When your child turns 18, graduates from school, and becomes an adult, for a brief period of time it feels like childhood is over. Cue: tears.
The ending brings memories to the forefront, and rather than reflecting on big celebrations and milestones, I find myself catching glimpses of the most ordinary days, with a visceral longing for his curious face in the rearview mirror as I drive, his small hands tugging at my skirt, his sleepy body curled against mine. Early parenthood may be monotonous and rooted in household chores, but there is an undeniable comfort to the monotony of home life.
We are inundated with parenting advice from birth, but no one seems to talk about the fact that we need to show our children how to be human in an increasingly artificial and overwhelming world where most things happen instantaneously. We need to remind them that we are nature, just like the birds, bugs and trees. There is nothing robotic about our energy or productivity. But we have been conditioned to chase after aspirational people. We’re always obsessed with the next big thing. As parents, we do the same. We think about what is best for our children and what could be better.
These days, childhood is largely scheduled. We are teaching our children to be busy, we are instilling in them the belief that a full journal is a successful life, and that a good life is measured by our accomplishments. But as we spend every minute of our day struggling to get things done and perform well, we run the risk of leaving ourselves no room to breathe. For children and adolescents, a lack of free play and time in nature is associated with poor mental health. For adults, this signals an epidemic of fatigue and burnout.
Research shows that the brain (more specifically, the hippocampus) exhibits a neurological filing system that divides each day into chapters and actively organizes our experiences according to meaning based on what we care about and what we pay attention to. The details we notice influence a new chapter of our life story, each chapter recorded and stored in memory like a script. In its truest form, we are creatures in search of meaning, and our memories are arranged accordingly.
I often think about what the chapter title is, how big the chapter is, and what details are stored for safe keeping. I focus and wonder about “what we are paying attention to.” Is there a field called "scrolling” in my brain? Ugh!
I shift awareness to children’s impressionable minds and consider the foundations of children’s memories and where they search for meaning. I will never know their inner story, but I do know that they are growing up in a world that has eradicated the need to wait and wander. A gentle state essential for a bright mind and a stable nervous system; For optimism and contentment. With social media now banned in Australia, this generation will begin to experience the boredom, lazy days without plans and the sweet simplicity of the logged-off life that millennials crave.
Or perhaps this is now a submission under parental obligation. Introduce your child to the blank slate of boredom. If you stick with it long enough, you will no doubt find yourself in an uncomfortable state and eventually experience a curiosity that helps you understand the world and your place in it. Being curious and searching for clues and answers increases neural activity in brain circuits that release dopamine, a feel-good hormone associated with reward and motivation. All you have to do is stay focused so you have a clear idea of what you ultimately want to explore and create. Curiosity also improves memory.
If we are raising children to grow into independent adults in this productivity-driven world, we need to teach them how to relax, the importance of daily nourishing food, sunlight for their limbs, connections with people they trust, the comfort of their favorite movies, and a warm bed and warm drinks when they’re stressed.
This is a simple thing, but we all need to be reminded in our busy lives. We all struggle with the constant tug on our phones that pulls us out of the present and away from the life and growth that is unfolding right in front of us.
Small moments make life. There are stories in our memories, woven together in some way, about who we are and who our children are becoming.