It’s Not Too Late To NOT Give Your Child A Screen For Christmas

The most powerful corporations of our time have made it cheap and easy for us to give them direct access to the hearts and minds of our kids.

They have intentionally designed their devices to be addictive. That’s why they’re cheap; they know once we’re hooked, we’ll habitually return for everything else their advertisers want us to want.

Here’s the ultimate hypocrisy: the creators of the devices don’t give them to their kids, while spending billions on advertising to insist that you should.

Here’s why your child doesn’t need more screen time for Christmas: screens generally promote everything a parent doesn’t want their kids to become.

• We want our kids to grow up caring about others. Screens tell them it’s all about them.
• Instead of fostering creativity, screens foster consumption.
• Instead of inspiring deep thoughts and unique ideas, screens are a constant distraction, the arch-enemy of deep thought.
• Instead of improving relationships, screens isolate people, and merely online relationships are one-dimensional and fleeting.

The fact that your child— along with every other child—wants the latest device doesn’t mean you should buy it. Kids need parents who love them enough to not give them what they want, but what is best.

You wouldn’t get your kids the ingredients to make meth would you? Even if they wanted it? Even if everyone else was doing it? Why not? Screens are every bit as addictive.

If you’ve already bought your child a screen for Christmas, it’s not too late to take it back or return it to Amazon. You can get them something that helps them become the creative, loving, truly connected, socially confident, and spiritually healthy adults you long for them to be.

(PS: Want to know a secret? This post applies to adults as well.)

Need more convincing? Watch Simon Sinek’s talk about technology’s impact on millennials.