So I was spending time at a colleagues house watching another child and their teenage sibling get cranky after using electronics.

I then found myself shaking my head in disappointment. First I wondered “Why is that parent wondering how to get their children to be off the electronics more often?”

Then I wondered to myself “If most children I know appear to be negatively affected by screen time, there must be a concrete explanation for that other than the obvious”.

The obvious being that children were never meant to have their faces buried in an electronic device they are meant to be outdoors playing like they did for 5000 years.

So….. I came across some articles that back it up with my favorite topic, the nervous system.

The nervous system which coincidentally runs most of our lives and a lot of our cognitive functioning as it ties directly into 2/3 our brain. The autonomic nervous system in an unhealthy state is largely responsible for teenagers becoming troubled, on drugs and alcohol, and struggling to thrive in life. A massive repair to the autonomic nervous system (through treatment and therapy) is also largely responsible for teenagers becoming un-troubled and recovered from their problems.

The role of parents is to understand how to utilize the nervous system to turn their teenagers around, prevent problems from developing in the first place, and just all around produce some productive young adult men and women.

Parenting is not about doing your best as you instinctively understand parenting, then crossing your fingers and seeing how things turn out. Then blaming culture, these modern times, and your teen’s unique personality traits for anything that is lack lustre in your teenager’s life. That is not a solid plan, and you would not recommend that strategy to another new parent of a bouncing baby boy or girl would you?

Parenting is about willfully admitting at what is not good in your teenager’s life. Parenting is about learning why those things are not good from educated people.

Parenting is about subsequently employing a proven documented strategy to fix it and then building a high functioning capable young adult.

Parenting is not about raising children, it’s about raising an adult.