roula alkhouri

Have you ever caught yourself as an older adult regaling youngsters with stories of when you were a kid, and how you would spend hours outside playing, finding your own entertainment, and maybe even getting into mischief a time or two?

That’s not so likely with kids nowadays, Roula Alkhouri says, and hasn’t been for quite some time since smartphones came on the scene. These high-tech devices, while useful and convenient, introduced another level of safety that years of research later has proven otherwise, Alkhouri said, citing Jonathan Haidt’s book “The Anxious Generation.”

“I have a daughter who's 25, and she grew up around that time when the smartphones were coming in, and I was like, I wish I had known all of this. Of course, we didn't when they first came out, all the over-parenting, like, 'Oh, you can't go anywhere,' because the fear of strangers and all of that. Comparing it with my growing up years, and how we went out and ventured out and did things, and nobody was checking up on us every second,” she said to The Batavian. “So between those two factors, and I heard about the book, I was like, wow, this is pretty good. I was talking to a friend who works with youth as well. She lives in Ohio. She's a youth pastor, and she was telling me, oh, you know, all these young people, they really struggle, and she said ‘you may want to read this book,’ so I got the book, read it, and started getting into all the research.”

That led Alkhouri, a parent and pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Batavia, to check in with parents at her church to see if there was interest in having a more structured conversation about this topic, and it was a resounding yes.

The church is hosting a workshop this weekend for parents, grandparents, and other concerned adults about the negative impacts of social media and overprotective parenting on the mental and social health of children. This is based on Jonathan Haidt's New York Times best-selling book “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.”

It’s set for 2 p.m. Sunday at the church, 300 E. Main St., Batavia.

A phenomenon called protective parenting grew heavy in the 1990s, when everything had to be monitored by parents, until the dawning of smart phones, and then those parents said “have at it,” Alkhouri said.

“We didn’t police that as we would have policed the content of, say, a gathering for kids. The kids are isolated, in terms of, they don’t really do as much play, unless it’s supervised with adults all the time, and then the social media and the phones, they had access to the Internet all the time, where before 2010, they had to be sitting at a desk,” she said. “There was something where you could have had some control over it, like a TV, but not all the time, but this is with them all the time. A couple of factors came together between that fear of the parents and saying, ‘Oh, it’s safe. They’re sitting at home, and they can be on their phone.’ Well, very, very misleading. We don’t know what content they’re getting exposed to.”

She’s not just talking about the potentially bad content out there but also everyday posts that can prompt kids to compare themselves to popular influencers, producing self-esteem and confidence issues, she said. All of this can lead to — and has, in alarming numbers, according to Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business — anxiety, depression, self-harm, substance abuse, and suicide.

While many school district officials have discussed the possibility of restricting or banning the use of cell phones in the classroom and debating the positives and negatives for doing so, Zach Rausch has culled the statistics and effects of long-term use for adolescents to teens, cited in Haidt’s book.

For example, of rates per 100,000 in the United States, emergency department visits for self-harm in girls ages 10 to 14 in the United States shot up from just over 100 in 2000 to 634 in 2021; visits for boys remained fairly stable, with a slight uptick to 134. The stats for boys changed dramatically for suicides, going from eight per 100,000 for ages 15 to 19 in 1970 to 18 in 2020 and falling to some 14.83 in 2021, with girls remaining under five those entire 50 years.

This weekend’s discussion will include the book's central arguments, exploring:

• The Four Foundational Harms: Haidt's framework outlining the key contributors to the current mental health crisis among young people.
• The Great Rewiring: The profound impact of smartphones and social media on childhood development.  
• The Decline of Play-Based Childhood: The shift from free, unstructured play and its consequences.
• The Overprotection of Children: The impact of excessive parental caution and the resulting lack of resilience.
• Potential Solutions and Pathways Forward: Strategies for parents, educators, and society to address these challenges.

“We rewired childhood and created an epidemic of mental illness,” Haidt says. “After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures.”

Haidt said that he wrote the book because he believes the challenges confronting children and families “are solvable.”

“However, addressing these challenges requires understanding the traps we have fallen into, so we can see the escape routes,” he said. “The main escape routes are four new norms: delay smart phones until high school, delay social media until 16, phone-free schools, and more independence and play in the real world. The solutions are simple, but the work is hard. It’ll be easier if we act together.”

Organizers want this discussion to foster a thoughtful and open exchange of ideas, allowing participants, regardless if they have read the book or not, “to share personal experiences and observations and consider practical steps for creating healthier environments for young people.”

For more information, call 585-343-0505 or go HERE. 

Interested folks filled the meeting room at First Presbyterian Church in mid-November 2024 to hear ideas and issues about the potential need for a warming center in Genesee County. Attendees were encouraged to sign up and indicate their interest in taking part as active participants in the mission led by Oak Orchard Health and church staff.

At that initial meeting, there was “a heartening display of community spirit to gather input on establishing a warming center,” the Rev. Roula Alkhouri of First Presbyterian says. 

The meeting was to gauge interest, and about 50 people from several organizations and nonprofits attended, including Community Action of Orleans Genesee, Genesee County Mental Health, Department of Social Services and Sheriff’s Office, City of Batavia Police, Genesee ACE, St. James Episcopal Church, United Methodist Church, Community Services Board, and Crossroads House.

That first objective was a “resounding success,” Alkhouri said, as the gathering brought together concerned citizens and stakeholders. They, in turn, formed a dedicated steering committee that focused on five key areas to ensure a county warming center’s success, she said.

What is a warming center?
This center is to be set up as an evening and overnight safe space for people in need of shelter from the cold on days when the temperature falls below 32-degrees. Organizers also want to provide an opportunity for this space to be a place of connection with helpful resources.

The steering committee established five subcommittees, each tasked with a specific focus:

1. Funding: This subcommittee is responsible for identifying community donors, securing grants, and exploring other funding sources. They will also handle budgeting for the project.
2. Space: This team is working on identifying an appropriate space for the center, ensuring all regulatory and compliance requirements are met, and setting up the space.
3. Staffing: This subcommittee is creating a comprehensive staffing plan, including recruiting, hiring, and onboarding staff.
4. Community Resources: This group is identifying community partners, resources, supplies, and establishing Code Blue protocols.
5. Marketing: This team is focused on raising community awareness, communication, and education about the Warming Center.

“We are excited to begin this effort with the invaluable experience and planning resources of Oak Orchard Health,” Alkhouri said to The Batavian. “However, we are still looking for more community partners to join this initiative. If you are interested in joining any of these teams, please email me directly at roulaalkhouri@fpcbatavia.org or call me at the church office at 585-343-0505.

“Together, we can make a significant impact and provide a warm, safe space for those in need during the cold months,” she said. “Your support and involvement are crucial to the success of this project.”