Transcript

0:00
Prioritizing sleep is the low hanging fruit, and prioritizing
0:03
sleep means getting devices out of the bedroom for parents and
0:06
children. So I always start with parents
0:09
on this one because it's much easier to model that behavior to
0:13
say like, hey, I'm realizing I'm doing scrolling before bed, or
0:17
I'm realizing the first thing I do is reach for my phone in the
0:19
morning, so I'm going to put it out in a different room in the
0:22
house. So you are the screen time
0:27
consultant and the founder of Tech Intentional.
0:30
What do you do and why? That's a great question.
0:33
I am a former teacher and I care deeply about protecting
0:38
children. And so one of the ways that I
0:41
have found to most effectively do that is to advocate for more
0:46
institutional use of technology, both at home and at school.
0:51
OK. So there's a lot of different
0:53
layers to that, right? Because I typically think in
0:55
terms of toxic screen use, so that's smartphone, social media,
0:59
video games, we get into a lot more distinctions, but that's I
1:03
think the the biggest negative influence.
1:07
How do you address that? Yeah, so I think not all screen
1:10
time is created the same, right? I mean, I think if you're face
1:13
timing with grandma, that's really different than scrolling
1:16
through TikTok for 30 minutes, You know.
1:19
So part of it is there's a lot of nuance to this.
1:22
I always say I'm not anti tech, I'm tech intentional.
1:25
I mean, obviously here we are in different states having a
1:28
conversation over a screen. I tend to focus on things.
1:34
So my my TLDR of being tech intentional too long don't read
1:38
is later is better less is more relationships and skills before
1:44
screens. So in that context, thank you.
1:48
Yeah, In that context, it it comes down a lot to making sure
1:52
that we're using the devices or the screens that being used by
1:56
them, which is very challenging because the business model
2:00
fundamentally wants us to use them.
2:03
So it's a bit of like both understanding that it's not a
2:06
fair fight, but also get as adults, you know, honing our
2:12
skills and as children helping teach them skills.
2:17
When it comes to technology, I'm a curmudgeon, the old man.
2:19
So my basic rule of thumb is never get your child a
2:24
smartphone. I'll, I'll be curious to hear
2:27
your take on that. Yeah, I mean, I respect that.
2:31
I know a lot of people, not a lot.
2:32
I know a handful of people who've waited and delayed or
2:35
don't give their kid a smartphone.
2:37
But here's the thing, You, this is what I hear so much from
2:40
parents is you could be doing everything right in the home.
2:42
You know, you could be delaying screen time.
2:45
They could not be watching shows, no video games, nothing.
2:48
And then they go to school and the school gives them a
2:50
Chromebook or an iPad. So on the one hand, this is what
2:54
I, I try to straddle this challenge because it's really
2:58
not just an in the home problem. It's also now being given by
3:02
schools. And so ideally no children
3:06
should have smartphones, but in reality, most of them do, you
3:10
know, even as young as 678 years old now.
3:13
And so that is problematic because even if your child
3:16
doesn't, you know that if they go to someone's house or riding
3:18
the school bus they're in, you know, at a play date, like there
3:21
are going to be screens around. So it's sort of we can do all
3:25
the things, right, you know, like limit and say no, but we
3:29
also have to recognize they're still going to be exposed to
3:31
things. And it's our job to sort of help
3:33
prep them for that. How do you do that?
3:36
Great question conversations and relationships and prioritizing
3:41
non digital skills first. That's what I would say.
3:43
So, you know, it's, it's going to be, I mean, just like
3:46
anything in parenting, you know, we're the sort of our children's
3:49
first teacher is how I see it as like, you know, we get to teach
3:52
them things like, you know, how do you behave at a restaurant?
3:55
You know, how do you put your dishes in the dishwasher?
3:57
Like a lot of what parenting is, is setting them up for life
4:00
skills. And because technology is such a
4:03
big part of life, we have to prepare them also for what that
4:06
world is like. And our part of our role as
4:10
parents is establishing our values, you know, making clear
4:13
what's within our family's values, what's OK, what's not
4:16
OK, because they're going to encounter situations where their
4:20
values are challenged or questioned, and they need to
4:23
feel that they know how to respond to that.
4:24
That's hard to be clear. It's not an easy thing to do,
4:28
but it's it matters. What I found is one of the
4:32
biggest challenge when attempting to help parents is
4:34
they just have very narrow bandwidth.
4:36
They're they're very busy. They need a very simple clear
4:40
solution. So what, what do you like?
4:43
What's the low hanging fruit that you can offer?
4:45
Great question. Sleep.
4:47
Prioritizing sleep is the low hanging fruit, and prioritizing
4:50
sleep means getting devices out of the bedroom for parents and
4:53
children. So I always start with parents
4:56
on this one because it's much easier to model that behavior to
5:00
say like, Hey, I'm realizing I'm doom scrolling before bed, or
5:04
I'm realizing the first thing I do is reach for my phone in the
5:06
morning. So I'm going to put it out in a
5:08
different room in the house or even, I mean, even baby steps,
5:11
right? Like put it on the other side of
5:13
the bedroom, put it outside the bedroom door.
5:15
Just a lot of people are like, it's my alarm clock.
5:17
Well, alarm clocks are way cheaper and they're not Internet
5:20
connected, you know, and they work really reliably.
5:23
So get an alarm clock and then talk about that with your
5:27
children. You know, Hey, I noticed when I
5:28
phone's phone's out of the room at night, I sleep better.
5:31
So, and we know there's so much research about the benefits of
5:34
good sleep on so many factors. So it's it's to me that's the
5:38
low hanging fruit. That's an easy starting point.
5:41
Yeah, from a psychological perspective, I think that's
5:44
absolutely right. Sleep is the number one thing
5:45
for mental and physical health. Yes, yes.
5:48
And we we all understand that as adults where we wish we're like,
5:51
why did I not sleep more as a child?
5:55
Now I want to sleep more as an adult.
5:57
Yeah, right. OK.
5:59
What? What's #2.
6:01
That's a great question. So for parents in particular, I
6:03
really recommend what I call living your life out Loud, which
6:06
is narrating what you do as you do it anytime it comes to
6:09
digital media. And so it's like I'm reaching
6:12
for my phone, I'm going to check what time soccer practice
6:15
starts. I'm going to see how bad the
6:16
traffic is. I'm going to see if we need to
6:18
pick up your friend. Then I'm going to check my
6:20
e-mail because I think I was expecting this message from your
6:22
coach. You just narrate it.
6:24
It's a it's a play by play. You can also layer in the
6:28
emotional components. So I'm standing in line in the
6:31
grocery store and I'm bored. I'm opening my Instagram now I'm
6:34
scrolling. I don't know why I'm doing this.
6:36
This doesn't make me feel better.
6:38
Now I'm comparing myself. Giving our children a sense of
6:41
how we use these devices as tools, but also really as
6:44
entertainment and distraction, I think is extremely important for
6:49
modeling for our kids with how we use the technology.
6:51
So the living your life out loud, again, that's a parenting
6:54
strategy. It's, it's how.
6:56
And it doesn't have to be just parents.
6:57
By the way, we can do this for non parents too.
6:59
You know, my husband does it at work sometimes and he'll he'll
7:02
say he's like, I noticed that no one else is doing and it feels
7:05
very weird that no one else is saying what they're doing.
7:08
You know, we all know that feeling of being phubbed when
7:11
someone's like phone snubbing us, you know, they look down.
7:15
So really bringing awareness and accountability to it for
7:18
ourselves and then inviting others to join us.
7:22
And from a psychological point of view, what that does is break
7:24
the automaticity because these smartphones are so addictive,
7:27
and we are addictive. If we have a smartphone, we're
7:29
probably almost certainly addicted.
7:31
So there's the automatic checking.
7:33
And by vocalizing our actions, that requires intentionality and
7:38
deliberation. So we're breaking the automatic
7:40
cycle. Oh, wonderful.
7:42
Yeah, That's a great. That's a great way to connect it
7:45
to psychology because I'm not a psychologist by training, but I,
7:48
I just know that it it, when we say something out loud, we're
7:51
bringing an awareness to it. And, and again, these devices
7:55
are designed to be compelling. They're designed to keep us
7:57
scrolling and coming back and clicking and refreshing and so
8:01
interfering or interrupting that, that dopamine feedback is
8:05
extremely difficult for adults, right?
8:08
Look at how many adults struggle with this.
8:09
And so to think that children can, you know, self manage is
8:13
just from I would assume a brain development standpoint, not even
8:15
possible. Like they're still developing
8:17
these skills. So it's it's not a simple matter
8:21
of just saying, put your phone away child and them saying, OK,
8:25
sure, I'll put it away. It doesn't work.
8:27
If it worked that way, we wouldn't be having this
8:28
conversation. Exactly.
8:30
So it's a catch 22 because the ability to inhibit impulsive
8:36
behavior is a function of the prefrontal cortex, which is the
8:40
last part of the brain to develop.
8:42
Doesn't develop until the mid 20s.
8:44
So it's a catch 22. The other.
8:46
Exactly. So the the other function of
8:49
what you described of living your life out loud is what we
8:51
call self monitoring, which is simply paying attention to your
8:57
behaviors. And that by itself is a research
9:00
supported effective intervention for reducing bad habits.
9:04
So it's, it's the first step of many psychological treatments
9:09
like whether from weight loss to anxiety reduction, just self
9:13
monitor. So that's why you're doing.
9:15
That's so cool. I actually learned it from a
9:17
colleague who we worked at a Center for kids with ADHD and
9:21
she used it as a way of helping them build executive function
9:23
skills, which again, we all have executive function skills and we
9:27
all need to be developing and working on skills throughout
9:29
life. So I just thought, oh, that's
9:31
genius. Like we could take it and apply
9:33
it to technology like how we're using it.
9:35
Because again, you know, you imagine a young child like
9:37
looking at the back of a phone doesn't know what we're doing.
9:40
I mean, we could, we could be writing our dissertation or
9:42
scrolling through TikTok like it's, it looks the same to a
9:45
child too. So then there's that like
9:47
reflective part where a child can see.
9:49
I always say it's not a switchblade, it's a Swiss army
9:52
knife, right? Like the multi tool aspect of
9:54
our phone. Too.
9:56
Yeah, it would be a lot less dangerous if it was a
9:58
switchblade, I know. Or Swiss.
10:00
Army, I know the irony, right? Yeah, yeah.
10:02
So so #1 Protects sleep to live your life out loud was #3.
10:10
It's a really good question. I mean, I'm going back to my
10:12
TLDR, you know, prioritizing relationships and skills before
10:16
screens. I mean, I think to me that's
10:18
just so true across the board, whether that's at home or at
10:21
school. You know, it's like the
10:24
relationship you have with somebody determines what kind of
10:27
a learning experience you're going to have, right?
10:29
Whether again, parent or teacher.
10:31
And so, you know, when we displace opportunities for
10:34
relationship building with screens, we weaken that ability.
10:39
And I think for teenagers, you know, I think about parents who
10:42
are always fighting with teens about screens.
10:44
And I get it. I have two teenagers myself.
10:46
But at the end of the day, as hard as it is, we want to
10:50
preserve the relationship because we have to get through
10:53
that conflict together because eventually they're not going to
10:57
come to us. You know, eventually they're
10:59
going to look outward for support or distraction or
11:02
numbing or, you know, solutions on the Internet.
11:05
And we want us. We want it to be us, you know,
11:07
the adults who care about them. Yeah.
11:11
So what do you specifically provide as the screen time
11:13
consultant? Yeah.
11:15
So for many years I did, I've done parent coaching, right
11:19
one-on-one to go really in depth to help parents kind of become
11:22
more tech intentional. I did write a book called the
11:24
Screen Time Solution, which is really a guide for parents about
11:27
tech intentionality. And now I'm actually my, my
11:32
advocacy efforts about screens in schools has merged more into
11:36
my coaching and consulting work. So I'm working with schools to
11:39
help them re evaluate technology use at school.
11:42
And, and I'm also looking until to do a lot of like policy work
11:46
around, you know, holding companies accountable, getting
11:50
them to, you know, work better for children and not-for-profit,
11:55
which is hard. I mean, that's a big one, so
11:58
it's not going to happen overnight.
11:59
But, and I started teaching at the seminar at the University of
12:02
Washington this spring, so I'm working with undergraduates also
12:04
about this topic, and that was extremely fulfilling.
12:10
What? What do you see for yourself as
12:12
the path to have the biggest impact?
12:16
I really love speaking about this.
12:18
I feel like as a parent and a former teacher, I kind of
12:21
understand these different walks of life and can help kind of be
12:25
a translator between the world's.
12:27
At the same time, I'm also very passionate about making change,
12:30
and so my hope is that having a bigger speaking platform will
12:35
give me the opportunity to affect change in other ways.
12:37
So I'm looking to speak at conferences or keynotes or do
12:40
test, you know, testify. I've done a few testimonies
12:44
before different state legislatures to talk about harms
12:48
of screens for children. So that's how I, I always joke
12:51
that my memoir will be called The Accidental Activist because
12:54
I didn't mean to do a lot of the things I did.
12:57
I just saw something that I thought was wrong and wanted to
13:00
fix it and make it right. So.
13:03
Well, those are those are the best types of activists in my
13:06
opinion, Yeah. Yeah.
13:08
And you know, one of the beautiful things about this work
13:10
is that like it's a really non partisan issue.
13:12
I feel like I work with people from A-Z like and it's, it's
13:17
actually very heartwarming to come together and be like, I
13:19
might not agree with these people on everything, but we
13:22
agree on this and that I don't know.
13:25
That's a really powerful experience to be in a room and
13:28
say, and an important experience, I think, to be in a
13:31
room with people that I might not always agree with, but be
13:34
able to say we can work together to make change.
13:37
Yeah, it's a little bit encouraging to know that common
13:41
sense can bring us together. Yes, right.
13:44
I agree. I know a lot of this is just
13:46
sort of like this just makes sense.
13:48
It's just like sometimes I get frustrated 'cause I'm like, why
13:51
do we have to prove that these things are bad for kids when
13:53
they're so? Like.
13:54
So obviously bad or like we don't need, why do we need
13:58
research to prove that? Just look, you know I'm with you
14:03
on that, yes. How'd you get in front of the
14:06
state legislatures? So through a lot of the advocacy
14:09
work I do, I work, I'm connected to Fair Play, which used to be
14:11
the Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood and they have a lot of
14:14
advocacy groups. So I work on the screens in
14:16
Schools group and we have different, you know, just
14:20
different. Again, most of them are just
14:21
parent concerned parents who are trying to bring this issue in
14:25
front of legislature legislators, you know, and
14:28
again, no surprise, technology changes really fast.
14:31
And some of our politicians have been in office for many, many
14:33
years and are not hip to the technology that currently
14:36
exists. So there's need for a lot of
14:38
education about it as well. It's so I just had a couple of
14:42
different activists friends in Vermont was actually where I
14:46
testified initially. But yeah, and you know, it's,
14:50
it's a bit of a I'm learning how to do it.
14:53
You know, you have to figure out when the hearings are and who,
14:56
who is the chair of the whatever committee and then trying.
14:59
So I it's a process for me as well, sort of a crash course in
15:03
democracy. Yeah.
15:06
So you, you published a book. There's a lot of work that goes
15:08
into that. Can you, can you share a little
15:11
bit with our audience? What, what is the thesis of that
15:14
book? What what you hope to accomplish
15:16
in it? Yeah, so the subtitle, it's
15:18
called the screen time solution. And then it's a judgement free
15:21
guide to becoming a tech intentional family.
15:24
And I really wanted to emphasize that this is really hard and
15:29
you're not alone. And there are some really
15:31
practical things we can do as families.
15:35
And yeah. And, and the, the thesis is, I
15:39
hope, one of both information and education and hope and
15:44
optimism. You know, that like, OK, this is
15:46
hard. It's also, I would say it's not
15:48
our fault, but it's our responsibility.
15:50
You know, it's like, we didn't create these products.
15:52
And, you know, some people will be like, well, you gave the kids
15:54
the products, but like, they're addictive and they're designed
15:57
to be that way. So it's a little bit like once
15:59
parents give them, it's actually very difficult to take them
16:01
back. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try,
16:03
but I think it's just trying to make sure that parents know that
16:08
I'm not judging and I'm not shaming you because I think at
16:11
the end of the day, what we really want is to be better
16:13
parents for our kids and help our kids be better future
16:15
adults. And so that's the goal of the
16:17
book is really to just kind of give parents some practical
16:19
tools. And it's a, it's a choose your
16:21
own adventure, a bit like all of not all of it's going to apply
16:24
to your particular family. So you take the things that work
16:27
and and go with that. Can you share 1 nugget with US1
16:31
practical tool? Hi.
16:32
Well, living your life out loud is definitely one of them, but
16:35
here's another one. This one I learned from a parent
16:37
educator that I just loved. And it's so disarming.
16:40
So it's the phrase I forgot to teach you.
16:43
And so for example, like, let's say we're at a restaurant and
16:46
our teenager pulls out his phone and we're like, hey, I forgot to
16:50
teach you that. When we're at a restaurant, it's
16:52
really rude to look at your phone when you're, you know, be,
16:54
you know, the waiters here trying to take your order.
16:56
It's really rude to have your phone in your hand.
16:57
I forgot to teach you that. That sounds so different than
17:01
saying like, put your phone away.
17:03
I can't believe how rude you are.
17:04
Right. Like there's just, you can
17:06
convey the same message without the shaming and the blaming.
17:10
And again, if the goal of our work as parents is to teach our
17:14
children skills, I mean to love them too, of course, but like,
17:18
that's the teaching part, right? And it, and it's OK to blame
17:20
ourselves. It's OK.
17:21
I say to my kids, you can, you can blame me.
17:23
If your friends are like, why don't, why don't you have a
17:25
phone or why don't you have Snapchat?
17:27
Say it's my fault, say my mom, you know, my mom's so mean.
17:30
I'm OK with that. I'm comfortable with that
17:32
because I know I'm doing it for them, right?
17:34
And so it's a little bit of that, like disarming it.
17:38
And it goes back to the relationship piece, right?
17:39
Like I can say, oh, this is on me.
17:42
I forgot to teach you that. That allows me to continue the
17:45
teaching. I love that extreme ownership.
17:48
That's a that's a very important quality as a leader and the the
17:51
parents are the leaders of the of the household.
17:53
Exactly. Exactly.
17:56
You know, a couple challenges in this area are so first of all,
18:02
I'm going to say what's what's not the challenge.
18:04
I think, and I'm, I'm saying this because I want your
18:06
opinion, but I used to think the challenge was in the intellect,
18:10
basically ignorance, not knowing the problems and so forth.
18:15
And it's certainly true that there's a lot of naivety parents
18:18
don't understand how how dangerous these things are, but
18:21
sort of come to realize is clarifying the the ignorance
18:25
doesn't actually result in behavior change.
18:29
So the IT seems to me that the problems are more so parent
18:33
parental anxiety. So and it's it's all misplaced.
18:37
I mean, it's right intention misplaced, but they're afraid of
18:41
physical dangers over digital dangers.
18:43
They're afraid of peer pressure, what other people will think,
18:45
what their child will think. And then I think the other
18:49
challenge is in the will, which is just kind of like a a
18:55
delegation of responsibility and abdication of responsibility
18:59
that parents just are not doing what they deep down know is best
19:04
for their kids. I agree.
19:08
I mean, I, I and I understand what you're saying.
19:09
I actually wrote about this in the book as well in it in the
19:12
dichotomy that I used to explain it as this idea of scary versus
19:16
dangerous and one. Nice, I love.
19:19
That right. And, and one of the things that
19:22
I just, I was so shocked when I read this a couple years ago, I
19:25
think it was Pew Research found that the top three parenting
19:27
fears in America are youth mental health, bullying and
19:32
kidnapping. And what's shocking to me is
19:35
that one of those things is not like the other.
19:37
And if you actually Lenore Skenazy, who's the founder of
19:41
Let Grow Movement, which is all about independence and childhood
19:44
and free play, she in her book, she cites the statistic that
19:47
like kidnapping is so statistically rare that it is
19:50
almost nil from a statistical standpoint.
19:53
And so, you know, the somebody in her book gives a stat that if
19:56
you wanted your child to be kidnapped, obviously we don't,
19:59
but if you did, you would have to leave them outside every day
20:02
on the curb for 750,000 years to be guaranteed of being
20:06
kidnapped. But you give them Snapchat
20:10
access and within 5 minutes they will be pushed.
20:13
Harmful content, right? Like so again, I think this is,
20:17
you know, there's a lot of this sentiment going around that we
20:19
overprotect in the real world and underprotect in the digital
20:22
1. And I think to your point that
20:25
that is a lot about parental anxiety, which is in my view
20:29
made worse because of cultural stuff is for sure, but also our
20:33
own 24/7 clickbait as adults. So parents who are attached to
20:38
their phones are getting, we're not watching news at 5:00 once a
20:41
day anymore or getting a newspaper once a day.
20:44
We are getting 24/7 news headlines.
20:46
And the only way to keep it interesting is to put the
20:49
clickbait up front and center, right?
20:51
That's how those news channels are functioning, whether it's on
20:53
Instagram or cable news, right? And so we hear the worst of the
20:57
worst of the worst. We hear the statistically rare
21:01
circumstance of, you know, something happening and that
21:04
makes us feel like in the real world, that's an actual threat.
21:08
Now, I mean, there are safety things like I, I think it's
21:10
really interesting if parents are giving their kids phones
21:13
because I hear this all the time to keep them safe, right?
21:16
To prevent kidnapping. Remember that #3 fear.
21:19
The irony is you're, you're actually making number one and
21:23
two worse, bullying and youth mental health by giving kids
21:26
phones, right? And so, and I would add, you're
21:28
making them physically less safe because what do we see?
21:30
We see kids walking around the streets with phones in their
21:33
faces, not paying attention to traffic, not aware of their
21:36
surroundings, not talking to their neighbors.
21:38
So I think, again, that's scary versus dangerous.
21:41
Like parents think the real world is scary, but for the most
21:44
part it's not dangerous. And that's a hard one.
21:46
That's because that's not what we feel, but actually it's true.
21:51
It's never been safer in many ways.
21:54
Exactly, So do do you have like a structured way of helping
21:59
parents through this journey? Yeah, when I do parent
22:03
consulting, I'm, I mean, I, I don't, I do it for no fewer than
22:07
has to be 8 sessions minimum. Because to me this isn't a short
22:11
term fix. This is a long term changing how
22:15
we parent and think about screen time.
22:17
And it starts, a lot of it starts with education.
22:20
Again, I come at this as a, you know, with my teacher heart
22:23
because that's what I do. That's what I am.
22:26
And, and I, I find like, as you point out, a lot of this is an
22:29
information lapse or a misunderstanding or not knowing
22:33
the dangers and then empowering parents to sort of reclaim some
22:37
of their parental authority, right?
22:38
To say, like, actually, I'm the adult and it's OK for me to say
22:42
no. And, and, you know, I'm a big
22:44
fan of validating children's feelings.
22:46
I think that's extremely important.
22:48
I love that we are doing that now and we are forgetting that.
22:51
The second part of that is saying, and I believe in your
22:54
ability to persevere through struggle.
22:56
Exactly, Yeah. So we have to do that second
22:59
part. We have to say, oh, I can see
23:01
this situation really upset you and made you uncomfortable and I
23:05
know you can handle it. Or here are the skills that we
23:08
are going to work on to help you get through it.
23:11
Well, that's very insightful because there's a whole
23:14
parenting treatment for child anxiety based on that premise.
23:18
It's called supportive bank Parenting for anxious childhood
23:21
emotions and you capture that perfectly.
23:23
Yes, yes, right. Is that or PDA, is that the
23:26
other parental? What is it?
23:29
Demand avoidance? What is that called?
23:32
Yeah, pathology. Well, it's not in the DSM, but
23:36
it's like a social media phenomenon of it's called PDA
23:40
and pathological demand avoidance where you don't, you
23:44
know, you if you say no, if you set limits, if you don't indulge
23:49
your child, you trigger their nervous system and then they
23:51
can't handle the real world. And you know, I have my opinions
23:54
on that. I imagine you do as well.
23:56
Like it's, you know, I, I have deep concerns for children that
24:00
don't have boundaries, clear rules.
24:02
Children need that. They don't necessarily want it,
24:04
but they need it. Well, you're just making them
24:06
weaker. They're just atrophying.
24:08
Their souls, their wills, are atrophying if we don't.
24:10
Yeah, and then when they grow up and they become teenagers with
24:12
mental health crises and they're turning to social media like
24:15
we're just adding fuel to a fire.
24:18
And what's going to happen? When is their boss expected to
24:21
pamper them exactly? So we're just setting them up
24:24
for failure. So exactly.
24:27
Anything else you want to share with our audience that way?
24:30
Oh gosh, this has been a really great conversation.
24:32
I just think, you know, my message is 1 of optimism and you
24:36
know, hope for, for parents that like, I just believe that when
24:39
we know better, we do better, you know, and that this is about
24:42
kind of looking at our family. What, what kind of children do
24:45
we want? I mean, what kind of adults do
24:47
we want our children to be? And are we modeling that as
24:50
adults ourselves? You know, like that This isn't
24:52
about judging and shaming. It's about saying, hey, I could
24:55
do this better and to start with small things, right?
24:58
We're not going to go home and change everything all at once.
25:01
It's baby steps. It's getting our phones out of
25:02
the bedroom, Step one, right? And that might take a month, and
25:06
that's OK. And if people want to engage
25:09
your consulting services, do you mind just like laying out what
25:12
you would cover in those eight sessions?
25:14
Yeah, so a lot of it, you know, a lot of it is very bespoke
25:17
because it depends on the family.
25:18
Like if if it's a child who's under 10, I'm going to approach
25:21
it really differently than if it's a teenager.
25:24
So a lot of the under 10 is going to be a lot more in the
25:26
preventative. You know, it's it's talking
25:28
about brain development. We talk about persuasive design.
25:31
We talk about actually one of the first things we talk about a
25:34
family values, you know, just let's let's talk about them.
25:36
Have you had this conversation with your family?
25:38
Like what are the, what are the things that are important to
25:41
you? And having kids help define
25:42
those. And to be clear, I only work
25:44
with parents because my, my belief is that if I teach the
25:47
parents, the parents teach the children.
25:48
And so that's the I want to empower parents to make those
25:53
changes. I can't come in once and say
25:55
something and have it be fixed, you know, And then you know
25:59
again too. It also really depends.
26:01
Like sometimes families are thinking about who engaged the
26:03
coaching or thinking about it before they give devices and
26:06
they want to know, like what do I need to know before I give a
26:08
phone or iPad or whatever. And some of the families engage
26:12
me after that's happened and there's huge issues, right?
26:15
So I also say I'm not a licensed mental health professional and I
26:19
make sure that if there are mental health issues going on
26:21
that they have other support because I can't treat or, you
26:24
know, recommend for that. But you know, I've, I've worked
26:27
with more than one family who who've actually gone through
26:29
sort of iPad detox, so to speak. And again, not from AI, can't do
26:33
it from the mental health angle, but like just thinking about
26:36
what would it take to remove it? How do we establish, you know,
26:39
boundaries and rules in our house to set our kids up for
26:42
success with this? How do we tolerate their, you
26:44
know, unhappiness with this? What are the, you know, ways we
26:47
can keep them busy when they're not doing an iPad that they
26:50
normally would be doing? So, yeah, it's an ongoing
26:54
process. I find that even after 8
26:56
sessions, which isn't necessarily 8 weeks sometimes I
26:57
spread it out, every other. So it's almost four months
27:00
sometimes. Sometimes parents still want to
27:02
come back for a tune up because, you know, children's
27:05
developmental needs change, right?
27:07
And then you have to kind of revisit this.
27:08
But the hope is to give parents a really solid foundation for
27:12
how to like, how to build as the kids grow.
27:16
Well, you're doing really important work and I just
27:18
encourage you to keep it up. Yes, thank you so much.
27:21
I really appreciate it. And I, I am ironically on social
27:24
media. So if people want to find me
27:26
there under the screen time consultant, I have, I have a
27:29
team that helps me post and, and I don't do it all myself, but I
27:34
do that and, and all of this information we're actually about
27:36
to relaunch a new website. So that's all coming very
27:39
literally in the next few weeks. So excited to share that.
27:44
Thank you, Emily. You're very welcome.
27:46
Thank you for having me.