MOOSE JAW — With more young people experiencing increased anxiety and mental illness because of their use of technology, Sunningdale School is hoping to offer families some tips to combat this problem.
The school is hosting a presentation on Tuesday, March 18 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. about the book “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” by Jonathan Haidt, who also wrote the best-selling book “The Coddling of the American Mind.”
The book is split into two parts, with section 1 discussing:
- The Tidal Wave, featuring basic statistics on the mental health of young people
- The Decline of Play-based Childhood, featuring a discussion about childhood and how adults “messed it up by depriving children of play and role-models, damaging attachment systems, and erasing any clear path from childhood to adulthood”
- The Rise of Phone-based Childhood, where Haidt discusses the harm that results from the new phone-based childhood and the “spiritual degradation” that everyone — including adults — experience in our phone-based lives
- Collective Actions for Better Childhood, where Haidt discusses how to reverse the damage
In section 2, Haidt — a father himself — offers “useful and non-obvious advice to other parents,” including:
- Give children more time playing with other children, ideally outdoors, in mixed-age groups, with little or no adult supervision
- Look for more ways to embed children in stable, real-world, offline communities
- Don’t give children a smartphone as the first phone, instead, give a phone or watch that specializes in communication
- Don’t give youths a smartphone until high school, which Haidt says is easy to do “if many of your child’s friends’ parents are doing the same thing”
- Delay opening accounts on all social media platforms until the beginning of high school
Dave Osberg, principal of Sunningdale School, said the community was “pretty darn excited” to host this presentation, especially with all the challenges that society faces with technology.
The school community council (SCC) asked the division office to give this presentation since it wanted to be proactive with this issue, he continued.
“It’s just something near and dear to our hearts, and if we can make a small impact on our community and get people learning about some of the challenges we’re facing, I think it will help,” Osberg added.
Students are prohibited from using smartphones in classrooms after the provincial government banned them in August 2024, so they must put away those devices once they enter the school, the principal said. This access has reduced the number of problems educators must handle, although there is the “odd challenge” that arises.
Osberg has read “Anxious Generation” and said it contained plenty of good information. He encouraged the community to attend the presentation to learn more about the issues causing mental illness in youths and strategies to handle smartphone use.
Jennifer Prokopetz, superintendent of school operations for Prairie South, explained that a school liaison officer from the Moose Jaw Police Service will talk about keeping kids safe online, while she and another division employee will give parents tips on discussing these issues with their kids and recommendations from Haidt’s book.
“… I know that people who are parents right now didn’t navigate those same challenges and have those same experiences when they were kids,” Prokopetz said. “We’re all kind of learning first-hand about this.”
This is the fourth presentation that Prairie South’s administration has given to schools, after SCCs reached out asking for help, she continued. She hoped that every school could eventually hear this talk.
Prokopetz said that Haidt’s book is timely, and as a parent, she appreciates the research that shows kids’ social media and video game use negatively affects their mental health and brain development.
Furthermore, she said she enjoys the strategies about speaking with kids about technology, pointing out that it’s no longer acceptable for parents to say, “I don’t understand,” and they must do something to intervene.
“We’re really excited about (the presentation) and we’re excited about sharing the message,” Prokopetz added.
