February 3rd was National Play Day. This global event involved over 100,000 children. Students arrived at school that day and instead of the typical curriculum, the focus was child-driven, unstructured and free of any screentime. When exactly did playing become something we needed to schedule a day for? And while National Play Day is a beautiful effort towards highlighting the essential role that play plays in our children’s overall physical, emotional, social and intellectual development, the need for a special day suggests just how far astray we have traveled in our understanding of what our children need to develop and learn; beginning with the reality that one day will just not cut it. Ever. Nor will any other top-down, adult scheduled ideas about how and when children should play.

It puts me in mind of the notices that would be sent home around standardized testing time reminding parents to make sure the kids got a good night’s sleep, ate a healthy breakfast and were sent to school with a healthy snack. Each time I would receive one of these notices, my blood would boil. Why was this reminder coming at testing time instead of it being the way we supported our children each and every day? And why is it that we select, schedule and commodify “special” times and events for doing things that our children require each and every day? Why? Because in our busy, fast paced, machine-driven orientation to life, we have become blind to our own needs, and therefore to the needs of our children.

Play seems so frivolous and so very expendable in a world where if things are not immediately accessible and known to us then they must surely be irrelevant and a waste of time. But then the latest research will tell us that play will make our kids smarter, more emotionally stable, and then of course we will feel guilted into scheduling it in. We will make it a priority, wondering all the while how we will possibly keep up with all of the ever-increasing demands that we as parents must meet these days in raising our children. We will schedule more playdates because it is good for them. We will join in with National Play Day once a year. We will stretch ourselves thinner and thinner, all the while completely missing the point. That point being that there is no point to play and that it shows up all on its own with nothing required of us grown-ups. It is not a matter of doing more, but of doing less.

If you are stuck, look to the children. No one needs to convince a child to play. It is only the adults that need to be reminded. Joseph Campbell once wrote that what we are all really looking for is the experience of being alive. No one knows the feeling of being alive better than children at play. They do not require research, special occasions or reasons. They do not require store bought accoutrements or an adult to take the lead. Maybe, instead of scheduling playdates and national play days, we should all sit back, leave lots of space in our children’s day, and watch what happens. It might actually turn out to be exactly what we all need.

I have yet to meet a parent who in some way is not worried about how the technologies are using their children. Why then are we so afraid to say no? Why is it so difficult to set appropriate and protective limits? Some of this inability on our part can be understood by examining the brainwashing that we live with on a daily basis. “Brainwashing” is a very, very strong word to use here, and yet if we look closely at how the technologies are taking our children away from us and away from themselves, that word becomes an accurate descriptor of the way our brains are being washed clean of the truth. For something to be so powerful as to keep parents from acting on behalf of their own children says everything about what we are up against.

Daily, we receive the message that doing it all, wanting it all and having access to it all are the hallmarks of what makes us valuable, important and lovable. Worse yet, we have been conditioned to believe that it is our own idea to want it all, when in fact this belief is being sold to us daily through various media outlets. And so, we drive ourselves relentlessly with the technologies exacerbating and accelerating our wantings. We have passed this on to our children, and in so doing we have bypassed the importance of “No.” We have forgotten that to say no is to say yes. We have forgotten that to protect something precious we must learn to say no, a lot. We have forgotten that “no” creates the container out of which “yes” is born.

One of the most powerful things we can do for ourselves and for our children, is to get very, very good at saying “No.” And while this flies in the face of the cultural message that “we can have it all”, it is the very thing we need to do to insure our children stay human. We can refuse to have this conversation, but the truth is, it will go on with or without us. And what we refuse to address will be become our children’s burden to bear..

I was at a solstice gathering where a woman overheard someone asking me about a workshop I had done at a Waldorf school on technology and children. She assumed I had gone in to get the school  “up to speed in the 21st century, since we are no longer living in Germany in the 1920’s;” where and when Waldorf had come into existence. And so, even though the workshop focus had been quite the opposite, I decided to listen instead of “setting her straight.”

It seems she loved the Waldorf school for her oldest, but that when it came for her next child, she felt he could not possibly live with the technology “limits” the school recommended. She spoke strongly about the necessity of the school getting with the times. Then, an interesting thing happened; the more she spoke, the more her position changed. She acquiesced that, of course, she recognized the way that it had taken over her own life. She lamented the fact that it made her sad and uneasy to see the way the kids were constantly hunched over their devices. She openly worried about what was happening to the children. And well, yes, maybe there was something to be gained from the Waldorf approach to limiting technology in childhood.

Something significant struck me that day and it can be summed up in two words; cognitive dissonance. In Psychology, the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance holds that human beings seek consistency between reality and their expectations, ideas and beliefs. If we do not experience an internal harmony in this regard, we will do something to reduce the discomfort that this discrepancy causes. One way we reduce the dissonance is to ignore or deny a reality that does not mesh with our beliefs. And there it is. This is why so many of us can see the truth of how the technologies are undermining childhood and at the same time, suppress that knowing. We have come to believe so strongly, for so many reasons, that the technologies are such  a necessity or a vast improvement in their lives, that we are choosing to deny what stands before us. This is how we can see disturbing trends unfolding before us without trying to change anything. We have found a way to promote distraction, disconnection and disengagement as a way of life for our children, and except for an occasional worry or freak out, have found a way to deny what is happening without losing too much sleep over it.

In yoga there is a Sanskrit word called chalana, which means to churn. It is understood that we can be churned by the world and those around us and that we ourselves can engage in practices that intentionally churn us. Through the churning we are melted down and then come back together to a place of greater perspective. An external churning would be the undeniable reality that your 12 year old has cleared your bank account of thousands of dollars to pay for video game charms. It would be very difficult to ignore that reality no matter what your beliefs. An internal churning would be allowing yourself to pay attention to the uneasy feelings that arise regarding your child and the time they spend in front of  a screen. One way or another, we will all churn over what is happening to our kids. Could we not consciously, for their sake, commit to feeling what we are feeling, even when that requires us to challenge and change the beliefs and ideas that we as a culture hold near and dear? Could we not acknowledge the dissonance and be willing to change, just a little, as our gift to them?

My oldest is 19. When she left for Germany back in the fall, she joined Facebook for the very first time. It has allowed her to keep up with friends back home and even create new friends in a foreign country through au pair meet up groups. This is a great example of the technology serving, helping us to maintain and create connection in our relationships. But when the tragedy in Paris struck, the way the medium disconnects us from ourselves, one another and life, becomes all too obvious.

The rallying cry on Facebook among her “friends” was to demonstrate solidarity for Paris by changing the picture on their profiles to the French flag. For a precise and very short amount of time, comments abounded on the tragedy, then quickly faded away and went back to business as usual, pictures and all. “Pointless” and “overwhelmingly shallow” were my daughters words to me regarding the Facebook approach to dealing with tragedy, loss and terror. As someone who grew up with ample opportunity to be well established in her own emotions while experiencing the power of true intimacy, she understands that difficult times are best dealt with in ways that allow for depth of feeling, permission for a range of emotions to be expressed, as well as the time needed to struggle towards meaning. True intimacy, and its power to transform and heal through the unbearable, does not arise where quick and catchy posts squeezed in between the moments of our lives drive the exchange.

When we allow social media to take the lead in teaching our children about real life connections, we give our children empty and harmful approaches to dealing with overwhelming events and information. One of the things our children need most is the ability to stand in the face of the overwhelming and make sense of it. No amount of time spent on social media will get them there. Ever. As a matter of fact, without a solid foundation beneath them, access to social media generates anxiety, hopelessness, and a lack of agency in themselves.

Our children must be allowed a childhood where they have the space and the appropriate modelling for what it truly means to be connected socially. They must be given years and years to develop the emotional intelligence, along with the resilience it brings, to live satisfying lives. Couldn’t we give them the time they need to become established in their social and emotional natures before turning them over to the machines? Couldn’t we agree that it is well worth any “sacrifice” on our parts to give them this time? Couldn’t we stop offering up pointless and shallow ways of teaching them to connect? We could.