"You’re smarter than that!" A necessary mantra for today’s parents
“You’re smarter than anything you see on TV,” I liked to say my sounds. From the time they were little until they left for college, I wanted them to get the message that they are wonderful, highly capable beings in charge of their own minds. They can interpret everything they see and hear in the media well, because they are smarter than that!
“I know you can think of a better ending…” to a cartoon, TV show, movie, or video game. We played the “alternate endgame” until the end of high school. As they matured, so did their sophistication in understanding narrative, plot, and the director’s influence on the outcome of a film. “It’s fun to think and you can certainly think.”
As preschoolers, they could conjure up a cleverer jingle for the commercials they sang to each other over their morning bowls of cereal. As they got older, you might hear me compliment, “You’re just as creative as Stephen Spielberg, if not more so. Did you know that?” “Notorious Big has nothing against you guys. You could pull off clever raps if you wanted to.” “Of course John Williams is a genius, he uses his talent, just like you.”
I justified all this mommy hyperbole as a way of putting myself on a level playing field with the big shots. After all, I was up against a giant industrial culture that peddled its wares 24/7 with sophisticated brainwashing techniques to keep my boys in debt to them, an industrial culture that didn’t he knew, he didn’t care about them like the others. He knew they were precious individuals, caring only about luring them into the world of the internet, video games, or the latest technological tool, making sure they grew into robotic consuming adults, preoccupied with the trivial, with no interest in anything beyond themselves.
Well guess what? I wanted my children to become creative, self-fulfilling, emotionally healthy, stable adults, capable of contributing to a positive future. And I knew that could only happen if my husband and I were constantly on the alert, continually nagging to expand their lives beyond the world of the screen. They would not grow into their optimal selves with anything less.
I was at war and I knew it every day. Now that my children are the wonderful, self-fulfilling adults I dreamed of, I realize with a dizziness that I have won the war. Sure, I lost a few battles along the way: they played violent video games at friends’ houses, for example. But in hindsight, even some of those battles I won over time. They finally admitted how boring they thought violent video games were and preferred sports or strategy games. YEAH!
“What do you want more than anything else in the world?” When I ask parents that question, they usually first answer: “To make my children happy… To lead a good life, to find fulfillment.” Something like that. they do not answer:
“I want my son to become addicted to video games.” Or “I want my son to grow up depressed and suicidal.” Or “I want my son to be the biggest bully in the world.”
No. Parents want the best for their children. Period.
However, the link between excessive screen use and a child’s self-identity may not be directly apparent, but it is there, as clear as the summer sky. It’s so worth all the time, the energy; all boundary setting with screens and chats afterwards when boundaries are crossed. It is worth paying attention to how our children see themselves as intelligent and creative people in relation to their relationship with screen technologies. Because when we do, we give them the great gift of discernment for media issues. And that serves them well as children, as teenagers, and for the rest of their lives. Case in point:
Kyrie Irving, NBA star believes that the world is flat. You may have heard. What may be news to you is that high school science teachers are pulling their hair out trying to convince their students that Mr. Irving is dead wrong, and they are losing this battle.
One teacher “says he tried to reason with the students and showed them a video. Nothing worked. ‘They think I’m part of this bigger conspiracy of being a round earthling. That’s definitely hard for me because it seems like science is.’ It’s not real to them.”
These students don’t think they’re smarter than Kyrie Irving; they don’t even think their science teachers are smarter than Kyrie Irving. And it seems they don’t think anyone is smarter than Kyrie Irving when it comes to the shape of our planet.
Want to make sure your kids don’t fall for that nonsense found all too often in our media-saturated world?
Make family media literacy a daily priority and “You’re smarter than that!” your obligatory mantra. Trust me, you will win this war that way. I guarantee it!