It wasn’t one big event. It was a series of small ones. After about a year of having a phone and access to video games that didn’t end, I noticed something had changed. My ten-year-old was still in the room with us, but not really with us anymore. He didn’t come to the kitchen table anymore. He didn’t linger after dinner.
He stopped jumping into conversations that used to matter to him. Instead, he retreated, quietly, into a world that asked nothing of him. A screen that offered distraction without effort, escape without connection. I watched him grow less present with us, even as he sat right beside us. And I remember thinking: This isn’t rebellion. This is withdrawal. That moment stayed with me. Not because I knew exactly what to do, but because I knew that spending childhood captivated by a world that wasn’t reality wasn’t helping him navigate the hard parts. Slowing down felt like the only honest response. That’s where this work began.