Wean off the pacifiers
Kids need to learn to embrace discomfort, and being bored, from adults
Pacifiers are a tool meant to sooth. They provide comfort. They can coax you to sleep. They stop tears. They help you feel safe. And they offer a sense of security. But they are hard to break free from. The weaning process can be long and a cause of discomfort, and discomfort is undesirable. Discomfort makes you squirm, and when you start to squirm, if the pacifier is accessible, grabbing for it is almost instinctual. The pacifier is like an appendage that is physically separate from the body but mentally attached. If an appendage were to be lost in an accident or removed, learning to live without it is challenging and takes time. The response may be to find a replacement to ease the coping process, or in an effort to not cope at all.
Babies are pacified by yum yums, as my aunt calls them, adults by smartphones. And, increasingly, tablets are given to kids to fill that uncomfortable feeling called boredom.
Much of parenting is about showing children how to behave and, generally, how to live in the world. Yum yums and smartphones may seem like two very different objects serving very different purposes but, in many ways, they are not. They both are a go-to when discomfort sets in.
In restaurants, while waiting for their table or their food to arrive, or in the waiting room of doctor's offices, adults turn their heads down to scroll through their phones. Meanwhile, their baby has his yum yum and their young child has her tablet. Although not immediately apparent, the baby and child are learning from their parents. A mom who grabs for her phone whenever there's a dull moment is teaching her son or daughter that stillness, of the body as well as the mind, is not desirable and one always must be doing something; the same goes for dads.
Just the other day, I was on a walk with my family through a local park where I noticed that an entire family—mom, dad, aunt, uncle, and two teenage kids—was sitting at a picnic table with each individual scrolling through their respective phone. They took turns lifting their heads, shifting their eyes away from their phones, and getting out of their seat just long enough to push the swing for the two young kids they brought to play on the playground. Typically, when kids are enjoying the playground, unless they and their parent have come to meet up with friends, parents sit off to the side, not physically engaged in any activity other than watching their child or observing the activity that surrounds them. But this idleness causes discomfort for many; they don't know how to not do something other than observe and think. They need a pacifier, or at least they think they do.
I witnessed something similar while in graduate school. I was riding my bike through campus on a beautiful spring afternoon. Students were milling about an area of campus where students typically congregate to relax between classes or take photographs with friends: a picturesque fountain. Initially, as I rode toward the fountain, I smiled and thought to myself: how nice that everyone is out enjoying the day. Then I noticed something odd and disheartening: nearly all of them were on their phones. I shook my head and rode on—they, in fact, were not enjoying the day. They couldn't possibly do so with their heads buried in their phones. I later recounted this story to my sister who informed me that they were probably playing Pokemon Go!, an online game that had just been released. Nevertheless, the restaurant scene, the playground scene, and this scene have become all-too-common.
Evidence is mounting showing the negative impact of smartphone use, with their many apps, on teens, and fear, reasonably so, is rising among parents regarding the impact of social media, and smartphone use in general, on their kids. But, as the saying goes, monkey see, monkey do. If parents can't manage to break their addiction to, or, to put it more gently, their reliance on, smartphones, then breaking the habit among children and teens will be even more difficult. If babies are never given that yum yum when they cry, and if kids are never given that tablet to ease boredom, but instead, they are taught, or better yet shown, how to be uncomfortable—how to sit with your thoughts, how to look around and observe your surroundings, how to be bored—they won't know to catch themselves when they grab for the phone as a teenager and adult.
I am no saint. My baby daughter has a yum yum. Initially, I gave it to her whenever she was upset but not hungry. But the more I thought about it, the sooner I realized that, one, she can't always get what she wants, and, two, she needs to learn to be uncomfortable and find ways to cope that don't involve the immediate reliance on an object. If she's not hungry or tired, she's likely crying because she wants me to pick her up or because she is bored and wants a change of scenery. Now, she only gets her yum yum, along with her bunny blanket, when she goes to bed. If she gets upset because her father and I are eating dinner and not paying attention to her, she needs to learn to wait patiently for us to finish. If we leave her alone long enough, focusing on our dinner, she will either watch us or take in the scenery around her to cure her boredom. The same goes for kids in restaurants, for example: they have to learn to sit at the table and engage in conversation, or just listen, rather than play a game on their tablet to ease their boredom.
Of course, all of the obvious caveats apply: expecting babies and children to sit still for an extended period of time is unreasonable, and playing with toys while parents are busy doing things like chores around the house is reasonable and, frankly, preferred to coddling and hovering over and entertaining the kid during all waking hours.
But practicing sitting in discomfort from time to time is essential for a child's development, and adults showing them what that looks like is a key ingredient. If adults cannot wean themselves off their pacifier, we should not be shocked when kids and teens grab for theirs when a time of would-be stillness is upon them. They should not miss out on the opportunities of this stillness. It’s when profound thoughts strike or new insights on the inner workings of the world arise. Or, while in stillness, kids and teens might develop a greater understanding of reality, which is what we want for them.