Growing Up Overstimulated
For many parents, one of the most familiar scenes today is also one of the quietest: a child staring down at a phone for hours at a time.
Lisa Schiro, Founder & CEO of K-Counseling & Anxiety Treatment, says conversations with families increasingly revolve around attention spans, emotional regulation, overstimulation, and the growing role screens play in everyday life.
“Children aren’t spending thirty minutes on their phones anymore,” Schiro said. “The current average is closer to seven to ten hours a day.”
While technology itself is not new, Schiro believes the amount of constant stimulation children now experience is changing how many young people respond to boredom, frustration, rest, and even ordinary conversation.
“When every moment of discomfort is numbed by a screen, children don’t learn how to regulate themselves — they learn how to outsource regulation to a device,” she explained.
Learning To Sit With Discomfort
Schiro says many of the experiences that once quietly helped children build resilience — waiting, imagining, problem-solving, and learning to sit with discomfort — are becoming less common.
“Developing brains need boredom, not constant stimulation,” she said.
She points out that boredom itself is not something to fear. Unstructured time often becomes the space where children develop creativity, independence, emotional awareness, and patience — skills that cannot always be learned through constant entertainment or distraction.
She is also quick to point out that parents themselves are navigating the same challenges. Phones interrupt dinners, conversations, and downtime for adults just as easily as they do for children.
“Parents don’t need to be perfect,” Schiro said. “But they do need to be intentional.”
For Schiro, the larger conversation is less about punishment or fear surrounding technology and more about helping families become more aware of how attention, rest, and connection are shaped inside the home.
Schiro works with children, teens, adults, and families. Additional resources and information are available at K-Counseling.org.
Helping children build emotional balance in everyday life
1 | Attention & Overstimulation
Constant stimulation can make schoolwork, reading, conversation, or even quiet moments feel unusually difficult or unrewarding for children today, especially after extended screen use.
2 | Why Boredom Matters
Boredom helps children develop imagination, patience, emotional regulation, creativity, and problem-solving skills that constant entertainment often interrupts or replaces during everyday life.
3 | Children Notice Everything
Phones at the dinner table, notifications during conversations, and endless scrolling quietly shape how children understand attention, rest, connection, and even relationships within the home.
4 | Small Changes Matter
Phone-free meals, outdoor time, unstructured play, and consistent boundaries can help families create healthier emotional rhythms, stronger daily habits, and more meaningful moments together.