My family and I were at a restaurant recently where we observed a nine year-old at dinner with his family. The young man was intensely connected to his screen, suckling greedily on his video game. Both hands were cemented to the keyboard; his headphones were successfully obliterating any stimulus not generated by his hand held.
I was too many tables away to discern whether he was playing “Shoot, Shoot, Shoot, Blood, Blood, Blood, Kill, Kill, Kill”; however, I was close enough to easily observe that a woman, presumably his mother, was feeding him French fries.
If resiliency is defined not by how many times you fall, but by how many times you get back up, what predictions can be made about how able an adult this young man is likely to become?
My guess is that this young man will not grow up to be especially resilient. Were I a snarky sort of person, I would remark that this young man might someday, with a little luck, develop the ability to eat French fries on his own. Of course, one can never be certain.
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Mom: I’m concerned about my son.
Another Mom: Oh? What’s wrong?
Mom: He watches “Barney” three times a day, five days a week. He watches “Barney” before breakfast and again in the afternoon. He’s seen every episode again and again. He’d rather watch “Barney” than do almost anything else.
Another Mom: Yeah, my kids love “Barney” too. It’s not a bad show. Barney teaches kids to brush their teeth and to clean up after themselves.
Mom: I know. But my son is 29.
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The time to allow your physically able children to feed themselves is before nine years of age. The time to stop your children from playing video games is yesterday.
The mother feeding her son French fries would doubtless justify her action: “He needs to eat,” she might begin.
No argument there.
But at the same time, you have to agree that there is something desperately wrong with the picture of an able bodied nine year-old completely disengaged from meaningful human contact, isolated from his family, ignoring any interaction with wait staff, being fed French fries.
The child may as well have been on Neptune.
Back here on terra firma, sensible parents want our children to be able to do all three of the following:
1) Interact with other members of our species
2) Plan and organize their time. (I have two hours of homework to do; I promised my parents I’d help cook dinner.)
3) Eat their own French fries
What can your 14 year-old son do? Can he ride his bike to the market; buy a bag of groceries; prepare and cook a healthy, inexpensive meal for the family?
What can your 16 year-old son do? Can he mow the lawn? Can he plan, design, organize and follow through on a long-term project? Can he do his own laundry? Can he walk the dog, bathe the dog, take the dog to the vet? Can he find his way across town using public transportation? Can he use the Internet to make a plane reservation and pay for it? Can he dress appropriately and show up on time for a job interview? Can he get up in the morning by himself and get to school on time?
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Tell me if the following rings true: “Davy? Davy! Get up! Get out of bed, would you please? It’s noon for crying out loud. Davy, do you hear me? Get out of bed. Here, let me help you with your shoes. Now go out there and kill a b’ar. How many times do I have to tell you?”
“And for goodness gracious sake, put down that video game!”
