Raise Creators of Technology, Not Just Consumers

The lonely creator. From Moby's recent video criticizing our obsession with Smartphones.

Once upon a time, children played outside, at parks, in the neighborhood and in the schoolyard. I know, seems like a fantasy from some twentieth century dream, but they honestly did play, lots of them, screaming, yelling, falling down, running and laughing. Yes, they got hurt, but they slept well. 

Evidence of 20th Century children playing

There was a time when children slept? I swear to you it's true. They went to bed after a hot bath and a good story and slept till the sun came up. Sometimes nine hours.

This of course, is a legend, almost a myth, from a time before the Smartphone. In 2001, the year my second son was born, the iPod was invented. It was pretty cool, but storing 10,000 songs on one small device wouldn’t be the game changer here. Six years later, the iPod grew into the iPhone, and this invention would disrupt the life of the child more dramatically than anything else since the invention of electricity.

Kids these days?

There are plenty of articles written about the issues that can arise when kids and technology mix. One of the best articles I’ve ever read is a Medium article titled, "Porn is Not the Worst Thing on Musical.ly" by Anastasia Bell. A must read for all people with kids. With over 22K claps, it appears she really hit the nail on the head. The data is still out, but the rise in pre-teen suicide, FOMO anxiety, and self-harm have all been linked to a blend of too much time online and lack of sleep that comes with screen time. Put a kid to bed with his iPad rather than a hot bath and a story, and he’s very likely to Snap or play games till the wee hours, only to be awakened to go to school, whether he likes it or not. Adolescents and children are vulnerable to everything they see, hear, touch, taste and smell. This is because their sensory experience of the world is literally nature's way of programming their brains. The way they think as adults will be determined by their experiences during this critical time of brain development.

However, there’s one aspect about kids and technology that doesn’t quite get as much attention—the consumerist nature of the culture they are literally immersing themselves in. Our world is less safe when too many of our kids are in mental agony, the increase in suicide, self-harm and mass shootings point to this. Yet our world is even more dangerous when too few of them are unplugged for another reason as well—as our minds consume more and more ideas from others, fewer of us are actually creating anything ourselves. 

We may think watching an arts and crafts channel on YouTube is creative, but if you never make the craft and just watch others do it, then nothing has happened at all. If the online community is more about logging in and letting others do the thinking for us than it is about sharing ideas back and forth within creative groups, with time there will be fewer and fewer content creators, and those few will be the ones with the real power.

It’s important that a healthy percentage of the next generation unplugs and creates, otherwise the world will become one big YouTube unboxing episode, and do we really want our creative capacity as a species to devolve in such a way?

The job of parenting is to create a nurturing space for our children to mature so that one day they can join us in the work of the world. To make civilization, we need creators, not just consumers. This used to be a natural part of growing up—the kids played, built things, did their chores and imitated the adults around them. In this technological age, parents now have to be conscious of the online world their children are so drawn to, and step-in, so to speak. Not only to save their childhood, but to also teach them about the real power of technology. For those who know how this network is built and can create new content in the Information Age will shape the future for us all.

So how do we do this? There are plenty of books and TED Talks on this subject, but honestly, the method for raising creators is fairly simple—delay the introduction of personal technological devices until they’re old enough to drive, play with them until then and make learning about technology a family affair.

Let’s break these three things down.

Delay Personal Devices (i.e. gaming systems, computers and Smartphones) Till the Kid Can Drive

I’m sure most people think this is counter-intuitive, this is after all an article on how to raise content creators in the 21^st century yet my first suggestion is to become Amish? However the fact is plain and simple, the moment you put your iPhone in your children’s hands, you have lost them to the content already created by someone else online. Some of this content is inspiring, but most of this endless data stream is blather and unworthy for most adult human beings, much less our children. I’m not kidding here. Perhaps if we'd listened to the Buddha and trained our minds in the practice of right thought, things would be different. Even if you set your children’s accounts to private, they’re still online, CONSUMING EVERY BYTE of information that any old person throws out there. Ms. Basil says this best:

"Pretend you can turn your kid invisible. Pretend you drop your invisible kid off at a warehouse in downtown LA. You have no idea who’s inside — fingers crossed it’s packed with Nobel Peace Prize winners, board certified pediatricians, and J.K. Rowling. Pray it is not packed with the worst of humanity. No one can see your kid, but your kid can see everyone and hear everything.

Would you do it?

Of course you wouldn’t. Most parents are careful about who and what their child is exposed to. Setting your child’s account to private may make him invisible, but he’s still there, fully present, taking it all in."

She goes on to suggest the #16by16 plan, where you tell your kid that if they can make it without a smartphone and computer in their room till their 16, you’ll pay them $1600. It’s not a crazy idea. My own sons were 15 when they got computers, 16 and 18 respectively when they got their first Smartphones. They survived without and I didn't even have to pay them. 

Delaying the technology forced them to wire-up their minds to the world around them BEFORE they linked up to the hive-mind of the internet. During this time, they learned to play with others, manage their time and institute good study habits. How in the world did I keep them entertained? It’s not really my job to entertain them, it’s my job to love them, feed them and drive them to school. Just as they’re not responsible for my happiness, I’m not responsible for their entertainment. However, there were a few things I did to make their lives enjoyable without electronics…

Play With Your Kids

Ms. Basil suggests that, “Kids should be watching witty cartoons, riding bikes, making slime, doing art, playing Minecraft, learning chess, and boring us with bad magic tricks. They shouldn’t be stopping other kids from killing themselves.”

Childhood is about play!!!! And Ms. Basil’s suggestions are exactly the things we can do with our kids. Make slime and playdough, ride bikes and learn bad magic tricks. Teach them to juggle or ride a unicycle. What are you good at? Can you tumble? Then buy a mat and give them that skill. Can you build structures? Then get them at your side while you build a shed. Can you knit, or write, or put on a good puppet show? Essentially play to your strengths and invite the other adults in your lives to do the same. What our kids learn from their grandparents is precious, and the children will cling to those memories of learning from grandma as the elders pass away.

Kids also need to play with each other, even if it gets rough sometimes. But small kids love nothing more than being with you, so read books together, build blocks and Lego sets together, and play board games. This is fun and all of them build social as well as problem solving skills. Family dinners are also wonderful when no Smartphones are at the table. Want to go out to dinner but you have a two year old? Leave them at home with a sitter. Wait till they're four, then bring them to the nicest restaurants and start teaching them manners. But don't put the phone in their hands so you can have a moment to talk as adults. You have a lifetime to be with adults and you will regret it when they're teens and refuse to talk to you, because that's going to happen no matter what. But when they're small, they're open to learning to communicate and want nothing more than to tell you their latest knock-knock joke at the dinner table. Give them a phone instead of your attention and you miss the best chance you have for building a line of communication between you.

I mentioned that our kids learn by imitating us, so this means that in order to play with them in this way, we too have to be unplugged. I myself didn’t get a Smartphone until the eldest was 16 and they never used it. I did however share my computer with them because while it’s important to build up their minds and bodies spatially and through their experiences in the real world, there does come a time where kids need to learn what exactly makes the Information Age tick…

Make Learning About Technology a Family Affair

My father was a geek who spent a lot of time in his office either on his Ham Radio or building electronic Heathkits. One day when I was about ten, I wandered in from playing with the kids, tired and sweaty and looking for a break from the summer heat. I found him soldering together a bunch of electronic parts. I asked what it was and he told me he was building a binary clock. For work? I asked. No. For fun.

Fun?

I asked him to show me how and by dinner I had not only built my first computer, I’d also learned to count in 1’s and 0’s. It was thrilling and from that day on, my father did everything he could to share technology with me. No, he didn’t run out and get me an Atari. Instead he gave me a TI-99 and I taught myself to code in Basic and thus began a life-long interest in computers and how they worked.

My totally adorable first computer. I still have it, in case the Smithsonian calls.

And note, this wasn't a computer in my room. I had to hook it up to the family TV in the living room and only got to use it in a public place. This meant I could easily ask for help, because Dad would often walk by and ask me what I was doing.

I think it’s important for everyone to know how information systems work. From coding to network protocols to the hardware behind the gadget in your hands, we all need to ask, How? So don’t be reluctant to teach your kids how to program if you don’t know how. It’s never too late, so start yourself!

Play Minecraft with them. Don’t plug them in without you, sit with them, build worlds with them, maybe even build modpacks with them. There are a few cute visual programming languages like Scratch. Instead of giving them an iPad, get an Arduino Lego project going. Take them to a Maker Faire. Build their first computer with them. Please don’t think of these activities as only for those who are “smart” or “geeks.” In this century, we’ve got to know how to make our kids tech savvy, so that means we should learn it as well. The more informed our citizenry is about the network that now governs the very political discourse of our democracy and controls the Electoral College, the better.

Most of All, Be Worthy of Imitation

Is this what we want to share with our children?

The most powerful thing you can do as a parent when it comes to raising a creator is to become a creator yourself. So close the Facebook app and make your own chatbot. Look up from your phone and instead look at what’s under the hood. It’s a powerful world inside of there, trust me.

Go on, take a peek. Then share what you've discovered with your kids.

Rebel Parenting—Raising Scientists and Artists in Our Homes

Let’s face it, science and the arts are under attack in America right now. Many have begun to portray science as a liberal conspiracy and view the arts as a liberal social experiment hell bent on ruining society with its loose morals. Recently, the Trump Administration released recommendations for major cuts to scientific research as well as the National Endowment of the Arts.

In a world where most blue collar jobs, and soon many white collar jobs, will never return due to automation and advancements in artificial intelligence, careers in science and the arts are some of the few that will be left for humans to do. Why then is America so determined to shoot itself in the foot and encourage both fields to perish?

For the most part it’s an ideology not unlike the one that ruled the Dark Ages. Art allows freedom of the mind and expression of one’s divinity, without the need of a church or organization. When participating in the arts, a person can find great spiritual fulfillment. Thus, the mind that creates is one that can’t be controlled with fear of the afterlife, because they live so fully in this life.

The same goes for science, which is the investigation of, “Why?” Scientists, like artists, see the world through curiosity and awe, and seek to use objective methods to explain why things work the way they do. Innovation begins in the realm of ideas. It’s said that Nikola Tesla would design and test every machine he ever invented in his mind first, before building it. Like a story or a painting, cures for disease or new machines are born within the imagination, and then through human will, become manifest.

And like art, those who study science are also hard to control. They question everything, and seek answers beyond yes or no. Thinkers are the neutralizers of the binaries, and thus a challenge to any system that seeks power through control.

Thus in these times of alternative facts and fake news, we need artists and scientists more than ever, and it’s no coincidence that funding for their programs is on the chopping block. This doesn’t bode well for our country, and I for one will not sit by and watch it happen.

There is one group of people who can combat this desire to squelch curiosity and awe: Parents. Yes, teachers play a crucial role, but many of them are beholden to the budget cuts that are coming down the line. Parents are still free to create homes where exploration, curiosity and the burning desire to ask why still exist. In our homes we can create spaces to encourage our children to become artists and scientists. This is not only a civic duty, but it is also to protect them, for this generation will need the ability to adapt and be creative in a world where robots perform most of the work humans are now paid to do. Art and scientific discovery will be the last bastions of human domain, and what parent wouldn’t want to prepare their child for such a future?

While the world around us seems to be in chaos, now is the time to dedicate ourselves to homes that create the thinkers of the future. I’ve raised two scientist/artists myself and while we’re not done, both are well on their way to entering careers in science and technology, while also acting and playing music. There are many things we can do as parents to encourage this, but here are some suggestions to get your own inspiration going.

1. Read your children fairy tales

Albert Einstein once said, “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” Since I’m a voracious reader, I wanted to share stories with my kids early on. We started in-utero, with my husband reading to me, “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams, while I was pregnant. While that’s not really a fairy tale in the purest sense, it did give both my boys the sense of humor they now carry, as well as their love of science fiction, I’m sure of it. When the eldest was born, I continued the habit by reading him “The Little Prince” while nursing. This solidified the ritual of reading to our children and soon after we got our hands on every fairy tale we could. And not the watered down Disney stuff, my kids were raised on the Brothers Grimm and know the true story of the Little Mermaid (spoiler, she’s not that nice). Essentially, reading fairy tales to children opens up their imaginations and allows them to think the unthinkable, which is the beginning of all innovation.

2. Throw out the TV and computer

Children need to be encouraged to have their own thoughts, and today this is harder than ever. TV, YouTube, the smartphone, all these things seek to program our minds. The more you let your child participate in being fed information rather than creating it, the more you dumb them down. This is fairly intuitive, but if you need facts to convince you that screens are not a child’s friend, then simply Google the effects of screen time on your child’s brain. Don’t worry if your kid gets bored because that’s number three!

3. Let your kid be bored

Don’t entertain them. Limit their after school activities. I know that seems counter-intuitive, don’t you need to have them in coding camp, art lessons and dance class by age 6 to be successful? No. Studies actually now show that the busier the childhood, the less motivated they are as students in high school and college. Better to let them be as children and give them space for unsupervised play. Fill the house with quality toys that encourage imagination: blocks, costumes, puppets, balls, jump ropes, items they can make obstacles courses with, dolls and craft/science supplies. Let them experiment. Let them take apart the broken toaster. Let them get dirty. Let them eat bugs. Let them be kids and let them be bored. When my sons asked me to entertain them I’d say, “That’s why there are two of you, now go play with each other.”

4. Let them play an instrument

You don’t have to start young, but don’t wait too long either. It’s worth the investment. Even if it only happens for a few years, it will encourage them to be more than just good at math and taking tests. And at the same time, it will make them better at math and taking tests.

5. Don’t give them the answer when they ask why

This is so hard, but very effective. When our kids ask why and then we tell them word for word all the details long before they’re intellectually capable, we break their imagination. Again, we fill it with facts, which are rare these days, I know, but young children need to be in awe. Let them figure it out. Instead of telling them, ask, why do you think it is? A young child will have all sorts of crazy answers, let them be. As they get older, they will ask again, and this time have more to say about it. Eventually, they come to find out the answer themselves, either through school, or through reading about it in a book, or hearing the answer in a conversation. Then when they ask why, the time has come to correct them if they have the wrong information, and discuss it further to encourage scientific dialogue. “Why?” is the most important question, especially now, so encourage it by asking them and teaching them to use their minds to create hypotheses, and then discussing those together until the correct answer is found.

Being a parent isn’t easy, but we are our children’s first teachers. Our homes shape society more than any vote we cast or organization we belong to. Within our homes we fashion the minds of the citizens that will inherit the earth. Lao Tzu wrote, “In family life, be present.” 

This then is the great work — raising philosopher scientists — which isn’t only important, it’s also a lot of fun.

Why Wait for Designer Babies? Five Things You Can Do Right Now to Increase Your Child’s Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence. Nanobots. 3D printing of organs. Prosthetics that read your brainwaves. Virtual Reality. Mars colonies. Gene editing.

Of all the technologies on our horizon, I think gene editing is the one that will come to the table first. Essentially, this technology is already ripe for use in our daily lives. From cancer cures to designer babies and cloning, we’re just a legislative breath away from inserting into the human genome the next evolution of the human species. Rather than continue to wait millennia for nature to run her course, we have at our finger tips the ability to change the human in very specific ways. And of all these options, the one that send most people into philosophical debate is the idea of designer babies.

IVF has become a normal part of the adult world. I personally know at least seven babies born this way. Already testing for genetic diseases within these embryos is becoming common practice. Why then, wouldn’t these tests reveal other genetic information—the sex of the child, and any markers for intelligence, IQ and perhaps metabolism? And once we know where these genes are located, the next step would be inserting the specific genes for intelligence in embryos to ensure that all children, regardless of their parent’s pedigree, are given the best in life.

We call this the era of the Super Baby.

Part of me cringes at this. We all know that once those who can’t conceive naturally are offered the ability to order up their child, the rest of us will follow. Or will we? Personally, I’ve always held out that I would never do such a thing. I’m a purist. Why would I take control over something as personal as birth? It seems like the most intimate of manipulations known to mankind. We already don’t get to choose our parents, country, religion or name, now even our genetic makeup will be in the hands of others?

And yet, if I look back on how I raised my kids, I absolutely manipulated the environment they grew up in in order to gear towards higher intelligence. It wasn’t at the genetic level, they were granted whatever my egg and their father’s sperm cobbled together. But once they were in my arms, no even before that, I read up on how to encourage intellectual prowess, and implemented those techniques within my childrearing that seemed to have the most data behind them.

Yes my dear sons, I manipulated your environment for my own ends. I guess that’s what parenting is all about.

Seventeen years later, I have my own personal data. Here it comes, my braggadocios Donald Trump moment when I toot my own horn—they’re really pretty smart. Academically they’re thriving. On test measures they’re also scoring off the charts. In addition, they’re great at math, science and music. They can sing, read music, and each plays several instruments. Perhaps it’s in the genes, however most research has shown that even if you’re blessed with the goods, the environment still matters when it comes to how genes express themselves.

So if you consider yourself a futurist parent and would like to begin raising Super Babies even without genetic editing, here are five things I did with my boys that you might want to try. Because Transhumanism is the belief that with technology and effort, we can transcend our human condition and create something more robust, resilient and intelligent. Thus parenting is key to the evolution of our species even if we never order up our embryos.

NOTE: None of these are 100% proven. Studies abound that discredit as well as many that do support them. However in my very small experiment within my family, I’ve had great success with each.

1. Playing classical music in utero.

My natural parenting friends would cringe, but yes, I am “that Mom” who played Mozart’s Piano for Four Hands to my son while he was in utero. I was put on bedrest due to early contractions at 25 weeks and had nothing else to do but lay on the couch. My husband bought the CD after hearing an interview on NPR about the Mozart Effect and figured, why not? I placed the headphones on my belly every day for an hour. And later I did the same for my second son when I was 25 weeks along. The Mozart Effect has since been debunked, sort of, but both boys play several instruments, have had an effortless time learning math and have a special awareness of their surroundings that is fairly impressive. Oh, I did sometimes play the Grateful Dead Cornell 5/8/1977 show as well, so maybe it was Jerry and not Amadeus that worked!

2. Reading to them daily.

Those first months after my second son was born are a blur. A toddler and a newborn are an insane thing to do to yourself. I felt like I was nursing all day while my two y.o. would run around destroying the house. One day I told the older boy to sit on the couch with me while I nursed his brother. I had a copy of the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery and I read it to him. Two hours later, he was still on the couch, listening to every word, while the baby slept in my arms. A new activity had been born! From there I would read to them every day—we covered the Chronicles of Narnia, The Secret Garden, A Wrinkle in Time, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter—basically books I enjoyed as well as picture books that they chose. Sometimes, I still read to them, just because.

Studies have shown that one of the key indicators of success in school is how often a child is read to by their parents.

3. Fish oils.

Research has shown that Omega 3 fatty acids, and fats in general, are good for the nervous system. Essentially the myelin sheath that covers our nerve cells is a layer of fat. When that fat is depleted, the ability for the neurons to pass information slows. This made sense to me when I read about it thirteen years ago and when my boys were 4 and 2, I began to give them cod liver oil every day. They still take it. And they have great memorization skills. Honestly. Of course, other studies debunk this and I only have a sample size of two, but they’re healthy (they rarely get sick) and they can look at something once and have it committed to memory. I’ll admit, there are a lot of useless facts stores in those brains, addiction to YouTube channels will do that to a person, but I wouldn’t ever go against them in a game of Magic the Gathering.

4. A low sugar, hot breakfast before school.

Simple as it is, childhood hunger is a HUGE reason for lowerIQ scores. If you don’t have the nutrients, then you can’t focus, regardless of your genetic makeup. In addition, brain growth in those critical toddler and teen years is hampered by a poor diet. Sugar will also lower test scores. I once read about an experiment where children were given a hot breakfast of eggs and oatmeal then tested. The next day they were fed pancakes with as much syrup as they desired, and then tested. Their scores dropped by 20%! Same kids. Same genes. One brain on fat, one on sugar. If I’m sending my kids to school, why would I send them hungry (they’re not very nice when they’re hungry) or full of sugar? If I have the time, I make them a huge, healthy breakfast with all the nutrition they need to get through a morning of school.

5. Sleep

From the beginning, I’ve let my kids sleep. When they were babies, they were in bed by 6:30 pm. They took two naps until they were three, then one nap a day until age 6. Yes, they’d nap after kindergarten and then still go to bed by 7:30. Now that they’re teens, I don’t have that sort of control of their schedule. But for those formative years, I encouraged sleep and everything that goes with it—no TV, phones, loud music, etc. after dinner. They get to put themselves to bed now, but on school nights, they actually still go to sleep by 10pm, which is pretty good for teens. Key to this is turning off all wireless devices and leaving them out of the bedroom. Why? Because texting and gaming can make you lose track of time, and the next thing you know, it’s two am! Even the adults in the house follow this rule. Studies have shown that aloss of an hour of sleep can turn a sixth grade mind into a fourth grade mind! Sleep is the maker of minds.

So there you have it, five things I’ve done for over a decade with my kids in order to create an environment geared towards their intellect. They could just be smart because their parents are both engineers, however I wasn’t about to leave it all up to genetics. As scientists go further down the rabbit hole of genetics, neurology and the inner workings of our brains, a few things still hold true—in the end it isn’t nature VS nurture, it’s nature AND nurture working cooperatively with one another.