A Non-Anxious Presence

Anxiety in the world has greatly increased over the last generation and has become one of the main mental health challenges facing teens and young adults. I’ve been reading two excellent books on this topic from very different perspectives. The Anxious Generation, by Jonathan Haidt, provides the research demonstrating that a major shift began with the introduction of the smartphone. He also offers recommendations for schools and parents related to technology use in children and teens. The other book is A Non-Anxious Presence by Mark Sayers. This book targets Christian leaders but is also extremely applicable to parents who are the leaders in their homes.

If you want to study the data and better understand the root of the problem, I’ll direct you to the books. The fact is that both anxiety and depression have been on the rise in the world population since 2015 or earlier, with no signs of slowing down. Today, I want to focus on some steps we can take to help our kids navigate this world. I strongly recommend that you read either of these books, as this is a topic that will impact your family in some way if it hasn’t already.

The two main recommendations for schools are to be phone-free and offer more playtime. We strongly support both of these and have changed our schedules over the last few years to allow more time for kids at all levels to play. Our elementary students have 70 minutes of playtime in their schedule each day, and even our high school students have time to play during the school day. We have had a phone-free policy at school for at least 18 years, as long as our staff can remember. Phones are not allowed during the school day, and we enforce this policy every time we see kids giving in to the temptation.

For parents, the recommendations are similar. Kids need time for unstructured play. Overscheduling with too many activities that adults lead prevents kids from having time to play on their own and learn from one another. Ironically, physical play has become more supervised and structured while online and digital play have become less supervised and structured. This is the opposite of what kids need in their developmental years. It is also recommended that you delay offering smartphones to your kids as long as possible. Websites that require a minimum age of 13 for use have led us to believe that age 13 is somehow a safe age. However, the research demonstrates that the years of puberty are some of the most important for human development and that the impact of digital media (mainly social media for girls and online gaming for boys) is the most detrimental.

I think that the most important recommendation for us to take to heart is that we are role models for our kids. We need to put down our phones and give kids our attention. We need to take time to play with them. And we need to demonstrate calm and peace, not anxiety, to our kids. In order to become a non-anxious presence, we must experience God’s presence in our lives. According to Sayers, “the root of our anxiety is our disconnection from God.” For many of us, the starting point is restoring and strengthening our relationships with God, so that we can positively impact all of those in our sphere.