Teenagers and social media: a reflection on trust in 4 parts
Part 1 - Tech first principles revisited
Some time ago I shared a blog post written in 2018 with my “technology first principles”. I meant to post a reflection on how these principles held up 3 years and a lifetime later. As is my fashion, this seemingly simple review turned into a massive overshare that I had to cut down to size (and appropriateness). This “shorter version” came in at 3000 words and had to be split in 3 parts. Then Omicron closed down my kids’ school in early December and the Holidays took a turn when I was diagnosed with COVID-19 three days before Christmas. Eventually, Covid ran through the entire family and left. It was largely uneventful: 2 of my three vaccines — Astra-Zeneca and Moderna — made me sicker than covid.
The children have been back in school for two weeks after a forced 6-week holiday and I am back to writing and editing this post. Thank you for waiting patiently for my posts and a special heartfelt thanks to my paying readers: you got nothing in January and still paid your $5. It was gratefully – if a little shamefully – received.
When I reshared my « tech first principles » back in November, I wondered how these first principles would hold three years later. There hasn’t been a fundamental change in the technology itself since 2018 but the landscape in which we use tech has been profoundly transformed by the pandemic. Today, children start kindergarten with an email address and a google account. By grade 4, most of their schoolwork has to be done on a laptop. Homework may include watching Youtube videos or accessing “free” -- i.e. ad-funded -- internet resources like math or spelling games. Homework sheets are often scanned and uploaded to Google Classroom and not formatted in ways that are printable, if they are even complete or legible. As the parent of school-aged children, my ability to close the lid on Internet access, screens, and social media has almost completely disappeared. Add the pandemic and for the last two years the Internet has been the last stand of friendships, family, and community connections for adults, children and especially teens.
For the last 2 years in Ontario, we have had to find distance from our families and connection to the outside world from the same narrow spaces. If this resonates with you as a fully developed adult, imagine what this situation has inflicted on our teenagers, who are developmentally supposed to define their own identities by becoming different from their parents.
Re-reading my “Tech use first principles” from 2018, I found that the framework held up quite well in theory:
Don’t try to keep up (it will lull you in a false sense of safety);
Bad stuff happens at night
Try to understand by relating (the landscape may have changed since you were a teen but humans haven’t)
It’s better to screw up at home than far from it
Start small and build on it (it’s easier to give privileges than to remove them).
What strikes me from these first principles is how much they hinge on having a solid attachment relationship and a reliable attunement to what is going on in our teens’ lives. Not trying to keep up, trying to relate, and letting kids screw up all involve the capacity to let go of outcomes and be present with our teen where they are. That’s the theory. In reality, we may hold these principles in our minds when we are cool, calm and collected but the fear of what will happen if we don’t get it right takes us away from this rational place and turns our teens into a problem to be fixed — or worse, prevented.
The general idea of pouring my best efforts into parenting and letting go of the outcome was always the road I aspired to take. But the one-two punch of the pandemic and the marriage breakdown showed me how I really viewed parenting as a reflection of my worth as a wife, mother, and human being. Nothing exposes weaknesses like a major shakedown. I realized that I trusted my relationship with my teens to guide me through the challenges of the teen years, but that trust was largely based on seeing outwardly “good behaviour”. My ability to “let go of outcomes” was based on seeing good outcomes, otherwise I was not letting go. I needed my children to reflect the image of a “good mom’ back to me. The tail was wagging the dog.
To be continued…
I’m just creeping towards the teen years in my house, so I am grateful to your for sharing your thoughts and experiences on this.