Why Kids Need to Unplug

In his book, The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt theorizes that we are “overprotecting children in the real world and underprotecting them online.” With anxiety and mental illness on the rise, Haidt recommends children need “a play-based childhood in the real world” to thrive. In short, parents are stunting their kids’ maturation by mistaking the physical safety of schedules and devices for immunity from harm.

There. Article over.

If you’re like me, this book was lobbed at you from every article, podcast, and social post (ironic) until I read it. Haidt’s work took me on an emotional journey from intrigue, to affirmation, to sadness, then to hope, and finally to feeling really guilty. Kids, he wrote, are facing 4 foundational harms — Social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation and addiction.

As a card-carrying Millennial, so much of the mess our kids are now navigating were invented and embraced by people like me. Oops. Our bad. To be fair, I never expected that the website I used to stay connected to my fellow CBS counselors after we all went back to our respective universities would run unauthorized social experiments at a global scale.

A mea culpa is not going to fix this systemic issue, but Haidt’s solutions can feel more aspirational than practical. Therein lies the problem. What the heck are we supposed to do?

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone reading this far into a camp blog that I am about to suggest that a term at summer camp enacts 4/6 of Haidt’s prescribed solutions and addresses all 4 of the previously mentioned harms.

Looking at the harms, Camp Balcones Springs addresses each of them head on by design. No camper has ever suffered from social deprivation while staying in a cabin with 7 other campers and 2 counselors. Simply existing at camp means learning to exist in a community.

While the activities are all a good time, CBS takes PHUN seriously. Your children might be mentored in their favorite sport by a college athlete, they could be asked to solve group puzzles at the ropes course, and I still have to concentrate if I hope to achieve anything of note at the arts and crafts pavilion. Though it looks different depending on the activity, all campers face the challenge of sustained concentration. Camp entices children to strengthen their concentration by nesting the discipline in the context of play.

Is your kid addicted to screens? What if we leave them at home for a few weeks? I’m sure you are afraid your camper might freak out if they can’t play Roblox and watch Dude Perfect. It should please you to know that the staff talk about this very thing. Want to know the solution? If you want kids to forget about their screens, you need to show them something better. That’s what camp is; proof that there is something better than what is on that sad glowing rectangle.

On a final note, it’s easy to get a sleep deprived kid to fall asleep. All you have to do is wake them up at sunrise, make them compete in a high stakes game of O-Ball, spend all morning playing football, volleyball, and tennis, then lunch and a rest, followed by a snack with all their best friends, then swim for a few hours, launch them off the blob, send them down a zipline, feed them a big dinner, and then host a dance party until the stars are out. Simple really.

The Anxious Generation proposes 6 practices to help kids. As a physical outdoor experience, your child can’t avoid Haidt’s call for embodiment and to “touch grass.” He also suggests something he calls, “shared sacredness,” which is participating in any group that is “organized for a moral, charitable, or spiritual purpose.” Haidt’s examples are singing during mass or joining a civil rights movement, but I’ve got a better idea. How about joining a cabin, a compound, and a team? Sing songs together at SOS and Baseline, serve together at Camp Sweep, and do the right thing by helping the PHUN Dept clean up after a theme night.

That’s 3 of the 6 practices and I promised you a fourth. Camp is often portrayed as a loud, wild, multi-week party. It can be all of those things, but there’s more. Walk out onto the dock in the heat of the afternoon, bait a hook, and drop your line in the water. The perch and bass might bite; they might not. Sit patiently and listen to the cicadas rattle in the trees, feel the heat of the summer breeze blow, and observe other campers and counselors wandering the property in the distance. In that moment, you will have achieved the stillness, silence, and focus we find so elusive in our day to day lives.

Our kids need our help. We can do a lot by releasing them from our own systems into the beautiful structure of summer camp. They will come back with greater confidence and a stronger sense of self, it’s by design.

-Jimmy Miller CBS Alumni & Parent