Bronze.<\/p>\n We are far removed from those periods and live in a much different world, which brings us to social media and technology usage with kids. Haidt both challenges my allowances in this area and validates some of my long-held suspicions about screen usage and social media\u2019s effect on children and young people\u2019s development. At first, I thought I was safe since I don\u2019t have girls, and much of the negative impact of social media seems to target them, but his book covers all ages and genders. My wife and I are prime candidates for this subject since we are right in the middle of these formative years with our boys and they love their screens…. and so do we.<\/p>\n This brings me to one of my big takeaways from this book and in general. Jonathan says, \u201cBut what you do often matters far more than what you say, so watch your own phone habits.\u201d[ii]<\/a> Ouch. This philosophy touches on several things. Protecting our kids is usually because we don’t want them hurt, but we also<\/em> don\u2019t want to experience the stress and anxiety of them (or other kids) getting hurt or worrying about them. Not giving them responsibilities or chores can be because we<\/em> can do it quicker or better than they can. Not regulating their screen or phone usage may be because we <\/em>don\u2019t continuously regulate our own, whether it\u2019s work or entertainment.<\/p>\n This reminds me of a response Kim Sanford gave in one of her blogs about helping kids regulate their emotions. She said we may not want to hear this, but if we can\u2019t regulate our own emotions as parents, how do we expect them to do it? This mentality shows just how important our own growth as parents or grandparents is to the next generation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n