Six years ago, I gathered a few teachers in my church and facilitated a conversation, hoping to learn more about the community we were pastoring. When I asked them about the issues that children and families were dealing with, the number one response was anxiety. Each person spoke about how alarming levels of anxiety in children meant that they had to adapt their teaching strategies to help manage this new trend.<\/p>\n
In The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness<\/em>, Jonathan Heidt confirms what I had heard anecdotally from teachers years ago. The premise of Haidt\u2019s book is that starting in the early 2010s, there was a \u201cgreat rewiring\u201d of a generation\u2019s cognitive and social development that has given rise to an alarming increase in mental health disorders. Heidt points to two primary factors in this rise of anxiety. These two factors are related to parenting and the unregulated use of technology. He writes, \u201cMy central claim in this book is that these two trends\u2014overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world\u2014are the major reasons why children born after 1995 became the anxious generation.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n Two central terms stood out to me. The author contrasted a \u201cplay-based childhood\u201d with a \u201cphone-based childhood\u201d. He writes, \u201cA play-based childhood is one in which kids spend the majority of their free time playing with friends in the real world as I defined it in the introduction: embodied, synchronous, one-to-one or one-to-several, and in groups or communities where there is some cost to join or leave so people invest in relationships.\u201d[2]<\/a> This is the kind of childhood that earlier generations had. However, Haidt notes, \u201cGen Z became the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, unstable, and\u2014as I will show\u2014unsuitable for children and adolescents.\u201d[3]<\/a> The shift from a \u201cplay-based\u201d to a \u201cphone-based\u201d childhood is facilitated by parents being overprotective in the outside world and under protective in the online world.<\/p>\n There are many alarming impacts that the author exposes throughout Part 3 of the book, such as social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction. However, what I want to reflect on further is found in Part 4. In this closing section, Haidt calls for collective action from adults that could help children regain a healthy childhood. Often, we feel powerless in the rising tide of technology and online activity. The hope for the health of our future adolescents is found in adults who are figures of authority. Haidt calls for governments, tech companies, schools, and parents to partner with GenZ to take collective action. However, this is not simply a technical challenge. Rather, it requires leaders to understand the psychological dynamics of society. Annabel Bereel writes, \u201cTo influence groups, leaders must understand what is going on both overtly and covertly. This means they need to take a psychodynamic approach to a group\u2019s functioning, and they also need to understand the psychodynamic behaviours of a group.\u201d[4]<\/a> She admits, however, that this skill is not often considered.<\/p>\n As I read section 4, I couldn\u2019t help but connect this collective action to A Failure of Nerve<\/em> by Friedman. In essence, Haidt calls for authority figures to provide leadership rather than give in to the cultural pressure for a \u201cphone-based childhood\u201d that seems too much to resist. To take back childhood for future generations, parents and other authority figures will have to learn to become more self-differentiated. What does this mean?<\/p>\n Friedman views leadership as an emotional process rather than a cognitive process that requires a self-differentiated leader.[5]<\/a> He describes this kind of leader, \u201cI mean someone who can be separate while still remaining connected and, therefore, can maintain a modifying, non-anxious and sometimes challenging presence.\u201d[6]<\/a> Friedman believes that whole system change is only possible when collective leadership action is taken. He writes: \u201cUltimately, societies, families, and organizations are able to evolve out of a state of regression not because their leaders \u2018feel\u2019 for or \u2018understand\u2019 their followers, but because their leaders are able, by their well-defined presence, to regulate the systemic anxiety in the relationship system they are leading and to inhibit those factions that would preempt its agenda.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/p>\n The collective action proposed by Haidt will involve self-differentiated leadership at every level of society. He writes: \u201cIf schools take these steps, in concert with parents taking related steps at home and governments changing laws to support those efforts, then I believe we can reverse the surge of suffering that hit adolescents in the early 2010s.\u201d[8]<\/a> Since the church has reach into all of these sectors, I\u2019d like to think that this is a golden opportunity for the church to provide self-differentiated leadership.<\/p>\n While this problem is immense, I think the church is uniquely positioned to help. I will offer a few suggestions for the church. First, churches can model phone-free zones during meetings. Youth need models. Would leaders be willing to model this? Secondly, churches can help parents become healthier by providing a parenting course that encourages good parenting. Finally, church leaders can encourage schools and governments to consider what part they can play in this. I know of one church leader who gave this book to his Member of Parliament.<\/p>\n As I close, I will do so with the words of Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and beneficiary of a \u201cplay-based\u201d childhood. He writes, \u201cThe Anxious Generation<\/em>\u00a0is a must-read for anyone raising, working with, or teaching young people today. With this book, Haidt has given the world a wake-up call about where we\u2019re headed\u2014and a roadmap for how we can change course.\u201d[9]<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/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), Kindle, 9.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Haidt, 53.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Haidt, 6.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Annabel C. Beerel, Rethinking Leadership: A Critique of Contemporary Theories<\/em>, 1 Edition (New York: Routledge, 2021), 107.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix<\/em>, ed. Margaret M. Treadwell and Edward W. Beal, 10th anniversary revised edition (New York: Church Publishing, 2017), 15.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Friedman, 16.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Friedman, 146.<\/p>\n