Shape your teen’s lives... take their phones away!

Having always enjoyed reading, I consider myself incredibly fortunate, as it has allowed me to pursue careers in journalism and education, and specifically instruction, teaching and lecturing.
The burgeoning online news, literature and social media sector has certainly not done me, or I guess anyone else with an enthusiasm for reading, any harm either. In fact, it has probably made reading itself, on any topic, easier to access and more affordable. Book platforms such as Kindle are, by comparison with buying books, much less expensive, and much more convenient than having to go to bookshops, and even libraries.
The online ‘library’ is huge! Kindle is huge, and I’m not touting for it, but the diversity of subjects, fiction and non-fiction means every genre can be accessed, and when combined with the myriads of online study resources, it means analysis of exam topic novels and poetry is an absolute ‘walk in the park.’
Whether it’s a classic like ‘MacBeth,’ or a new age novel like ‘Boys Don’t Cry,’ the characters, themes, key moments and language are all examined to the ‘nth’ degree, and on so many different levels, that understanding that literature is no longer something likely to hurt your head, but something you can learn, understand and know, much more easily than in the past.
All it needs is for the student to do the work. I’ve worked through the online process with so many students who, though having read the story, heard someone read it aloud, and having completed more than enough Q&A and gap fill sheets should know all there is on the subject, still cannot connect the dots, and KNOW the story. Then, only weeks or days out from the exams, they realise they don’t know, because they never committed to it, and then ‘freak out.’
Their juvenile and teen distractions would have been unimportant, yet still occupied their thoughts at the time. Teenage angst is the most distracting. Whether someone ‘likes’ them or not, what someone else had said about them, which is always lies or part truths. Maybe what they will be doing tonight, tomorrow, or at the weekend, about their football team, or even what they will have for lunch.
It’s meaningless, yet harmful, because they haven’t learned to switch on and off their attention mode at the right times. We can blame the pandemic, the parents, teachers, schools, uniforms, buses, lunches, global warming, the weather, anything at all, but they will make the same mistakes when it comes to study and learning.
So fixes are required, because you can’t learn for them, and even if they work in class, they must still layer that learning outside the class. Call it homework, revision, self-study, whatever, they must develop an understanding of their learning. They must know and understand ‘stuff,’ and they can’t discipline themselves enough to do so effectively, with their phones distracting them. So, parents... take their phones away.
It’s a bit weird really, but done properly, that’s when personality takes over, and they form opinions, contribute their own ‘two cents worth’ instead of regurgitating someone else’s opinion, and that’s when you’ve got them! In drawing their own conclusions, even small ones, you will have awakened critical thinking, the most precious of all the educational skills their future needs, and certainly the most effective life and work skill they can ever know.
Acknowledged, even rewarded appropriately, critical thinking grows exponentially, and should be huge in terms of learning and their growth. It is the primary quality in learning that teachers search for, elusive as it is. However, in this highly technological age, parents, you are much better placed to work the oracle than teachers, because you can TAKE THEIR PHONES AWAY while they study...
It’s not a fun discussion to have, but will probably, positively, shape their lives... So now, it’s up to you.