What if you're wrong?

It happens...sometimes.

This week’s question is an important one—one that I (and you) need to ask more.

What if you’re wrong?

This is not a question that comes naturally for many of us.

When was the last time you did a Google search hoping for an answer contrary to your current thinking?

Instead, we tend to search answers to confirm our pre-existing thinking.

I did this exact thing earlier this week. In fact, I went 6 pages deep into my Google results searching for every confirming piece of evidence I could find. I mean, when does anyone ever go past the page 1 results?!

So, instead of just telling you this is an important question. I’m going to try and live it right now with you.

I’m going to share something with you that we are wrestling with as a family currently—a topic where I have strong feelings. I’m sharing this scenario because there are almost 2,500 people in this community of questioners and a large majority of you work in education so I think we’ve got some great expertise in this group.

Most importantly, this is me saying I might be wrong and I’m open to being shown a different approach.

Let’s do this…

Our school gives every sixth grade student a MacBook Air. During the first six weeks of the year, they complete a laptop bootcamp, explore digital citizenship, and store their laptops at school each night. This past week, the sixth graders were told they can take their laptops home with them each night.

We told our daughter no.

We asked her to leave it at school.

Of course, she says “everyone” else gets to bring it home and is frustrated and angry that we won’t let her do the same (if you know me, you know that hearing something like “everyone else” only makes me want to respond like former Navy Seal Jocko Willink in this video).

I can hear some early criticism coming—look, I never said this was a global crisis. There’s some folks who will read this and immediately dismiss it as a trivial first-world problem. Totally a first-world problem. But sometimes these are those little sticky situations we wrestle with as parents and in the context of our home and our kids, they are meaningful and important to us.

So, why did we make this decision? I’m glad you asked…

Circumstantial Dilemma

There are schools who issue laptops, some who use iPads, and some who have nothing. We are only facing this particular decision because we are currently in this school. If I was operating outside of this bubble, I wouldn’t have thought to myself, “I’m going to give my sixth grader a laptop.” I don’t value pre-teen technology adoption as a necessity for learning so my compromise is to let her use it as needed at school and then leave it there.

Now and Later

I once met a man who took his family on a two year sailing trip around the world. The story is incredible but the thing that stuck with me most was his description of undoing his own attachment to work and technology. He said it took almost 6 months to completely leave behind the urgency of checking email and the call to be “online.” But he said when they finally completed their voyage and he went back to work that it took him exactly one week for all of those feelings to come back.

Our children will have an entire lifetime to be consumed by their devices. Why would I want to send my pre-teen into an ecosystem designed to never let them leave?

Skill Building?

But some of you might be thinking - look this is the world we live in. Won’t it be better for them to build these digital skills as early as possible?

I’ve had hundreds of conversations over the last 10 years with high school students and have read through our annual student wellness scores and nothing leads me to believe that because we gave them a laptop in sixth grade, they have become masters of their digital world in a way that their parents (who never had personal devices like these in sixth grade) aren’t.

Are they less addicted to social media?

Do they have amazing wellness routines and beliefs?

Do they feel more connected?

I had a conversation with a student after we did a 10-minute meditation exercise who asked me to never make them do it again because they didn’t like being forced to confront their own thoughts. They wanted to either do homework or be distracted/entertained. If our students are so entrenched in a digital world that they can’t bear the thought of sitting with their thoughts, we’ve failed them.

Show me the data that having my kid learn Google Docs in sixth grade instead of ninth grade has led to a dramatic increase in wellbeing or overall quality of work.

More important Skills

Speaking of skills, there is a window of time as a youth where you are such a sponge and so primed for growth that I wonder if we lose an opportunity to spend more time developing skills like empathy, conversation, self reflection, and other more hands-on type skills?

“The single best predictor of healthy emotional interactions is a lot of face-to-face communication; it’s also the best way to learn emotions and develop human contact skills…

A survey by the Center for the Digital Future found that the percentage of parents who say they now spend less time socializing as a family tripled in just two years. Parents also say that the loss of family time is largely due to the increase of internet time.” (Michelle Borba, Unselfie)

And I get it, it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Both types of skill development can happen in parallel. But when you bring a device into the picture, we have to accept the fact that we are inviting something into the equation that has been designed to hold our attention and call for us even when we’re not on it.

But, homework….

Yes, the device is meant to be used for homework.

Well, she can just use our family computer for that.

But what’s the difference between using her school issued laptop and the family laptop?

Well, at the moment, the family laptop is the “family” laptop, meaning that there isn’t this false sense of ownership where any of our kids feel like they should be able to use it whenever they want. I’ve already heard a lot of talk about “my laptop” in reference to the school issued laptop. I like to quickly remind my daughter that it’s the school’s laptop and they have loaned it to her for the purpose of supporting her as a learner.

I know that doesn’t sound like an important distinction but think about how you act towards something that is “yours” compared to something that isn’t.

A Magnetic Pull

I know, we could decide to let her bring it home and then just implement some household guidelines for its use.

Totally.

And, you tell me which is easier, trying to navigate a list of guidelines about a device whose very presence causes distraction, or simply removing it from the picture altogether?

Our research suggests that, in a way, the mere presence of our smartphones is like the sound of our names — they are constantly calling to us, exerting a gravitational pull on our attention. If you have ever felt a “phantom buzz” you inherently know this. Attempts to block or resist this pull takes a toll by impairing our cognitive abilities. In a poignant twist, then, this means that when we are successful at resisting the urge to attend to our smartphones, we may actually be undermining our own cognitive performance. (Having Your Smartphone Nearby Take a Toll on Your Thinking, Harvard Business Review)

I know, this is about phones. But many of the activities on a phone can be done on a laptop. But maybe I’m over correlating these things? I’m open to being proven wrong here.

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So the question is—did we make the right call? Or, am I just being the old man yelling at the kids to get off his lawn reminiscing about the glory days when we wrote letters by hand? Drop a comment below or send me a note privately!

Like many decisions in this type of category, there isn’t likely one right/wrong answer. And sometimes the answer is that it depends on the people involved. Maybe all of you in the comments will tell me I’m definitely the old man in this situation - I’m ok with that. And, that’s why asking this question is SO important in situations like this and ones of greater significance as well.

So, when do I think a kid should get their own personal laptop or phone?

Well, we let kids drive at 16 😬

*oh and if you like this question, you’ll love my collection of “8 questions to help you win this election season”

Keep Asking,

Kyle