Earlier in the week, Elysha, the kids, and I went to dinner at The Olive Garden. We took our seat, scanned the menu, then quickly asked to move to a different table.
Seated behind us was a couple with a small boy – presumably their son. He was holding an iPad in his small hands, watching a video with the volume up while his parents chatted and ate.
It was upsetting to me, but it’s even more upsetting to Elysha, who is teaching kindergarten these days. She’s keenly aware that some of the children who enter her classroom for the first time have been doing things like this for years, thus making the transition to an environment where listening, talking, focusing, and playing – absent any screens or continuous forms of entertainment and distraction – especially hard on the kids.
Hard on her, too. Hard on all kindergarten teachers, I suspect.
And I know – all too well – how difficult small children can be in restaurants. We had our share of challenges with our children when they were little, too, and they aren’t always so easy even today. But we never handed our children a screen while seated at a restaurant or at any meal. Maybe a book or crayons or even a small toy when they were very little, but never a screen, and especially not a screen playing a movie that everyone in the restaurant could hear.
Honestly, I can’t imagine what these parents were thinking.
Contrast this with the boy I met last night at The Mount in Lenox, MA.
I was performing a solo show, telling stories about adventures in parking lots, dance clubs, campgrounds, Thanksgiving Day dinners, and MIT. Seated in the audience was a seven year old boy and his father. The boy sat quietly and listened to my hour-long performance, and when I was finished, his father introduced himself and showed me how the boy had been taking notes about some of the things he heard during my performance.
Simply remaining quiet and attentive for the entire performance was impressive.
Taking notes during the performance was even better. Truly astounding.
We need more of this in the world today. A lot more.
My former principal and friend, Plato Karafelis, used to tell parents, “You pay now, or you pay later.”
Truer words have never been spoken.
