What Screens Take Away

by Michael Scheele and Christine Temko-Scheele

A recent Christianity Today article, “10 Tech Protection Strategies for Your Kids and Their Friends,” offers parents practical ideas for helping children build fuller lives away from their screens.

First, let us say that it’s a great article. We highly recommend it to parents. You don’t need to follow every suggestion exactly as it’s written, but it’s chock-full of good ideas and food for thought.

Much of the conversation surrounding children and technology focuses on what smartphones bring into their lives. We worry about inappropriate content, online predators, addictive games, social media pressures, and every other form of evil trying to gain access to our children.

Those threats are real.

But we also need to ask another question: What is technology quietly taking away?

The Lost Beauty of Stillness

Many children growing up today may never understand the beauty and peace of stillness.

They may never understand why old men love sitting on their stoops so much. They may never discover how comfortable grass can be when it’s no longer freshly mowed but hasn’t yet gone to seed. They may never spend an afternoon staring at the clouds, listening to birds, or building an entire adventure out of nothing more than a cardboard box and an active imagination.

There’s an entire generation whose developing minds are being shaped by constant stimulation before they’ve had the opportunity to become comfortable with quiet, boredom, and imagination.

Imaginative play is disappearing. Cowboys, cops and robbers, forts, backyard expeditions, and invented worlds are being replaced by experiences that have already been created, illustrated, and programmed for children.

Technology doesn’t simply occupy their time. It can take away the empty spaces in which imagination, reflection, and sometimes even prayer begin.

The answer isn’t to frighten parents or declare all technology evil. Technology can educate, connect, entertain, and accomplish an extraordinary amount of good. The challenge is ensuring it remains a tool rather than allowing it to become the environment in which our children live.

The American Academy of Pediatrics now encourages parents to look beyond screen-time limits alone and consider the content children consume, what technology displaces, and how it affects family interaction and healthy development. Read the AAP’s updated guidance.

Technology Has Changed How We Communicate

Technology hasn’t only changed how children play. It has quite literally changed the rules governing how people communicate.

In some cases, it has encouraged poor etiquette and bad manners. In others, it has simply changed what society considers normal.

For example, a brief question between two people who know each other might now be handled through a text message. Once several messages have gone back and forth, good judgment might suggest that it’s time for a phone call. Yet many people will continue texting rather than risk the discomfort of an actual conversation.

Children are learning these new social rules while they’re still learning how relationships work. They need parents who will teach them that convenience and connection aren’t the same thing.

A message can transmit information. It can’t always communicate tone, attention, empathy, or love. Those things are learned by being with people.

Relationship Is Stronger Than Rules

Setting reasonable boundaries is important, and healthy discipline administered with love, correction, and redirection may be part of the process. But discipline alone isn’t the ultimate answer.

The stronger answer is love, respect, and understanding.

A disciplined child may do exactly what he’s told. But a child who loves and respects his parents begins to anticipate what they would want and willingly makes that choice his own.

The disciplined child may take an inappropriate action simply because nobody specifically told him not to do it. The child whose decisions grow out of love, trust, and respect is more likely to recognize the danger and choose to abstain.

That kind of judgment grows from a strong foundation.

Parents build that foundation through open conversations and by showing their children that difficult subjects are safe to discuss. Don’t stop engaging. Make honest conversations a normal part of your relationship.

Here’s a practical tip: If your child needs to discuss something uncomfortable, try talking in the car.

Direct eye contact can make an already difficult conversation feel like an interrogation. When you’re driving, some of that pressure disappears. Your child may subconsciously feel that your attention is partly occupied, making it easier to find the courage to say the words he or she has been holding inside.

Whatever setting works best, the important thing is that your children know they can come to you. If they believe an honest admission will immediately bring panic, anger, humiliation, or punishment, they’ll learn to hide their mistakes and questions. If they know they’ll be heard, they’re far more likely to come to you before a bad situation becomes worse.

Parents Need Other Parents

Digital boundaries are easier to maintain when your family isn’t standing alone.

There’s tremendous power in positive peer connections. When several families establish similar expectations, children don’t feel as though they’re the only ones missing something. Parents can also provide one another with encouragement, information, and alternatives.

Protecting children outside your own home requires wisdom and humility. Each parent has the right and responsibility to raise his or her child according to that family’s convictions.

Still, if someone’s house is on fire, you let them know.

Whether they put out the fire is ultimately their decision. Our responsibility is to raise awareness when it makes sense, speak with respect, and allow parents to decide how they’ll handle the situation.

We don’t need to lecture every family whose standards differ from ours. We can have gracious conversations, share what we’ve learned, and invite other families to participate in something better.

Give Children Something Better

It isn’t enough to take a screen away. We need to give children worthwhile people, places, and activities to take its place.

Church youth programs can give children opportunities to connect with one another and, more importantly, to connect with God. Here in Watseka, First Baptist Church offers Bible Time, which provides children with biblical teaching and real interaction.

Not all youth groups are created equal, though. Parents shouldn’t be afraid to visit different churches, ask questions, and find a program grounded in sound doctrine with leaders they can trust. Resources such as ChurchFinder can help families begin looking for churches and ministries in their area.

Service is another powerful alternative to passive consumption. Families can serve through a local church or explore both Christian and secular volunteer opportunities through organizations such as Idealist.

Children need to experience the satisfaction of helping another person, completing a real task, creating something with their hands, and knowing that their presence matters.

They need board games, books, bicycle rides, walks, family dinners, outdoor work, church activities, volunteering, and conversations. They need opportunities to be quiet. They need opportunities to be useful. They need opportunities to become bored enough for their imaginations to awaken.

Most importantly, they need God.

Run Toward Something Better

The purpose of digital boundaries isn’t merely to avoid technology. It’s to draw closer to God and remain near Him.

Proverbs 18:10 says:

“The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.”

Notice that the righteous don’t merely run away from danger. They run toward the Lord.

That’s the heart of this conversation. We can’t protect our children by attempting to identify and prohibit every dangerous thing they might encounter. The digital world changes too quickly, and parents won’t always be present.

But we can give them a foundation.

We can build relationships grounded in love and trust. We can teach them how to recognize danger. We can fill their lives with real people, meaningful work, imaginative play, honest conversations, and the Word of God.

Our goal isn’t to raise children who are merely afraid of what’s on the other side of a screen.

It’s to raise children who know where to run.