Sand or Water?

There is a well-known motivational presentation where the speaker displays a large glass jar and three bowls of stones in decreasing size from golf ball to sand. They pour the sand in first, then the mid-sized pebbles, but hardly any of the golf ball-sized stones fit into the jar. Then the presenter reverses the order, adding the sand last, and everything fits. The message is: Take care of the big stuff first and the rest will fit into place. The logic holds up.

An important point sometimes left out of the presentation is that the sand creates stability. Once filled, you can shake that jar all day and the contents will remain undisturbed. Stated in human developmental terms, whatever fills the space between has a direct effect upon the whole. If that is true, and I believe it is, we should all pay very close attention to that which we choose to fill the space.

Let’s continue the jar metaphor. If we wanted, we could remove all the sand and isolate every grain to show that each one is unique. Just like these tiny grains of sand, each small moment of thought, no matter how banal, is distinct. Importantly, each has its own dimensions. There is a clear start and finish, which define the edges of each moment, making it more distinguishable from the next one.

Now, what if instead of sand in the jar, we used water? Even though liquid would fill the negative space more completely than sand, it would provide far weaker stability. Even the slightest disturbance of the jar will create reverberations, sending the contents swirling and twisting.

Now, if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to try something. Turn your head away from this screen and look toward another part of the room. A window perhaps, or a shelf. Let your vision go blurry for about 30 seconds and then come back. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

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What did you learn?

You’re back! How did it go? I have a guess. You looked away, started counting and then began to question your counting pace. Did you start to notice your beating heart, your breaths or some other sensation? Did you hear something? Did something catch your eye, like a book on a shelf? Was it the motion of a bird or a vehicle passing by? A random thought perhaps? Maybe you forgot to keep counting. Suddenly, you remembered this post and returned to reading.

Your experience may not have gone down exactly like that, in fact I bet one of you in every 25 or so, actually noticed something important or had a thought, to which you intend to return at some point. Either way, I suspect my guess wasn’t too far off. Whatever happened to you; whatever you did or didn’t do during those 30 seconds, that’s the stuff in between. And all of it, times thousands and thousands of seconds, is being lost. Nowhere is that loss more significant than in the lives of our children.

I might be the only one lamenting the disappearance of what used to be called “spacing out.” However, I believe moments like that 30 second break are essential in human development. They orient us to the world and add dimension to our sense of awareness. Insignificant and forgettable as they might seem, these little experiences connect us to a specific point in time and space. Each one is like pulling out a map and finding your place on it. They accumulate as waypoints, which keep us grounded in indefatigable reality. In short, these moments are the ideal way to fill some of the space between.

During a child’s screen time, the moments pass with blurred edges. There is no clear start or finish. Like water molecules, each one flows into the next. Almost everything outside of the screen-induced engagement passes by unnoticed. A 30 second sensory break like the one you just did, would be great, but it will never happen. Screen time extends, uninterrupted, for an hour or more. In that time, whatever defined edges may exist, are few and far apart. These are not tiny grains of sand, but larger, amorphous amalgamations of space-taking, time-stealing, sensory-dulling liquid gushing from a fire hose. Somehow, the child’s brain must find a way to fit it all in the jar. Parents may never notice what spills over the edge.

If right now you are considering the ADHD version of this 30 minute break, I hear you. You might be imagining more of a lost moment, in which your child disengaged and missed everything that was going on around him. An ADHD brain may struggle to establish the defined edges of a moment like this. It either moves so quickly or contains so many ideas that a momentary pause may result in the same slippery confluence of moments we are trying to avoid. For this type of brain, more scaffolding may be needed to achieve desired results.

Diagnosable conditions aside, I can tell you one important character trait which is getting lost in the overflow; awareness. Situational awareness, emotional awareness, physical awareness and general self awareness. Every one of them has taken a noticeable hit in the last 15 years. The classroom consequences are easy to dismiss (for parents, anyway), but we are all affected when they spill out into the real world in adolescence or adulthood. By then it is too late.

During that 30 second moment (I bet you wish you actually did it when I invited you to), use of your senses created new awareness. In fact, that’s what we’ll call them; “Awareness Breaks.” Your awareness happened that quickly. Did you do it intentionally? Maybe. Maybe not. But as you reflect back upon that awareness, you are also practicing something called self-consciousness. This idea differentiates homo sapiens from nearly every other life form. I don’t know about you, but I’d like my children to hang onto something that makes them uniquely human.

So What to do?

Fans of meditation might have jumped ahead after that 30-second break, but not so fast! While awareness and a similar type of grounding are goals of intentional meditation, the moment I have described should happen organically if the environment allows for it. No intention or forethought is required.

These in-between moments were unavoidable just 30 years ago. We found ourselves in between activities all the time. The problem today is that the environments we create (and allow) for our children prevent the natural occurrence of defined moments. Our children slip (or are pushed) from activity to activity, one stimulation to the next, from the moment they wake up until their heads hit the pillow. In many cases, it is the parents shepherding them through the gauntlet. So the solution must involve a restructuring of the environment and parent behavior in order to create more usable space.

Psychology tells us that it is more difficult to stop behaviors than to start them, so doing less poses a challenge for many parents. Apparently, doing too much for our children is so common lately that it has led to a nationwide epidemic of stressed-parenting. In fact, the Surgeon General’s Advisory on Parenting Mental Health shows that even though parents are working more hours than 40 years ago, they are also spending more time with their children. That seems mathematically impossible until you realize it simply means parents have just given away more of their own time.

You need these breaks as much as your child. So, do less. Value your time differently and do not be so quick to let it go. Don’t overschedule your child’s day. Don’t preemptively create activity or entertainment. Don’t be their reason to do or not do something. Leave them alone, not just when they are watching TV or gaming, but when they have “nothing” to do and want you to play. It is ok to say you’re busy or that you’d rather read your favorite book or hang out with your spouse for a while than play legos. When your child tells you she is bored, try to get to a point where her response to that boredom has nothing to do with you or technology. Not only will this create opportunities for awareness breaks, but you’ll find your life as a parent becomes much easier when your child is capable of managing the spaces in between.