Why does a low-screen childhood matter?

More importantly, why does it matter to you?

This fall, I had the opportunity to have dinner with my high school English teacher-turned-mentor. She has been beloved to me since freshman year, a beacon of the type of adult I hoped to become: wise and funny, confident and caring, a lover of literature and people. I still pinch myself that we’ve gotten to continue our relationship past graduation.

Amanda and I covered a lot of ground in our nearly three hours together, pasta as sustenance; eventually our conversation turned to The Connected Family. Why this, she asked me. Why this topic, this crusade, why invest so much time and energy advocating for low-tech childhoods?

I loved that question. I loved that she asked it (what generosity!), and I loved how clarifying and powerful it was for me to answer. And so now, here at the beginning of the year, I’ll turn and offer it to you: why does this matter to you? Why does creating a low-screen life for your children matter?

Whether you’d consider yourself a full-blown advocate or a more casual reader of this newsletter, I think it’s worth it to sit with this question, and ultimately, to name your why. Because if you haven’t actually articulated why you care about something, it’s hard to stick with it when the going gets tough. And unfortunately, when it comes to kids and technology, the going will almost certainly get tough: peer pressure (theirs and yours), comparison, fear, and anxiety will pile up and force your hand unless you’ve armed yourself with accurate information, practical tools, community, and a personally-compelling why: a sort of mission statement that moves something in the deepest part of you.

I can for sure help with the first two. I can support you with the third. The fourth, though, is trickier. While I can’t hand you an answer, I can give you the space to think about it, some reflection questions to help clarify your thoughts, and my own story to serve as an example.

Here we go…