Not on My Watch

We’re all familiar with the phrase, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Never has that been more true than it is now.

And yet, there’s some reluctance to invite anyone else into the process of raising of our children. We don’t want just anyone to interfere with that vital role.

The problem is, there are already hundreds of forces influencing our kids every time they get online–snagging their attention, with or without our approval. Those forces don’t care two cents about our kids’ welfare, their future, or their mental health. They don’t care how well our kids sleeps at night, what kind of friends they have, or how they’re treated on the bus ride home. The goal of online platforms and gaming companies comes down to one overarching objective: grab their attention, reel them in, and win their loyalty as a consumer. It’s a sham.

As caregivers, we can’t possibly compete with the algorithms vying for our children’s time.

Let’s size this up with a side-by-side comparison. On one side of the field you have a parent who keeps nagging, “Did you get those dishes done?” while on the other side is a perfectly targeted post about how to build that dream world in Minecraft that this same kid has been obsessing over. Sure, that same parent might then make the child’s favorite breakfast right before their soccer game, but at no point does the digital competitor tell the child “No, you can’t go out with your friends until your grades are up.”

From a child’s point of view, parents quickly get a ‘hard pass’ when the alternative to our demands is an online world that perfectly caters to their every interest and desire.

Online apps keep kids coming back to maintain a streak in ways a parent can never match. Think about it. Does anything you do keep your kid begging for more and faithfully responding in a predictable way to any of your requests, day after day? That’s just what many games are programmed to do, and the results are a compulsive desire to check in, no matter what.

A New Kind of Village

What if we could loosen the grip those online forces have on kids by joining a community that makes real life interaction and playful competition even more appealing? Is there a way to change the norm such that our children come to prefer offline, face-to-face living over hours spent mesmerized by a glowing screen?

With the right kind of village? Yes. It can be done.

Instead of letting our kids mingle with online ‘villagers’ of their own choosing; instead of watching their attention, emotional and social health be hi-jacked, could a different kind of in-person village align better with the vision we have for our kids’ futures?

Proud parents think they’ve got this. They can handle this on their own.

The wise parent says, “Going up against a multi-billion dollar industry will require bold moves. I’ll do anything to loosen Big Tech’s hold on my child.”

For those who want to keep their kids in a world that focuses on face-to-face relationships and embodied experiences, there’s a unique community starting a wildly fresh movement. The Keep it Real Rally is made up of those looking to get away from online distraction, disconnect and superficiality in favor of living IRL.

This powerful community is preparing kids to live in an even more tech-saturated world than the one we live in today. It’s where families band together to preserve all that it means to be human–to think for ourselves, work through messy relationships, challenge ourselves to go further, face a problem rather than run from it, and make time to sit in silence, appreciating the wonder of the natural world around us.

Once a month we gather in defense of all we value most to troubleshoot, to validate, to unite and to feel empowered to face this world of unique challenges. While the parents pow-wow, the kids build social skills and problem solve on our unique Spare Parts playground and teens engage in a Tech Talk together. Everyone old enough reflects on their screen use and accounts for where they’re at with their life’s ambitions. Members create a Battle Banner used during role call featuring all those things they don’t ever want to see compromised by screens. 

Everyone is invited to a supplemental activity day each month where we hike, have a kick-ball tournament, tour a museum, play minute-to-win-it games, swim, or canoe together.

The real power comes from showing others what it looks like to start a new, healthier trend. It comes from linking arms and saying “We want our kids back!” It comes from choosing an alternate way of living in support of our overall health. It comes from being brave enough to do a major reset within our homes so we can make our family ties stronger than our online ties.

Join the ranks and take to the battlefield with us. Together, we can wake our kids (and ourselves!) back up to the living, breathing, hi-def, enriching 3-D world around us. The one that will teach and heal and help us all to build the resilience and presence of mind needed to rise above the noise and stress of our day.

Our kids are worth it! We’re worth it!