Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm your host. I'm
Speaker:Darlynn Childress, host of this podcast, and I am a life and
Speaker:parenting coach. And today's topic is screen
Speaker:free mindset. And so I'm gonna kinda explain what I mean
Speaker:by that, and then give you some really strong strategies
Speaker:of how to manage screen time in your family, which I know is a
Speaker:big concern for all of you, especially in light of, you
Speaker:know, some of the things that we've been hearing in the news lately, just about
Speaker:the anxiety and depression and just how how much our
Speaker:youth are struggling and how much technology is really
Speaker:contributing to that. So I'm sure you're a. I'm sure you really want to
Speaker:find strategies for that. So I'm going to give you some today, which
Speaker:is great. So screen free mindset. Okay.
Speaker:So let me first go back and say a little
Speaker:background on why I'm doing this episode. One
Speaker:thing that I am committed to as a coach
Speaker:and as a parenting coach is that I don't tell
Speaker:you what to do in terms of, you know,
Speaker:what your values should be. So I don't say, you know, you should
Speaker:eat this food or your kids should sleep at this time. I really try
Speaker:to help you understand your values and then give you
Speaker:strategies to make those happen. And if you're
Speaker:aligned with my approach, you know, I I know that your
Speaker:values are to be a compassionate parent while also
Speaker:staying calm and setting limits and boundaries.
Speaker:Right? So in that way, we're all a, but kind of in the nitty
Speaker:gritty of do we let our kids stay up late? Do we let them eat
Speaker:cookies or not eat cookies or things like that? I really don't wanna get in
Speaker:the weeds on all of those specifics. So I was talking to my friend
Speaker:about this, and I said, I really wanna do this episode where I talk about
Speaker:limiting screen time for kids. And I said to my best
Speaker:friend, Tiffany, I said, you know, I'm struggling with it because I don't really wanna
Speaker:tell people what to do. And I also don't really want to
Speaker:make parents feel more stressed or have moms feel things that
Speaker:they're, you know, feel guilty. She said, you know, you're right. You don't
Speaker:tell people what to do except like you don't believe in spanking. And I
Speaker:was like, yeah, I don't believe in spanking. And I
Speaker:and I definitely say don't hurt your kids. Right? Don't hit your kids.
Speaker:As we talked about it a little bit more, I realized that what I
Speaker:stand for is not harming children. And what I am always
Speaker:doing is advocating strategies so that we don't hurt
Speaker:kids. Right? That we don't shame them. We don't spank them. We don't create pain.
Speaker:We don't create emotional distance and all of that.
Speaker:And as I have been going through the research
Speaker:recently and actually for the last 15 years as I've raised my
Speaker:kids in a technology based society, I've made decisions
Speaker:about how I wanna approach technology and and creating
Speaker:a slow tech family. And what I a is that
Speaker:a lot of technology, a lot of screen use does hurt
Speaker:children. When young adults have
Speaker:excess opportunity to be on their devices, to be in social
Speaker:media, to have, you know, unfettered access to
Speaker:the Internet, Kids can get hurt in the virtual
Speaker:world a we don't have a lot of limits and a lot of
Speaker:protections for children in the virtual world. A lot of
Speaker:that is hardware based. Tech companies make it very
Speaker:difficult for parents to create parental controls. The tech
Speaker:companies aren't actually interested in limiting children's use
Speaker:because they get more and more money and revenue and data and all of
Speaker:that from the more use of any any human, right, children
Speaker:included. So there's not a lot of motivation to create limits and
Speaker:then the a then Become lot of us as the parents. I like I
Speaker:said, I I don't like to say, like, don't let your kids use devices or
Speaker:something like that Become it feels really, you know, shaming, and I don't
Speaker:wanna do that to you ever. But I do want to give you
Speaker:best practices. And I think that's really helpful in parenting because it
Speaker:can be really difficult to figure out what,
Speaker:like, what I should do, especially when there aren't a lot of clear
Speaker:guidelines about something. We now kind of know in
Speaker:general, like, about nutrients and whether kids
Speaker:should have sugar or not or whether they should have vegetables. And, like,
Speaker:we kinda know we kinda generally know about how much sleep kids should
Speaker:get. And so when you have these basic understandings of
Speaker:what fundamentally a human needs to grow and develop, you can
Speaker:kind of implement that with a lot of grace for yourself.
Speaker:But when you have the structure and the backbone of these are the
Speaker:best practices, these are sort of ideal scenario a you work
Speaker:from there, then you get a good a good couple weeks
Speaker:in, you're feeling good. Maybe have a week where your kid is sick and then
Speaker:you overuse technology for a week or 2 or you're ill or whatever it
Speaker:is, that's fine. You just reset back to that kind of
Speaker:baseline ideal philosophy. So that's what I wanna give to you
Speaker:today. Just as a premise here, I would like to
Speaker:re really clarify that overreliance
Speaker:on tech, overreliance on devices
Speaker:is hurting kids. And so straight off the bat, I wanna give you some
Speaker:numbers about that. Kids who are 3 to 7 year olds,
Speaker:according to the CDC, the,
Speaker:Center For Disease Control, according to Pediatrics Magazine, The Journal of
Speaker:Adolescent Health, there's a lot of guidelines now
Speaker:being established about how much time kids should
Speaker:spend on any sort of screen, whether that's an iPad, the
Speaker:television, your phone, you know, a computer,
Speaker:a Kindle, anything like that. Not a Kindle for reading, but a Kindle with, like,
Speaker:images. 0 to 3 should be 0.
Speaker:That's just the pediatric recommendation is that kids under 3
Speaker:don't need any screen time at all. 3 to 7, it's in half an
Speaker:hour to an hour a day. So just really
Speaker:think about that includes all device use, including your
Speaker:phone if you hand it to them at a restaurant or something like that. From
Speaker:7 to 12, it should be about an hour
Speaker:a a day for discretionary screen time. For
Speaker:12 to 15, a and a half hours. So that includes
Speaker:watching television, being on scrolling on social media,
Speaker:spending time talking on the phone and FaceTiming their friends. And
Speaker:then after 16, 2 hours is the recommendation of
Speaker:discretionary screen time. Crazy
Speaker:enough, most kids from, like, age 5 and up
Speaker:are getting around 5 hours a day of discretionary use.
Speaker:So that means their free time in their free time, they're spending
Speaker:5 plus hours. So that is a lot
Speaker:considering that at 16 years old, 2 hours is the recommendation.
Speaker:Now you hear this and you're like, okay. I get
Speaker:it. It's harming my kids. So what do I do about
Speaker:it? Because my kids love it, and I'm busy, and I'm stressed, and
Speaker:I don't know how to manage the time and their boredom and
Speaker:all of it. Right? So what I wanted to talk about was
Speaker:this, concept of screen free mindset. What does that mean?
Speaker:Like, as a life coach, right, I help you figure out
Speaker:how to structure your thoughts, your feelings,
Speaker:and your actions to align with your values. If you
Speaker:have a default mindset or a negative
Speaker:mindset around something like, oh my god. I'm a
Speaker:terrible mother. That's gonna make you feel overwhelmed and
Speaker:sad, and then you're gonna then take actions either over a
Speaker:or giving a. And then you don't get the life that you want.
Speaker:So we all have default negative mindsets, and
Speaker:that's like what your brain goes to when it's on automatic.
Speaker:So one thing I teach all the time is that misbehavior is not an
Speaker:emergency. That's a an intentional
Speaker:mindset because your default thought is, oh, my god. My kid
Speaker:hit the kid on the park, and this is a disaster. And all the moms
Speaker:are gonna judge me, and I ought to just think about it. And this is
Speaker:an emergency, and I better do something now. And you feel, like, really stressed about
Speaker:it. And a stressed mind does not make the best
Speaker:decisions. So we train our pair our brains, our
Speaker:mom brain to say misbehavior is not an emergency.
Speaker:This is not an emergency. And then when you are calming your
Speaker:soothing, your nervous system by saying this is not an emergency, you can then move
Speaker:forward and make a better decision and connect with your kid and and then set
Speaker:some limits and follow that kind of calm mama process.
Speaker:Okay. So that's my role as a life coach, and that's a big part about,
Speaker:you know, managing your mind, your mindset. So now what
Speaker:is screen free mindset? Screen free mindset
Speaker:is making an intentional decision that your child's or
Speaker:your children's free unstructured time should be screen free as
Speaker:the default choice. So you're turning your default
Speaker:thinking into screen free. So for example, let me give you some
Speaker:examples. Here's a. Like in the doctor's a. Right? Your kids are waiting
Speaker:their turn and you hand them your phone so that they can watch a little
Speaker:bit of Bluey or whatever and it you occupy them with the device.
Speaker:That is using the device as the default, and I want
Speaker:you to switch that to screen free default.
Speaker:A screen free mindset thinking I'm not gonna give my
Speaker:child the phone at the restaurant or in the doctor's office
Speaker:or while I'm cooking or, you know, in the mornings after they
Speaker:get dressed. I'm going to actively choose
Speaker:that unstructured free time
Speaker:is screen free in this family. When you
Speaker:choose that as the parent and you don't
Speaker:allow that screen to be the 1st option, a option, 3rd
Speaker:option, when you let that be sort of the like, not
Speaker:last case scenario Become I don't want it to be something that you give into.
Speaker:I I just want you to be intentional about when you are allowed to use
Speaker:screens in your family when you aren't a making a decision
Speaker:that there are times that we don't do that. We
Speaker:don't do that while we're waiting. We don't do that in the morning. We don't
Speaker:do that in the car. We don't do that right when we get home from
Speaker:something. We don't do it when the friends are over. You know, we don't do
Speaker:all while we're eating like I said. Thinking about this as
Speaker:your your mindset will help you
Speaker:not feel the pressure to give in to your
Speaker:kids' desire to have screen. Last week, I talked
Speaker:about how we wanna encourage boredom. We need to give our
Speaker:kids opportunities to find
Speaker:other solutions and other ways to entertain themselves and other ways to
Speaker:cope with messy feelings or or hard moments
Speaker:without using technology as a pacifier.
Speaker:A lot of you will give up the kids binky, you know, their pacifier
Speaker:around age 3 or a half or something like that Become, you know, it's
Speaker:not in their best interest to have that pacifier. It's not good for their teeth.
Speaker:It's not good for their emotional regulation and all of that.
Speaker:And that's kind of the same thing with screens. We
Speaker:over pacify kids by giving them the device in times when we
Speaker:really want them to be able to practice new
Speaker:skills. Now when we have we give
Speaker:our kids the device as the default, it does have a
Speaker:negative effect on them. National Institutes of Health has a National Library
Speaker:of Medicine. It's a clearing house for reputable medical and
Speaker:psychological studies. You can look it up, the National Institute of Health,
Speaker:and they have tons and tons of really highly qualified research in
Speaker:there. And I read this article about the impacts of
Speaker:screens on kids overuse. So outside of those guidelines
Speaker:that I read a few minutes ago. Kids who have more
Speaker:than is recommended amount of time, they have worse executive functioning,
Speaker:their academic performance declines, They are delayed in
Speaker:language development. They have detrimental effects on social
Speaker:and emotional growth. They are more likely to
Speaker:have obesity, sleep disorders, mental
Speaker:health conditions like depression and and anxiety. It can
Speaker:fuel aggression. It can harm a psychological health.
Speaker:It can impair emotional comprehension, you know, make it harder to
Speaker:interpret emotions. All of these negative effects
Speaker:when your kids have too much screen time
Speaker:more than what is recommended. So if you have
Speaker:a 7 year old and they're using more than 1 hour a
Speaker:day total, including television, iPad,
Speaker:your phone, computer games, any of that, then
Speaker:they are not developing in the
Speaker:most optimum sense. Now here's
Speaker:why. There is an opportunity cost
Speaker:every time your child uses their device. They
Speaker:are not using that time and that brain
Speaker:and that body to do something else. So the more time
Speaker:that's taken up by devices, the less opportunity there
Speaker:is for other parts of their body, emotional and
Speaker:mental development. So one of the things that happens is
Speaker:that you don't move your body a lot of times when you're using screens.
Speaker:So that's a missed opportunity. You don't have free play. You
Speaker:don't spend time outside. You may not be sleeping. You're
Speaker:probably not reading or drawing. You're not
Speaker:interacting with other people face to face because you have your head, your
Speaker:face in an iPad. If you have multiple kids and they all have
Speaker:iPads and they all get individual time, well, that's a missed opportunity
Speaker:of sitting together and doing something together with their sibling
Speaker:or with you. Actually, as an opportunity calm just for
Speaker:pure play with their sibling when they spend most of their free time
Speaker:on their devices. They don't learn to wait. They don't learn to entertain
Speaker:themselves. Their impulse control is affected
Speaker:and their ability to sustain attention is affected.
Speaker:You think about, like, what it what it takes to follow a
Speaker:bumblebee in real life outside, you know, can kinda take a while to,
Speaker:like, it and then it goes away and you find it again. Oh, there it
Speaker:is. There it is. And just like paying attention to that a your whole body
Speaker:is engaged versus watching a little bumblebee on a video.
Speaker:There's just such a different experience. So what we
Speaker:wanna be doing is we wanna be creating downtime.
Speaker:We wanna create screen free time. We wanna have
Speaker:that be a priority that our mindset is that most of my
Speaker:child's life is screen free. That you have a little
Speaker:kid, they have 24 hours in a day, and they're
Speaker:going to spend less than an hour of that
Speaker:on their device. That's a. If you really commit
Speaker:to most of our life is screen free. Why we do that
Speaker:is because kids they're wired to create and explore and
Speaker:be bored. And the more we entertain our kids, the more we
Speaker:pacify them, then they don't know what to
Speaker:do when they are in that boredom gap like I
Speaker:talked about last week. They don't get to discover and be in
Speaker:that discovery mode that I talked about. So we
Speaker:don't want to have our this entire generation of children
Speaker:not being able to, deepen their
Speaker:own internal worlds and their own
Speaker:internal guide about playing and what interests them and
Speaker:following their own curiosity and creativity.
Speaker:So I hope I've convinced you that a screen free mindset is valuable and
Speaker:it's really, really important that it is a benefit to your
Speaker:kids That when you have them using more
Speaker:screen than is recommended in a day or in
Speaker:a week, that your kids are negatively impacted.
Speaker:Now I don't want you to feel like, oh my god. I've ruined my children.
Speaker:I let them watch 2 hours a day, and they're only 5 years old or
Speaker:whatever. Don't do that. There is no reason to
Speaker:look back and be like, I messed them up. For 1, your kid's brain
Speaker:is neuroplastic. They're still developing. You're a great parent.
Speaker:You have lots of time. It's not a big deal. So
Speaker:don't do any of that guilt a, like, that looking
Speaker:back and beating yourself up because it's really not useful. That's not a
Speaker:great mindset. It's not helpful. What we wanna do is have a
Speaker:positive mindset of, oh, look, I have this new information. I'm gonna
Speaker:adopt a screen free mindset for my family, and we're gonna move forward.
Speaker:And I'm gonna help my kids learn how to be bored, learn how
Speaker:to find their own interests, learn how to overcome discomfort without
Speaker:having technology as their go to. What is your role
Speaker:as a parent? What is it? Right? So you have a
Speaker:couple of different roles. A
Speaker:is setting the boundary. And so I'm gonna walk you
Speaker:through a step by step guideline of how to do that. The others
Speaker:are using those parental controls on
Speaker:your devices, on your phones. One thing that's handy to
Speaker:have is just a small personal safe in
Speaker:your family that you use to put lock up
Speaker:stuff that you don't want your kids to have access to. Instead of trying
Speaker:to teach your kids to be responsible and not sneak
Speaker:the iPad and not sneak the iPhone and not sneak the remote
Speaker:control and all of that. That's a really hard thing for them to
Speaker:resist. And so we wanna just have it out of sight out of mind.
Speaker:So if you wanna have some of these guidelines and put these stuff, these boundaries
Speaker:in place, also put some physical boundaries in place as well. I
Speaker:don't know how much our little safe cost a it's not that wasn't that expensive.
Speaker:Like, I don't remember, to be honest. And we just have it in a cupboard
Speaker:and it has a code and we just have put computer
Speaker:cables, remote controls, phones,
Speaker:iPads, A, all of that stuff just kind of locked away. And then
Speaker:it comes out at times when I say it's okay, and I hand it to
Speaker:them. To be honest, we also use the safe because we have a
Speaker:liquor cabinet that is, locked with a magnet key. And so we
Speaker:keep the magnet key in there. We just keep everything kind of that we
Speaker:don't want our kids to be tempted by in that space.
Speaker:Obviously, they're getting older now, so it's less of an issue, but it's been very
Speaker:handy. Okay. Understanding the parental
Speaker:limits on the phone, on the iPad, on the computer,
Speaker:putting up those blocks that block certain websites, that
Speaker:block pornography, that block certain searches, all of those dismantling
Speaker:A a Instagram and Snapchat and things like
Speaker:that. If you're not if your kid's not really ready for any of
Speaker:those those social media apps as well as
Speaker:YouTube, most likely your child under 10 does not
Speaker:need to ever have access to YouTube. It's not necessary. That's
Speaker:enough programming and activities that are outside of
Speaker:YouTube that your kids can have access to. YouTube can be such
Speaker:a rabbit hole. And the way the algorithm is, it really can hurt your
Speaker:Childress know, the explore page and what comes up on the side
Speaker:is so tempting to little kids. So I know it's handy
Speaker:because you don't have to be logged into, like, certain streaming services or whatever.
Speaker:But in general, I would say just to block block YouTube as well.
Speaker:So as a parent, you want to set the boundaries and you wanna use those
Speaker:behavioral controls. Another strategy is to just
Speaker:never allow screens in the bedroom until their, you know,
Speaker:kids are 14 or whatever. Depends on your
Speaker:computer, the computer they use for school and where they do their studying.
Speaker:But for the most part, kids don't really need to have devices in their bedroom.
Speaker:And if they do, you can also have those be turned
Speaker:in at the end of the night so that you know that they're getting their
Speaker:sleep. And then, of course, I want you to be thinking about your own screen
Speaker:time knowing how when your face is on your
Speaker:phone, you you might be doing something important, like looking up
Speaker:a recipe for dinner. But to your child, they don't
Speaker:know what you're doing on your device. So the more
Speaker:analog you can bring things in and the, you know, list
Speaker:making and, you know, using a laptop instead of your
Speaker:phone or something like that. So your child can look over your shoulder and see
Speaker:what you're doing so it doesn't look like you're completely distant.
Speaker:I would encourage you to set screen limits for yourself around scrolling
Speaker:on Instagram or Twitter or
Speaker:TikTok or whatever it is that you are interested in. For
Speaker:me, personally, over the last few months, I've just taken all that stuff off
Speaker:my phone because I don't want to be mindlessly looking at it
Speaker:anymore Become I want to be able to be present in my life
Speaker:and also be able to pay attention to my kids when they're around.
Speaker:Let's get into some of this actual, like, nuts and bolts of how to
Speaker:do this. So we wanna just remember that the value is
Speaker:a screen free life as much as possible
Speaker:with the screen being like dessert. So you think
Speaker:about your child's diet, how you don't
Speaker:base your life around the dessert. Right?
Speaker:You don't look at their eating habits and you're like, okay, where am I gonna
Speaker:put in dessert here? Or like, let's structure our whole eating around
Speaker:dessert. You don't do that. You go where are the basic meals?
Speaker:What's the rhythm of our day? What do I want them to be eating? And
Speaker:then dessert is just like a bonus. So in a screen free mindset,
Speaker:screen is a bonus. Screen is dessert. Screen is
Speaker:not essential. It's not an absolute nutritional
Speaker:need, which it is not. Kids don't need
Speaker:devices. Okay? They don't that's, like, not developmentally necessary. Alright.
Speaker:So I'm gonna go through the numbers again and then talk about how
Speaker:to do your own tech plan. So the,
Speaker:again, under under 30, no use. They never need it. Don't hand
Speaker:them your phone at a restaurant. Don't you know, it's not an I mean, okay.
Speaker:I'm saying don't, but, like, of course, you can. I'm just saying when you
Speaker:do that, it's an opportunity cost. Little kids, we really don't want
Speaker:them to get accustomed to having a
Speaker:tech pacifier. So 3 to 7, half an
Speaker:hour to 1 hour a day is the recommendation
Speaker:from pediatrics magazine and the CDC.
Speaker:7 to 12, which is pretty much all of elementary school
Speaker:and up to the beginning of middle school is 1 hour a
Speaker:day. And then throughout middle school, it would be a and a half
Speaker:hours. And then after 16, about 2
Speaker:hours. So I know it's harder after
Speaker:16, and I'll talk about that in a couple of episodes from now how to
Speaker:teach your teenagers how to handle their own tech. But for now,
Speaker:just kind of keeping these guidelines in place. Now I'm gonna be really
Speaker:honest that I had much stricter
Speaker:rules for my kids during the time of
Speaker:their development. So when they were
Speaker:0 to 5, we did 1 hour a week,
Speaker:not an hour a day. So the kids were really only allowed
Speaker:to watch 1 or 2 shows a day a week.
Speaker:And so it was kinda like a 20 minute show here, a 20 minute show
Speaker:there, or maybe 2:20 minute shows, you know, on a on a
Speaker:Saturday morning. I really kept it super limited.
Speaker:Those that was on purpose. And then from 5 to 10,
Speaker:they also still did not use devices Monday through
Speaker:Thursday. So we just had a screen free life A through Thursday.
Speaker:There was nothing ever before school has never happened before
Speaker:school a then nothing really after school all
Speaker:through elementary school and beginning of middle school. We just had it
Speaker:on the weekend and you could do, like, a to 2 hours on the weekend.
Speaker:So it's, like, a hour on a Saturday and, you know, 2 hours on
Speaker:a Sunday. I wasn't that strict about it. It just was, like, 1 to 2
Speaker:hours on the weekend. I did not let my kids play video
Speaker:games until Sawyer was 10, and neither of them got a
Speaker:device until Sawyer was 12. That's my younger one. So
Speaker:because they're so close in age and only one grade apart, we just kinda
Speaker:did things as if they were twins in some ways. When Sawyer turned 10, they
Speaker:could play video games on the weekend for 1 hour.
Speaker:They didn't get phones until Soraya was 12, so Lincoln would be 14.
Speaker:And there was a lot of screen time limits
Speaker:on their device. So they have very, very limited amount of time.
Speaker:Now they could play video games in middle school,
Speaker:like, the late middle school and high school. You could play them on the weekdays
Speaker:as long as their grades were 3 point o. If they drop below, they can
Speaker:only do it on the weekends. If they drop below a 1 point o, then
Speaker:they couldn't have them at all. That worked really well, I gotta say,
Speaker:until the pandemic a then whatever. All the rules were broken in our
Speaker:family after the pandemic. But by that time, my kids
Speaker:were 14 16, So it's a little bit different for us.
Speaker:We didn't have iPads back then, but the kids did have A,
Speaker:and they could use them on car drives over an hour and on
Speaker:airplanes. That was it. They never really got to use those
Speaker:devices at all. It was just not part of their life. So
Speaker:anytime they were using any sort of device, it was a television in
Speaker:the family room, and they had to share what they were looking
Speaker:at. Sometimes they could use my phone for a little bit. Like, they
Speaker:could take turns. They can play subway surfer or something like that. I don't remember
Speaker:all the a, but then they'd have to take turns a it would be on
Speaker:the weekends still. We did family movies on Fridays, so that was
Speaker:always kind of fun. We would often have friends over on Fridays, so that
Speaker:wouldn't end up happening. But if there was nothing going on, we would have family
Speaker:movies on Fridays. And family time, you know, doing
Speaker:digital entertainment as a group is very different than
Speaker:individual screens. So you can decide how you
Speaker:wanna handle your a hour. Is that as a group
Speaker:with your kids, your 7 to 12 year olds in the evening, they you guys
Speaker:all watch a show together. That's so much more valuable than each kid
Speaker:on an iPad separate from each other in their own immersed world.
Speaker:And then the way I handled the summer was basically, like, whatever I was doing
Speaker:on the weekends was what I did in the summer. So I kind of acted
Speaker:as if the summer was, weekends. Okay. I
Speaker:hope that is helpful. If you're doing something different, that's fine. Just follow the
Speaker:CDC's guidelines. But if you kinda want to be a little bit more
Speaker:observant, you can listen back to the way I did it or you can email
Speaker:me, and I'll, like, tell you exactly how I handled it. Okay.
Speaker:So now here's the strategies. I know we're going a little bit long, but I
Speaker:think this is a episode. Okay. So here are the strategies.
Speaker:1, the first thing you always have to do when you set up a rule
Speaker:or a limit or a new rhythm or a new routine is you
Speaker:have to make some decisions. So you want to
Speaker:figure out your screen time a. Really think
Speaker:about what is dessert. When do you serve
Speaker:dessert? When do you serve screens? Do you do it
Speaker:every day? Do you do it once a week? When you
Speaker:do do it, is it for an hour? Is it for less than an
Speaker:hour? How does it work in your family?
Speaker:When these are the questions you have to ask yourself. When do you want
Speaker:your kids to use tech? That means any device at all.
Speaker:When they use tech, how much time can they use it for?
Speaker:So when, what day of the week, how much
Speaker:time, which devices are allowed?
Speaker:Is it only the main TV? Is it
Speaker:computers? Is it an iPad? Is it your phone? Is
Speaker:it their phone? Really think about what is allowed,
Speaker:which device, which games or apps
Speaker:or access do they have? If they're playing
Speaker:video games, are you a family that allows mature games or are you
Speaker:not? We were very strict about that. We did not allow that. What do they
Speaker:have access to? Do they have access to shows that are beyond their
Speaker:emotional or mental maturity? You have to think
Speaker:about these decisions and pre decide. That's really
Speaker:the most important part is just having a plan, just figuring
Speaker:it out. So that way you're not every day going, oh, I don't know. Should
Speaker:I let them use an iPad? I don't know. Just like
Speaker:a decide and then you communicate it to them. So you get to
Speaker:say your limit of when they can use
Speaker:device, where they can use device, and for how long. So
Speaker:you say you can say you are welcome to use the
Speaker:computer for 30 minutes as
Speaker:long as the conditions that you set. So conditions could
Speaker:be that chores are a. They've been outside. They've moved their
Speaker:body. They've done non screen entertainment, or that there
Speaker:were no problems getting off the devices the day prior, or you can
Speaker:use a combination. So let me give you some examples of
Speaker:limits. You are welcome to use your device as long as there are no
Speaker:problems getting off. So you give them the
Speaker:video game a, the iPad, or something like that, and then
Speaker:you say, you know, here you go. You have 30 minutes. And then 30 minutes
Speaker:later, you're like, hey. Time's up. You know, it's time to turn off your device,
Speaker:and they start fighting and begging and kicking you and
Speaker:throwing things at you. And you just say, oh, looks like there's some
Speaker:problems getting off. I'll wait. You wait a few minutes. You let
Speaker:them settle down. Don't try to get in a tug of war or anything like
Speaker:that. Just kinda wait. And then the next time they have option
Speaker:to use it, you say, oh, nope. I'm not gonna let
Speaker:you use your screen today because I don't wanna have to worry about you
Speaker:having trouble getting off of it like last time, And
Speaker:that's it. Here's some more. You can play mature
Speaker:video games once you are blank age. You can just make it a rule. You
Speaker:can play video play mature video games once you are 14.
Speaker:If they're 9, they wanna play a game, you say no. Just say no.
Speaker:You are welcome to have a social media account once you are blank age. I
Speaker:would suggest 14. There is some guidelines that is saying
Speaker:16, but I say 14 is probably the
Speaker:earliest that they should have any sort of social media account. I will be happy
Speaker:to pay for your cell data plan as long as you keep location tracking
Speaker:on. You can use the tablet as long as you rest in your room for
Speaker:30 a, or you can just say screen time
Speaker:is in this house. It's from 4 to 5 as long as your homework is
Speaker:done. You can also say we don't do any
Speaker:screens until after dinner. That's just how it is in this family.
Speaker:You get to make the rules in your a, and you
Speaker:just be confident in your reasons. Don't feel the need to explain
Speaker:all your reasons to your kids and don't argue or justify or
Speaker:lecture or try to convince them and tell them how the screens will rot their
Speaker:brains and all that stuff. That doesn't really help. All that
Speaker:helps is that you have a rule. Your children
Speaker:don't really understand how sugar affects their bodies long term
Speaker:or how the lack of fiber will hurt their tummy. They don't
Speaker:need to know all that. You know that, and you just tell them the
Speaker:rules. No matter what your screen time limits
Speaker:are, the most important predictors of success are commitment and
Speaker:confidence. Stay committed to it. So
Speaker:now limits, they're kind of the easy part, like setting up the rules and then
Speaker:but the it's the resistance to the limits that are is hard.
Speaker:Right? It's that boredom gap, that dysregulation, that frustration,
Speaker:that jealousy. I've shared this before that Lincoln wanted to start playing
Speaker:Minecraft when he was in 3rd grade, which was 8 years old. And we said
Speaker:he couldn't play video games till he was 12. So he waited
Speaker:4 full years while his peers were doing video games. And that
Speaker:was really hard for him, and he complained a lot about
Speaker:it. The third part about having screen time limits is
Speaker:showing compassion, allowing your children to express
Speaker:their feelings, to be compassionate about it. You're
Speaker:going to want to punish them even further sometimes
Speaker:if they complain or argue, and it's like, if you don't stop complaining, you're
Speaker:never getting your iPad again or whatever it is. Try
Speaker:not to connect that boredom gap with
Speaker:the use of the screen. So just kind of
Speaker:allowing for those big feelings a then maybe if they create problems during that big
Speaker:feeling cycle to do a consequence that's different, like doing a couple
Speaker:extra chores or play with you or help you with the kitchen or something like
Speaker:that Become it you don't wanna make the screen
Speaker:time limits unclear. Right? We wanna just know
Speaker:this is what we allow in our family, and you get to use the
Speaker:devices on these days at this time, as long as there are
Speaker:no problems getting off them. So, of course,
Speaker:as somebody kind of goes step by step, they're like, figure out a
Speaker:plan, communicate your limit, hold your boundary, have compassion
Speaker:that you're like, yeah. Right. Easier said than done.
Speaker:So I wanna acknowledge that creating these kinds
Speaker:of boundaries and limits can be really challenging, especially
Speaker:if you are resetting some overuse.
Speaker:If your kids have become reliant on devices,
Speaker:they're going to resist these new rules, and it's gonna be difficult.
Speaker:But I want you to know that that difficulty is temporary, that
Speaker:actually your children crave real
Speaker:life interaction. They crave using their body. They
Speaker:crave being outside. We need to trust
Speaker:that their natural species based biology
Speaker:is going to be dominant and
Speaker:they will be able to overcome that quick
Speaker:need for satisfaction by just trusting and
Speaker:letting them work through it and get to the other
Speaker:side. I have watched my kids detox
Speaker:from dig digital screens and give I've we've done screen free
Speaker:days. We've done screen free weeks. We've done, you know, digital detoxes.
Speaker:And whenever we get out of balance, I've done those things.
Speaker:And I've always seen that my kids are better behaved,
Speaker:happier, more likely to be creative, more likely to
Speaker:entertain themselves when they don't have devices at the
Speaker:ready. So trust on the other side is
Speaker:peace and ease even when it's difficult in the middle.
Speaker:Trust that your values of creating an emotionally
Speaker:healthy kid are the most important. It can be
Speaker:hard, but it's worth it. And that's what I wanna leave you with
Speaker:that a screen free mindset might be hard, but
Speaker:it's worth it. Alright. I hope this episode has been helpful. I
Speaker:really do. I hope you don't go beat yourself up about anything because that's not
Speaker:necessary. We're all doing our best. We're all trying to figure out what to
Speaker:do, and I'm here for you. And so
Speaker:if you wanna figure out a screen plan for your family and you wanna
Speaker:book a complimentary consultation with me to talk about this, I'd be happy to talk
Speaker:about it with you. If you wanna join the Calm Mama Club and just work
Speaker:through this with us, we'd be happy to have you there. That's a
Speaker:membership program. It's $30 a a. And I just
Speaker:yeah. I'm here for you. So you reach out if you need anything. Let me
Speaker:know how it's going. I'm just also really curious about how this is
Speaker:landing for you and whether you feel pressure or you feel relief or
Speaker:hope or something. Alright. I hope you are having a great week,
Speaker:and I will talk to you next time.