Maybe it's Not Our Job to Figure it Out

Kids and Technology - Maybe it's Not Our Job to Figure it Out

I read an awesome blog post today from a mom who has held-off giving her kid a smart phone for really sound reasons.

For a moment, while reading it, I felt a bit crap - like I've screwed-up my kids because I've allowed them to have smartphones at such an early age (honestly, for my own convenience)... and I SHOULD HAVE done it more like this mom.

But then, after the insecurity settled a bit, I was able to back up on my version of the world until the whole thing became a big, friggin' "Where's Waldo" picture, and saw that we're all just making-up what's ‘the right thing' to do for our kids. 

We're all just navigating as best we can with the UUUber fast changes in technology and education and EVERYTHING.

SO for anyone, any parent, wondering... am I doing it right? 
I have no idea. 

But if you're turning-up with the intention of helping them live their best, most inspired lives... 

If you're BEGINNING with the feeling of: "I love you. I want you to have the best life possible. And here's what I've learned (which is SO out-of-date with what YOU'RE dealing with... but at least here's the truth about life as I see it…)

They'll be fine.

Kids are hard to kill.

And whatever they go through - they have the same thing in them, that you have in you, that helped you figure it out.

How do you know you’ve figured it out? Because here you are reading this, still breathing in-and-out, and still learning as long as you’re still breathing in-and-out.

What I've seen is that all they really want is a bit of my attention. All I can really do is just love them, and do my best with what I’ve learned so far, and what common sense and instinct hand me in the moment.

And I've also seen that the Universe Moves Their Bones, as it has mine. 

It moves their bones to learn what they have to learn, and see what they have to see, and experience what they have to experience... and it's SO not my job to determine what that is.

Here's what I wrote in the comments to said awesome blog post:

I LOVED this post.

LOVED reading from another mom, doing her best, figuring it out like the rest of us. 

It’s like our kids are friggin’ bacteria samples in a petri dish, and all we can do is bang out a sample, stick it in the best environment we can provide, and see what happens.

The world is just a big, wickedly fast-moving experiment.

So here’s my experiment:

I have 3 girls. I let my oldest have a smartphone when she was 11. And she binged. She snap-chated. She developed “snap chat streaks,” where she was totally beholden to some imaginary pressure to maintain them.

At age 13, when one of her friends was severly injured due to a social media hoard egging on a fight, I told her: “Let’s start a campaign! Dump the streak! Take back your morning!” (that’s when they all get online to maintain their ‘snapchat streaks.’)

She was into it for about 10 minutes, and then the idea and the passion fizzled. And she went back to her online life, and I went back to mine.

But something has happened recently, at the age of 15 – she voluntarily puts down her phone, due to her own knowing: “This isn’t good for me.”

And where did she get that notion?

Online.

We no longer have to wait a generation to see how the ‘experiments’ of the previous generation worked out. What used to take 20, 30, 40 years for the world to see: “Well THAT was a crap idea,” now just takes a couple years or even months because of the lightening-speed of communication about how those experiments are going.

Because my kid can read, hear, and observe a bunch of other kids her age talking about putting their technology down, she saw that wanted the same freedom for herself.

So Gianna, without my interference, or ‘parenting,’ or demanding…Has decided for HERSELF (because she’s human, and on her own recognizes that being online all the time feels gross): “I’m going to put my phone down for a couple hours per day, and feel what it’s like to just be me.”

And I don’t think she’s special (well, of COURSE she’s special, she’s my kid and her uniqueness is all I see, BUT!), she’s not different from any other teen with a smartphone that’s watching videos and reading things online about how bad too much smartphone use is for you, and feeling that for themselves.

She is SELF-CORRECTING! 

And even better then that, she's filling herself up with good stuff. She is listening to ALAN WATTS videos for gosh sakes! She found his recordings on her own, without prompting, and loving them, and changing due to the insights she gains: “Mom! He’s so great! He says the same shit you do about love, and life, and faith, and death and why we’re all here in the first place… and it’s so true!”

I didn’t find Alan Watts until my 30s! She’s 15! And THEN I found out that my 13-year-old is listening to Alan Watts too! She listens to him before she goes to sleep at night (he does have a groovy voice). 

So because they have smartphones they’ve been exposed to the world. And because they’ve been exposed to the world, they see what a mess it is. And because they see what a mess it is, they want to look for the bits of the world that aren't messy, but beautiful and enlightening, and it makes them want to put their technology down, on their own, without prompting. And because they’re on-their-own seeing that technology can give them access to a bunch of evil shit that makes them feel crap, or a bunch of ideas that makes them feel good, and gentle and makes them come alive – they are ON THEIR OWN choosing enlightenment.

They have a built-in navigation system, just like we do, that tells them: go for this, that makes you feel higher; avoid this, that makes you feel crap.

I am keeping close watch over my experiment, but I am amazed every day at how intuitively smart they are – even more so without my interference – because it comes from their own knowing.

I’d rather they learn to trust their own, built-in GPS about what to fill themselves with, then grow-up thinking they need their mommy to tell them what to do.

Point is: We’re all just figuring it out as we go. And I don’t think we have to worry and control as much as we do, because inside each and every one of our kids is the same thing we have in ourselves that self-corrects.

It’s innate. 

It’s built-in.

And all we have to do is nurture that thing in them that is inherent in us… love, support, and gently point back to it… 

And let the universe move their bones.