Something terrifying happened in my kitchen last week. My daughter hoisted herself halfway onto the counter and reached for a pen against the wall. On her way down, she bumped her elbow, hitting right on her funny bone. She burst into tears.

That wasn't the scary part.

Here's what really shook me up. As she let out her first wail and rounded into a ball in the floor, the first words out of her mouth were, "Mama, can I watch a show?"

Seriously, like mid-scream, the absolute first thing that came into her mind was not physical comfort or emotional support, or even some verbal proclamation of pain. It was TELEVISION.

She's never had that kind of Pavlov's dog reaction before to an injury (thank goodness) and, at first, I kind of brushed it off, but as I started thinking more and more about her relationship with screens, the more I started noticing other kids around me with the same type of subconscious attachment to their devices.

Screen-time and Our Kids

Mind you, I’m well aware of how bad too much screentime is for our kids. I talk about screentime at least ten times per day in well-child checkup appointments in my pediatrics office. I can't count the number of times I've rattled off recommendations about limiting the total amount of time per day parents let their kids use their screens or made suggestions about caring equally about content versus time spent. Families seem to get that too much and the wrong kind of screen use is bad for their kids.

I practice what I preach, too, most of the time—more science shows, less Sophia The First, a heavy emphasis on learning and positive social skill building à la Daniel Tiger. 

This, though, was a different part of the technology revolution I'd never even stopped to consider: not only was I letting my child be entertained by screens, I was letting my child be comforted by screens, too. Somewhere along the line, I'd allowed shows and apps and the internet to turn into a security blanket for my kid.

Looking back, I can see where it all started—it's where it starts for most moms and dads. My daughter—sweet, sensitive, and a total monster when she rose from her naps starting around age three—would take at least an hour to break out of her downward post-nap spiral. We would cajole her, try to get her to eat, sing every song in the book and, about thirty minutes into every breakdown, would almost always finally throw on a twenty-minute cartoon to get her to distractedly eat a snack and come back from zombie zone. The screen, because it was on option—and an option that worked well—became a viable option during a time when we didn't know what else TO DO.

As she got older, she phased out of her nap time issues but the screen remained a faithful friend of mine, handy as bait when she didn't want to run errands with me, useful for scary events like a dentist visit, a way to distract when I needed to get her baby sister to bed multiple times a day as an infant. And, the thing is, I didn't even think twice about it. It's not like I let her sit for hours with the blinds drawn every day in front of our TV—far from it—and we definitely knew how to say “no” when she threw a tantrum for more iPhone time.

No, I felt like I had things under pretty good control. Just like almost every other modern mom I meet, I considered the phone a useful tool, one that I was using to keep my busy life in order, to allow everything to run a little more smoothly, to help my daughter get through sticky situations without so much drama.

That, mamas, that is where I

totally missed the point.

After our injury incident, the more I started noticing how dependent my family was on technology. In turn, I realized more and more just what a huge disservice I was doing to my first daughter (and my second) by allowing them to have incremental access to technology throughout their days, ESPECIALLY during times when they were upset, bored, or scared. I realized I was robbing them of the ability to learn how to cope without a crutch when things didn't go their way or when they were uncomfortable. In the end, I was taking away valuable learning and problem-solving opportunities all the time.

Now, I am fully aware that all of this sounds like alarmist rhetoric—like the emotional revelations of an extremist who's decided to live off the grid, forsaking modern conveniences, hauling her TV and her smartphone to the dump. “Let’s not get carried away,” my husband said when I told him I wanted to re-evaluate our screentime plan altogether, limiting our kids’ watching hours to weekly family movie nights, plane rides, and special occasions. I get his concern but, once I started looking further into how technology is changing our kids’ childhood experiences, honestly it’s a little hard to not get carried away with thinking about how much this matters.

"Our culture, in large part, has been influenced by the technological revolution—a series of amazing advancements that have modernized everything from shopping to scheduling doctors’ appointments. But has it all been for the better? It turns out kids who grew up with the technological coming of age (typically born in the early 1990s to mid-2000s —the iGen Kids) are struggling as a result of it," says Dr. Kristen Valerius, a child psychologist and director of Sundstrom Clinical Services.