02/25/2026
KIDS & SCREENS...
A recent Fortune Magazine article was headlined, “The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents.” The long headline speaks for itself, though the article is worth a deeper read.
Or maybe you read the book, "The Anxious Generation", where researcher and author Jonathan Haidt reports that smart devices have caused a sharp rise in mental health issues like anxiety, depression and self-harm among
adolescents.
Lower cognitive abilities and mental health issues themselves aren’t sin, but they’re not anything we’d wish on our kids. And yet, here we are.
What’s going on?
As a society, we’ve enabled screen addiction in our kids. And not only is screen culture robbing them of childhood play; it’s negatively impacting their brains, emotions, their weight and their overall healthy development.
It appears the childhood screen experiment has failed.
Just recently I heard from a kids pastor who said that during kids worship, their volunteers have to remind kids to stop playing games on their phones and put them away. And one Awana volunteer told me, “social engagement among children has declined this past decade because children have become so screen dependent.”
Childhood screen culture has become such a powerful force that it’s become a barrier to discipling children – and what we hoped may just be a “season” or a flash in the pan has now been going on for some time.
What should we do?
Here are some starting points.
EIGHT Practical Screen-Related Ideas to Form Thriving Child Disciples
1. Check out the free resources on ChildDiscipleship.com on this very topic. Our team has curated engaging keynote videos, helpful podcasts and insightful articles to equip you and the parents in your church to navigate childhood screen culture.
2. Train the parents in your church community to put the smartphone away when they come home from work. Have a box or a basket in the home where all the phones go in the evening (or even a central charging station). Kids need to see mom and dad’s smiling faces…they need to play together, read books and Bible verses together … laugh together. It’s difficult for a child to see dad’s smile when a screen is blocking their view.
3. No screens at the dinner table — wherever you are. There’s something so sad about looking over at a family of four at a restaurant and seeing every one of them — mom, dad, Emma and Trevor — all buried in their smartphone. Make it an expectation: When we eat dinner, we’re gonna ask questions, play a game, pray, talk about our highs and lows, but no phones at the table. We need to hold the line on this one.
4. For parents with small children: Delay giving them screens. If your kids already have them, make a plan to back off of screen time. Talk this through with other families or your spouse. Begin working on an action plan.
5. Consider building more unstructured, screenless free-time/play-time into your kids’ weekly schedule.
6. For parents of tweens and teens, (as Jonathan Haidt recommends) develop a cohort of likeminded parents who may want to start with flip phones before you go straight to a smartphone. These parents really do exist! Even the technology developers themselves are saying we should never give a smartphone to anyone younger than 14. Protect. And prepare.
7. Host a family “reset” meeting. Gather the kids and tell them we’ve gone wrong with our approach to screens. Share the data with your kids on the unforeseen consequences our society’s discovered about technology. Tell them, “We need a reset. Mom and dad are going to discuss a better plan for our family, but something has to change so we’re going to open up the family dialogue around this and some changes will come soon.” Like the, “we’re leaving in 10 minutes” warning when your kids are at the playground, the departure goes a lot smoother when you give some notice.
8. Remember, you are walking in grace with the power of the Holy Spirit. The learning curve in this great human experiment has been steep for all of us! Give yourself some grace. No parent is perfect. And take things one step at a time.
Not long ago, our young adult son told Katie and me, “The biggest mistake you made as parents was giving us screens at too young an age. There’s no way I’ll give my children screens.” Now that’s some painful truth coming from a GenZer.
Matt Markins
Awana President & CEO
