Learn to Put Your Phone Down Sometimes
Your phone habits are having a greater impact than you realize.
I have a love / hate relationship with my smartphone. There are days when I fantasize about going back to a simple cell phone like the old days. No apps, no touch screen, just a screen that shows you the numbers you dial.
Most of us are distracted today in a way that just wasn’t the case prior to the age of smartphones. I’ve travelled all over the world and I can tell you that this problem isn’t local, it is global. Our smartphones have us glued to our phones rather than looking up and noticing life moving around us.
Is it any wonder we are having so many problems putting our phones down? Instant news, instant messages, constant notifications, our phones are either dinging, vibrating, showing a red badge showing how many unread messages we have or a banner is coming across our screen to let us know what we are missing and enticing us to click on it to get informed.
Your Child is Paying the Highest Price
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen parents spending time with their children while having their attention focused squarely on their phone. I get it. I’ve been there too. There can be many reasons why we are drawn to our phones like a moth to the flame.
While computers and newer technologies like AI have helped us to be more productive, they have not given us our time back. The more productive we get, the more is expected of us. More deadlines, more pressure, all with the expectation of instant responses. When I was young, before cell phones were everywhere, a person had to leave a voice mail message on your answering machine and then wait for you to respond. It was normal to have to wait hours for a response and occasionally, days.
Today? If someone doesn’t respond to us in minutes, we get antsy and feel anxious or worse. Your boss might be one of those who has trouble respecting boundaries between work life and home life and expects answers at any time of the day or night.
The ones who suffer most? Your children. There are two ways to deal with their need for attention. The first and easiest way, and the one I see too many young parents take, is to hand them their own screen in the form of an ipad, tablet, or older smartphone. The second way is for you to put down your phone and attend to their need for your presence.
The first one is easy and quick. The kids get quiet. You can have some peace. Seems like a win / win but is it?
Your presence is the greatest gift you can give your child.
There is no substitute for quality time with your child. I speak from experience here, our kids grow up too fast. Maybe your child is young right now. It seems like you are going to have many years ahead of you and sure, that is generally true. In the larger picture though, time moves very fast.
Think back eighteen years. Does it feel like a long time has passed? Chances are it doesn’t. Some studies tell us that by the time your child is eighteen years old, you will have passed 90% of all the time you will have spent with them. If you both spent most of that time together looking at screens, time will feel even faster.
Your child will learn from your example. If you are checked out, when they grow up and have children of their own, chances are, they will be checked out too. If you are intentional about being mentally and physically present in your child’s life now, when they have children of their own, they are far more likely to be intentional about raising their kids, your grandkids, too.
Christianity is as much caught as it is taught
Do not delegate the discipleship of your child to anyone, not your pastor, not the church, not your mother. Be an adult and take responsibility for raising your child to love God. The first step is that you need to walk the walk. Spend time with God daily. Pray regularly. Memorize scripture intentionally. Do regular family worship.
Family worship is very important. I did not value it as I should have. If you don’t set aside time to be with God and to call your family to be in God’s presence, you are teaching your child to take God lightly. If the only time you talk about God is at church, you will struggle to keep your children in church when they are adults.
Do you know what your child is worrying about right now? If someone asked you to name what brings them joy at the moment, could you tell them what it is?
Practical steps you can take today.
It takes time and intentionality to know another person. This is true for your spouse and for your child. Focused, intentional time together. Don’t dilute that special time by being distracted by your phone. Instead, put your phone down, put it on silent, change the focus level so that it will not disturb you as you spend time together.
Establish a rule at the dinner table that everyone has to put their phone down. Not eating together at a table? Start doing that once a day. There is no substitute for face time over a meal. This is a practice that has existed ever since human beings were created. Modern life and processed foods have made it easy for everyone to eat and run or to eat while watching something on the big or little screen.
When your child is talking to you, put the phone down. I know, it isn’t easy. You have deadlines, you have hobbies, what your child is saying to you might not be very interesting to you. It doesn’t matter. Put your child first. Show them respect by putting your screen down when they need to talk to you. If you are intentional about this practice, you will earn the right to ask them to do the same for you.
You will never regret spending quality time with your child. Those times are sacred, learn to treat them as such.
Establish better work / life balance.
I get it. You have goals and dreams to achieve. You have mountains to climb and obstacles to overcome. Don’t be in such determined pursuit of your own needs that you ignore the needs of your child. Yes, it can be costly to lay down your work or lose that promotion because you aren’t doing enough according to your boss. I promise you that you will not regret spending time with your children.
Many years ago I gave up the chance to pursue a PhD because my children were still young and I didn’t want to lose those years simply because I had to keep my nose in a book or my eyes on a computer because I had deadlines to meet. Everything is a choice and a trade-off.
Make time to disconnect. Take a day off from work and spend it with your child. Determine to choose your child and the wellbeing of that child over your own personal advancement. You made a commitment when you had a child. Do everything you can to live up to that commitment.
Don’t blame anyone else for your failures. Everything in life is a choice. You choose to work instead of spending time with your child. You choose to keep your face buried in your phone instead of focusing on your child. You choose to be distracted rather than give your child the gift of your full attention.
Whatever you do, don’t blame your work, your spouse, your career, your health, or anything else. You do what you value.
At the end of all of this, I’m urging you to value time with your child the most next to time with God and time with your spouse.
Put your phone down. You won’t regret it.
Joseph Duchesne writes to help Christians think and act biblically about Artificial Intelligence. He is the author of a couple of books, The Last Crisis and Discover the One, both available on Amazon.