By A Mother of The Club at LEC, Miami

An excerpt from the LEC Community Magazine, Summer Edition

Becoming a mother has an interesting way of making you revisit your own childhood. Holding my brand-new, precious baby and imagining her future naturally takes me back to a pivotal shift in my own youth. 

When I was in Middle School, I begged and begged my parents to give me a phone. It felt like all my friends had one and there was so much happening on social media. Calls, group chats, games—a whole life I was missing out on. 

So they gave me one. My friends and I didn’t have them in school but the day ended, we took them out. Much of the time, in the carpool line, at home, on the bus, at sleepovers, on weekends, we were on our screens instead of talking to each other or our families. I scrolled, checked, and watched for longer than I meant to. 

I remember how I would check my phone every two minutes. Sometimes I’d stay up until two in the morning even when my parents thought I was sleeping because the phone was right next to my bed and the green light kept blinking, and I couldn’t make myself put it down.

Even WhatsApp wasn’t just messaging. I always checked my friends’ statuses to see what they were doing. A lot of times it made me feel sad and left out, like my life wasn’t as fun as theirs. I posted on my Status too. And then I checked, and checked, and checked who saw it and who liked it and worried about it. The group chats never, ever stopped and kids shared things I wouldn’t have chosen to see—and now I can’t unsee them. I had access to all of it.

It felt like everyone was watching me, all the time. I felt a constant pressure to look a certain way. Even when my phone was in my pocket, the worries about how I fit in and measured up moved to my head. 

Looking back, those short videos that went around did something to my concentration. My brain learned to expect something new every few seconds. Sitting down to read a book, listen to a teacher, or even have a regular conversation, felt almost impossible some days. My homework took twice as long as it did before my phone. 

My parents and teachers were teaching me how the value of every person is intrinsic, from Hashem, and how externalities don’t truly define us. But on my phone, views and likes seemed so important. While I was learning that what is real about a person isn’t their followers or vacation picture but who they truly are on the inside, their essence, my phone was focusing only on appearances.

Now that I am beginning the journey of raising my own children, I want to give them the best that I can. I know that the habits they form as children are wiring the brains they will carry for the rest of their lives and I want to make sure they’re healthy ones.

Thankfully, there’s a lot I can do, starting with my own behaviors, though it won’t always be easy.

Looking at my child’s sweet face, I think: my phone influenced my past. Now I will take that experience and use it to shape my family’s future for the better.

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Just Consider…

The Rebbe viewed modern technology as a useful tool to elevate the world, but one that must be used with caution. The Rebbe utilized live satellite hookups to broadcast farbrengens and encouraged Torah to be taught on the radio, but he also spoke out repeatedly against having a television at home, pointing to its “destructive influence on youth,” and the immorality that is inevitably transmitted. (—Likutei Sichos Vol. 18, p. 459-61)

Technology is like everything else in the world: it exists only for Hashem’s honor, to be used for Torah and mitzvos. “The ultimate purpose for which these new technologies were developed,” the Rebbe teaches, “is that they be used for holy purposes… The fact that they can also be used for mundane purposes, and even things that are the opposite of holiness, is to facilitate free choice… and Hashem commands, requests and grants the capacity that ‘you shall choose life.’” (—Toras Menachem Hisvaduyos 5742 Vol. 4, page 2150)

This principle is what we are trying to live by now: use technology where we are in control of it, as a tool for Hashem, and keep out of the home anything that controls us or brings us to negativity. Smartphones for kids, with social media and apps—whose sole goal it is to capture our attention and keep us scrolling, and where access to content that is against kedusha is a swipe away—falls on the other side of the line. When a human being is using technology, good can come from it, but when technology is using the human being, no real good can come of it.

Because even when technology can be harnessed for kedusha, it has to be used with caution and limits to keep it holy.

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What We Can Do

• Let your children be bored, send them outside, and do not rescue a bored child with a screen. Boredom is the birthplace of creativity, resilience, and imagination.

• Fill your child’s time with real-world things first, like library trips, baking, LEGO, sewing, journaling, a musical instrument, or dance—so the screen just isn’t necessary for entertainment.

• Use a dedicated family phone for kids who need to be reachable: a landline through Google Voice or your internet provider, or a basic flip phone they can borrow.

• Use standalone, single-purpose devices for music and stories: 24six and Naki Radio for kosher music and radio; screen-free audio players; a basic Kindle for reading only.

• Put real filters on every device: TAG South Florida helps families set up filters on phones, computers, and home WiFi; Google Family Link and Apple Screen Time are free; Circle Home Plus and the Xfinity app cover the whole network, including turning the internet on and off by device.

• Keep all screens in public spaces, never behind closed bedroom doors. Presence is protection.

• No phones at mealtime, parents included.

• Research any new app before you approve it. Common Sense Media gives quick reviews on apps and sites.

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Phone Alternatives

Thankfully, the choice today isn’t between a smartphone or nothing. A growing number of non-smartphone options let you stay in touch with your child without giving them a portal to social media and the open internet:

• Fig Phone: touchscreen, full keyboard, Waze
• Sunbeam: touchscreen, full keyboard, Waze
• Pom 
• The Light Phone: includes directions
• Punkt MP02
• Kasher ViYasher Flip  
• KV-Qin Pro

Though The Club does not recommend a smartphone at all, if your child does have one, consider using a managed iPhone which locks the phone down to a specific allow-list of apps (like Waze, Uber, banking) and disables social media and the open internet.

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About MUST & The Club

Our LEC community has built two initiatives that work to make it possible for a family to say no to a smartphone and social media without leaving the child feeling left out. We encourage parents in other schools to consider starting their own chapters!

MUST (Mothers Unite to Stall Technology) is a delayed phone use agreement for parents of elementary-aged children. It works because the “everyone has one” argument stops being true the moment a few other families in the grade are choosing the same path. Starting a parent pact in your child’s class only takes one other parent.

• Step 1: Find one other parent. Reach out to one parent in your child’s class who shares your concerns. A coffee, a phone call, a text. That is all it takes to begin.
• Step 2: Decide on a pact together. Choose the no-phone-use commitment that fits the grade (for example: no smartphones until a certain age, no personal social media accounts including WhatsApp, no devices on playdates). See sample pacts.
• Step 3: Invite the class or grade. Create a WhatsApp group for your child’s class or grade, share the pact and the link to sign on, and invite the other parents in. You will be surprised how many say yes. Check in twice a year.

The Club is the parent-run, parent-funded initiative at LEC for girls who have chosen, together with their families, to live without a smartphone and without a personal social media account. Founded by mothers Rivkah Bloom and Esti Chazanow, it partners closely with the school, which provides in-school time for programming, incentives, and direct engagement with the girls. The Club currently runs in the LEC Girls Middle School and Beis Chana High School, led by groups of two to three parents in each grade. The original cohort just completed its second year with a Grand Trip to North Carolina.

Over 175 LEC students are currently benefiting from being part of The Club!

The clearest sign that the culture is taking hold came recently from an eighth grader whose older siblings each got phones at the start of ninth grade. She told her mother she does not want one and her closest friends do not have one. The pressure she feels is not to get online, but to stay off. We’re very proud!

LEC gives a heartfelt thank you to the incredible Club mothers whose dedication, advocacy, and leadership have brought greater awareness and meaningful action to LEC: Mrs. Chanale Altein, Neomi Bialo, Rivkah Bloom, Esti Chazanow, Touba Fitzig, Gitty Freedman, Chana Gopin, Chanale Kornfeld, Dina Kranz, Shaynee Kroker, Rivky Rodal, Chana Rubashkin, and Rochel Zuckerman.

Read the Community Magazine!