A Minnesota homeschooling mother of four has been making waves online for her refusal to allow her children to use social media and for opposing the “epidemic” of parents surrendering their authority to social media influencers.
Ironically, being a social media influencer herself has allowed Allison to witness firsthand the negative impacts of social media and how the malice of “keyboard warriors and bullies” can be emotionally damaging, all-consuming, and even mind-manipulating.
“It’s kind of comical because I am an influencer on social media,” she told The Epoch Times. “So a lot of people think that that’s kind of hypocritical, but I think a lot of parents are so out of touch with [the] reality of how social media affects their kids because they don’t really understand how it’s working and what it’s doing.
“We saw this epidemic of parents that were losing influence over their kids’ choices, decisions, happiness, and all of that. So why were they losing the influence? It was because it was going all of a sudden to their [kids’] friends or these influencers or these strangers that they don’t know.”
To achieve this, she says, they’ve needed to be very consistent in their parenting: always following through with what they say and shepherding and guiding their children with love and patience.
And today, the Lundeen kids are way ahead of their peers in many life skills—emotional, social, physical, and spiritual.
Parents Need to Stand Firm
As the children have grown older, the couple has discussed with them the why behind their ban on social media. Still, it hasn’t been easy to enforce the rules.“Once their friends started getting it, there were a few months of tears and begging because they felt left out, because they wanted to be in the in-crowd, because it was fun,” Allison said.
How did she respond to her kids’ pushback? For one, she asked her children about the changes they'd noticed in their friends.
“Their eyes opened up, and they’re like, ‘Mom, I can’t even sit with my friends. They won’t look at me anymore. They’re just scrolling on their phones the whole time,’” she said.
Allison also asked them to find positive data relating to kids and social media use, of which they could find none.
She said: “We told them, ‘We don’t want friends in your back pocket 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We don’t want you to hide away in a room and be connecting with strangers when we’re right here. We want to protect you because we want home to be a safe place.’”
Within a few months, her children understood and accepted the rules. However, they continued to respectfully voice their concerns about how difficult it was to be left out.
The parents were open in their response.
“It’s really hard for us as parents to stand strong in this culture, to say no,” she told them. “We can relate with you guys because we feel very left out [because of] this decision too.”
Since they were little, the children have been allotted 40 minutes of screen time a day, excluding activities that are done as a family like watching movies. The kids do have access to their parents’ old smartphones so they can view things like crochet tutorials, but they must be supervised and in a common area of the home when using those devices.
The children’s personal phones are Troomi phones, which do not have access to the Internet or social media unless approved by their parents.
Allison has faced much backlash for her efforts. When she started sharing her approach to screen time, she was supported by an army of parents who felt the same way. Unfortunately, many of those parents gave in once their kids began pushing back.
“We felt like we had this big crowd of support going into this journey and then, we were kind of like the lone island,” she said.
She wants parents to understand that standing up for their values and not backing down, even when their kids get upset, “is so worth it” in terms of “emotional health” and “family dynamics.”
The Results
Married for 18 years, the Minnesota-based Lundeens have a parenting approach that they say is founded on faith. When asked about the results of her approach to screen time and social media, Allison has nothing but positive news to share.“Oh my goodness! Their creativity is through the roof,” she said. From a daughter who bakes and crochets to a son who goes hunting, the family has been blessed with many talents.
“We’ve kept their childhood more innocent than what a lot of these 10- [to] 12-year-olds are trying to be. I just love that my 8-year-old daughter still loves to play babies and my 10-year-old son can play catch all day,” she said, adding that her children do not want to be “models” and “beauty influencers” like many others their age.
The kids communicate well with people of all ages and have strong friendships with their siblings. Allison’s heart has been warmed watching her family spend time together.
“We have so many adults saying, ‘Oh my goodness, you have teenagers that will talk to me as an adult, and they’re so sweet and kind.’ So we’ve noticed that they’re able to interact with people of all ages better,” the mom said.
“We’ve seen their childhood last longer, their creativity explode and just like, how they carry themselves compared to peers their age—I’m just very proud of them.”
Interestingly, Allison’s children have grown to be very supportive of her values regarding screens and social media. They now understand how dangerous these platforms are.
When the kids are adults, Allison says, they can make their own choices regarding screen time and social media. For now, she and her husband will continue shepherding them along their own narrow path: less screen time and more family time.
