Letter #41. How the Leash Chokes the Spirit

How would you feel about being monitored and controlled continuously “for your own good”?

Dear friends,

Some years ago, at a talk I was giving in Florida, I met a young woman who was a native of Kenya. She told me that her first impression of America, when she came here from Kenya at age 16, was how unfree and unhappy the children were. Much of my research since then has been devoted to understanding the link between children’s lack of freedom and their unhappiness. That was a big part of my book Free to Learn and the theme of my recent article in the Journal of Pediatrics. In this letter, however, rather than repeat the research evidence, I ask you to play a little game of imagination.

Imagine

Imagine that your spouse (make it your closest friend if you aren’t married) had the same power over you that parents typically have over children. Now imagine that this person, out of their love and care for you, used that power in ways like the ways parents in recent decades commonly control their children.

Suppose this loving person did not allow you out of the house without knowing just where you would go, without your being accompanied always by a reliable guardian, and without assurances that they would get the full story when you returned. If you are employed, suppose your spouse (or friend) kept track, every day, of what you are doing at that job, maybe by back-and-forth texting with your boss. Suppose that person also made decisions about what job you would take and what future job you should seek. Suppose that person even negotiated with your employer, for you, about such things as wages and benefits.

Now, to further the game, imagine that your boss at work controlled you the way a teacher controls children at school. You are reprimanded even if you are a minute late. You are not allowed to leave your seat while at work except at specified breaks. You are not allowed to compare notes with, or even talk with, your co-workers except at specified times when you are given permission. To go to the bathroom, you must ask permission. You are told minute by minute what you must do and how, and everything you do is judged and ranked in comparison to the work of your co-workers. And suppose your employer also required you to do more work at home, every day, and encouraged your loving spouse (or friend) to be sure you do that work.

How would you feel? Imprisoned? Enslaved? Choked? Untrustworthy because obviously people don’t trust you? Anxious about how you will be evaluated? Helpless? Depressed about having so little control over your life? Maybe you would even feel that life is not worth living. The fact that all this is being done “for your own good” by people who love and care for you would likely make you feel even worse. You must be truly incompetent if all this must be done for your own good. If all this were done by people who hated you or were exploiting you, at least you would have the satisfaction of anger about the injustice. Your unhappiness would turn outward (as anger) rather than inward (as depression and anxiety).

Yes, I know, children are not adults. But they are not as different from adults as some people apparently believe. Like all of us, children need some privacy, some trust, some opportunities for unsupervised independent activity. And as they grow from toddlerhood to early and middle childhood, to adolescence, they need ever more of that. It’s called growing up.

As another mental exercise, this one involving memory rather than imagination, reflect on your own childhood. Did you not need growing amounts of independence and trust as you grew up, to feel happy, confident, and respected? Did you not need, especially in adolescence, time with peers to try out ways of being, to practice intimacy, and to share thoughts and feelings that would be impossible in front of parents?

Further Thoughts

After these exercises it might almost seem redundant to ask for evidence that children and teens need independent activity, where they are in charge and nobody is snooping on them and judging them, to be happy and grow up well. But for those who need evidence, the evidence is overwhelming (for a summary, see here). It might also seem silly that we should be in such a frenzy about the supposed dangers of smartphones and social media to teens’ mental health. Yes, let’s take one more freedom away from kids! We’re preventing them from getting together away from interfering adults in the real world, now let’s prevent them from that in the virtual world too.

For those still worried about social media, I urge you to look at what the people conducting the research have to say. Most of them emphatically disagree with those who are clanging the smartphone/social media alarm. Balanced reviews of the research reveal repeatedly that there is no reason to blame smartphones and social media for the rise of teen suffering. We want to blame technology companies because that way we don’t have to point the finger at ourselves. If you are interested in the research evidence and conclusions of those conducting that research, look back at letters D6, D7, D8, and D9.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and questions in the comments section below. They will add to the value of this letter and may well provide thoughts for a future letter. If you aren’t already subscribed to this substack, please subscribe now. If you feel generous enough to make your subscription a paid one (at $50 for a year), please know that I will appreciate that. All funds I receive through paid subscriptions are used to support nonprofit organizations I’m involved with that are aimed at bringing more play and freedom to children’s lives.

With respect and best wishes,

Peter