Latest / Follow the Leighder / How Screens Shape Kids' Brains | Dr. Katie Curry
Transcript
- Leigh/@followtheleighder: Howdy folks and welcome back to another episode of Follow the Leighder I'm your host, Leigh Larson, and I have a friend joining me from Billings, Montana, Dr. Katie Currie. Doctor, welcome to the studio today. Katie Curry: Thank you for inviting me. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely. Folks, Dr. Katie Curry, as I mentioned, is at a Billings. She is speaking at the Junior League Women's Leadership Conference, March 27th. That's a Friday. And I wanted y'all to hear her awesome message. She has an animal science background, but also her doctorate in chiropractic ⁓ medicine. And she is now at the City College of Billings as a professor. Can you talk to us a little bit about You're focused now on parenting, but how your animal science background plays a role into chiropractic and neurophysiology. Katie Curry: So I am the mom of a 10 year old who is in 4H. I have the background in Big Brothers Big Sisters, Montana Youth Challenge. So working with kids that have seriously emotional disturbances, et cetera. And so when you take animals and you take the development of children, it comes down to how the brain develops. And so whether it's the animal or the human, myelination is how the brain wires itself. Like it improves the wiring. The more you do something, it's called wiring by firing. Then you build these pathways in the brain. And so if I take it back to teaching anatomy now going on seven years and we take it to the cell phone and our neurotransmitters. So Essentially you have to take how was the brain designed to grow and learn? How has that changed? And how do we have effective parenting skills? So you go into like the limbic system, the emotions, the behaviors. There's people that specialize in that and they have their own vocabulary. The reptilian brain, there's things like that. From anatomy, we have the amygdala, the hippocampus, the midbrain, the So I rely on the actual anatomical name. So all of these professions come together in a way. We just have a different vocabulary in those. So the focus of what I'm bringing to this group is when we start, we start with facial expressions, right? People were designed to communicate using facial expressions. And then that turned into forms of grunting and the sign language. and then we put vocabulary to it so how people of different languages can still communicate in a way. And when you have a cell phone, and like if you have shorts or you have animations, those things are not in real time, right? You are stimulating reward centers, the kids can flip through things, and so even though you're becoming... associated with everyone far away from you, you're not associating to people that are close with you. So growing up on a ranch, you have breakfast at 6 a.m., you have dinner at noon, lunch is what you put in a bag and take with you, and then supper is at 6 o'clock. And it does not matter what is happening at those three times of the day, everything stopped. And the family came together and the family sat down with a meal, and we all had a conversation. So eating is a 10 minute process, but the actual breakfast, lunch, and dinner could take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour because it's time where you have conversation, you relate, you talk to each other. And then when everyone was done eating, grandma would go down to the mailbox and she would get letters. And we'd have letters from family outside and she would read the letter to everyone that was sitting at the table. And then when we were done, everybody did dishes. So that's what you grow up, what I grew up with on a connection level. How do you stay connected to your parents, to your family? ⁓ How do you speak to your family at the dinner table? ⁓ Table placement, does it really matter that the fork is on the left and the knife is pointing in towards the plate and towards the drinking glass? But these are all things that we had, it was just structured, right? organized and structured and you had clear expectations and boundaries. I just did it because that's how things went. taking those skills to a modern parenting level, how do children speak to parents? What are children watching on their cell phones? Like is it appropriate or inappropriate? What kind of behaviors are they saying? They are becoming very distant. ⁓ They're not empathetic because when you're hiding behind a screen and making comments, people can get really nasty. Would you say that same thing to a person if you were face to face with them? So those are some of the skills that I think in this parenting age we have to set boundaries on what kids are watching and we need to sit down with them and have more one on one conversations and activities engaging in the activities. 4-H is a fantastic opportunity for kids to get together and there's other organizations but where are you taking kids where they are working one on one with other kids? use the animals and they have my daughter has to get up and feed her animals. She has to take care of them. She has to be aware of their vaccinations, their health status. We've gone to the vet, you know, building that empathy through it. taking their phone away isn't going to work. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Bye. Katie Curry: but compare it to having a drink as an adult, going out and having a drink with your friends, right? It's moderated. So within moderation, it is a substance that in overuse is toxic. So cell phones in overuse are toxic. How do we teach our children to use those in a method that is safe and healthy? Does that answer the question? It's such a big... Leigh/@followtheleighder: abs. No abs. Katie Curry: global ⁓ concept, but it has to do with the wiring of the brain. Children do really well with boundaries and things that are predictable. ⁓ Even though they're going to complain about the phone being taken away, you have to have boundaries and they are wired to take that. The younger they are. I always said my three year old is my 13 year old. You know what I accepted from my three year old? is I have a very kind and polite 10 year old now. And so when you're going through the grocery store and I see you know little strollers and they're holding a cell phone and they're just passive parenting is not going to help as soon as the parent has to say no I'm taking the phone away. No you can't do that. ⁓ Where positive reward, you know, when you engage in parenting and what do they like to do? They like to play the match game. You know, it takes a lot of work to engage as a parent and be active in that life, but that gives them Kids are like, my parent is predictable. If they say no, I have built a relationship where I love them and trust them. And I'm not happy about it, but I'm not going to disagree with them because you built that relationship, but it has to start super young. so using cell phones as a crutch, as a babysitter and a parenting is going to backfire down the line by the time they reach eight to 13. They're going to have your hands full. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely. ⁓ then there's like the iPads and you know, another thing that has been a major concern is I grew up running around the neighborhood and riding my bike and I don't see that a ton anymore. I don't see kids out and I mean I see them like that's still here but ⁓ just that entire idea of how much screens just drain. as of cognitive function, but also of play, of experience, of adventure. And I'm thankful that you're bringing that up. Can you share with us, like, how did you get into this line of work? Katie Curry: into the anatomy and physiology. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Katie Curry: So when COVID came, I started teaching as an adjunct instructor online. And then I just fell in love with it. In Oregon, my degree is a primary care physician. And the scope of practice varies when you go from state to state. And I didn't realize that. So I was born and raised in Montana. And I was trained in Oregon where I did blood draws on patients. We did pap smears. We did prostate exams, UAs, you name it. Like we did everything. We were primary care. and then you treat the musculoskeletal system and your malpractice insurance says if you adjust someone because their neck hurt and you can't diagnose why their neck hurt, that's a huge malpractice. So we had to learn every disease and every pathology because you think of referred pain. When you have a kidney stone, your back hurts. So we have to be able to diagnose is this a musculoskeletal problem or disease process. So then when you come to Montana and you have a smaller scope of practice, I was just craving to use all the knowledge that I love and so that kind of got me into teaching part-time and then the full-time job came open and that's what I've been doing full-time for the past five years. And then the neurophysiology part of it, it's my favorite. I just love how does the brain work? How do neurons relate to other neurons? then neurotransmitters are released in the reward centers. And when you put things like addictions, right, they will do whatever it takes to get that reward center activated. And it doesn't matter, you know, if it's the chocolate chip cookie or the heroin, you know, those pathways are the same. The brain has the same response to those. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well... Katie Curry: And so putting things on a cell phone where the answer to everything is now, if they have to wait they have no patience because cell phones are now. And then you put them into real world you need to sit in the dentist office for 10 minutes and they can't handle sitting for 10 minutes with no stimuli, no creativity, no imagination. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Yeah, no, it's, can't, ⁓ I've also noticed, I've written three children's books because of just like wanting them kids to go back out and play outside because so often, like I'm worried that, that nature is not as stimulating for, for kids as these phones. And I'm like, it's not supposed to be. It's actually to be as stimulating as naturally, probably gets, there's a whole kid thing. Katie Curry: you Leigh/@followtheleighder: Excuse me, so I have you seen, what are some ways that parents can help their kids have better communication while still not giving up cell phones or screens entirely? What does that look like? Katie Curry: setting timelines, boundaries. ⁓ So if your kid is in practice, ⁓ it's because I teach online. Like I'm at the brunt of it. I teach online 100%. It gives me the freedom that my daughter and I physically spend lots of time together because I work online. But when we go to ninja team practice or we go somewhere else, it's having the ability to put the phone away because even though they're practicing, like I've been caught a couple times because you know work emails come in and she goes like this like they want you to watch them like even though they they're when they reach that age where they still want their parents but they try to like be independent they are still looking to see if you're watching them because it's important to them and so you have to set a time and just say leave the cell phone in the truck because it's so hard to pick up so as a family coming up with a plan like these These are the hours that we block out from our phones. And then being mindful in those activities that are important to them that you're not caught looking down on their phone. Because it instantly is just like this. Well, from my daughter's reports, you know, it's just disheartening to look over for a moment and see that you're on your phone because they're like, man, can you watch us? And then trying to find activities that you can do with your kids. Because if people, you can't always sprint with them. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Katie Curry: You can't run with them, but like you say, you can go outside and get a plant ID book and try to identify plants. And there's lots of things that you can do outside with them, depending on physical limitations and stuff. ⁓ goats are running around. Because physically, I think that's one of my biggest complaints of the cell phone. Like you say, you have to go outside. We are going to have cardiovascular disease. We're going to have degenerative neck disease because nobody picks their head up. Like you can't do this to your discs. Kids have open growth plates and bone density. You need to stimulate bone density. You need to not compress ⁓ open growth plates in this forward hunched over posture. So I think physically there's, know, Blackberry thumb was the first ICD-9 code that came out because people were getting injuries in their thumb from the Blackberries when they first came out. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, yeah, like actual physiological changes and ⁓ it is. Katie Curry: Thank Leigh/@followtheleighder: It's like you said, it's not if they're connecting, but these aren't like real human connections. And so you feel like you're in a community online, but how that's translating socially ⁓ is interesting too. Are you seeing that like kids who spend a lot of time online also have social cue ⁓ misreads or just other general social hardships? Katie Curry: They do not know how to take constructive criticism in person because when they're behind a screen, they can fire back ⁓ at people. I just think there's a big lack of empathy and I'll have to pull up the resource where it's actually the neurophysiologist that is saying that the wiring of the brain for empathy is diminishing the cell phones. It increases violence, it increases everything and it's on a an actual neurotransmitter level. And I think we really need to open up parents' eyes to that, how that brain is developing. And that this frontal cortex here is not gonna fully develop until kids are 24, 26 years old. And that's behavior, that's social skills, social cues. So anything that is gonna detour that is really going to affect them in the long run. And then, You know, when Apple, was it? No, Amazon's server went down. It shut down Canvas, it shut down all of my platforms. So when people are so dependent and children are dependent on this phone, can they think for themselves? Can they read a map? Do they know north from south? ⁓ Can they be at peace in their own mind? Can they creatively come up with something? Can they communicate with people that are in the same situation without arguing? And we used to have debate in high school. Remember we had ⁓ agree to disagree and you provide a point and you don't attack the person. Right? It's differences in opinions but not attacking people. And I think we're losing that skill to respect other humans as humans and be like, well, maybe you would like to use this type of feed for your goat, but we're going to use this one. This one's higher in this and that one's higher in that. So you can agree to disagree, but you provide the points. I chose this because, and I don't think yours is as strong because, and then the other person comes in and says, this is my point. And I think those communication skills, because they're face to face and you have someone that has feelings and Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Katie Curry: your words are saying need to matter and when we get stuck behind the screen is that. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely. I really appreciate you saying that it's a very real thing that you can measure on scans is that internet time kills empathy and that because you're hiding behind the screen also because I mean the information overload like just me scrolling in two minutes. I am exposed to so much bad news or takes or whatever that my brain just starts dehumanizing everything. Like it's just like bad news, bad news. And I can just, it's a very fascinating kills empathy. And we can see it on scans was a very powerful statement. So thank you. What are some, some other methods that Katie Curry: Thank Leigh/@followtheleighder: that people have seen or have employed around the world? Are there policies or like what can communities do? Katie Curry: I know some of the schools have implemented the no cell phones and sometimes it's the quality of what they watch, not the quantity. You know, a few things that are inappropriate have a really long lasting effect. You know, if there was a YouTube video that was pretty violent and even though they were on that phone for the two minutes, you know, they were able to see something that wasn't appropriate. So it really comes down, I think, to communication with your kids and understanding they get a lot of things at a younger age than we give them credit for. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Katie Curry: Like if you can be a fly in the wall, like, you know, at events or something, I've sat back in chairs and people don't notice me and you listen to kids speak in third grade. It's amazing. The vocabulary that will come out of their mouths and the concepts that they do get, and then they go home and they're just like, ⁓ playing with their little ninjas and stuff. so I think parents need to be very open and have a lot of dialogue and being able to give them tools to go, this is healthy in this is not healthy and making the choice as far as you know even I don't even know if I should bring it up but things like if there are firearms that are not in a safe I don't like to worry about it you know the the stress of that so I took my daughter to the shooting range And so she learned everything about again, like how to take it apart, how to clean it, how to put it back together and how to make sure it's, you know, put in a safe place and how to get to an adult. Like teaching instead of don't do it, don't touch it. Teach them, give them tools. Here's a cell phone that's open to a YouTube video that's not appropriate. Hit the close all button, right? Being able to have that self control to say this is not a good choice and then close it out and get some help. kids, they get that concept at a pretty young age. So, and I think when you go back into history, look at, you know, 14, 15 year old parents working on the farm, having 13 kids, right? You had to mature and develop puberty hits at 12 to 13, but now we have kids that are in high school till 18 and we have to remember that they can actually mature pretty fast. Parts of them mature slow but there are things that they do get and we don't want to delegate that to the internet and to social media to be raising our kids. Leigh/@followtheleighder: It is. Katie Curry: that you do hands-on with them because we have, you know, sensory, you have light touch, deep touch, visual cues, auditory smell, all of those things build memories. So when you're cooking cookies and teaching them how to cook, they have the smell, they have the tactile sensation, they stir it, all of that makes a strong memory. Physically doing things with your kids, all the sensory stimuli makes a stronger memory than just a one-way passive input. So my take on co-parenting is you have to get in hands-on and like you say go outside, find nature, hear things, smell things, touch things, and do it at a pace that is real-life living. So not like screenshot ding ding ding ding through the 15 browsers. Leigh/@followtheleighder: My mom works women's health down in Texas and she's ⁓ had several teenage patients over the years come in pregnant or come in ⁓ with, for some women's health related thing, but they're teenagers and they're sexually active and the internet is their sex education. That is like pornography is where they're learning how and what sex is and consent and aggression. ⁓ So I'm also acknowledging how you're being mindful of the internet, being able to explain real concepts that unless parents are taking an active role, the internet is just going to teach your kid and it can harm of being really very harmful. So I just so appreciate everything you're saying today. ⁓ Katie Curry: That's where you can use your phone as a tool. So if they're watching pornography, you go to STDs. Right? Show them graphic pictures. So one of the girls that I had mentored... ⁓ Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, right. Right? Katie Curry: her mom found a condom in the toilet and her mom was devastated and I'm over there for the win because I showed her STDs. I'm like, do you not understand? She used to condom like, you know, it was going to happen and she made a smart choice ⁓ for using the condom. Not that we wanted her to be sexually active, but I said, you know, teach them. And so what I could do is just teach her about the STDs and I showed her pictures and they were gross and disgusting. So it did have that lasting effect. So that was it was one way to use it. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Katie Curry: as an effective tool. Trying to calm mom down, but in the back of my mind going, okay, she learned something. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes, that's brilliant. That's so brilliant. That's exactly. ⁓ yeah, yeah, and real world medical consequences like STDs like that's they're gross like you said great photos very effective. ⁓ but can you can you talk to us a little bit about ⁓ your relationship to Junior League and why you're speaking at the conference in ⁓ two weeks? Katie Curry: That's gross. Yeah, they're graphic. ⁓ So in the junior league is. pretty new to my exposure. I spend a lot of time in agriculture and animal science worlds. so Junior League, just seeing how they empower women and how they're for education and leadership. And a lot of the speakers have had a trauma or a life experience that they turned into a positive experience. So being surrounded by powerful people that, like a PTSD. PTSD can own you or you can make the choices to own it. You know, to take steps to integrate and you know, maybe there's things that are going to be triggers but taking the steps to say it's not going to run my life. We're only here kind of for a little while and your quality of life. What steps can you do? And I just love that the Junior League has so many inspiring speakers that are going to say this happened to you or If your childhood wasn't great, that's on them. But it's up to you to make your own choice. And my daughter and I talk about, you you have to love your parents, both of them. If you don't love your parents, it's not a good sensation. And even though I'm divorced, I say you will always love your dad. That is your dad. Maybe the choices he makes are not something that you approve of. So you really have to expose, experience, you know, love. They need to be able to love and have empathy and say you love your parents. made, hopefully, you know, it was a choice between the people at that time and then maybe people grow apart. And so just saying there's people in life that are gonna have different choices than you and you get to make your own choices in life and it takes away that negative connotation to it to just be like okay I'm okay with this person I'm gonna love them but I'm not gonna love the choice they made and that's not the choice I'm gonna make. And I think it just comes down to that. if kids make a mistake and don't let it consume them, you're like, okay, we won't do that again. So learning to forgive yourself and just go, don't do it again. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, how can people, do you offer classes, workshops? Like, how can people get in touch with you to learn more if they're wanting to make a change for themselves? Katie Curry: Okay. So it's not the anatomy and physiology is pretty much in my scope of practice. So I think when it comes to the counseling, I have worked at New Day at the group home, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, ⁓ Montana Youth Challenge. And what it comes down to is kids love to go to work with you. They love to see things that you do. And, you know, I've had some really amazing success stories and it's because I had horses and I'm like, I don't think I did anything but I had a horse and I said, will you clean the stall? Will you brush them? Will you take care of them? A sense of accomplishment and a sense of living in the moment is what it comes down to. And then my work email is the Katie, K-A-T-I-E dot curry C-U-R-R-Y and then the number two at MSU Billings dot E-D-U. So I'm more than happy to have anyone email me. or I can get some contact information to you because I really work on the nuts and bolts of that neurophysiology and how it's going to go through the limbic system, how our memories made. I really, oh, can I talk to you about gaslighting? Okay, so I love to teach people about gaslighting. So every memory that is made takes in every sense that you can think of. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Please do. Katie Curry: the sights, the sounds, the smells, the noises, know, everything, the emotions. That's how a memory is made. So I tell people, I'm like, imagine being a kid and you had a blue bike and you rode your blue bike down to the 7-Eleven and you got a pop and a candy bar. And then you came back and your bike was stored in the garage and there's paint in that garage. And so when you hung your bike up on the rack, your blue bike, you remember the smell of the paint thinner and you remember seeing the colors of the paint and the door went squeak when it shut. You remember that. So 10 years down the road here comes your best friend that you rode to the 7-Eleven with and they're like hey what'd you ever do with that red bike? And you're like I didn't have a red bike I had a blue bike. No it was red. Remember it was red because like Spokeo is red and you had little stickers on it and you rode your red bike right? And we went down to the 7-Eleven and you had a red bike and then all of sudden because it was 10 years ago you're like I know it was blue, but then you're like, was it blue? So gaslighting is changing your perception of reality. And it happens at work, it happens in relationships. And so you can use a phone for documentation because you can take pictures of things. You can write things down. So for kids that are in relationships where they have gaslighting going on, their self-esteem goes down, their confidence goes down, they second guess everything that they do. And so when you make a memory Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Katie Curry: to recall your memory, you have to bring everything that's in the brain back down. So building a memory goes up, bringing it back down, you have to put all the pieces back together. And if there's anything in that piece that you question, that's gaslighting. And so I had an incident where a certain cough medicine that's not for kids under 12, Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Katie Curry: ⁓ I had asked my daughter if she knew what the cough medicine was. Instantly when she came home she knew what it was, found it on the internet, showed me the picture of it. And then she goes back to the source and they said, I never gave that to you. And then she comes back to me and she's like, no, I don't think that's what it was. I said, well, next time you go back, go look in the medicine cabinet. And it was exactly what she thought it was. But when she went back and looked in the cabinet, she got a note card, wrote down the name of it, and brought it back to me. So she was 100 % spot on the same day it happened. And then she was told something else and it made her question her reality. And she didn't believe that's what had happened. And then when she was able to confirm it, I said, that is gaslighting. It changed your perception of reality. So yeah, I think if you can teach kids what gaslighting is, they get it. Like once they can have that experience and then prove that they were right, their confidence goes up. So in some of these. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Katie Curry: parenting relationships and relationships at work, etc. When people start second guessing themselves, then you have to find ways and tools to prove to yourself that you are of sane mind, you are not the crazy one, and not have your reality changed. And how it works with a test is multiple choice test questions. So if you have a test question and you have four answers, two of them are absolutely not right. And then between the other two, you have to, if you really know the material, you're going to know what the answer is. But if you're pulling all the memories down, like maybe it's what muscles make up the quadriceps group, and you're like, ⁓ rectus femoris or biceps femoris right between the two. It starts to make your reality change. like, I thought I knew this, but now I don't know it. Because you get gaslighted by the question. So I tell him, said, just read the question, don't read the answers. And then tell yourself what the answer is and look and see if it's there. ⁓ So even though it's not gaslighting you by trying to change your perception, just gives people the idea of that's how memory works. When you sit there and read and read and read information, you don't really know it unless you can spit it back out with no outside materials. So if you quiz yourself, what are the muscles that make up the quadriceps, right? If your memory is strong, you can repeat that. If it's not strong and you keep reading it 100 times, you won't remember it when it comes to the test. So in relationships, family work, et cetera, sometimes you have to write things down or draw a picture or keep a journal, depending how safe the environment is, just to know that the memory cannot get changed because you Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Katie Curry: wrote down what it actually was. So I think it causes a lot of... Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Katie Curry: insecurity and conflict within children. Even if it's happening to them at school and you know they're they're getting bullied at school and things like that and you know people are telling them they did something that they didn't do and then they second guess it and all sorts of things that just come down to how memories are made and how we recreate those. ⁓ Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. ⁓ yeah. Right, and then if you're second guessing, then you're not going to advocate for accountability or justice or any sort of consequence if you've been harmed and then someone tells you, you're the, you know what mean? Right, right. Katie Curry: Yeah, you're blowing it out of proportion. That didn't happen. It was this way. Yeah, yeah. So I think that's a really good tool for kids to learn because as they get older and older, they need to make good choices and have confidence in themselves. And those kind of skills take time to put the phone away and have conversations. Leigh/@followtheleighder: They really do. They really do. Well, I am so grateful for you coming on and joining me today. It has been a really eye-opening conversation. I'm glad folks like you are studying this, that are teaching communities about this, and I can't wait to learn more from you in a few weeks. That is a reminder, folks, to register for the Junior League Billings Conference, the Women's Leadership Conference in Billings, Montana. Dr. Katie Curry will be speaking on parenting and neurophysiology. Katie Curry: Yes. And I'll try to keep it simple. We won't get into big words. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Fantastic. Is there... we love big words. ⁓ Tell us, there a way that, is there a website or anywhere that someone could follow up with you if they have questions? Katie Curry: My biography is on the MSU Billings University website, so they can track me down under the faculty search. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Awesome, awesome. So there you go, folks. Alrighty, well that was another episode of Follow the Leighder. I'm your host, Leigh Larson, and was fantastic. Thank you, Dr. Katie Curry from Billings, Montana ⁓ parenting and neurophysiology. ⁓ what did you think? Did you learn something? Let me know in the comments. Make sure to like, follow, subscribe, you know the deal. ⁓ until next time, this Leigh and Follow the Leighder. ⁓ See ⁓