But believing what the computer seems to be telling us can lead us straight toward ignoring people around us and their expectations of us. We're so used to having things our own way, we can become inordinately demanding, always wanting what we want. Without intervention, impressionable teens with their brains still developing are at greater risk of negative beliefs and behaviors becoming the norm than those of us who are older.
Teens can scroll social media, paying attention to who likes their posts. They can comment on what they want to. They may ignore those who ignore them. When they do comment on other posts, it's often with the intent of drawing attention to themselves. They are in control of what they like, where they spend their moments online, and who or what they'll ignore or pay attention to.
Using search engines and certain websites, teens can investigate what they want to. They can ignore what they decide is
irrelevant. They may be curious about a celebrity in their current favorite movie. They may look up details about the launch of a new game. School assignments will engage them for at least a while, but if they decide they're irrelevant it will be challenging for them to put forth much effort. Teachers tell me about their students' constant complaints, quick boredom, and how quickly they disengage. This lie that they are the center of their own universe and the priority that everything must be personally relevant are among the causes of high school and college dropout rates being as high as they are. Sometimes students are apathetic because they expect their teachers to serve them and their specific interests and desires; they've lost the ability to realize that their teachers have a whole classroom of other students to tend and that they must step up to the plate and take initiative to create forward momentum academically.
Teens can listen to music they like by creating their own radio “stations” at sites like Pandora and Spotify. Rather than purchasing a whole album, they can buy just the songs they want at iTunes. They can download a song they hear and like with an app on their phone. With buds in their ears, they can listen to what they want when they want, as many times as they want, and tune out whatever else is going on and what doesn't immediately interest them personally.
Similarly, many teens can watch what they want, when they want, on whatever device they want to use. Times have changed a lot since the days when a family had one screen in the homeâ
usually a television with three or four stations. If a teen's parents were home, the teen didn't even have control over what the family would watch. With cable offering dozens of stations and immediate streaming easily downloadable to any computer or smartphone, family members can watch in any and every room in the house!
Movies on Demand, streaming options, the DVR, Redbox, DVDs we own, and pausing live TVâall of these options give power and choice to the individual consumer and thus support the lie that the world revolves around me. It's easy to see how these services, as wonderful as they are, contribute to self-centeredness and isolation. We're together in the same home, but not connected or connecting to each other. We can watch things downloaded onto devices while in public and never need to talk to anyone. The constant availability of shows and movies we want to watch allows us to avoid anything that doesn't keep us happy. In other words, relational time and opportunities are being usurped by personal media consumption.
So how can parents counteract the influence of this media-option overload and the way it can reinforce teens' misperception that they are the center of the universe? We can move media use into community and away from individual emphasis in many positive ways.
1. We can share music, television shows, movies, and games
. Let's get to know what our teens like and why they like it and invite them to interact with us and the media resources we like. We can make the effort to listen and watch together and discuss the experience.
2. We can help them widen their media choices by growing their interest in specific problems or issues
. We can ask them about the problems they may be interested in solving so we can help them see the relevance of content being taught at church and school. To expand their interests, we can introduce them to local mentors who are doing important work, peruse relevant websites with them, and watch related videos online. We can remind them during teachable moments that we're each alive to leave the world a better place by using our gifts and talents, which brings good pleasure to the One who created us.
3. We can help them take initiative in their academics
. As teens get older, they need to get ready for real-life workplaces or for real-world, post-high school academic experiences. Their days of having teachers “hold their hands” are soon going to be a memory! Unlike the world of technology, which tailors itself to accommodate and please each consumer, adult life has a way of expecting proactive decision-making and initiative. So rather than have teachers or parents closely monitor their homework schedules, teens should be encouraged to take the lead in organizing their time and tasks for academic success. Teens should begin to take responsibility for making their academic and work dreams come to fruition.
One family asked me to meet with their college son who was in danger of not graduating because of his academic apathy. He was having a hard time making the jump from having his teachers and professors spoon-feed him with projects and assignments to finding direction for his own future. In this case, technology played both a negative and a positive role. Technology had damaged his initiative by reinforcing his “entitled” feeling that everything should be orchestrated toward him and for him, making life easy. At the same time, technology had connected this young man with the larger world and its problems. When I asked him what he saw in the world that he would like to fix, he lit up and talked nonstop. He became animated and enthused about his future. I suggested he relate course content and assignments to these problems and solutions when possible. I explained that this was his job and not his professors'. This was not something he'd ever considered. He found great motivation and ended up having a successful senior year.
4. We can really know our kids
. When we know our kids and affirm their unique giftedness, they have less need to define their uniqueness by their screen-time choices. I recently asked a high school senior what she definitely wanted her teachers to know about her. She answered, “I'm an individual. I'm not like everyone else.” As Jill Savage and I included in
No More Perfect Kids
, children need to be treated as unique individuals.
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It's one of the ways they know they're known. It establishes an appropriate understanding of their value so they won't need everyone paying
attention to them for superficial reasons. We must get to know our kids. They may act like they don't care and they may resist our attempts to ask about their day and their lives. We can't give up. Be present, observant, and politely persistent. Our teens need us to help them grow and develop their unique identity.
Who I Connect with Is My Decision!
Just as we can decide what to listen to and watch, technology gives us the freedom to decide who to talk with, befriend, and ignore. Staying in control of this is one of the ways young people stay the center of their own universe.
Teens can't control who shows up at a party or who knocks on their dorm-room door, but they can control who they talk with by phone, text, Skype, and who they interact with on social media. This power and control makes them feel important and comfortable.
There's nothing wrong with communicating online or having important digital relationships. Many of my own friendships have been strengthened by the ease of texting, emailing, and connecting on sites like Facebook. This is true for longtime friends and family I was connected with long before these methods were available. It's also true for new relationships that started online. Of course, we know just a slice of someone's life when communicating only online and that can never replace offline interaction.
While I'm writing this chapter, a friend's daughter, April, is in South Africa on a mission trip. April and her mom have
been able to text each other. It's important to April's parents to know she is okay. But more than basic “proof of life,” they love hearing about her experiences, and April clearly enjoys sharing with them. Technology is allowing them to stay connected. Of course, if April didn't share regularly about her normal, everyday experiences in college, she wouldn't be texting from Africa. Remember, for teens, it's all about the relationship. April knows her parents care, and she wants to connect with them every way possible.
Relationship issues get more complicated when teens relate to others only or mostly online. This may stunt teens' social skills and increase loneliness even though they have many “friends” on their social networks. A conversation a number of years ago with a teenager motivated my study of this topic. He admitted to having “no real friends.” He had friends he gamed with, but he admitted no one really knew him and he didn't know them either. His loneliness frustrated and isolated him.
Teens need to stay connected to people they choose to communicate with. That's why keeping their phone on and with them is important. If they're on social media sites, having access to them matters. They need to be able to comment on posts important to them and update people on what they're doing. Yet, at the same
time, being constantly connected can increase their stress:
“
The steady pattern of reassuring texts can also become a drumbeat of obligation many teens find exhausting.”
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It's a bit of a catch-22. They're stressed if they're connected. They're stressed if they're not. Many young people admit it's hard for them to take a break.
When their phone rings, they'll pay attention to the ring tone or look to see who's calling or texting. They'll rarely answer if the number isn't already in their phone. They will answer if they're in the mood to talk with that person, even if they're in the middle of another conversation. Although those of us who are older may think it's rude when they ignore us, they think it's rude to ignore who's on the phone. They can't risk angering that person or missing out on something happening online.
Communicating is a strength of our wireless world. However, there's no guarantee this communication will lead to connection. That's the challenge for all of us. It's an even larger issue for young people who have learned to develop online and offline relationships at the same time. We all need to pay attention to make sure we don't equate online interactions as having the same value as offline relationships.
Authenticity, vulnerability, and accountability may not come naturally, even within our own families. We must not give up nor can we afford to be distracted by our own technology. Each of us has a core need to belong. Therefore, being connected but not really connecting with others creates deep stress and leaves a gap in our hearts.
So how can we help our kids relax their tight control over their relationship universe?
1. We can teach friendship skills
. Modeling, talking about, and directly instructing our kids about friendship skills is wise. As Chapman and Pellicane point out in
Growing Up Social
, “The next generation is at great risk of losing the art of personal conversation. But you can intentionally teach your children to get along and to value others face to face.”
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I absolutely agree! We have to help our kids develop friendship skills, including self-evaluation, communication, choosing friends, maintaining friendships, resolving conflicts, and ending relationships. For example, to help with choosing friends and deciding whether to end a friendship, we can teach the difference between consistent character flaws and an occasional mistake in judgment.
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2. We can help our kids identify friendship levels
. Not every casual relationship should become a friendship. Our kids need to learn who to trustâand who not to trust. Not everyone can be trusted with our intimate feelings and thoughts.
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3. We can help our kids learn to read body language
. Because our teens have less experience with offline conversations, helping them learn to interpret facial expressions and body language will increase their confidence and improve their social skills. They then may be willing to engage in more face-to-face interactions. These are part of a people-smart skill set.
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4. We can recognize that technology sometimes offers a “safety net” for teens' communication with parents
. Teens
sometimes use their tech tools even with parents because they feel safest when doing so. I heard of one teen who used email to connect with his mom so that he could say to her what was too hard for him to say to her in person: Please stop drinking. His mom read the email and privately thought about what he was asking of her. By the end of that day, this woman entered a rehabilitation programâand she continues to do well.
5. We can model and teach “one-anothering.”
The New Testament offers many instructions to love, serve, encourage, admonish, and build up one another. These verses can help teens understand that connecting with others is a privilege and an opportunity to bless others and better themselves. Their mood and whether they already know people should not be their primary filter when deciding which people to talk with. These truthsâwhich include living in peace with one another, honoring one another, being devoted to one another, and not judging one anotherâcould be the focus of family devotions or brought up at teachable moments.
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6. We can teach them how to introduce themselves
. When working with groups of teens, plan time for them to get to know each other. It won't be easy for them to do it on their own. Jonathan, a high school student, aptly represents how many teens feel: “We don't even introduce ourselves. Teachers just say, âOkay, you're in physics.' Everybody's looking around thinking,
That person's cooler than me, that person's not as cool as me, that person's hair doesn't look good today
. When I become a teacher, the first thing
I'll do is take however long it takes until people get comfortable.”
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I think Jonathan is on to something healthy!
