Smartphones and Bad Therapy are Destroying Childhood

And what we can do to stop the bleeding.

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When it first came out, it took me months to read Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage. I will never make that mistake again. I immediately purchased her latest book, Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up.

Because…I really don’t want my kids to be the kind who don’t want to get their driver’s license or go off to college. Apparently, that’s the way of it these days: teenagers and young adults act 4-5 years younger than they actually are. But why?

Sure, they’re drinking less, doing less drugs, have less sex — but they’re also remaining in childhood, sheltered and afraid of the world. They walk wholly unprepared into adulthood and it’s turning society on it’s head in a bad way.

Hardship, which we are all generally better for having gone through, is seen as always a negative. Overcoming is no longer cool. Avoiding is the only way.

I got my driver’s license the very first moment I could (seriously annoying people jangling my keys in the hallways). I have been working non-stop since I was 14, happily went off to college at 18, and haven’t lived with my parents since. I can’t imagine not wanting to do those things, so what’s up with this generation?

Shrier dives into it all:

• The obsession with therapy

• Over-diagnosis of behavioral disorders

• Gentle parenting overkill

• Helicopter parent problems

• The hyper-focus on trauma

The most important thing I learned? Putting your kid in therapy when they don’t really need it is harmful. A full frontal focus on feelings and trauma responses makes every problem bigger and easier to obsess over. We’re creating an entire generation of victims who find their identities in the victimhood.

A couple things I would note:

1. Shrier really over-generalizes “gentle parenting.” I do think there is some merit to approaches within the ideology. Recognizing emotions and understanding why children behave in certain ways is helpful for me.
   
   I mean…Until I learned some of these things, I often felt powerless, yelled, and sometimes melted down. It’s amazing how a toddler who won’t wear pants, brush their teeth, or eat breakfast can take a woman down fast.
   
   To learn tactics of the mind and understand why children get so upset at ridiculous things, was extremely helpful for me in remaining calm and not losing my shit.
   

2. Much of the book also seems focused on more elite demographics. For example, she mentions schools with full teams of therapists and parents who hire “shadows” to follow their kids around at school and make sure they’re okay. I had never heard of that one before, but it sounds very expensive. Many child therapists don’t accept insurance, so those who can send their kids to one have the money to do so.

However, there’s so much to glean from this book—specifically, parents aren’t letting children simply experience the necessary pains of life.

We speak for them, object on their behalf, get them special treatment, and cater to their feelings as if they are the only barometer of good. We overmedicate, isolate, and hover.

Like a body needs germs to build up an immune system, a child needs risk, independence, and tough times to develop character, regulation, and critical thinking skills.

Shrier offers examples of parents filling out job applications, making doctors' appointments, and chauffering their adult children to various activities.

Something else we all knew was an issue? Smartphones — they’re ruining generations. Kids stop playing far too young but remain entertained by imaginary worlds…inside screens. They’ve tuned out the world and live in an alternate reality that destroys their sense of virtue.

PARENTS, STOP GIVING THESE TO YOUR KIDS.

There are other options:

• Gabb phones

• Troomi Kidsmart

• Apple watches

• Air Tags

Shrier says many parents resist taking phones away because they connect their kids socially to friends, and they’re afraid of them feeling left out.

Honestly, I don’t care. My kids aren’t getting them.

And why in the heck do schools allow them? Why is there no policy to turn in phones when you arrive? You can’t think learning is going well when there’s an entire internet in a kid’s pocket?

And COVID ruined even more, turning kids into screen machines. Today, they send the iPads home for any kid to do god knows what when their parents are busy in the other room.

This changes everything.

…It alters how they think and interact with people

…What they might believe about religion, gender, or anything else

…Extremes they may be drawn to

…It hinders brain development, judgment skills, and, of course, mental health up and down the spectrum!

It’s one of MANY reasons I’m so relieved to be sending my kids to a classical Christian school next year that does not allow cell phones for anyone, including high school seniors! If they have one, they have to leave at the front office when the day begins. And…no screens, no iPads, no nothing from kids 4th grade and under (Hallelujah!)

In an article at the Atlantic, sociologist Jonathan Haidt writes that “the new phone-based childhood that took shape roughly 12 years ago is making young people sick and blocking their progress to flourishing in adulthood.”

He notes these reasons:

1. The decline of play and independence

2. The iPhone specifically “swallowed Gen Z whole.”

3. Because digital technology was seen so positively prior to the iphone, we were delighted when more arrived — helpful for school, entertainment and supposed “connection.”

4. Most teens spend at least 5 hours a day on the Internet, not including schoolwork, which means, “everything else in an adolescent’s day must get squeezed down or eliminated entirely to make room for the vast amount of content that is consumed…”

5. Unintended consequences like fragmented attention, disrupted learning, internet addiction, social withdrawal, the decay of meaning and the loss of wisdom.

We lose so much with these devices…embodied interactions, social cues, human exchange, and the ability to lose ourselves in a moment. All of them are interrupted by notifications, dings, and reminders.

As Haidt reminds us, there is also “less real laughter, more room for misinterpretation, and more stress after a comment that gets no immediate response.”

The stories we tell ourselves can go South very quickly. One can make up entire storybooks of untruths, waiting hours in between text messages. And kids lack the wisdom and mental stability to understand that’s not healthy.

And let’s not forget the devastation of pornography and online bullying.

So Shrier and I both think smartphones are a MASSIVE part of the problem, but that’s not the only thing.

Can we stop asking kids if they want to kill themselves?

Suicide is not a natural feeling. Most children wouldn’t think of it. And yet, doctor’s offices, school counselors, and private therapists are asking your kids about it a lot, even when there’s no reason to.

Shrier writes about survey after survey she’s seen in ordinary, everyday appointments that ask kids questions about harming themselves, their parents, or ending their lives. These surveys are sometimes literally delivering ways to harm oneself that a child probably never even knew about.

The societal obsession with feelings is taking what may be a fleeting thought and propping it up at the center of a kid’s life. We all experienced rejection in middle school, but if I had spent the next four years dissecting it and focusing on how I felt about it, I never would have moved on and made new friends.

I had a pretty bad bullying experience in 6th and 7th grade, but thank God my mom didn’t take me to therapy for it or act as if it was the end of the world. It happened. It sucked. I got over the hump.

Accommodation is another issue. If a kid struggles with something — a social situation, a difficult class, a friendship — parents will often remove them. This says one therapist quoted in the book, “deprives children of the opportunity to vault a challenge and renders the actually less capable.”

Or, we drug them.

Now, I’m sensitive to the conversation around meds because I have two very close friends with children who truly need medication. I’ve seen it firsthand and heard their heartfelt struggles. Some kids DO need it.

Most don’t — and being on them hinders vital processes like emotional regulation and handling the waves of life.

“If you can relieve your child’s anxiety, depression, or hyperactivity without starting her on meds, it’s worth turning your life upside down to do so.”

Abigail Shrier

The Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Problem

Social-emotional learning sounds innocent enough — and often it is. But, it’s problematic in a variety of ways. Essentially, this ideology (now in every public school across America, from what I understand) puts kids in hypothetical situations and attempts to engineer empathy and compassion, as well as teach social cues, emotional regulation, and moral living in an almost robotic way.

Here’s the issue: You can’t learn to be a person in a lecture, on a worksheet, or through acting. You must learn it in real life — real rejection, friendships, authentic disappointment, embarrassment, or discomfort.

SEL can also import “moral” values that your family might not agree with, eliminating a child’s sense of agency when it comes to right and wrong, especially within a religious context. There’s a lot more to say on this, but be wary of what your school is teaching on SEL.

Does the Body Keep the Score?

Shrier was particularly poking the bear when she dared to speak against the book, The Body Keeps the Score. This book has sold millions of copies, and I’ve never heard it criticized. It made sense — our bodies store past trauma.

But Shrier calls it out: These are just memories. And they sure as hell don’t include “ancestral trauma,” as the book purports. The idea that we could be experiencing the effects of our ancestors’ trauma? It's not possible. Obviously, generational effects drip down, but not in an actual biological way.

Yes, our memories can create bodily responses that feel like trauma. But the question is, why are we obsessing over it unncessarily?

Instead of working to overcome and forge ahead, why are we teaching kids to open every wound and examine it from every angle? Is it helpful or do we just move backwards?

Yes, there is something to working through real traumas. Therapy is often good, and it is incredible for those who need it. Recognizing the effects of something can be helpful in healing and moving forward.

My husband, for example, grew up in an extremely traumatic situation — coming home daily to a drunk or high mom, watching domestic violence, riding along on drug deals, and being left home alone as a young child. This is a person that needs therapy. This is a person who will be recovering for years.

Most of us don’t live there. Most of us don’t need the “extreme therapy” so often recommended today for every average Joe.

Honestly, I feel this. For several years, I’ve considered going back to therapy. But I kept remembering all the times I wasn’t sure what I’d talk about, or when I didn’t want to get into a negative headspace but forced myself to for the sake of my appointment. I don’t want to do that again. I’m not saying it’s not helpful at times, but I’m going to go with my gut and say that this isn’t for me right now.

Final Thoughts

I can see why therapists and parenting “experts” might disagree with this book. I bristled in a few places because I disagreed with some assessments. For example, I’m glad parents are more involved today and emotionally in touch than they were when I was younger.

I’m thankful for hands-on fathers, more time spent with children, and a better understanding of kids who have real issues. In the past, sometimes these issues weren’t treated or kids were ostracized without understanding why.

That said, for the vast majority of kids, much of this book is relevant. I’ve always been drawn to more independence for kids, refused to hover, and want to encourage my kids to do things they’re scared of (although sometimes they are still afraid to go upstairs alone, but I’m working on it…!).

• I really want schools to outlaw cell phones

• I really want parents to stop allowing kids smartphones until at least 16

• I really want more kids playing outside after school

• I really want more in-person interactions with people who are different from you

• I really want kids to learn logic, critical thinking, public speaking and debate

Just a few thoughts. I’m not perfect. My kids watch too much TV, but I do my best (ask them how annoying I am about making them go outside!) and I hope books like this and articles like Haidt’s sound the alarm loud enough to wake people up. This is a CRISIS. Beyond.

“That’s what a happy childhood is: experiencing all the pains of adulthood, in smaller doses, so that they build up an immunity to the poison of heartache and loss,” writes Shrier.

We’re preparing them for life. Let’s do it the absolute best we can, even when watching them suffer through those learning moments is so hard.

RESOURCES:

• 1,000 Hours Outside

• Let Them Grow

• Wait Till the 8th

• Children & Screens

• Phone-Free Schools Movement

• Mothers Against Media Addiction

POST-SCRIPT: As you may know, I encourage respectful public discourse. You’re welcome to comment, but keep it kind.

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• Reason to Return: Why Women Need the Church & the Church Needs Women

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