{"id":3016,"date":"2021-01-29T11:19:44","date_gmt":"2021-01-29T19:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingtolearn.ca\/?p=3016"},"modified":"2023-03-19T19:11:11","modified_gmt":"2023-03-20T02:11:11","slug":"systemic-abuse-trauma-and-neglect-viewing-child-screen-addiction-as-a-coping-mechanism-for-family-dysfunction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingtolearn.ca\/systemic-abuse-trauma-and-neglect-viewing-child-screen-addiction-as-a-coping-mechanism-for-family-dysfunction\/","title":{"rendered":"Systemic Abuse, Trauma and Neglect \u2013 Viewing child screen addiction as a coping mechanism for family dysfunction."},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Every parent I\u2019ve met professes profound love for their children and truly strives to create healthy and functional family lives. Parents who come from dysfunctional families have a much harder time navigating the pitfalls of parenthood as they simply cannot do what they were not taught. Being a functional attachment figure to a wee little child\u2019s persistent needs requires a parent who has been able to put their own generational wounds behind them. Along comes the cell phone. In the absence of a functional attachment with their family of origin, parents are prone to creating unhealthy relationships with their devices. In the absence of a primary attachment figure, children follow the parents lead and form unhealthy attachments to their own devices. The cell phone becomes an interface between family members prohibiting a life sustaining and essential component of every childhood\u2026healthy attachment. Addictions to devices really should be viewed as a coping mechanism for family dysfunction carried through generation after generation. Reframing child screen addiction as a coping mechanism for family dysfunction allows families, teachers and clinicians to focus on improved family relationships as a primary intervention in treating addiction. This article intends to cast light upon the probable origins of child screen addiction and offers the Healthy Families Questionnaire<\/em> to guide families toward actions to improve healthy family relationships.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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When I ask parents what their goals are for their child\u2019s future they talk about happiness and success primarily in academics, relationships and health. As a pediatric occupational therapist, I assess family habits which limit goal attainment and frequently find that screen overuse is a predominant and disruptive factor. Some components of a functional family might include communication, affection, respect, play, responsibility and rules all of which diminish with screen overuse. Parents (and teachers) who overuse and overly rely on screens are turning their backs on children and in doing so, fail to meet their most basic needs for optimizing growth and academic success. This systemic over reliance on screens has an overwhelming effect on children and ultimately if left unchecked, leads to what could in some extreme cases be viewed as child neglect, trauma and abuse. In the absence of \u2018real\u2019 families and schools, children are attaching to their \u2018virtual\u2019 devices as a coping mechanism<\/a> (Montage 2020) to help them to deal with system failures. I repeatedly quote in my workshops on screen overuse \u201cIt\u2019s never the child with the problem, it\u2019s the systems surrounding children that need to change\u201d. What I mean by \u2018systems\u2019 are family, education and health.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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With recent Covid-19 restrictions, both home and school use of screen devices has risen markedly with many families and schools reporting managing healthy screen use is \u2018virtually\u2019 impossible. As parents, teachers and clinicians struggle to raise, educate and treat children, they have unknowingly created a virtual world devoid of all the factors required for optimizing child growth and success: movement, touch, human connection and nature. Screen-centric families are forgoing traditional \u2018tried and true\u2019 routines for toilet training, nap\/bedtime, meals, outside play and chores ultimately creating children who are overly dependent, delayed, anxious, depressed, unable to sleep, have difficulty socializing, have learning difficulties, can\u2019t self-regulate their emotions and\/or have difficulty listening or completing requested tasks.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Just as there are screen-centric families, there are also screen-centric schools. Screens in schools have limited research evidence<\/a> as an effective learning tool (see Every School\u2019s Research Summary<\/em> 2019) yet has become the default education choice by most schools both pre- and post-Covid 19. Dr. Dimitri Christakis a renown pediatrician, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and editor-in-chief of JAMA Pediatrics states children are \u201csocial animals\u201d and using a decision analytical model found that life expectancy of children would be greater if they attended school in person than online,<\/a> yet educations systems continue with virtual instruction. Reflecting on above Building Foundations<\/em> graphic would guide schools toward evidence-based practice of outdoor or nature-based education models where half the children are in classrooms for half the day and outside for the other half. Outdoors would provide access to the 4 critical factors for optimizing development, attention and learning as evidenced by prolific scientific research<\/a> (Dresp-Langley 2020).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Whether you are a parent, teacher or clinician reading this article, a first step toward gaining perspective regarding family function might be for families to fill in the Healthy Families Questionnaire<\/a><\/em>. This scale will help families identify some of the components of a healthy family and discover things to do to improve healthy family function. The suggested process in filling out the Healthy Families Scale<\/em> is to have a family discussion while answering questions and then working together as a family team to come up with ideas for improving family function and overall health. In treating children who overuse or are addicted to screens, we must bear in mind that a family centred approach is crucial for the process of family and generational healing. Addiction treatment must include endeavours to address the underlying causal factors of generational family neglect, trauma and abuse or we will be treating the wrong person for the wrong reason. We must help families to recognize that they are not a \u201cbad\u201d family but rather are a family who has survived years of dysfunction. Shining a light on a path toward healthy function will provide a framework with which to move forward toward generational healing.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Cris Rowan is a pediatric occupational therapist, biologist, international speaker and author of \u201cVirtual Child \u2013 The terrifying truth about what technology is doing to children\u201d. Cris is CEO of Zone\u2019in Programs Inc<\/a>., collates research for the monthly Zone\u2019in Child Development Series Newsletter<\/a>, and writes a feature article for her blog Moving to Learn<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Montag C, Elhai JD. 2020. Discussing digital technology overuse in children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond: On the importance of considering Affective Neuroscience Theory<\/a>. Addictive Behavior Reports<\/em>. Vol. 12;100313.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Every School\u2019s Research Summary<\/a>. Oct. 2019. Every Schools website. Retrieved on Jan. 11, \u201921. Includes prolific research regarding failure of schools to following evidence-based practice with use of screens in education.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Christakis D, <\/a>Van Cleve W, Zimmerman F. 2020. Estimation of US Children\u2019s Educational Attainment and Years of Life Lost Associated With Primary School Closures During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic<\/a>. JAMA Netw Open.\u00a0<\/em>2020;3(11):e2028786.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Dresp-Langley B. Children\u2019s Health in the Digital Age<\/a>. 2020. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. <\/em>2020 May 6;17(9):3240.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every parent I\u2019ve met professes profound love for their children and truly strives to create healthy and functional family lives. Parents who come from dysfunctional families have a much harder time navigating the pitfalls of parenthood…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[7],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movingtolearn.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3016"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movingtolearn.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movingtolearn.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movingtolearn.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movingtolearn.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/movingtolearn.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movingtolearn.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movingtolearn.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movingtolearn.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movingtolearn.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}