Hey parents, whether you have a little bean or a grown teen inevitably you find yourself in the screen dilemma. In the past few years I have noticed a new form of anxiety forming unique to the current generation and it is linked to social media and screens. I am seeing more teens with feelings of anxiety, lack of confidence in making decisions and pressure to get things “perfectly”.
A really important part of development is learning to self soothe as we tolerate the disappointment of delayed gratification. However the current generation lives in a world of instant gratification. There is a lot of pressure to respond instantly, be current on events and instantly get feedback from others. This pressure creates a lot of anxiety. The moment our teens are faced with a a situation that has delayed gratification, they don’t know how to self soothe their way through it. This means their sense of resiliency is fragile. The other problem is that screens and social media have become the accepted way for inclusion. This comes at a time in their lives when inclusion is very important so not responding right away means being left out. An added concern is that along with instant gratification, this generation is not learning to delineate between public and private thoughts. They are a generation without boundaries. We all have an observing and non observing self. As we get older we develop the observing self which discerns between reality and fantasy. This generation is not developing hte observing self. Lastly, because everything is literally filtered, they compare themselves to photos which have been redone and profiles which have been curated. This creates pressure to be perfect and a lack of tolerance for imperfection or mistakes.
Ugh…. right?
The second dilemma is self soothing and screens. When this generation does go to self soothe, it is with screens of all kinds. I have had several of my teen clients say that they can’t go to sleep without having their phone near by and they experience a lot of anxiety when they have to turn it off. The problem is that these screens cause a state of over stimulation in the nervous system. Over stimulation is a fight or flight response and creates anxiety. So our teens and kids are trying to self soothe their feelings of overwhelm with something overly stimulating.
It is like drinking coffee to help yourself calm down--a flawed strategy.
Parents, how does this affect you? The most common situation I see is kids and teens who are consumed by their screens and they are combative with their parents. I want to suggest here this is because they are stressed, not because they are defiant.
This puts parents in a real dilemma- do they let their kids have the screens which cause anxiety and aggression or do they limit the screen time which will potentially make their kids feel left out?
For more information and tips on screen time read here. If you found this helpful and would like to to take a workshop with me on developing more strategies for navigating this topic just say yes in the comments below!
