An External Trigger Shifts

My attention toward my kids shifted from partial to deep, from mechanical to enjoyable. The only thing I removed was habitual, mindless scrolling. One day, I had plopped my little girls into the bathtub and sat on a nearby stool to supervise. So I turned back to my bathing beauties. I chatted with them, enjoying their sweet giggles and splashes. At times I would glance toward it, but now it looked different. Other parents who detoxed shared similar findings. Another morning, while the kids were eating breakfast, I picked up my coffee and turned toward my phone. I would typically open Instagram at this point. But it wasn’t there. Mom Caitlin shared that during her detox, she took her kids to the park. Instead of using that time to scroll through Instagram, she watched her kids.

Take It Away

My life pace felt different. Then my internal pacing was stressed and out of sync. During my detox, my pace synced up with my kids’ pace. I am concerned that my kids get the sense that they are interrupting me when they are simply trying to talk to me. My detox window allowed me the space to notice this. I want my kids to feel like the default is that they can come talk to me anytime, and they will be met with warmth and love. If an external trigger shifts my response into annoyance toward my kids, I need to reevaluate that. But as I work them back into regular life, I am more aware of my own vulnerabilities. I realized that I had frequently been picking up my phone out of habit rather than interest. I was running errands, which included a quick trip to the grocery store to buy snacks for my kindergartners’ class. There were very specific snacks the teacher had requested due to allergy concerns. I could not remember which snacks.

In A World Of Pain

I would have checked my email, but I had deleted my app, and the slow internet in the store wasn’t cooperating. I had to call my husband at work to look it up on my email. That was kind of inconvenient. I felt so free when I didn’t care about my phone. I don’t know, and I don’t care! Like Mary Tyler Moore joyously throwing her hat into the air. Except that other people did care. I missed important phone calls from my husband and others more than once. This left me longing for some kind of technology halfway between smartphones and the home phone days of yore. At one point I totally broke my own detox rules. I heard through the grapevine that there was misinformation being spread about a dear friend. My inner detective had to investigate. Thirty minutes later, I am embarrassed to report, my time was not at all well spent.

Just Like Strange Rain

I closed my computer feeling anxious and annoyed. Remove notifications from all apps. Why did we ever allow notifications in the first place? I would never give a stranger or an acquaintance permission to enter my home, walk up, and tap me on the shoulder. Yet this is what we do when we allow apps to pull our attention away from real life. Removing notifications converts your phone to a place more like your physical mailbox. Not unless he wants a jujitsu demonstration on his face. A few moments later, a high school acquaintance knocks on your bathroom door to hand you a picture of her lunch. These people can put all their messages in one place, and we don’t need to be alerted when they arrive. We decide when we will check it. We decide when and where to allocate our attention. Thank you, and good day, sirs. Create windows to intentionally check on your digital life. I have yet to meet a parent who has decided they want to be on their phone all day. For most parents, it just happens. This is why it helps to declare specific windows for enjoying your apps. Pick your times and stick to it. Create spaces for that. If you want an additional barrier, you could even set parental controls on your phone and give the password to your spouse or friend. There will be mistakes, but use them to do better. We aren’t expecting perfection from our kids or from ourselves. But we are expecting growth in an area that we have decided to work on. If you are missing the mark, don’t beat yourself up. Share technologies that you find incredibly useful or fun. Share the ones that you find addictive. You are a human being responding to technology that was designed to keep you hooked. You are not unusually weak or flawed when your brain responds to a stimulus that was engineered to stimulate it. They deeply desire to be influenced and cultivated by Mom and Dad. With some humility and simple planning, we can put tech in its right place. Then we don’t have to feel guilty about using it, because we have already vetted it and sorted it. We no longer feel tethered, stuck, or rushed. Our kids are watching us. They are learning how to process their anxieties and desires by watching us. They have so much to learn and share. We have the privilege of drawing their hearts’ burdens out from the inside and into words. We get to look into their beautiful faces and speak life to them along the way. The stakes are so high. But we can rise to the occasion. You haven’t done it perfectly? Maybe we haven’t done it perfectly so far, but we need not stress. Remember those brain scientists who told us that we can rewire our kids’ brains to be happier and healthier, based on the experiences we give them? Well, the ability to rewire brains isn’t exclusive to children and teens. You get to steer them through the mess. You are the person called to teach them how to enjoy but not obsess, taste but do not binge.