This is Why Kids Make Me SO Upset !
August 07, 2021
From Time to Time... I Can Get Pretty Upset.
If you know me well, you know that I have a HUGE heart for kids, and this is one of the primary fuels to my passion and purpose. You see, my mom had a childcare (full-time daycare and night-care service) for families while I was a kid. I saw a lot of kids from troubling homes.
I saw a lot of happy kids playing with toys, reading books, playing outside as well. You know what I didn’t see at that age though that pretty much blows my mind today.. I didn’t see any kids with screens.
Sure, we had one small box television in the corner of our living room, but it was only on for brief moments of the day, like turned down real low to subtle quiet sounds to give the kids something to listen to during nap time or used to help buy time when someone’s parents were running hours late to pick up their kids.
But you know what, we had no tablets, no iPads, no cell phones either.
We had toys, books, sounds, our hands, feet, and voices to keep the kids well supported during these formative years. We went outside, we did little projects, we built buildings… but more importantly I think, we built stronger bonds with those children thanks to the fact we had NO SCREENS to separate us from connecting at a deeper level.
In Contrast
Many kids these days are simply not given the appropriate chance to start their lives on a healthy first foot in the right direction. Instead, from birth and childhood, they are strategically targeted by marketing and ads, where cartoons and celebrities boasting elitist appealing products and lifestyles. So, rather than letting our kids learn from us, we outsource the leadership in raising our children, instilling family values, and then we question why our kids don’t seem to think, feel, or care about the same things we do. It’s likely because we didn’t have the chance to support a strong and secure foundation for their initial growth and personal identity and value system.
And as many children are now spending hours and hours in front of screens these days compared to hours and hours outside just two generations ago the downstream effect of this terrible distraction is more than just concerning.
Why Am I Even Talking About This
I was recently listening to a well-known PhD psychologist Dr. Nicole Beurkens on a Podcast. She is a “World's Leading Holistic Child Psychologist, Award Winning Therapist, Board Certified Nutrition Specialist, Best Selling Author, and Mom of 4,” according to her Instagram bio and on this Podcast I was learning from, she started to discuss how this strange effect from screens posing to kids today.
I’ll try to summarize just a brief portion of this incredibly valuable episode below.
So, this strangely infinite distraction from self that kids are first exposed to at an incredibly age actually restricts and prevents some of the primitive brain’s “forming the self” if you will. Like this is some deeper level thinking here, so put on your psychologist caps for a hot minute…
That is to say, they are not spending nearly enough time with themselves, thinking, feeling, engaging their own thoughts and ideas long enough to learn who they are or having a sense of personal identity at all.
They get pulled into the black hole of social media, relentless marketing, bright shiny lights, and as they take their first steps in life... they step into quicksand, never to be able to fully form a self, find out what it means to be whole – to themselves, regardless of the environment going on around them.
In the long-term, this can lead to deficiency in dopamine due to the honest inability to feel safe, calm, secure, and happy inside one’s mind and heart.
Imagine sitting alone in a room by yourself. No music playing, no book to read. You’re just sitting still in the quiet and calm.
Would this terrify you to be forced to sit still and have to face your fears of stillness or solitude? Perhaps you’re living your life on overwhelm as a coping survival mechanism, simply to avoid your own pains and heartaches you haven’t yet healed.
So, just imagine our kids. We would assume all kids would be fine sitting by themselves, right?
Kids are resilient, they can find endless things to laugh about, to find joy in, and have that pure sense of innocence and smile at the simplest things, right? Well, what if they lose that ability or they were never able to form that inner peace, that inner sense inside their brain and body as part of the Mind-Body connection where they can fuel their own happiness within themselves… what happens when we lose our ability to cross the bridge of struggle into hope for tomorrow or that resilient unrealistic optimism, we have known kids to have in the past?
It’s terrifying me just thinking about watching a 4 yr. old or 5 yr. old unable to find joy in their day playing by themselves… I mean, shouldn’t this be an accepted and highly sought-after marker of a good forming of self, as they child has a stronger sense of inner joy, peace, and hopefully long-term resilience?
A child, not knowing how to safely feel like themselves, because they’re so relentlessly distracted and pulled in by technology, screens, and advertising… now that’s a scary story to tell…
And don’t even get me started on the mental health challenges kids have faced in the last few years. It’s astonishing they’ve made it this far with the difficult obstacles we so often throw at them, when we know that most of us adults are probably doing much worse at coping or remaining resilient than the kids themselves.
“Oh, mom is stressed about my mask… I guess I should be too...”
“Oh, dad is really mad about having to wear a mask… I guess I should be too...”
Man, every time mommy and daddy watch the news, their voices seem to change… I’ve never seen them like watching tv or feel better afterwards… I wonder why they watch the news so much then...??
Am I missing something here?
Am I just a crazy person?
Are we not capable of taking a step back and questioning how we lead our lives as role models for our kids? Are we really that busy to where we can’t consider “okay, what values am I teaching my kid… what values do we talk about explicitly, and what values do we maybe showcase but never really thought about before...”?
Perhaps the word WORK means stress and worry to you… so what do you think it means for your kid when they are going to school, so they can get a good education so they can get a good job and go to work as an adult…
“OH!! No wonder, he doesn’t like school…”
Perhaps movement feels like a painful drudging and dreadful chore for you as an adult… so what do you think it means for your child when they might be super active at school, but feel like they can’t share that same happiness of activity with their family members at home?
Movement is an aside, so don’t get stuck on that topic.. we could just as easily discuss meditation, yoga, healthy eating, drinking water, drinking sugar laden coffee, and more.
Let’s Be Clear
Now, of course… I’m NOT SHAMING anyone here… let’s be clear.
Let’s get REALLY CLEAR before I get a bunch of hate mail and additional comments coming my way like I get sometimes with my (apparently controversial) views at times.
Parents have it tough. Teachers have it rough. Kids have so much stuff thrown at them, and most of it is just fluff.
All I’m doing is asking questions to help us rethink what we take for granted, what we accept as normal and...
As you know, I love connecting the dots to things that hold us back from living our best lives possible so that we can then reimagine what health can mean for us and our families and we can then take proactive action to course-correct, to redirect our steps, and lead our lives in the best direction forward as best as we can.
This is my greatest delights in talking to you, to help us see. To help us think. To help us believe in a better world for all of us… including our freaking beloved cute little kiddos I love so much.
And don’t take this the wrong way, but I love you too.
Let’s Be Friends
I do. I love you as my brother, as my sister. If you’re reading this, then that means you have at least a milligram of momentum buried inside of you with at least a single helping of hope that tomorrow can be a better day than today and that you DO have the potential to improve your life every day. And for that I salute you, bow to you, celebrate you, hi-five you, and freaking clap my hands and stomp my feet and shout your name aloud to champion you forward.
I write this for you, but also for us. I believe we are better together than we could ever be by ourselves. I believe the sum of our struggles is much stronger than the broken pieces we hide behind the scenes never to share with those we love most.
I believe authenticity will lead us in the right direction, help us learn from one another, support one another, and help teach by role-modeling for our kids… that indeed, a chord of 3 strands is not easily broken and that they too can overcome anything if they keep good people who love them a lot by their side.
It is with this same hope and prayer I send you off this week to think, to reflect, and dig deep to ask the right questions of yourself, to take a bird’s eye view of your rambling robust lifestyle and choose the way you want to live, the way you want to teach, and the way you want to think, feel, and interact in your day-to-day world rather than just barely managing your life like putting out disaster fire after disaster fire, exchanging Band-Aid after Band-Aid.
And if you feel so inclined to write me a nasty letter of frustrated disgust from this week’s message, then so be it. I can learn from you, I’m sure. In such a case, I do encourage you to write it and let it sit for 3 days before hitting the send button. See how those thoughts and emotions really feel after 3 days, if you still want to send it over, I’d love to hear what I can learn from you, truly. Call me out as needed.
If instead you can see where I’m coming from to use these questions as metaphors and examples to help us retrain our thoughts and feelings and to launch us into a whole new frame of living, then let me know that too.
If you feel encouraged by this message, this letter of distress I’ve written this week, let me know. If you feel concerned as I am, share with me below in the comments section too.
If you think this week’s edition is a powerful message of change and can act as a catalyst and opportunity to help us improve each other’s lives, I highly encourage you to forward this to a friend and talk about what we’ve discussed with someone this week. We shouldn’t be hiding from the truth if we want to continue striving for greatness.
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Every new season brings new delight and new challenges.
From Tumbleweeds to Tidal Waves… This is the ebb and flow of life and our values will continue to be our guiding compass leading our steps forward.
We Zig and We Zag, as we learn to adapt. We need help, and we’re in this together! 💪
Stay Blessed,