Allow Your Children to Solve Their Own Problems

But we modern parents have shortened that emotional umbilical and the kids are paying a price. How have we done so? Through the cell phone!

Since the advent of cell phones, our children are more connected to us than ever; they've lost some of the psychological breathing room apart from mom and dad that's a vital component of growing up. Nowadays, our sons and daughters dial us any time day or night for instant help, comfort, or advice. It's hard to find a parent — mothers in particular — who doesn't always answer the phone (or respond to a text) when they see that the caller/sender is one of the kids. We've turned the cell phone into a kind of security blanket for our children when relinquishing that blanket would serve them better.

Perhaps it's no coincidence that in the twenty years since cell phones have become ubiquitous, the incidence of student anxiety on college campuses has increased dramatically and continues to grow. Campus counseling centers can't keep up with the demand for services. Psychologists speculate that as a result of the cell phone-as-security blanket phenomenon, two essential capacities aren't developing in our kids at the pace seen in past generations:

• The development of problem-solving skills. When a son can instantly enlist mom or dad's help when something goes wrong, he doesn't have to figure out what to do — on his own — after discovering that he forgot his lunchbox in the dash out the door this morning, or after his homework sheet got trampled when it slipped out of the folder on the bus, or when the annoying younger sibling refuses to go to bed during an older sibling's babysitting gig. These and countless other challenging moments are when today's youth reach for the phone — and a devoted parent offers a solution. For generations past, the child would have done his own problem-solving, weighing pros and cons, trying one thing or another, developing his own problem-solving ability.
• The development of the self-soothing capacity. When a daughter faced with ordinary childhood adversity receives instant comfort and assurance from a parent via the cell phone, she doesn't have to learn how to soothe herself. She becomes dependent on mom or dad rather than her own inner resources to calm herself, to gain perspective, to think her way through an unsettling moment, even to contact a friend (which, as a source of support, makes developmental sense as kids get older and the peer group's influence appropriately competes with — even overshadows — mom or dad).

Both parent and child are part of this high tech dance. If you're a parent who immediately responds when your children call or text, ask yourself, what's in it for you? Does your instant availability help you think of yourself as a good parent? Does the cell phone promote a false sense of security about your child's safety in the world? Has immediate responsiveness come to be — for you — a symbol of unconditional love? Take care that your own needs not inadvertently keep your children clinging far too long to a security blanket that might have been retired years ago.