This Tuesday and Wednesday, as parents, we will be working on protecting our middle schoolers from two areas of potential addiction. The first is phone addiction. As Ana Homayan writes in her article “Is Your Child A Phone Addict?”
“ A 2016 survey from Common Sense Media found that half of teenagers felt addicted to their devices, and 78 percent checked their devices at least hourly. Seventy-two percent of teens felt pressured to respond immediately to texts, notifications and social media messaging. A 2015 Pew Research report found that 73 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds had their own smartphones or had access to one, and 24 percent said they were online ‘almost constantly...For some teens, the constant potential feedback loop from notifications and messaging might create a fear of missing out, or FOMO. And although there is currently no official medical recognition of ‘smartphone addiction’ as a disease or disorder, the term refers to obsessive behaviors that disturb the course of daily activities in a way that mirrors patterns similar to substance abuse.”
This week, in the Jewish Standard, a 9th grader, Felicia Stendig speaks of her two weeks without her cellphone and how it allowed her to return to “drawing, reading, and even revising some of my uncompleted work while my other classmates were on their phones.” She learned that if you “hide behind your phone, you can miss out on life’s biggest opportunities.”
Here is a link to an article I wrote some weeks ago about cellphone addiction and our teens and what our Yavneh Academy Technology Committee has worked on, under the leadership of our YPAA, to establish suggested guidelines: ”Cellphones Continued”.
In the article, I also referred to the unified shut-off times about which we surveyed the parents. This Tuesday we will be sending out the results of the unified shut-off times for grades 3-8. Our middle schoolers will be introduced to these shut-off times for a few minutes after Tefilla on Tuesday. What is then the parent's role? To discuss these shut-off times with your children and so that we as parents can unite and help our children disconnect together.
The second area of addiction that we as Yavneh parents will be targeting is substance use and particularly vaping, which has struck the middle school age as well. Rabbi Knapp, members of the middle school administrative team and myself have been an integral part of the Communities Confronting Substance Abuse (CCSA) organization, started by Lianne and Etial Forman, who are members of our community and have a daughter who began substance use in her middle school years. The Formans have brought all the Bergen county yeshivot together to brainstorm and plan when it comes to educating our students, our faculty and our parents. In fact, our middle school faculty went through the first training offered through the CCSA and the School and Family Services for the Center for Alcohol and Drug Resources on substance use risk factors and vaping just a few weeks ago. This training explored what it is like to be a middle schooler in 2019 and what schools can do to support youth in their social and emotional development along with their academic development. The presentation also educated faculty on what substance abuse issues middle schoolers are exposed to, what to look out for in the classroom, and what to do if a student needs help.
To continue the focus on parent education, as you have read in the e-mails you have received, we will join with the other local middle schools this Wednesday in partnership with CCSA and the Bergen County Prevention Coalition, to sponsor an event entitled “Hidden in Plain Sight,” an interactive program where parents will be able to observe a mock-up of a teenager’s bedroom and where alcohol, drugs and other paraphernalia could be hidden. There will also be a Q&A session with the prevention experts from the Coalition. This will be an important evening that parents do not want to miss. If you did not get a chance to read Etiel Forman’s article in The Jewish Link on the dangers of vaping facing our teens and the importance of this evening, please read his article ”Just When You Thought Nicotine Addiction Was Declining: Talking To Our Children About Vaping”
As we celebrate President’s Day, I consider a quote from President George Washington, which explains the importance of the two initiatives I have described. “Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.” We know that Hashem often creates the “refuah lifnei hamaka” - the cure even before the plague has begun. As parents and educators, we focus on prevention and need to be proactive and strengthen ourselves so that the plague does not strike. Since I began prevention educations over 20 years ago, I have come to see how essential it is to begin this education in middle school. Parents used to say to me, “This doesn’t apply to me now. My child is only a ‘tween.’” Why wait until the enemy of addiction (whether digital or substance) is in our homes? Once it strikes that enemy is difficult to “dislodge” after he has taken “possession” of our children.
So, as parents, we have two jobs this week to proactively target the addiction facing our teens. First, we are considering sharing and enforcing the device shut-off times with our children. Second, we are trying to attend the Hidden In Plain Sight parent workshop at BPY Wednesday evening. I look forward to seeing you there.
Advisory Update:
Sixth Grade; Our sixth graders are knee deep in their organization unit and focused on cleaning out their lockers and bookbags.
Seventh Grade: Students focused on the positive impact of affirmations and positive self- talk in combatting daily stress.
Eighth Grade: Cheating and sports were the area of focus this week- spurred on by the Patriots’ win. How lessons about cheating can we learn from celebrities in the media? Are we immune?
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