Avoid These “Door-Closing” Gifts
The gifts you might regret giving and the top principle for shaping future behavior.
Hello, good people! And Happy Thanksgiving! This might be my favorite week of the year. November is gorgeous, Thanksgiving is delicious, and, unlike what comes next, everything is relatively low pressure and simple. Be grateful, play football, feast with people you love, and please, oh please, please, please, do not quit the gratitude holiday early so that you can get a head start on buying stuff.
But, alas, the season of gifts is around the corner and the gifts you give your kids really do matter. It isn’t talked about enough, but our purchases have the power to open doors for our children, or, perhaps more commonly, they can slam doors shut. Today, we will look at the latter. Then on Friday I’ll round this out with a look at the types of gifts that are more likely to create passions and possibilities.
Gifts You Might Regret
These presents may radically alter the trajectory of your kids’ lives. (Hyperbole? I think not). They tend to make your kids less active, less social, less healthy, less likely to read, and less likely to take an interest in more fruitful pursuits.
Smartphone:
The most obvious example of a gift that closes doors for your kids is the smartphone. As a mother told me this past year, the day I gave my child a smartphone is the day I lost them. It might be the day their friends lose them too. 12th graders in 2015 were going out less often than 8th graders in 2009.
As tech-lover and former editor of Wired magazine said of smartphones and tablets:
“On the scale between candy and crack cocaine, it’s closer to crack cocaine…
We thought we could control it, and this is beyond our power to control. This is going straight to the pleasure centers of the developing brain. This is beyond our capacity as regular parents to understand.”
The smartphone is simply Pandora’s box. When you give your kid a smartphone you’re giving all the most brilliant companies in the world the ability to compete for your child’s attention and to track their every move. You’re giving your kid access to the entire world of digital content and to everyone else in the world who has a device. You’re allowing your son or daughter’s view of the world to be shaped by whatever outrageous content breaks through in a world where everyone's competing for attention.
When adolescents get a smartphone they have a tendency to stop living in the real world. At some point, it will be time for their smartphone learner’s permit. But, as I’ve argued many times (see: Understanding and Adapting to the Parenting Challenge of Our Time) I recommend waiting until high school. Even then, make sure you have fantastic boundaries in place. For more on boundaries, you can see the 12 rules for kids and screens that Tim Anderson uses in his home.
Video game systems:
Video games might be okay if you enforce strict limits and boundaries. But I’ve met too many young men who openly admit that, if they could, they would do nothing but play video games all day. Video games exploit men’s desire for distinction, strength, and fellowship. Meeting those needs might sound like a good thing, but it means boys will be less likely to funnel that energy towards pursuits that might grow and mature them.
To give you an idea of the potential long term consequences, one study found that 75% of women who were married to gamers “...wished their husband would spend less time gaming and more time being an active part of the relationship and that the constant gaming usually led to arguments.” It is important to keep in mind that we are forming adults and our purchases might have implications on the type of husbands, fathers, wives, and mothers our kids become.
Televisions:
Unlike the smartphone and tablet, the television often facilitates in-person social connection. When my wife and I watch Yellowstone, we are sharing an experience. We react together and that experience works its way into conversation, inside jokes, etc. But giving your kid a television for their bedroom just isolates him or her from the family, opens up the likelihood of incessant television consumption, and virtually ensures they’ll be in worse health. As sleep expert, Dr. Craig Canapari writes:
If you met me at a party, and wanted to know my best single piece of advice to keep your child from having sleep problems, here it is:
If your child has technology (television, computers, smartphones, tablets, video game systems) in his room at night, TAKE IT OUT.
If your child does not have technology in his room at night, DON’T LET IT IN THERE.
On a related note, if you allow personal televisions, personal computers, smartphones, tablets, etc. in your kids’ room, it is much more likely that they will watch porn earlier, watch porn habitually, and/or exchange inappropriate pictures. The negative consequences to their future relationships and mental health could be quite large.
Tablets:
Tablets combine many of the problems of smartphones, televisions, and video games. There is a reason that Steve Jobs outlawed the iPad in his own home, as did Chris Anderson who calls them “…gaming crack.” Smartphones and computers are a “some day” reality, but giving your kid a tablet is a headache that is better avoided altogether.
Full disclosure: my wife and I have work iPads that we do allow our kids to use to watch movies on plane trips. In case of emergency, break glass.
Crocs, slides, flip-flops (& any shoe that kids do not walk naturally in):
When I give presentations to parents, one of the first things I like to show them is videos of high school students walking. Odd, right?
Most of us have no idea how radically our bodies are changed by the shoes that we decide to wear and the frequency with which we wear shoes. This is underappreciated…
There is no way to avoid having compromised, dysfunctional movement if you spend years walking around in flip flops, slides, crocs, or other shoes with no back. “Slides” are the worst. Kids who wear slides tend to slide their feet across the ground. The toes lose flexion because they never bend. The arches collapse. Then we further deform feet by shoving them into shoes that are too narrow and have an elevated heel. The toes lose strength and natural function. Posture collapses. Glutes stop firing. Natural movements become painful. Future health becomes less likely.
The body is brilliantly made. Too many of us presume pain and poor health are characteristic of adulthood. That is what appears to be normal. But this is only normal because our norms are unhealthy—because our environment is built to promote profits and instant gratification rather than human thriving.
Being uptight about footwear might seem weird, but I would go to great lengths to preserve the natural physical gifts children come into the world with.
The Most Important Principle of Behavioral Influence
There is a unifying theme here. The environments we put our children into matter. Think about the activities your home environment will promote. You want to make it easier and more appealing for your kids to do the activities that you think are worthwhile. You want to make it harder to do the activities that are less nourishing, especially when the world-at-large promotes them.
Thank you for reading and sharing with any kindred spirits who would find this valuable.
As I mentioned, Friday I will send out the second part of this on nourishing gift ideas that can open up new worlds for your kids. Until then…
Life is too short to be normal,
Shane