My teenage daughter Mina is glued to her phone 24/7. So I made a rule: one hour of phone time a day. She didn’t take it well. “You’ll regret this!” she cried. Last week, I got an urgent call from her school. Her teacher’s voice cracked: “Please come. Your daughter… we need to talk in person.” I drove, anxious, thinking she’d caused trouble—but something about her voice felt different.
In the school office, Mina wasn’t there. Ms. Jafari, her English teacher, handed me a laptop. The screen showed a Google Doc titled When You Make Me Look Up. Mina had written about feeling invisible at home—the dinners I ignored, the movie nights I scrolled through my phone. One line hit me: “When Mom took away my phone, I thought she wanted to punish me. But now I wonder if she was asking me to see her too.”
At home, I confronted Mina gently. “I read your piece,” I said. She froze. “It was dumb,” she mumbled. “No,” I told her. “It was brave.” I reached for her hand. That night, we made a new rule—not about phones, but about presence. One hour every evening. No screens. Just us.
The first week, we ate noodles, played Uno, and shared our days. Mina opened up about school, fears, and friendships. Her writing sparked something: she joined the school newspaper and started a teen column. Later, she read her piece to a full room of teachers, parents, and students—they all stood and applauded. I stood too.
The twist? I thought I was teaching discipline, but she was teaching me connection. Phones aren’t the enemy; distraction is. Silence isn’t emptiness—it’s a call to be seen. Sometimes, we need to look up to truly see each other.