The question

I have a phone problem.

At lights-out my kid asked, “Why are you allowed to go on your phone?” The room was quiet. My screen was not. I had no decent reply.

What he sees

Children watch everything. They listen when we think they are not, and they copy the behaviour that is easiest to see. Most of us tidy our language around kids. We swap the swear word for “sugar” and feel virtuous. Yet we still keep a glowing rectangle within reach at all times. That is the lesson they learn.

Children copy what we do, not what we say.

I have tried to guard them from the worst of the attention economy. No game consoles yet. Limited iPad time. The usual parental defences. Meanwhile YouTube [insert your social media of choice] lives in my pocket. When the house turns noisy, I put an earbud in. When the house turns quiet, I scroll to fill the silence while they nod off. They see that too.

The attention economy at home

The design is not an accident. Every app is a slot machine for attention. Infinite scrolls. FOMO that hunts you down. Adults struggle to resist it. Children have no chance if the people they trust do not model a way to resist.

Social learning theory has said this for decades. Our kids learn by watching the people who matter to them. If my phone is always in my hand, that is the behaviour I am teaching.

Back to the bedroom

Back to the small boy in the dark asking a good question. He was not trying to win a debate. He was pointing at the gap between my words and my behaviour. I did not need a defence. I needed to notice the glow on my face and start leading by example.

What behaviours do I want to see in him? If I can’t hold the line against the attention economy, how can I expect their developing brains to?