I was talking with my mom recently about things that were completely normal when we were kids that seem crazy now. When she was growing up, kids spent entire summer days outside before sunscreen was routinely used. When I was growing up in the ’90s, restaurants put smokers on one side of the room, and somehow that was considered a public-health solution.
So I asked her: What are we doing with kids today that they’re going to look back on and think, “What were you thinking?”
As the parent of a second-grader at Mann Elementary, I keep coming back to one answer: We’re making screens a routine part of the school day for kids still learning how to focus, build relationships, think creatively, and solve problems.
Which begs a simple question: What is the screen replacing?
A book? A conversation? Hands-on work? Time with a teacher or classmates?
When smartphones and tablets entered our lives, none of us knew what a childhood saturated with screens would look like. Now we know much more about the effects constant screen use can have on kids’ learning, relationships, and well-being.
My husband and I work hard to keep screens from becoming a default in our daughter’s childhood. She doesn’t have a tablet at home. When she’s bored, we want her to pick up a book, make something, play, or find someone to talk to.
Then we send her to school, and school hands her an iPad.
I’m encouraged by changes at Mann this year. Screen use has been reduced, iPads are no longer being sent home, and I’m grateful to the administration for listening to parents and taking action. There’s more work to do, but it’s meaningful progress. I’d like to see that same approach across District 97.
If you feel the same, join us at Screen Sense Oak Park. We’re local parents advocating for dramatically less screen use in our schools. Learn more at ScreenSenseOakPark.org.
Our kids will have no shortage of technology in their lives.
What they’re running out of is childhood.
Madeline Reto
Oak Park