As I prepare to launch my youngest and close the chapter on this most excellent adventure, I’m flooded with emotion. As a mom of three, I’ve done this twice already, but for some reason, this time hits differently (as the kids say). While I know it’s normal to feel all of the feels, there’s another, concurrent experience I didn’t expect: rampant reflection.
In this self-induced, historical review of my parenting, my mind presents the cringeworthy lowlights of my parenting: when and how I messed up, what I did right, what I could have done differently, and what I would change if I could.
Weird, right? I know I can’t change history, and it doesn’t serve me to dwell, especially since take-backs and do-overs are the exception, not the rule, in parenting. Still, if I did have a time machine, there are a few places I’d travel for a re-do. As it turns out, many of my parenting friends agree, and are especially aligned in a collective time traveling time and place: early adolescence and the introduction of cellphones.
Time traveling Gen X style
Source: Shaunl/Getty Images
Would-a, could-a, should-a
As Gen Zers, my kids were born in the “iAge” with pods, pads, and phones delivering worldwide content on-demand. The thing is, as parents, my cohort of Gen Xers, along with some late-stage boomers and early millennials, didn’t have much of a head start. While we adapted to apps, signed on to social media, and transitioned to text, some of our kids did, too. The kind of platforms we grew up with were shoes, so we didn’t have our own childhoods to reference as we set boundaries for our kids.
Recent reports on adolescent-age cellphone use support my desire for a do-over
Social Media is not safe passage for teens and tweens.
Source: Canva Pro
In 2023, the U.S. surgeon general issued a Social Media and Youth Mental Health Advisory, stating, “While social media may have benefits, there are ample indicators that it can also have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.” In addition to correlations between social media use and increased depression, it is also believed to be a contributing factor in the recent rise of reported body dissatisfaction, body dysmorphia, and eating disorders in both male and female teenagers. Other head-shaking data that incites my would-a, could-a, should-a:
- While age 13 is the commonly required minimum age issued by social media platforms, nearly 40% of US children between 8-12 use social media.
- Up to 95% of American youth ages 13-17 report using a social media platform.
- Over one-third of social media users 13-17-year-olds indicated that they use social media platforms “almost constantly.”
- On average, a child or adolescent and spends an average of 6 to 7 hours viewing the various media combined.
So, now what?
Of course, my parenting cohort and I can’t go back in time, but perhaps we can help mitigate social media regret by sharing ours in support of a solution. Instating a national social media age requirement (like age minimums for driving, purchasing alcohol, or voting) seems unlikely, so perhaps we need to consider creative forms of intervention. Richard and Leslie Strauss of Spirit Series, a national nonprofit organization that promotes values-based educational activities through student-led classroom productions, agree. Together, they shared with me what they’re seeing in hundreds of late elementary and middle school classrooms. Among the insights, is that the preeminent adolescent rite of passage is no longer getting your driver’s license, it’s getting your first cell phone. But Strauss emphasizes an important point, that emerging research appears to support: “Social media is not safe passage into adulthood.”
Connection, community, and safe passage
What is safe passage? Whether it’s a parent or peer who guides us as we become parents or a patient parent who lights our path to adulthood, society benefits when we are safely stewarded. Having worked with thousands of students over the last 20 years, the Strausses suggest meaningful, intentional activities can help kids safely transition into the next phase of life. As parents, they also recognize this isn’t easy and can be uncomfortable. But what growth isn’t? “Kids are not entitled to being comfortable,” Richard Strauss shared, “(Spirit Series) makes them uncomfortable and in doing that, we help them grow in a safe and boundaried way.”
Classroom theater creates connection and belonging
Source: Spirit Series/Used With Permission
For Spirit Series, that looks like talented, trained actors leading the classroom in the collective telling of a relatable, curriculum-approved, story. For example, in “Seeking Socrates,” students tell a story set in Classical Greece, teaching that true happiness comes to those willing to live by the guidance of their inner knowing. While some of the most desired positions are cast by lottery, every student participates—from set construction to costume design, singing, and acting. In doing so, Strauss says, “Students are mentored, and everyone is initiated.” (Note: if Bill and Ted are credited for your mispronunciation as “So-Crates,” you’re likely of prime mentoring age!)
Programs like this one aren’t new. High school clubs cultivate community and have long-provided students a place to gather and connect. Some even include initiation ceremonies. But outside of athletics, fewer options are available for middle and late elementary ages. That means we’ll need to get creative and meet the need for community, belonging, and mentorship in other ways.
Until today’s tweens and teens grow into adulthood, the true impact of social media on their mental health and emotional development won’t be fully understood
My experience as a parent and a grief educator has informed my belief that meaningful connection, feeling tethered to a community, and experiencing a sense of belonging are vital for healthy development across our life span, especially during periods of vulnerability. That might mean at age 10, 20, or as I’m learning in real-time, 50.
In such times of transition and change, rumination rarely helps, but action does. So, I invite you to join me in doing just that and starting a new, excellent adventure. Whether engaging programs like Spirit Series, supporting local clubs, or volunteering at your local school, I hope you’ll be inspired to get involved. My greater hope is that together, we will help foster connection and belonging, one student at a time. But my greatest hope is that through our mini but mighty efforts, we will help reconnect a disconnected generation and improve well-being for us all.
After all, as the great philosophers Bill and Ted taught us, “We should be most excellent to each other.”
