C H I L D E D U CAT I O N
Keeping Kids Creative in a Tech World Screens often cited as a key factor in the loss of child creativity
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By Jackson Elliott oday, r a isi ng c r e at i v e k i d s won’t happen naturally. It has to be a choice. According to teachers and experts from across America, kids don’t innovate like they used to. In a world in which technology lets us live in other people’s ideas, life in school is increasingly regimented, and the past few years have made it challenging to have new in-person conversations, a decline in creativity is hardly a surprise. Even so, parents have often failed to fight the changes that most harm their children’s creativity, according to Dr. Leonard Sax, a psychologist. “American parents have abandoned their authority to an extent greater than any other country,” he said. According to the teachers, psychologists, and other experts who lead the struggle to keep kids creative, parents can do a lot to protect kids from the worst effects of technology. But to make things better, parents need to act, they say.
You Are Your Child’s Keeper
40 I N S I G H T March 18–24, 2022
When children spend too much time online, they have trouble connecting with nature and their bodies, a schoolteacher says.
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Screens often seem to be a key factor in the loss of child creativity, according to teachers. But one of the main reasons kids prize screens so highly is that their parents spend so much time online. According to Sax, kids notice when adults spend all day staring at screens. Often, they feel abandoned by their parents. Once when Sax was talking to a school assembly about child screen use, a boy asked him if his mom could install a screen time limitation app on her phone. “He then proceeded to tell the entire middle school how he comes home and wants to talk to his mom. But his mom is scrolling through her Instagram app, giving distracted one-word answers to his questions, not really listening to what her son is saying,” Sax said. Polls show that children tend to copy what parents do with screens. If parents manage screen time poorly, the children will do the same. But parents
who manage screen time well will usually have kids who spend less time on a screen. If moms and dads want their kids to be offscreen, they should get offscreen themselves, Sax said. When parents take a role in controlling child screen time, kids do better. According to Valleywise Health, kids should have two hours of screen time per day or less. “Children who spent more than two hours a day on electronic devices scored lower on thinking and language tests. Those with more than seven hours of screen 1. time experienced thinning of the brain’s cortex, which is related to critical thinking and reasoning,” the website said. Unfortunately, the average child today spends between four to six hours per day using a screen. The biggest mistake that parents make is believing they can’t set rules for their child’s screen time, Sax said. If parents do a good job with screens, they can teach that virtue to their children. “You cannot teach your children a virtue which you yourself do not possess. In order to become a better parent, you have to become a better person,” he said.
