The Disappearing Skill of Starting

Last year, I completed a personal goal: writing a book about some of the research I’ve been doing on kids and technology.

I’d thought about writing this book for a long time. I’d plenty of ideas, notes, outlines, and half-formed concepts. What I didn’t have was a clear starting point.

So the project sat there as a vague “one day I’ll figure it out.” I’d think about it occasionally, imagine how it might come together, and then put it aside again, telling myself each time that I just needed to think about it a little longer.

Eventually I realized what I was really waiting for was to feel ready. I was waiting for the moment when I’d know exactly how the book should begin and where it should go.

The problem was that moment never came.

So finally I did something much simpler. I picked up the phone and called a publisher and made a pitch.

That conversation didn’t magically solve everything. But it did something more important: it forced the project to start moving forward.

Once something begins, momentum has a way of taking over.

Looking back, the hardest part of writing a book wasn’t the writing. It was the moment before it started, the moment when I didn’t yet know how it would work. Starting is often the hardest step.

Children encounter this moment all the time when they face a new task, a difficult problem, or an open-ended assignment. The question they face is the same one I faced with my book: “Where do I begin?”

Starting Is a Skill

Initiative is often assumed to be a personality trait. Some people are self-starters and others are not.

But starting is actually a skill that develops over time through repeated experience.

Beginning a task requires tolerating uncertainty long enough to try something, even when you're not sure it will work. It means generating possible next steps on your own, and persisting until momentum has a chance to develop.

These abilities are rarely taught explicitly. More often, they develop through everyday practice.

For generations, children practiced starting constantly without anyone intentionally designing it that way. They got bored, and their boredom forced a decision.

What could I do?
What should I try?
How could I solve this problem?

Those moments of uncertainty pushed children toward action.

They invented games, explored outside, built things, and experimented with ideas that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t.

Boredom wasn’t just empty time.

It was the starting point for initiative.

When the Prompt Disappears

As I've been exploring in recent writing, many of these moments of uncertainty are interrupted before they even have a chance to begin.

My hesitation with the book wasn't a lack of knowledge; it was a temporary loss of the 'starting' muscle. But as an adult, I had decades of previous 'starts' to fall back on. Times I’d navigated boredom or uncertainty before. Today’s children, however, are growing up in an environment where those rehearsal opportunities are being bypassed by design. We are moving from a world where we had to generate our own momentum to one where momentum is constantly provided for us.

Phones, videos, games, and algorithmically selected streams of content provide instant stimulation. The environment supplies something to do before the mind has to generate it on its own. 

Boredom created internal pressure that pushed children toward action, just as hunger cues us to find food. That pressure is what made it generative. When stimulation is always available, that pressure never builds. Over time, this subtly changes behavior. When technology removes that uncertainty instantly, the brain never learns how to regulate the discomfort of a blank slate.

Children spend less time initiating activity and more time responding to stimulation that arrives from outside. This doesn’t mean children today are less capable or less motivated. But it does mean they are growing up in environments where the skill of starting is practiced less often. 

What Teachers Are Seeing

A teacher raised an important concern after I spoke recently about allowing students to sit with challenges for a bit before jumping in to help.

He said that in his classroom—especially in math—when he does that, some students simply sit there and do nothing.

They don’t attempt the problem.
They don’t try a strategy.

They just wait.

At first glance, that might look like a lack of motivation or willingness to exert effort. But it may actually reflect something else. The teacher described a heavy, expectant silence. It wasn’t the silence of deep through, but the silence of a passenger waiting for a driver to start the car. When he resisted the urge to provide the first step, the students didn’t eventually start moving on their own; they just sat there. This suggests that the issue isn't a lack of math ability, but a starting reflex that has gone dormant because the expected prompt, usually in the form of a screen or specific instruction, is missing.

Productive struggle only works when children have experience starting.

If students have regularly practiced asking themselves questions like “What could I try?”, then sitting with a difficult problem usually leads to experimentation. But if that habit hasn’t been practiced as often, moments of uncertainty can trigger a different response: waiting.

In other words, the issue isn’t simply tolerance for difficulty. It’s the skill of initiating action when the path forward isn’t obvious.

The First Step Matters

Once someone begins a task, momentum often helps push things forward.

But the moment before that when the next step is unclear can feel uncomfortable. It’s easier to delay, distract ourselves, or wait for direction than it is to try something that might not work.

Historically, children encountered that moment frequently. Long afternoons, quiet car rides, and unstructured time forced them to figure out what to do next. Those moments acted as rehearsal for initiative. 

Today, many of those rehearsal opportunities have disappeared. So when a student sits in front of a math problem and doesn’t begin, it may not be a lack of ability. It may simply be that the skill of starting hasn’t been practiced as often.

Rebuilding the Habit of Starting

Rebuilding the habit of starting doesn’t mean removing technology or trying to recreate childhood from decades ago. But it may mean paying closer attention to the small moments where initiative develops.

Children need low-stakes chances to resolve their own boredom, to experiment with ideas that might not pan out, and to decide what to do next without being handed the answer. Teachers and parents can support this process not by leaving children alone with difficulty, but by helping them practice the act of beginning.

Sometimes the most helpful question isn’t:

“Do you understand the problem?”

It’s:

“What’s one thing you could try first?”

It's worth asking: when did you last sit with an uncertain beginning and resist the urge to fill it? That discomfort that leads many of us to reach for our phones to avoid might be exactly what we should be protecting in children's lives.

When I finally picked up the phone and called that publisher, I didn't know how the book would turn out. I still don't think I was ready. But the call made it real and real things have a way of moving forward. That's what we want for children too. Not certainty before they begin. Just enough courage to make the call.

The Lost Art of Staring Out the Window

Boredom is Not an Emergency: Why Kids Need More Space to Figure It Out

The night before a long drive, I charged every device in the house, made sure that each kid had their own headphones. I even loaded a few shows on the tablet just in case wifi was spotty. I’ve done this before every family trip for years. 

Ironically, my professional life is spent researching exactly what children lose when we solve their boredom with a screen. 

When I finally noticed the contradiction, I didn’t find it funny. I found it unsettling because if I, someone who understands this, who researches it, believes it still reaches for the devices, then the argument that parents just need more awareness seems a bit hollow. The pull isn’t ignorance, it’s something else.

I know this because I’ve been on the other side of it.

It’s 1987. We’re packing the car for the eight-hour drive to visit my grandparents.

At the beginning, everyone is excited. The trip feels like an adventure. We pile into the car with snacks, pillows, and the vague optimism that eight hours won’t feel quite that long.

Fast forward three hours.

We’ve played every car game we can think of. I’ve already fought with my siblings at least three times. My dad has threatened to pull the car over twice.

And with five hours still remaining, there’s suddenly nothing left to do.

So I stare out the window.

For a while I count cars or road signs. Eventually even that gets boring. And when boredom settles in long enough, something else starts to happen.

My mind wanders.

I imagine conversations, replay things that had happened at school, invent stories, or picture what the rest of the trip might look like. Somewhere between road signs and daydreams, the time slowly starts to pass again.

The boredom felt excruciating and daydreaming was how my brain dealt with it.

I remember wishing there was something—anything—to make the time pass faster. But those long stretches of staring out the window were doing something important.

When the brain isn’t occupied by external stimulation, it begins to turn inward. Psychologists refer to this as activation of the default mode network, a system in the brain that becomes active when we’re not focused on a specific task. You can think of it as the brain’s background processing mode. During these moments, the mind begins to wander. It replays memories, imagines future possibilities, connects ideas, and experiments with stories and scenarios. This is why people often report having their best ideas while walking, showering, or staring out a window. What appears to be idle time is often when the brain is quietly doing some of its most integrative thinking.

Today, however, boredom rarely lasts long enough for that process to begin. When the first signs of restlessness appear, there is almost always a device within reach, something to watch, scroll, or play. The moment of discomfort disappears almost instantly.

And when boredom disappears too quickly, the mental space where imagination and self-directed thinking begin has far less opportunity to emerge.

What Boredom Actually Is

When a child says “I’m bored,” it’s usually treated as a problem to be solved. Adults often respond by suggesting an activity, turning on a screen, or stepping in to provide entertainment. If I ever said that I was bored when my mom was around, she would suggest that she could find several chores around the house, which helped me find other things to do on my own. It worked, being outside riding my bike seemed way more appealing than whatever she would come up with.

Boredom isn’t an experience that should be avoided. Boredom occurs when stimulation is low, novelty is missing, and attention is not being pulled in any particular direction. The brain is essentially saying: there is nothing capturing my attention right now. 

That lack of stimulation does feel uncomfortable. It motivates us to do something about it. Restlessness starts to build, time seems to drag on forever, and our minds start searching for anything to engage with to relieve the tension.

As boredom continues, we start asking ourselves questions such as, “What could I do?”, “What might be interesting?’, “What can I explore, imagine, or create?”. Sometimes that leads us to doing something such as playing a game, having a conversation. Other times, it turns inward towards imagination or daydreaming.  Regardless of what we choose to do, this moment is critical. It's the moment when the mind begins to move from passive consumption toward active, self-directed thought and behavior. 

Why Boredom Doesn’t Happen Much Anymore

For most of human history, some boredom was unavoidable. Waiting rooms were quiet, car rides were long, lines moved slowly. If there was nothing happening around you, you had no choice but to endure it. Those moments weren’t always enjoyable, but they were quite common. Boredom was an unavoidable part of everyday life.

Today, however, many of those moments of inevitable boredom have disappeared. When I feel even a slight twinge of boredom, my phone comes out. If I am in a grocery store line, I check my texts, emails, check to see if I have any notifications. Within seconds, my phone can provide endless content.

In many ways, this is remarkable. Digital tools have made information, entertainment, and connection instantly accessible. They’ve increased productivity and provided learning opportunities that previous generations could not have imagined.

But with those benefits, our technology has also changed something with respect to our relationship with discomfort and our willingness to tolerate boredom. In the past, boredom often lasted long enough to motivate us to begin searching for something to do. 

Today, instead of asking “What can I do to relieve this boredom?”, my brain already knows that a quick escape is available by just pulling my phone out. My brain has learned that it doesn’t need to generate its own ideas because something else has already been provided. 

Over time, the nervous system adapts to the environment it lives in. If boredom is rarely experienced, the willingness to sit with it decreases. If stimulation arrives instantly, the brain, instead, becomes accustomed to receiving stimulation rather than creating it. 

What Children Lose When Boredom Disappears

For generations, periods of boredom acted as a developmental training ground. It created moments of tension that pushed children to invent games, explore ideas, or initiate action on their own. Over time, this helped build the skills that allowed children to learn to direct their own attention and motivation.

One of the first abilities affected by this change is self-directed activity. When children have to regularly resolve their own boredom, they begin to generate ideas: building something, drawing, exploring outside, or inventing games. When stimulation is always available, that process of internal problem-solving is less necessary. The choice to go outside instead of doing chores inside was the easy part. Then I had to figure out what to do. This led to exploration on my bike, climbing trees, testing my limits and finding out what things I enjoyed doing. 

Another capacity that boredom is essential for is imagination. Daydreaming, storytelling, and creative play often emerge after the initial discomfort of boredom is endured. If boredom is short-circuited every time it begins to emerge, the transition from restlessness to imagination won’t happen as frequently. Survey stakes made great swords and provided hours of entertainment through imaginary battles. 

Tolerance of boredom also helps to build persistence. When the brain has no choice but to tolerate boredom before something interesting happens, it strengthens the ability to stay with a task or problem. If the environment trains constant escape, the impulse to switch tasks rather than to persist becomes stronger.

I once built a tire swing with my brother but we didn’t want one down near the ground, we wanted one way up in a tree. Neither of us were strong enough to lift the tire into the tree so we had to figure out how to use ropes to lever it into place. We didn’t dare ask our parents for help as we were worried that they would tell us that we weren’t allowed to do it. So we stuck with it for hours and lots of failed attempts but we finally got it way up in the tree.

One of the most important skills that boredom can help children with is the development of internal motivation. If they have the opportunity to sit with and ultimately resolve their own boredom, children learn that they can initiate their own engagement rather than waiting for stimulation to arrive from outside. Nobody suggested we build that tire swing. Nobody checked on our progress or told us to keep going. That's what internal motivation looks like: a kid who has learned that engagement doesn't have to arrive from outside.

Protecting Boredom

If boredom once occurred naturally and now happens less often, the question becomes what we should do about it. The answer is not to eliminate technology or to romanticize the past. Digital tools have transformed how we learn, communicate, and solve problems. They are not going away, nor should they. But if boredom has developmental value, we may need to be more intentional about protecting it.

This begins with recognizing that boredom is not an emergency that adults need to jump in and fix.

When a child says, “I’m bored,” it is tempting to respond immediately with a suggestion, a solution, or a screen. In the moment, that response feels helpful. It relieves the tension quickly.

But boredom is often just the starting point of something important.

If the moment is allowed to linger, the mind begins to search. A child may eventually wander outside, start drawing, build something, or invent a game. The activity itself is less important than the process that leads to it. The child learns how to move from restlessness to engagement on their own.

Parents and adults can support this process in small ways.

1. Stop Treating Boredom as an Emergency.

When a child says, “I’m bored, “ our instinct is to fix it. My mother’s “fix” was suggesting chores, which I quickly learned to avoid by finding my own fun.

Strategy: Allow the moment to linger before jumping in to solve.

I remember a summer afternoon when my kids were young, no plans, nowhere to be. The complaints started almost immediately. I'm bored. There's nothing to do. I told them to figure it out, which took more restraint than I expected. An hour later they were outside with hammers, nails and some scrap lumber. They created something between a game and a construction project. I still don't know exactly what it was. I don't think it mattered.

2. Resist Filling Every “Quiet” Moment

We often use podcasts or tablets to “survive” car rides. But those quiet stretches are the primary breeding ground for connection.

Strategy: Allow silence to open the door.

My son and I drive to and from work together. Some of the best conversations I've had with him have happened in that car — the kind that wander into territory you wouldn't reach over a planned dinner or a scheduled catch-up. None of those conversations would have happened if we'd filled the drive with podcasts or audiobooks. The silence at the start of the trip is usually what opens the door.

3. Provide "Possibilities", Not Just Entertainment.

There is a profound difference between a toy that does something and a space that allows for something. 

Strategy:  Look for “loose parts” over “fixed play.”

Growing up on an acreage, we had woods, a slough, trees, and enough scrap lumber and old rope lying around to build almost anything. Nobody designed it as a play space. Nobody scheduled it. But we caught frogs in the slough, climbed everything climbable, dug holes in search of buried treasure that was never there, and built structures that probably weren't safe and definitely weren't approved. The space didn't provide entertainment. It provided possibilities. That distinction turns out to matter quite a bit.

4. Model Stillness

Children are astute observers. If every idle moment leads us to check our phones, we communicate to our children that stillness is something to escape. But when children see adults reading, thinking, walking, or simply sitting without immediate stimulation, they learn that quiet moments are not something to fear.

Sometimes the most valuable thing we can give children is not something new to do, but the time and space to figure it out for themselves. 

Strategy: Show them that quiet isn’t a void.

I'm the one who stared out that window in 1987. I'm also the one who checks his phone in the grocery line before the first flicker of boredom has time to finish forming. Both of those things are true, and the distance between them is where this whole question lives.

I don't think awareness closes that distance by itself. But I do think naming the contradiction honestly is the only way we can begin to bridge it.

What to Do When You've Taken the Phone, and Now Everything Feels Worse

Your 12-year-old is crying. You've just taken their phone away, and they're telling you through sobs that you're ruining their life. Every instinct says: give it back, explain one more time, do something. But what if the kindest thing you can do right now is... nothing?

You might worry:

• Am I doing the right thing?

• Is this too much, too soon?

• What if I’m making things worse?

These questions matter. But they often blur some important distinctions: Distress is not harm, escalation is not injury, and struggle is not evidence that limits are wrong. Once parents recognize that phones serve as a coping tool, a subtle yet common trap emerges. They remove the phone and then feel compelled to do something to make the distress stop. For example, they might explain the rule again, justify the decision, offer alternatives, or negotiate. They try to calm, distract, persuade, or problem-solve.

All of these responses are understandable. They come from care, fatigue, and a desire to reduce suffering. But when a child is dysregulated, these strategies, as well-intentioned as they might be, often increase pressure rather than reduce it. The nervous system is already overwhelmed. Adding language, choices, or logic asks the child to do something their brain is not currently capable of. The distress children experience when their phones are gone is not caused by confusion about rules, but by the loss of a familiar coping strategy.

When a child reacts intensely to phone removal, you are seeing the nervous system encountering uncertainty without its usual escape. That experience can be uncomfortable, but discomfort is also where learning happens. As parents and teachers, we don’t need to eliminate distress immediately.  We need to ensure that distress does not become overwhelming or unsafe, and that the children are not left alone inside it.

Why Parents Often Make Phones More Powerful Without Meaning To

When phone use seems out of control, parents often respond by tightening control, increasing consequences, or monitoring usage more closely. These responses make intuitive sense. If something appears to be causing problems, reducing access seems like the most direct solution.

Paradoxically, this can make phones more important rather than less. 

From a learning perspective, behaviors don’t just gain strength because they are allowed, but because of the function they serve. When a phone reduces boredom, anxiety, frustration, or social discomfort, it becomes a powerful coping mechanism. Removing it without addressing that function doesn’t remove the need; it increases it.

If each time the phone is taken away, distress escalates without support, the nervous system learns something important: relief is scarce, and access to it is unpredictable. This sharpens the contrast between relief and deprivation, making the phone feel even more valuable. In behavioral terms, intermittent access often strengthens attachment rather than weakening it.

This does not mean parents should avoid limits. It means limits are most effective when they are paired with skill-building rather than standing alone. The long-term goal is not compliance in the moment, but the gradual development of alternative ways to regulate.

When limits are enforced without attention to what the phone is doing for the child, the phone becomes the focal point of distress. When limits are paired with support and practice, the phone slowly loses its grip because it is no longer essential, not because it is forbidden.

What “Holding the Limit” Actually Means

Successfully maintaining limits does not mean standing rigidly while a child escalates, nor does it mean that they have to agree with the rule. It does not require convincing, debating, or escalating consequences.

From a neurodevelopmental standpoint, a dysregulated nervous system cannot process reasoning, weigh alternatives, or reflect on long-term goals. During moments of escalation, the brain is oriented toward immediate relief and threat reduction. Adding explanations or choices during this state actually increases cognitive and emotional load rather than resolving it.

Holding the line, then, often means doing less rather than more: 

• fewer words, not longer explanations.

• predictable language instead of reactive conversation.

• staying present without reopening negotiation.

Simple statements such as “I know this is hard,” or “I’m here,” do not weaken the limit. They help contain distress while signaling safety. This combination, firm boundary plus emotional presence, allows the nervous system to settle enough for learning to occur later.

Regulation comes before reflection. A child cannot learn to tolerate discomfort while simultaneously being asked to justify, explain, or defend their feelings.

When Phones Become Less Central, Parents Sometimes Become More So

As phones become less available, some children temporarily shift their reliance elsewhere, often onto a parent. They may need more reassurance, struggle to begin tasks independently, or seek proximity when discomfort arises. This can feel discouraging, particularly for parents who hoped that limits would lead directly to greater independence.

This pattern is not a setback. It is transitional. From a scaffolding perspective, when a familiar support is removed, children often seek another stabilizing presence. Human regulation precedes self-regulation. Before children can manage discomfort on their own, they often need to practice doing so with support.

The goal, however, is not to replace the phone with the parent indefinitely. Effective scaffolding involves both support and gradual withdrawal. Parents step in to help stabilize the system, then step back as capacity increases.

This process can feel uneven. Some days require more support; others allow for more independence. What matters is the direction of learning, not the speed.

Why Progress Often Looks Smaller Than Expected

Parents often expect progress to look like calm transitions, reduced conflict, or a child willingly putting the phone away. When these outcomes do not appear quickly, it can feel as though nothing is working. Development rarely unfolds this way.

Progress is often incremental and easy to miss, especially when parents are focused on preventing meltdowns rather than observing recovery. Early signs of change usually appear not in the absence of distress, but in how distress unfolds.

Progress may show up as:

• a slightly shorter escalation than before

• a quicker return to baseline

• a brief pause before reaching for the phone

• reduced intensity, even if the behavior still occurs

From a learning perspective, these changes indicate that the nervous system is beginning to tolerate uncertainty and discomfort without immediate escape. The child is practicing regulation, even if imperfectly.

If success is measured only by smooth compliance, these gains can be overlooked. But development is built through repeated exposure to manageable difficulty, not the elimination of challenge.

Reframing Parents’ Roles

When phone use is understood as regulation rather than defiance, parents’ roles shift significantly. The task is no longer to control behavior or eliminate distress. It is to help the nervous system learn new ways to tolerate uncertainty, effort, and emotional discomfort.

This kind of learning cannot be rushed. It depends on repeated exposure to a challenge that is manageable, not overwhelming. When discomfort is too intense or feels endless, children do not build capacity; they shut down. This is where learned helplessness develops.

Learned helplessness does not develop because children are protected too much or challenged too little. It develops when effort does not reliably lead to relief, progress, or support. When a child experiences repeated distress without a sense that anything they do makes a difference, the nervous system learns that trying is pointless. Withdrawing, avoidance, or passivity then become adaptive responses.

This distinction matters. Removing a phone without support can create exactly this experience. The child feels distress, has no effective tools to manage it, and receives the message, intentionally or not, that they are expected to tolerate it alone. In these conditions, distress is not instructional; it is defeating.

Scaffolding protects against learned helplessness by ensuring that challenge is paired with responsiveness. Support does not remove difficulty, but it signals that difficulty is survivable and that effort has value. Sitting nearby, helping a child name what feels hard, breaking a task into a first small step, or simply staying present without fixing communicates that the child is not alone and that persistence matters.

This work also requires parents to tolerate their own discomfort. When a child struggles, it activates powerful instincts to intervene, explain, or resolve the situation quickly. While these responses are understandable, acting on them too quickly can prevent children from practicing emotional management. The task is not to eliminate struggle, but to stay close enough to make struggle productive rather than overwhelming.

Over time, this approach changes the learning environment. The phone becomes less necessary not because it is restricted, but because the child has experienced other ways of moving through discomfort. They learn that uncertainty can be tolerated, effort can be sustained, and distress does not require immediate escape.

In this sense, the parents’ role is not to remove regulatory tools, but to help the child build a broader regulatory repertoire. The phone is no longer the only option, and when that happens, its power diminishes naturally.

What You Might Try Today or This Week

Practice holding the limit without filling the space.
Notice what happens when you remove the phone and resist the urge to explain, justify, or redirect. Silence, steady presence, or a repeated short phrase often does more regulatory work than additional language. This is not disengagement; it is containment. Many parents are surprised by how much of the escalation is fueled by interaction rather than the limit itself.

Let the first wave pass before doing anything else.
When distress spikes, delay problem-solving. Even well-designed scaffolding can backfire if introduced too early. Waiting until intensity drops allows the nervous system to re-enter a learning state. This practice builds tolerance for uncertainty on both sides.

Anchor limits to predictable rhythms rather than decisions.
Instead of negotiating each removal, tie phone access to consistent patterns: after dinner, before bed, during homework blocks, or between transitions. Predictability reduces uncertainty, which reduces escalation. The limit feels less personal when it is embedded in routine rather than imposed in the moment.

Stay longer than you think you need to.
Many parents step away once the phone is gone, assuming independence must come next. In reality, lingering nearby, without fixing, often helps distress resolve more quickly and prevents learned helplessness. Presence without rescue communicates, “You can do this, and I’m not leaving you alone with it.”

Resist the urge to measure success by today’s outcome.
After a difficult interaction, ask a different question: Did we hold the limit without adding pressure? Did the recovery come faster than before? Did we avoid reinforcing avoidance? These questions keep the focus on learning trajectories rather than immediate calm.

Notice your own urge to intensify or abandon the limit when distress rises.
Parents have learning histories too. When limits are held, and distress rises, many parents feel compelled to intervene more forcefully or abandon the plan altogether. Recognizing this urge as a predictable response, not a signal to change course, can prevent reactive shifts that unintentionally strengthen phone dependence.

A Developmental Reminder

This work unfolds over weeks, not days. Progress often looks like less urgency, shorter recovery, or slightly more willingness to try, not sudden cooperation.

When phones become less necessary, it is rarely dramatic. It is slow. And it often shows up first in moments you could miss if you aren’t paying attention.

What To Do When Your Child Is Stuck on Their Phone, and You’re Out of Answers

If you're a parent of a child or teenager, this scene may be familiar. 

You ask them to put their phone down.
They refuse.
You ask again.
They sigh, snap, argue, or shut down.
You take it away, or threaten to.
They blow up.

You see tears, anger, silence, and accusations that you “don’t understand.” When this happens repeatedly, it stops feeling like trying to set limits. It starts to feel like a battle. Many parents are left wondering whether they are being too strict, too permissive, or if it's simply too late to do anything.

In a recent post, I explained that many conversations about screens and AI focus on the wrong thing. We tend to treat technology as an object to manage by counting minutes, debating content, or worrying about what screens are replacing. From a developmental perspective, what matters more is what children are repeatedly practicing in these environments.

For many, this may make theoretical sense, but you may be asking yourself, how does it help me right now with the child in front of me who will not get off their phone and seems genuinely dysregulated?

Why “Just Take It Away” Often Makes Things Worse

When a child refuses to put down their phone, it is tempting to see the phone itself as the problem. From that perspective, the solution feels obvious. Remove the device, enforce the rule, regain control.

And sometimes that works briefly. Often it does not.

What many parents experience instead is that removing the device intensifies reactions. Distress does not subside; it escalates. The conflict becomes about much more than screen time.

This is not because the child is manipulative or defiant. And it is not because parents are doing something wrong. For many children, phones are no longer just a means of entertainment; they have become a coping mechanism.

Normal Does Not Mean Benign, But It Does Mean Explainable

These patterns are normal. They are an understandable response to environments designed to reduce discomfort and sustain anticipation.

But normal does not mean harmless.

When a phone becomes the default way a child regulates emotion, avoids effort, or manages uncertainty, it also means those capacities are not being practiced elsewhere. Over time, their phones become more necessary precisely because alternatives feel harder.

What Phones are Doing for Children

Digital environments don't just fill time. They shape learning through repeated patterns of relief, anticipation, and avoidance.

For many children, their phone becomes a powerful tool for managing internal states. It soothes boredom, anxiety, and emotional overload. It provides immediate exits from effort or uncertainty. It delivers a steady stream of notifications and possibilities.

When you remove the phone in these moments, you're not just taking away entertainment. You're removing their primary coping mechanism. That's why reactions can be so extreme.

Why Behavior Often Escalates Before It Improves

From a behavioral perspective, this reaction is not surprising. When a behavior has reliably worked in the past, for example, when picking up their phone has consistently reduced their boredom, anxiety, frustration, or uncertainty, and that behavior suddenly stops working, their brains start to panic. In learning theory, this pattern is referred to as an extinction burst.

Put simply, when an old strategy no longer produces relief, the nervous system escalates its efforts to get the same outcome. This escalation does not mean the behavior is becoming more entrenched. It means the nervous system is reacting to a mismatch between what it expects and what it is experiencing. The response intensifies because persistence has historically paid off.

For parents, this moment is often the most difficult. It feels like the limit itself is causing harm. But what the reaction is actually showing is how much regulatory work their phone has been doing and how little practice the child has had tolerating discomfort without it.

Escalation does not mean their phone is essential. It means their nervous system has not yet learned other, healthier ways of self-regulating.

Why This Reaction Makes Sense: A Familiar Analogy

It can help to step outside the parent-child dynamic for a moment and look at something we’ve all experienced.

Imagine putting money into a vending machine. You press the button, and nothing happens. Most people do not just give up and walk away immediately. They press the button again. They press harder. They may even shake the machine. The behavior escalates not because the person is irrational, but because their expectation has been violated. Based on prior experience, pressing the button should produce a result, and when it does not, the system responds by trying harder. If the machine continues not to respond, frustration increases, and the behavior becomes evenmore intense.

Children respond in much the same way.

When picking up a phone has reliably reduced discomfort in the past and suddenly does not work (or is unavailable), behavior becomes more urgent and more insistent. This does not happen because the child is trying to be difficult; it happens because the strategy that usually works has failed.

How This Connects Back to Scaffolding

Seen this way, escalation is not a sign that something is going wrong. It is a signal that the nervous system is trying to solve a problem using the only strategy it knows.

Just as you would not expect a vending machine to dispense a snack once it stops working, you cannot expect a child to suddenly regulate, persist, or tolerate discomfort without support when their default strategy has been removed.

Understanding this learning pattern does not mean parents should ignore distress or push through protests at all costs. The goal is not to outlast your child. The goal is to recognize that escalation provides information about where support, scaffolding, and practice are needed.

If distress becomes overwhelming or unsafe, the goal may need to shift from strict obedience to first rebuilding regulation. Capacity building cannot happen when a nervous system is overwhelmed. 

When This Approach Is Not Enough on Its Own

If your child’s distress is intense, persistent, or escalating to the point where daily functioning is breaking down, including sleep, school attendance, eating, safety, or relationships, this is not something to manage alone.

In those cases, phone struggles may be intertwined with anxiety, depression, ADHD, trauma, or other neurodevelopmental differences. Scaffolding and environmental shifts still matter, but they are not a substitute for professional assessment and support.

Seeking help is not a failure of parenting or of this approach. It is a recognition that some nervous systems need more support than families can provide on their own.

What Not to Focus on in the Moment

In the heat of these struggles, parents are often pulled toward instinctive responses. Escalating consequences. Arguing about screen time limits or labeling the behavior as addiction or disrespect. The problem with these responses is that they target the behavior without addressing the function.

A More Productive Shift: From Control to Capacity

This does not mean abandoning limits. It means shifting what the limits are for.

Instead of asking, “How do I get them off their phone?”
Try asking, “What is their phone doing for them that they do not yet know how to do without it?”

That question changes everything.

It moves the focus from winning a power struggle to identifying a skill gap, and from enforcing compliance to supporting development.

Instead of eliminating their phone use, the goal should be to make their phone less necessary over time.

What Scaffolding Can Look Like in Real Life

Consider a familiar situation.

A student comes home after a long day and is asked to start homework. Within minutes, she is on her phone. When a parent intervenes, she becomes irritable and insists she needs a break. Her phone gets taken away, but the distress escalates.

From a rule-based perspective, the question is whether her phone should be allowed.

From a capacity-based perspective, a different question emerges. “What is her phone helping her manage right now?”

In this moment, her phone may be doing several jobs at once: providing relief from cognitive fatigue, offering escape from uncertainty about where to begin, or supplying predictable engagement when effort feels hard.

Scaffolding does not mean giving her phone back; it means temporarily supporting the skill that is not yet strong enough to stand on its own.

That support might look like helping her identify the first small step, sitting nearby while she gets started, naming the discomfort out loud by saying “This feels hard to begin,” or creating a short, defined work period before any transition.

None of these moves eliminates the challenge; however, they reduce the load just enough for learning to begin.

Over time, the goal is to support the child until her phone becomes less necessary, not because it is forbidden, but because she has other ways to tolerate effort, uncertainty, and frustration.

The same pattern often appears outside academics.

A child may retreat into their phone after a difficult social interaction, an awkward lunch period, or feeling excluded by peers. In those moments, their phone provides distance from uncomfortable emotions and quick relief from social uncertainty. When their phone is removed, emotional intensity can spike.

Here, again, the focus should not just be on screen time. It is about slowly building tolerance for emotional discomfort and supporting regulation without immediate escape.

What Does This Change About Your Role as a Parent?

Seen this way, your job is not to be the screen police. It is to be a capacity builder.

That means paying attention to when and why phones become most problematic: transitions,  homework, social stress, unstructured time, or moments of uncertainty or effort.

It also means recognizing that distress during removal is not proof that limits are wrong. It is information about where support and practice are needed.

How this looks will vary by age. Younger children often need more external structure and co-regulation in the moment. Adolescents may benefit more from reflective conversations outside the heat of conflict. The principle remains the same. Build capacity at the edge of what the child can manage, not at the point of being overwhelmed.

This work is slow and often uncomfortable. But small shifts matter more than they might seem. A child who waits three minutes before reaching for their phone, or who tries homework for five minutes before needing a break, is practicing something new. Over time, these small gains can add up.

What You Might Try Today or This Week

If you are currently experiencing daily phone struggles, start small. Don’t try to fix everything at once, and don’t worry about perfection; shift the direction of learning.

1. You might begin by noticing before intervening. For a few days, just observe when phones become most problematic. 

2. You can name the feeling instead of focusing on behavior. Saying “This looks hard” or “That transition feels tough” often lowers intensity enough for learning to begin.

3. You could narrate your own struggles with discomfort and phone use. Modeling awareness ("I'm reaching for my phone because this feels hard") normalizes the pattern you're trying to change.

4. You might look for ways to reduce the emotional and/or cognitive load before reducing phone usage. Helping a child identify the first step, staying nearby briefly, or shortening the initial demand can make beginning a task more manageable. 

5. If patterns change, expect escalation and do not panic when it happens. Escalation does not mean you are failing. It means the system is adjusting to uncertainty. Hold steady through it; the intensity typically subsides within days to weeks as new patterns take hold.

6. For older children and teens, it can also help to share understanding directly. "Your brain has learned that your phone helps you feel better quickly. That's not wrong, it's just that we want to help your brain learn some other ways too, so you have more options." This isn't about convincing them their phone is bad. It's about building a shared understanding of how phones and brains interact.

7. Finally, think in terms of practice rather than outcomes. Instead of asking how long they spent on their phone, ask what they practiced today. 

You do not have to do this perfectly for it to help. Even small shifts can change learning over time. If you are parenting with a partner, it can help to share this framework explicitly so you are aligned on what you are building toward, even if you do not agree on every rule.

A Final Word of Reassurance

If you are dealing with a child who will not get off their phone and seems genuinely dysregulated, it does not mean you have failed. It does not mean the situation is hopeless. And it does not mean the only options are total restriction or total surrender.

Development remains plastic, especially during periods of active growth. Coping can be learned, regulation can be strengthened, and environments can be reshaped to support that process.

Remember: When you set a new limit and behavior gets worse before it gets better, you're not failing. You're watching an extinction burst, a normal part of how learning systems adjust to change.