(A shot from our time in Switzerland last summer.)
Of all the parenting topics I get asked about, the one that seems to intrigue people the most is my approach to social media with my kids. It might have something to do with the fact that I am a blogger, who runs a significant amount of my business through social media, and yet, none of my kids, even my teenagers, have social media accounts. That’s right, my kids don’t have social media. No facebook, no twitter, and yep, you guessed it, no instagram. In fact, they don’t even have cell phones.
This is a novel, almost shocking revelation to most people, nowadays, but I have always been confident that this was the right decision for my family and our children. And because it’s something I get asked about, the why and the how, so often, I thought I would just sit down and share with you all today, why my kids don’t have social media.
Grab a cup of cocoa and get comfortable.
First and foremost, I want to say, that this is MY approach to parenting, and these are MY reasons for not letting my kids have social media. I would never push my approach on anyone else or suggest that this is the only “right way” to raise children. I do my very best not to judge how other people choose to parent.
I believe that the choices you make when parenting your children should be dictated by two things, the results you want to see, and the principles you want them to grow up with. I want my kids to grow up to be healthy, independent, well-adjusted adults, who have a strong sense of self, who know their own mind, who are kind, loving, good responsible human beings, in their own unique individual ways. I want them to work hard and do their best, I want them to have compassion, deep personal beliefs and a strong testimony of the Gospel, our Savior Jesus Christ, and Heavenly Father. I want them to think for themselves, and be brave enough to do the right thing, even if everyone else isn’t.
These are my dreams for my children, these are my desired results. This desire dictates how I’ve chosen to rear them, and because I am a tenacious person (especially when it comes to sticking to my principles) I’ve been mostly successful at sticking to these principles no matter how much my kids have whined or begging me to let them do what “everybody else’s mom” is letting them do.
I call this idea, parenting with intention. It’s just like any other intentional approach to life. You decide what you want and where you are trying get, what you want to achieve, and that dictates your behavior. Not the way you feel on a stressed day, not what everyone else is doing, and not society. Every parenting decision my husband and I make is guided by what we want to help our children develop into (the very best versions of themselves) and if there is something that won’t serve them, or that goal, then we don’t do it. When you break it down in this way, parenting decisions that once might have seemed complicated, become rather simple.
So without further ado, my reasons why my kids don’t have social media.
It doesn’t serve them. I have thought long and hard about our approach to social media with our kids, and what it came down to was this. It doesn’t serve them. There are so many downsides to social media (especially as it relates to children and teens, more about that in a minute) and I feel that the “upsides” don’t really apply to kids anyway. Or saying that it would benefit them in a bit of a stretch. If I’m being 100% honest with myself, and not trying to convince myself that there are some good things that could come out of my kids having social media, I realize that there aren’t really actually any benefits for them at this stage in life, but there are far more ways it can harm them, their brains, and their self-esteem. It doesn’t serve them.
Excessive screen time is bad for kids, for a number of reasons. There are so many studies that have come out in the last 5 years or so, detailing just how bad excessive screen time is for children and teens in terms of their brain development, behavior, emotion and social development, etc etc. For example: The light emitted from screens interferes with the sleep cycle in the brain and can lead to insomnia. In regards to behavior problems: Elementary school-age children who use screens more than two hours per day are more likely to have emotional, social, and attention problems. Too much screen time can also cause problems in learning and development as well. Studies show that excessive screen time is linked to delays in cognitive, language, social and emotional skills in children. Screen time can also be a predictor of poor functioning and self-control in children. Do I even need to go on?
I want them to develop strong interpersonal communication skills. I have noticed an alarming trend in kids over the last several years. They don’t know how to talk to people. When you are so busy with your face in a phone, interacting mostly through text exchanges and emojis, how do you develop the ability communicate face to face with other people, both peers and superiors. My kids’ teachers and school counselors are always asking me how my kids are so well-spoken, how they’ve managed to transition smoothly into new schools each time we’ve moved. I know that in part they are this way because they have learned to interact with other people (even people they don’t know, scary!) in real life, and they don’t always have their face buried in a phone.
I want them to be keenly aware of the humanity of other people. We’ve all seen how absolutely how vile people can be to each other online. I’ve been in this business for eight years and even I am often surprised by the vitriol that people virally sling at each other. When did this happen, when people forgot to act with decency no matter where you are interacting? It is so easy to forget that the person on the other side of a screen is an actually human being with feelings. In a desire to connect with more people, we’ve lost some of our humanity. I always want my kids to be aware of other people, to treat them with decency and respect. It is so much easier to do that if you are interacting face to face with other people. If you are seeing the subtle nuances in their expressions, and understand that all people carry a least a little sadness and insecurity within them, you learn that all people need empathy and grace. This understanding is a gift I can give my children by letting them interact in real-time, face to face. This is also effective with teaching conflict resolution. We all need to learn to work things out with people we disagree with, and an online comment forum is not the place to learn this skill.
I don’t think kids are capable of regulating themselves properly with things like social media. Social media is designed to be addicting. It rewards addictive behavior. Even adults have trouble regulating themselves when it comes to this aspect of social media. How many times have you seen someone post something saying they “needed to take a break” that they were “getting addicted.” How can we expect children and teenagers to regulate themselves properly when it comes to a product that’s designed to hook you and hold on tight. I don’t want to create unhealthy patterns of behavior in my kids. Childhood is such a formative time in their life (especially in the teen years) and I want them to develop healthy, affective habits now, so that when they do have social media they are capable of regulating themselves in a way where engaging in social media won’t detract from their life or their goals. I try to model this with my own social media consumption. I talk to them a lot about how it’s a tool for me, and my business. I also set boundaries for myself, and when I am with my kids, I am generally not on my phone. I believe in parenting you have to be ‘do as I do,” if you try to be “do as I say not as I do” it will always fail.
I want them to learn that their value comes from within. The biggest problem I have with social media and kids is that it reinforces the idea that your worth depends on outside validation and the acceptance of others. Think about the model of social media. You put something out there and wait for the “likes” and “comments” to roll in and validate this work you’ve done, or this piece of yourself that you’ve shared. If you don’t get many likes or comments, that piece of content that part of you that you shared is considered a failure. This is incredibly deterimental to children’s self-esteem. Heck, I use social media almost exclusively for business purposes and try not to ever attach personal value to it, and yet even I will get discouraged when a picture underperforms. I want my kids to develop a strong sense of self, to know who they are, what they like, what they stand for and that their value is NOT determined by the number of likes you get on a picture. I feel that giving them the freedom from social media to learn that their value comes from within, as a child of God, and is not dependent on what ANYONE else thinks of them, is one of the greatest gifts I can give them, even if it’s not always a gift they want. This is the strongest reason behind the decision, and the one that helps me hold my ground.
As a final thought: I’ve heard all the arguments and all the concerns with not letting my kids have social media: Am I worried they’ll be left out, not get invited, be ostracized, not understand technology, branding, how the world works now, etc etc. In short, no. They are developing lots of technology skills without engaging in social media, Hannah can build a website on her own and both my boys are learning to code. They are learning about business and branding watching and helping us with our businesses. If they have friends who would ostracize them for not being on instagram, well they aren’t really friends at all. I feel that my kids are independent and self-assured enough to know that, which is why they’ve all sought out good, genuine friends. And to me, the benefits I have already seen of keeping them off social media exponentially outweigh any downsides.
Thank you so much for reading. I would love any discussion in the comments, and to know how you approach this in your own family!
