Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants kids to get off their screens so they can learn how to “process pain,” he told The Post.
The Health and Human Services secretary underlined the point by jetting to the heartland this week to join Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds as she signed the latest “Make American Healthy Again” bill into law.
“The thing that shocked me is 6-year-olds are spending two and a half hours a day on the screen, and then teenagers 8.5 hours, and all that’s longer than they spend sleeping,” he told The Post from an elementary school in Gilbert, Iowa.
Teens are missing out on valuable life lessons — for example learning how to settle fights, lunchtime gossip and razzing, he said.
“They don’t have the skills to process [conflict], so they just complain about cyber bullying,” says Kennedy, who still savors his reign as school pull-up championship in a presidential fitness program started by his uncle JFK.
The recovering alcoholic and drug addict warned of the risks of addictive behavior, including on screens and online.
“My experience, which is pretty abundant, I think — addictive behavior feeds on their addictive behavior.”
The “impulse to reach for something outside of yourself and to solve something that’s going on inside of yourself, probably is not something that should be reinforced when you’re young,” he added.
A new Surgeon General’s advisory report has called for childhood screentime to be limited to one hour a day total in school.
The report, issued Wednesday and researched before President Trump’s surgeon general nomination imploded, says schools can put in bell-to-bell restrictions on phone use and calls for “age appropriate” screen limits for kids.
When he was in Iowa two years ago, RFK was fighting to get his name on the ballot running for president as an independent. He ended up getting 13,000 votes even after ending his campaign.
He insists that getting back to the top campaign stomping ground didn’t rekindle his hopes to run for office.
“I think I’m where I’m supposed to be. I’m going to do this job,” he said.