I really enjoy hanging out with my youngest son.
He has just turned 13, and I guess we hang out because we always have. I’ve been lucky in a sense that my job over the past decade has allowed me to pick him up from school each day, which is a privilege and, on the odd occasion, a curse.
We play rugby, do the shopping and go fishing. At times, he will cook because he learned – from YouTube not me – but sometimes, he’s just knackered and will crash on the couch.
But it’s usually full-on. Add in rush-hour traffic and it can be suffocating, exhausting, but that’s life as a parent, right?
I’ve realised after having some experience at this that our kids are only with us for such a short time and if you miss the opportunity, you can’t get it back. Before we know it, we become uncool for what might be a decade, and they return to us only when they realise they’re hungry, broke, or have kids themselves – sometimes all three. It was only from around the age of 30 that I appreciated and understood my parents, after I realised how much you sacrifice when you’re a parent and how much you can love and hurt at the same time.
My son is a social animal. He’s pretty responsible, but he loves a laugh and gets on with adults as he does with his own friends. He loves his mates and appears to have a huge group of friends across the different areas he is involved with, whether it be his year eight Māori immersion school class, friends from other classes, basketball teammates, old league mates, or his new rugby buddies. Add in primary school pals plus family friends and it’s fair to say there’s no shortage of kids in my life.
I love it. I’m a better busy person than an idle pair of hands. In many ways, I consider his friends an extension of him, so I take particular interest in them, get concerned about them, watch their development, and care for them.
And all these kids now have mobile phones. That’s no surprise, right?
Some have really flash phones like $1500 worth, three times what I paid for mine.
Are they making movies or running a business from them? Sadly, no!
This is much more serious.
I have noticed quite a change in their behaviour over the past 18 months. These phones now dominate their lives, they are controlled by them, and can’t for a second be without one in their hand.
They won’t hear you. They will stay in their room. They will stay on the couch. They will be terse, short and rude after a particular session on their phone. Who knows why?
They might not help with dishes; they might race back to their room after dinner.
Why? What’s so important and what’s at stake?
Do they even stop for dinner at the table with family or is dinner on the run, with phone in hand, now considered the norm?
They are constantly distracted by the phone.
Frustrating, isn’t it, but what should we do?
Yell at them, entice them off it, reward them when they are, or simply just walk away and keep the peace?
Modern parenting is a shit storm with digital devices dominating everywhere and platforms like TikTok having yet-to-be-discovered effects on their interactions. I feel like our kids are being rewired, that nothing means much anymore, and that relationships are done via the latest platform, not in real life, with real people.
The latest research shows our kids are doing less than two hours a week of organised physical activity through their school – and that’s about half the recommended average. Cross-country runs are no longer compulsory, bullrush died years ago, and the list of cancelled or forgotten outdoor pursuits is long.
I’m a believer in team sport – it creates individuals and develops their confidence. Leaders emerge and relationships form – some last a lifetime.
My two best friendships came from sport. One is a guy I played junior club rugby with from age five, and the second was in my North Harbour Under-13 rugby rep team, and, despite him now living in Ireland, we remain as tight as ever today.
Sport and team sport matter, but we aren’t doing enough of it. The Covid pandemic saw people forced to stop, but many did not return when they could. Kids’ teams across the country are disappearing as interest in sport wanes. But the kids can easily fill the gap because they have phones and options. These things are sucking time our children used to spend doing other things.
Schools that say no to phones in the school grounds have it right, and the incoming Prime Minister agrees, but Christopher Luxon won’t need to follow through on his election campaign promise to enforce a phone ban if all schools take a bold policy approach.
My son’s school already forbids phones, and no one messes with the consequences. However, as soon as they get their devices back from the front desk at 3pm, they more than make up for all those hours without them.
My son will slump into the seat of the car with his phone and thumb in overdrive. I sit there in neutral, engine idling, and saying, “Hi” for what seems like multiple minutes before I get a response. Only then do I start to drive.
Data reveals our kids are on devices for about three hours a day, which is mostly the time spent after school and into the evenings. Experts say it’s too much for young brains.
As a 49-year-old single dad, I don’t have any proven solutions or tools to help. My personal answer is to get heavily involved in their lives, provide regular distractions, and point out how alarming their phone use is.
To the kids, I probably sound like someone from the dark ages, a Dinosaur Dad.
Am I alone here? Am I a bad parent, and who will help me?
Concentration levels appear at an all-time low, shorter than I can ever remember.
This week, I took my son and two of his mates for a fishing session at a local beach. It had taken me two full days to convince them to go. Although I will make an excuse to go fishing anytime I can, I had an ulterior motive – I wanted to use it as a social experiment to see if they could detach and have some downtime. All I was looking for was some fishing, chatting and the boys going without a bloody device for a moment.
Spoiler alert – they couldn’t!
On the way there, I asked them all questions about fishing. Each one of them never heard me. They were all on their phones, head down. It was like I wasn’t even there. My son and one mate were quick to speak after the third time I asked, but the other was lost in his device. And it continued like that all afternoon.
Each time I engaged with this boy, he was looking at his phone or attempting to. He held the rod for less than two minutes total. He never sat down, he never concentrated on anything. He never saw anything, and I wonder if he felt anything. Did he even realise it was pitch black when we had finished?
On the way home, I asked the kids to check how long they had spent on their phones over the past 24 hours. Two of them said less than an hour and both admitted it’s usually more, that it had been a quiet day.
The other said four hours and eight minutes. If you multiply that by seven days, it is 29 hours a week – not far off a full-time working week.
Once you add in sleep, school and the soccer practice this boy attends twice a week, he pretty much lives the rest of his life through his phone.
I get that his parents are frustrated with his device use. I’m with them. They are good, hardworking, immensely likeable, and decent people.
Yes, the internet and social media are amazing things that open our kids to the world. And, yes, they appear to know everything and are potentially smarter than us.
But they are not wiser.
I don’t know if we are creating social imbeciles or if everything will actually be okay in the end.
It’s not news that every generation worries for the generation that comes after them – rock’n’roll, anyone?
The reason I wrote this is because I really give a hoot about these boys. They are fun, hilarious, and dreamers with so much talent (not for fishing) and promise, but there’s so much they don’t know yet. And I don’t want what they do know to come only from a handheld device.
Good luck, parents. We are going to need it.
