The Hypocrite Parent
I spent years telling my kids to get off their screens. Then I caught my own reflection.
“Get off your phone.” “You’re always on that thing.” “Go do something real.” I’ve said all of it to my kids more times than I can count. I meant it. I still mean it. There’s just one problem: while I was lecturing them, I was holding my own phone — and I’d been on it longer than they had.
The Moment It Hit Me
It’s easy to see the problem in your kids — the glazed eyes, the thumb-scroll, the irritation when you ask them to look up. What’s not easy is seeing it in the mirror. But one day it landed: I was modeling the exact behavior I was punishing. I wasn’t raising kids who’d be different from me. I was raising kids who’d be exactly like me.
Kids Don’t Do What You Say
They do what you do. You can’t lecture your way out of a behavior you perform every day in front of them. If they watch me reach for my phone at every red light, every meal, every quiet moment, then “get off your phone” isn’t a rule — it’s just noise, and they know it. The most honest parenting question isn’t “how do I get them off screens?” It’s “am I willing to get off mine first?”
It’s Not Just a Habit — It’s Their Wiring
And the stakes are higher for them than they ever were for me. A young brain is still forming, and it’s being shaped by the same engineered dopamine loops pulling on me — except theirs are setting a baseline they’ll carry for life. The rise in anxiety and depression among kids tracks almost exactly with the smartphone era (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health). I’m not just fighting a bad habit. I’m fighting for how their minds get built — and I can’t do that with a phone in my hand.
Walking the Walk
So I stopped trying to win the argument and started trying to be the example. Not a perfect one — just a visible one. Putting the phone in another room. Sitting bored at the dinner table on purpose. Letting them watch me choose the harder, quieter thing. It turns out the most powerful thing I can say to my kids about screens is nothing at all — it’s just letting them see me put mine down.
If you’re a parent and you felt a little called out reading this — good. That feeling means you still have the chance to lead instead of lecture. But it’s hard to put the phone down on willpower alone; the pull is real for us, too, not just for them.
That’s why I use the Raw Dog Challenge — and why it works in a house full of screens. Set your phone to Do Not Disturb, hit record, and sit in the silence. It’s a daily rep that rebuilds my own attention and, more importantly, lets my kids see me do it. Lead by example, one session at a time.
Start today. Put your phone down where they can see you do it.
Download the Raw Dog Challenge[App Store link goes live at launch]