Evidently there is a TikToc trend where people post photos of luxe dorm rooms.
And evidently kids heading off to college soon see these and want them.
Or, some kids do.
According to The Washington Post, some almost college-students are having their dorm rooms wallpapered, they are getting luxury linens, bed skirts, curtains and framed wall art. And, once they arrive at college, their parents are spending hours putting these rooms together.
Some families are even creating registries so that friends and relatives can give luxury items for the dorm room in advance.
What happened to posters put up with tape and sheets and a comforter you didn’t have to worry about?
Or, for my generation, an old camp blanket, the worst sheets in the house and a trunk for the rest of your stuff?
Not anymore.
Some parents are spending $5 -10,000.
So, I wonder…what does this trend mean?
What is it kids are looking for when they insist on outfitting their rooms this way?
And how do the kids who can’t afford these luxuries feel when they see these rooms?
This leads to a related question:
What are kids and parents trying to accomplish with these rooms?
One designer suggested that custom outfitted rooms would be cozier and prevent homesickness.
Let’s reflect. The idea that the nicer the dorm room is, the less a teen will miss home is interesting. Is what kids miss when they go to college the comfort of home, or even the luxury of home (when they come from luxurious homes)? Well, perhaps this is some of what they miss.
But also, homesickness is part of the college experience. It is part of the point of college. At 17 or 18, at least in our culture, many kids leave home in order to go to college to continue their education – but also to continue the separation-individuation process. They go to college to learn more about how to be independent, to broaden their persepectives, to figure out what they think and what they want for their own lives.
Being homesick is part of leaving. It is part of separating. Missing what was is a necessary part of creating a self that is different from the former self. Missing parents and comforts and familiar friends is a part of mourning the life of childhood.
So, parents, when you send your child off to college, or when you take them to college, think about what message you are sending: if you move everything in for them, if you supply them with lots of new stuff for their dorm room, even lots of luxurious stuff – what are you communicating? Might you be telling them you don’t think they came make the move on their own? Might you be telling them they don’t REALLY have to leave home? Might you be communicating that they can just take home with them? Might you be telling them that they still need you and what you can provide?
Of course, in some ways, your kids DO still need you when they go to college. But you want to encourage them to not need you in all the ways they used to when they were younger. You want to communicate that you have faith in their abilities – even if they don’t have that faith yet.
And remember to check your own feelings as you make those pre-college purchases. Are you giving in to too many requests out of your own feeling of sadness at their going? Or your own anxiety about their going? Or your own fear regarding their ability to separate successfully? Or might you be feeling guilty because you are looking forward to a little more peace and quiet?
Think about it.
For more:
The Over-the-top World of Dorm Decorating, Jenny Singer, The Washington Post, Aug. 19, 2025.
Screen use amongst children and teens in the US and elsewhere is an enormous concern – with adolescents aged 13 – 18 spending an average of 8.5 hours daily on screen-based media. This is at least one-half of all their waking hours – and it is time that could be spent in so many other ways.
And some of these 8.5 hours of phone use take place in school.
Yes, kids are on their phones at school.
The issue of whether kids should even have their smartphones with them during the school day is one that comes up again and again – including in this blog. Some parents feel it is a safety precaution in case their children need to get in touch with them. Others feel that phones are a distraction from learning and are better left in lockers or in a central location at school.
But there has been very little good data concerning how much time kids actually spend on their phones at school to date.
Finally, however, there is a study which looks at this. Just published in the Journal of The American Medical Association Pediatrics, this study begins to help us understand kids’ phone use at school.
The researchers not only answered the question of how much time kids spend on their phones but they also looked at what kids are doing on their phones during school hours.
As it turns out, kids spend an average of an hour and a half on their smart phones over the course of a six-and-a-half-hour school day. But a quarter of kids spend more than two hours on their phones while at school. And the most looked at apps or categories of phone use are messages, Instagram, video streaming, audio and email.
These are very revealing findings. They are not surprising….but they are shocking. The researchers who performed this study said, “Parents and adolescents may derive benefit from access to phones for communication and learning purposes during school. However, application usage data from this study suggest that most school-day smartphone use appears incongruous with that purpose. The analyses show high levels of social media use during school.”1
In other words, kids are not just using their phones to communicate with their parents during the school day. They are using their phones for the same purposes they use them out of school: scrolling social media, watching YouTube, etc.
It is time for us as a society, and for parents as individuals to think about whether this is the best use of kids’ time – both in school and out.
This is the third in a series on phone use in school.
Footnotes/References
1 Christakis DA, Mathew GM, Reichenberger DA, Rodriguez IR, Ren B, Hale L. Adolescent Smartphone Use During School Hours. JAMA Pediatr. Published online February 03, 2025. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.66
There seems to be a problem going on amongst middle and upper-middle-class parents which involves not just hovering and helicoptering but also downright coddling and intruding.
Children from 2 to 32 are being treated as incompetent people who can never do the simplest things — tasks their own parents — and certainly their grandparents did starting very early in life.
The thing is — children are more competent than we give them credit for — and they always have been.
By hovering and helicoptering we get in the way of their developing their own skills, and worse, we interfere with their ability to have experiences that teach them how to do what they need to do in life. As a result, we limit the development of their feelings of competence, confidence, and mastery.
In our parenting groups, I have observed that parents are feeling exhausted. And part of this is because they feel they have to help with everything. If a child doesn’t like what is for dinner, the parent feels like they have to provide something else. If a child wants the parent to help them with their homework each day, the parent feels they have to do this. If the child wants to look at a device during dinner, the parent feels they have to say yes to avoid a meltdown. And in the bathroom? Don’t get me started…
When a five or six or seven year old asks for help with wiping, the parent feels they have to go right in.
But the question parents must ask themselves from the time their children are two years old through adulthood is this: Am I actually helping my child become more competent and confident? Or am I expecting too little from them? Am I stepping in and doing too much for them? And if I am stepping in too often, why am I doing this?
Is it just easier to do things for our children rather than insisting they do them for themselves? Or is it too painful to watch children struggle — to watch children make mistakes and suffer the consequences — to watch children feel frustrated? Bored? Angry?
Or do we have expectations of ourselves as parents that are too high? If so, why? When did we cease to believe that experience was the best teacher? And when did we decide that we, as parents, are really the best teachers and that it is our job to help our children avoid difficult feelings such as frustration, failure, boredom, and anger?
Let’s look to the scientific literature for help.
In studies of what promotes feelings of competence amongst students, structure and support for their autonomy have been shown to be important. Students feel more competent when their teachers give them the opportunity to do work on their own, and when there are clear instructions as to what they should be doing.1
Students also feel more competent when they have the opportunity to help others, and to get support for themselves from peers.1
The attitude of the adults who are around kids is also pertinent as to what makes them feel competent. In a survey, students described teacher kindness, support for autonomy, relatedness, and non-controlling orientation as factors that contributed to their competence satisfaction. For instance, the students felt competent because their teachers had an approachable, helpful, and interactive teaching style and provided them with opportunities to interact with each other.1
Additionally, students mentioned that participation opportunities, respectful teacher-student interactions, and teachers who were responsive to their views, needs, and interests facilitated their competence satisfaction in class. This means that opportunities to give their opinions, to do hands-on work and to be met with a respectful attitude was helpful.
What’s more, students indicated that they feel more competent when teachers make expectations clear, and provide appropriate help when necessary.
Other research has looked at social and emotional competence and has found over and over again that children with better social skills and those who are able to manage their own feelings feel more competent — in addition to being more trusting, empathic and intellectually inquisitive.
So there is quite a bit of research, but often these studies are not translated into actual methods by which parents can learn how to promote competence in their children.3
So, how can parents apply the research findings to their own approach to parenting?
Well, first, we know that being attuned to our babies and children’s feelings and needs is crucial. From birth, we need to observe how they are feeling, and when they are upset, we need to be able to tell the difference between times when they need help calming down and when they are able to soothe themselves.
We must try to stay attuned to their feelings as they engage in difficult tasks (starting with tummy time and going all the way through writing high school papers) and only intervene when it is clear that they have become so frustrated that they cannot continue. We can be there and be available in case help is needed – but we should not jump in at the first sign of frustration.
Second, we must make our expectations of our children clear, but not try to control what and how they do things.
Third, being kind and respectful toward our children and their efforts to accomplish things helps them to internalize a kind and respectful attitude toward themselves.
Fourth, helping children to manage, recognize and understand their own feelings and talking with them about the feelings of others supports social and emotional competence.
Fifth, it is important to encourage independence and autonomy in our children while providing as much structure and support as we think they need.
So, for example, we can help a toddler learn how to pour her own orange juice — but we can suggest starting out doing this activity while standing on a stool and doing it in the sink. As she becomes more capable of pouring without spilling we can ask her if she has noticed how much better she’s gotten and invite her to pour her juice at the table.
Or, when a high schooler is having difficulty with writing a paper, rather than jumping in to read it over or to aid with the writing, we can start by helping them calm down and talk about what is making it so hard for them – before we take ANY action whatsoever.
In summary, helping a child or teen with a task by telling them how to do it or doing it for them is not actually the most effective way to help a child feel competent.
These days, we often feel we have to help our children before they may actually need it. And we may praise our children rather than pointing out the improvement the child has made and asking the child if they notice their improvement or whether they feel proud — of themselves.
In the end, we all want our children to feel competent and good about themselves. And we want them to feel this from the inside rather than waiting for praise from the adults around them or for A’s from their teachers. We want them not only to be competent, but we want them to feel competent.
References
1 Reymond, N. C., et al. (2022) Why students feel competent in the classroom: a qualitative analysis of students’ views. Frontiers in Psychology, Oct 13. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9612881/
2Housman, D.K. (2017) The importance of emotional competence and self-regulation from birth: a case for the evidence-based emotional cognitive social early learning approach. ICEP 11, 13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40723-017-0038-6
3 Miller, J. S., et al. (2018) Parenting for Competence and Parenting With Competence: Essential Connections Between Parenting and Social and Emotional Learning. School Community Journal, V. 28 (2) p. 28. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1201828.pdfMorereferences
In my previous post on the topic of phones in schools, I wondered why we haven’t already helped kids avoid distraction by putting smartphone bans in place at all schools. UNESCO has recommended that this be done worldwide 1and there are a large number of studies demonstrating why this is important.2,3
In researching the answer to this question, I found out that while some states have put legislation in place allowing school districts to enact smartphone bans at school, other states hesitate to do so because there are parents who are against this—and some have even sued school districts.4
Coincidentally, I recently received a notification from Delaney Ruston, M.D., who writes the blog Screenagers on just this topic.5
She wrote that one reason some parents object to kids not having their phones with them during the school day is that the parents think it is safer for them to have their phones in case of a school emergency. They want their children to be able to contact them.
Ruston has called for a national survey on the opinions of Americans as to whether children are safer with or without phones at school, but in the meantime, before such a study can be carried out, she did a little survey of her own—not scientific—but meaningful nonetheless.
She asked numerous people what they thought and these are some of the responses she received:
Superintendent
“We had a real-time emergency…We went into lockdown, and moments after that, students started communicating with their parents, texting, and calling from their cell phones. As a result, our first responders were arriving at the school, and we had parents lined up in our driveway, and the first responders literally couldn’t get their vehicles to our school. The driveway was backed up all the way to the street.“
Police Officer
“I do not like children having access to their phones directly in school because of the safety aspect of it. You can’t get away from … the misinformation that gets presented. The slightest little rumor of a threat or the slightest statement that gets made, which isn’t investigated, gets circulated quicker than the police even get notification or before staff gets notified.”
Elementary School Principal
“When I was a principal at a high school, we had a lockdown occur one time, and because all of the students got on their phones immediately, the network of the school crashed, and then none of our phones worked.”
“I am not a proponent of cell phones, especially during an emergency situation.”
School safety expert who consults with schools across the country
“One of the biggest arguments parents have is that kids should have access to phones, especially high school, during the day in the event of an emergency and a security breach. And, we tell them, no, the first thing we want to have is first responders in the building as soon as possible. We have to speed up our responses to emergencies, not slow them down.”
“I would like to see a policy where there’s no phones allowed, bell to bell. Period. Put in the lockers or some other kind of system where there’s accountability that those kids can’t access them.”
So, here are some experts, people on the ground taking care of kids and in charge of public safety, who say that phones do not make kids safer at school.
It is also important to consider that the use of cell phones during unfolding school emergencies can distract students from what they are being told to do by school staff to preserve their safety.
And beyond the potentially negative effects of cell phones used during emergencies, students have used cell phones to make bomb threats, plan school shootings, and make individual threats to other students. And phones have also been used for cyberbullying and for instigating and organizing fights and other safety disruptions at school.5
So, now that you have heard some of the reasons why smartphones may not actually make children safer at school, what do you think? Are children safer and better off at school with or without their phones?
In September 23, 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Phone-Free Schools Act into law. This legislation requires all public schools in California to develop and implement policies restricting student cell phone use during school hours – unless needed for individualized instruction, medical necessity or an emergency situation. 1
Meanwhile Florida banned phones altogether as of July 1 of this year. 1
In Connecticut the State Board of ED introduced voluntary guidelines this past summer allowing individual school districts to design their own policies. Guidelines suggest that elementary and middle schools remove all cell phones and similar devices – but they do not mandate it. 1
Indiana is a little stricter, having passed a law which went into effect July 1 of this year requiring all educational institutions to establish guidelines for prohibiting phone use in classrooms. 1
In Delaware, money has been set aside for a cell phone pilot program which will require students to put their phones in pouches during the school day. 1
And the variations continue, state by state.
But why?
There is a large body of literature that looks at smartphone use and academic performance.
And, as might be expected, smartphone use is associated with poorer course comprehension, lower GPA’s, poor sleep quantity, decreased life satisfaction, and higher rates of anxiety, loneliness, and depression. 3
It has been well documented that cell phone use in class is also a common source of distraction and leads to decreased focus. 2
In a study of college students, one group whose cell phones were removed were compared to another group of students who were allowed to keep their cell phones. Results indicated that students whose smartphones were physically removed during class had higher levels of course comprehension, lower levels of anxiety, and higher levels of mindfulness than the control group. 3
We know that cell phone use at school also facilitates cheating on tests, as well as allowing sexting and cyberbullying during class time.
And if all that were not enough, UNESCO has called for a WORLDWIDE ban on cell phone use in schools. 5
So why have we not done more to help our kids stay away from their cell phones during the school day?
Well, as it turns out, parents don’t always like cell phone bans. When The Department of Education in New York City implemented a district-wide cell phone ban in 2005, parents sued. They weren’t successful in overturning the ban, but they did spend a considerable amount of resources to challenge the ban. Lawyers for the parents argued that the board overreached its authority by denying parents their constitutional right to stay in contact with their children in school. The challenger also alleged that the cell phone ban violated the U.S. Constitution because it “infringed on parents’ fundamental right to provide for the care, custody, and control of their children” (Price et al. v. New York City Board of Education, 2007, p. 7) 4
It turns out that banning or restricting cell phone use in schools is extremely controversial. In an article summarizing the lawsuits which have been brought against schools which implemented policies restricting cell phone use, the authors concluded that to prevent further law suits, educational leaders need to develop cell phone use policies and apply them carefully when disciplining students who violate their provisions. The authors of the review found that the courts are generally willing to defer to the authority of educators to enact reasonable cell phone policies in order to preserve school safety and security.
Where do YOU stand on your kids using their phones in school?
Is your desire to communicate with your child during the school day more powerful than your wish to protect your child from distraction during class?
As of Weds morning, there are many jubilant Americans and many devastated Americans.
What can I say that will add anything at this point?
I myself am in a news blackout. That is what I need to do to continue to keep an even keel.
And, at this point everyone needs to find a way to keep themselves stable.
Whether you immerse yourself in the victory or you seek refuge in nature or poetry or music or Netflix or sleep.
And we need to do this so that we can be available to those who need us – most especially our children.
Whichever category you fit into, try to remember how you behave and how you speak about the election results in front of your children will influence and affect them.
This will be a confusing time for them.
They are hearing all sorts of things at school, from their friends, on social media and elsewhere. There is a great deal of emotion – elation, anger, sadness, dire predictions, threats, and promises – any of which may or may not be welcome.
So, if, as parents you are overjoyed at the win, if you are celebrating, remember, your kids are watching and you are sending a message about how to handle victory.
Or, if you as parents are upset, frightened, furious or disheartened, also, remember what message you are sending.
Are your children thinking they can lord the win over their friends who wanted a different result? Are your children upset and afraid about what’s to come?
Children need to be reassured: this is what democracy looks like. There was an election, there was a winner and we must live with the results.
Children also need to know that the adults in their lives will work to make sure there are other elections in 2 and in 4 years and we will have a choice again then.
They need to know that if we don’t like what happened this time, we can work to tip the scales back in a direction we like better in two years – and we can start to work on that as soon as we feel up to it.
AND parents need to try – no matter what – to reassure their children that they will keep them safe even if there are those who may talk about making changes to our system that we don’t agree with.
Children need to know that in their house, values of kindness and fairness still apply.
And if children are getting messages from other kids or teachers at school about who should have won or who did win, they need to know that you want to hear about it and talk about it with them.
However, if children observe parents doom scrolling, or panicking or feeling helpless or hopeless, they may feel that there is no one to help THEM with with their own anxieties.
So, here are some options:
– Whether you feel jubilant or hopeless, try to manage your own feelings in a way that will be tolerable to your children and teens.
– If your kids are anxious, if they are asking lots of questions or finding it hard to go to sleep at night, try to reassure them – especially your children twelve and under. Remind them that you are there for them and will work to keep them safe. Sit with them a little longer before it’s time to go to sleep. Read an extra book with them.
– Remind them that over the arc of history, there have been many heated political campaigns, many changes in government, and many scary and difficult events in this country – but that we are still here.
– Remind them that in this country there are still checks and balances and that the President does not have absolute power. Whether you want him to institute certain changes or you are afraid he will institute certain changes – it is not entirely within his power to do so.
– Keep the news and political commentary off the screen until your younger kids go to bed
– And with your teenagers, keep the conversation open. Talk to them about how they feel, don’t hide what you feel, but also try not to denigrate those on the other side of the political spectrum as you talk with them.
***Please comment on this post and tell us how you are feeling and WHAT you are doing – for yourself – and for your children***
This is an updated version of a post written for the election two cycles ago.
As we approach the presidential election, it’s a good time to talk to your kids about winning and losing.
The subjects of sportsmanship, humility and grace come to mind – as well as braggadocio, sore losing and bitterness.
Whatever side of the electoral battle you are on, you and your children will be having strong feelings.
So what do we say to our children? And at what age are they ready to have this conversation?
Well, really children of any age, starting around 3 know about winning and losing – and they can talk about the feelings that come when they experience each. Of course, depending on your child’s age, you will speak about this differently.
But the place to start is to remind your child – whatever age they are – that how your family feels at this moment about who you want for President is not the way that everyone feels. Some people are for one candidate and some people are for the other. This is a time to talk about values and WHY you prefer the candidate you prefer, what values and policies they represent, and why you are in favor of these.
This is the time to talk about the history of our country and what democracy is all about – and this includes the fact that in our country we allow the people (represented by the electoral college) to choose the president and that we are honor bound to stick with this decision.
HOWEVER – and this is where the more nuanced part of the discussion comes in – it is important, whatever you or your child feel, to help your child to be aware that when other people feel differently than we do, that it is important to treat them and their feelings with respect.
Good sportsmanship is something that kids who play on teams should be learning. You can provide this as an example: after a game, your team shakes hands with the other team to indicate that you both played a good game and that there are no hard feelings left over from the competition.
The losers can feel upset but still lose graciously. This is a concept that can be introduced to a 3 year old and also to a 16 year old.
And the winners can feel happy and joyous – but they can also behave graciously by telling their competitors that they played well. Children can be reminded that bragging about winning is not the way to go, even though inside it feels so good to win.
You can tell your children the story of “burying the hatchet”: when Native American tribes had disputes or wars with each other, when they were over, the two formerly opposing sides literally buried a hatchet in the ground to symbolize the end of the disagreement.
This is a way to handle winning and losing an election too. After someone has won or lost, it is time to bury the hatchet, to accept the defeat or the victory and to move back to getting along.
It is also time to continue to cling to the values you hold dear and to not give up on them.
I fervently hope that both we and our children can do this both before and after the upcoming election.
Daniel Willingham is a cognitive scientist, by which I mean, he is an academic researcher who extracts information from psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy, computer science, and anthropology in an effort to understand the mind and apply the findings to education.1
In his book, Outsmart Your Brain, Willingham says something revolutionary: he says that most children are asked to learn without ever being taught study skills, without ever being taught how to organize themselves for studying, without ever having been taught to prioritize what to study, and without ever having been taught what to do when they procrastinate about studying.
And we all know this is true because we were once those children.
Unless your kids go to a very unusual school, this will be true for them as well.
When I went to school, I remember being told that I just wasn’t “trying hard enough”. But Willingham says that wanting to learn has no direct impact on learning.
He says that we often remember things we didn’t intend to learn and we often do not remember things we did want to learn.
He also says that repetition doesn’t guarantee learning.
From junior high onward, Willingham says that school is made up mostly of three basic tasks: listening, reading and taking tests — and these are the three areas of learning he covers in his book.
He talks about so many important things. For example, he describes how to extract the important information from a lecture, a lab or a demonstration. And he goes into detail about how to take notes, and how to organize materials.
Interestingly, he also talks about the dangers of having a computer open in the classroom — even if the student is taking notes on it — and I think we all know what he means: it is tempting to look at other things and do other things while the laptop is open. Willingham suggests that students who are allowed to have laptops open in class put the laptop on airplane mode so they do not do other activities during class
Willingham even gives advice for instructors about how to present material so that it will be clearer and more easily learned. And he gives more such advice in another of his books, Why Students Don’t Like School.
Whether all of his ideas are backed up by research on the particular methods he is recommending is unclear to me. But his books are heavily referenced, he has clearly studied the existing literature on learning, and his own background in cognitive science is extensive.
You may want to read these books. You may even want to donate a couple of Willingham’s books to the principal of your child’s school and ask if they can incorporate some of what he has to say into in-service training for teachers. Furthermore, you may want to ask the principal of your child’s school to institute some new curriculum for the students on how to study and learn effectively, or even suggest that a course be offered in this subject – especially in seventh or ninth grades when learning becomes more complex. I say this because teaching kids how to learn is not a job parents should feel they have to take on entirely by themselves.
In fact, I think it would be hard to impart Willingham’s ideas to your own children. Kids often resist parents’ efforts to help them learn. But if done at school, as part of the curriculum, it seems to me that teaching strategies for studying and learning – including many of Willingham’s ideas – could be extremely helpful.
Teachers receive a lot of information about pedagogy. They go to college to learn how to teach, they go to conferences to learn more and they are often provided with materials during seminars at the schools where they work. But kids, as Willingham says, are rarely taught how to learn.
It is about time that we helped kids learn how to learn, that we helped teachers teach kids how to learn, and that we helped teachers teach in a way that makes it easier for kids to learn.
PS
This book isn’t just for parents and teachers – it can be helpful to anyone still engaged in the learning process – including at work. Check out, especially, the chapter on procrastination!
Thoughtful Parenting 