Eps 514: A messy conversation about screens, limits and life skill development

Joyful Courage means having hard, messy conversations, being willing to be vulnerable and taking accountability for your own actions and modeling.

Other episodes about screens:

Eps 504: Teaching teens self-regulation with screens with Devorah Heitner

Eps 468: Teens, tweens and screens

Eps 477: Tackling screen challenges intentionally with Emily Cherkin

Eps 314: Becoming Tech Intentional with Emily Cherkin

Eps 288: Understanding Screens and Setting Limits with Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov

Eps 356: Navigating phones and apps for teens with Titania Jordan

Episode 303: Solo Show- Minimizing Phone Drama

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 00:04
Music, hello, welcome back. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place for inspiration and transformation as we work to keep it together while parenting our tweens and teens, this is real work, people and when we can focus on our own growth and nurturing the connection with our kids, we can move through the turbulence in a way that allows for relationships to remain intact. My name is Casey or Rorty. I am your fearless host. I'm a positive discipline trainer, space holder, coach and the adolescent lead at sproutable. Also mama to a 20 year old daughter and a 17 year old son. I am walking right beside you on the path of raising our kids with positive discipline and conscious parenting. This show is meant to be a resource to you, and I work really hard to keep it really, real, transparent and authentic, so that you feel seen and supported. Today is a solo show, and I'm confident that what I share will be useful to you. Please don't forget, sharing truly is caring if you love today's show, please, please pass the link around, snap a screenshot, post it on your socials, or text it to your friends. Together, we can make an even bigger impact on families around the globe. If you're feeling extra special, you can rate and review us over in Apple podcasts. I'm so glad that you're here. Welcome, welcome, welcome, enjoy the show.

Casey O'Roarty 01:33
Hey, Hi, Hi, friends. How's it going? We're back. I'm back back for another podcast, another solo show. I

Casey O'Roarty 01:43
will tell you right now, though, next week is going to be a rerun again, so I know you had a summer of reruns, but the good news is I have a healthy well of amazing solo shows, so I'm gonna pull one from the archives to post next week and publish next week for you to revisit. I just have a bunch of traveling coming up, so I'm gonna need to repost. It'll be great, but I'm glad to be here with you today. I hope that you had a chance to listen to my conversation with Dr Finkelstein about sexism earlier this week, it was so powerful. One of my biggest takeaways from that conversation is how sexism is in the air that we breathe. Does that make sense? It's in the air that we breathe, especially those of us I think, Well, for me, I think as a Gen X woman, it's really in the air that I breathe, and I don't realize it until I'm having a conversation with Rowan, who's a Gen zer. For whatever reason, Gen Z seems to get the big picture and kind of see through the murkiness of the water and are pushing a lot of them are pushing up against some of these norms that have just kind of been accepted by our generation. Rowan will call me out on it, and helps me to see that I am blind to a lot of the things that have been normalized over the course of my lifetime. And you know, what else is becoming? The air that we breathe, freaking screens, you guys, screens, the smartphone, the social media, the video gaming. I'm going to talk about screens today, and it's going to be a little bit of event. I know that you feel me. I know that you're navigating things with your kids. I mean, it's rare that you meet someone who doesn't talk about how challenging the whole screen thing is between them and their kids. And in my joyful courage for parents of teens Facebook group every month, I say, Hey, how's it going with the big kids? How's it going with the younger adolescents? And screens comes up every single time. It's so much, it's too much, and it feels in a lot of ways, so out of control. And I think there was like, I don't know if we've gotten to a peak or a critical mass. I know John heights book, the anxious generation, came out last spring, and there was a lot of conversation around screens and screens in schools. And I follow my friend Emily shirken, who's the screen time consultant. She's got a great newsletter. You should check it out. She's really pushing schools to become screen free zones and just kind of like the tech takeover in schools, and taking a look at if that is actually what is the best thing for our kids. And yeah, it's so it's on my mind. Plus, you know, I, just as you know, sent my youngest off to college, and I'm curious, and I actually want to send him a message, like, how's your screen time? Because that's something we talk about a lot here in our home, and you've heard me talk about this, like, let's compare what is everybody's screen time. I've really tried to normalize that. We're going to talk about that today. We're going to talk about screen time today. Basically, that's what I'm introducing here. I was. Prepping for an interview that it's gonna come out next Monday with Julieta Skoog. Before I was writing this one, we're gonna talk about middle school. And middle school already feeling like hard, you know, it's kind of like a show, and now there's the added pressure of so many kids, the majority of kids, showing up to middle school with smartphones and how it's, you know, just kind of heightening what's hard. It's heightening what's hard. And so, yeah, let's talk about it. What's the deal I mentioned? Jonathan height, I might be mispronouncing his name, H, A, I, D, T, he says that we're parents today are too restrictive with our kids out in the real world and too permissive with them in the online world. And what is that about? Why do we do that? Why is that true? And you know, for me, when I think about our journey of technology and our family, I remember, I think Ian was God, I didn't even have a cell phone. I think Rome was two when I got my first like cell phone, and then Ian was maybe four, when somebody finally convinced me to get on this thing called Facebook. And I immediately was sucked in. Like, Facebook was made for me. I'm, like, the prime target, or I definitely was, you know, 15 years ago, prime target. I got to see all my high school friends and do a little stalking and show up and look at me, I loved it, and it definitely took away from the time that I was spending with my kiddos. And it was during that period of time Ian was in preschool, the days were really long. I remember that the days feeling long, and it gave it was like this little exciting little hit. Fast forward a few years, and the kids got iPads from a family member. And, you know, that was exciting, not planned for we quickly had realized, like, we need to have rules. I remember Rowan played some game and realized, like, oh, I can buy jewels for my game. So she started doing that until I had a bill for like, 200 bucks that she had spent on this video game. And so that was a lesson that she got to learn, in retrospect, a lesson for me as well, around etiquette, how to use it, how to navigate that experience of wanting something but not going after it, just because you can right, because it's not the right thing to do. And then she she actually recently reminded me, I'm just gonna pull this up because I'd asked her. I said, What did I do? I can't remember. And she said that before sixth grade. So fifth grade, she had a iPod, which might as well have been a phone, but she could only use it when she had Wi Fi, and that's what she used. She did some group texting. She did musically. Does anybody remember musically? It was like pre tick tock, where they do these music videos, I guess, sing alongs with moves. It's kind of weird and uncomfortable, and I wasn't really aware of what it was, and didn't keep good track of it, and that kind of spiraled a little bit. Was annoying. She reminded me, social media wasn't allowed until seventh grade, Instagram when she turned 13, so that was seventh grade for her Snapchat, not until eighth grade. And, you know, we just kind of rolled it out. I didn't have great reasons for why, other than I knew that I needed to slow it down. I wanted to slow it down. They seemed like so fiendy. And then when I saw kids who did have phones, I remember she played volleyball in sixth grade, and the kids like fifth and sixth grade, yeah, fifth and sixth grade, maybe, maybe just sixth grade, sixth and seventh, but the kids with phones, like, the minute they got off the court, they would pick up their phones and they wouldn't interact with each other. They were just checking whatever on their phone. And I remember having conversations with Rowan in the car, like, God, you notice that? What do you think about that? One thing she said is, because I asked her if she wished I would have done anything differently. And she's like, I don't really remember that she said, but what I do remember is the intense feeling of not wanting to be left out and wanting to be a part of things. So even when the volleyball girls all had these group chats and social media chats, she felt that, and it was really hard, right? And I worked for a long time to keep those phones out of their rooms and phone bedtimes. I remember one year, I remember in ninth grade with Rowan, you know, whenever I would go because it's like, okay, the phones aren't in the room. The phone's gonna be plugged in in the hallway. It's time to plug in your phone. And every night it was which I know I'm speaking to the choir. You're like, Yeah, me too. Every night going in there being like, handed over, it's time to put it away. Five more minutes, five more minutes, five more minutes. And then finally plugging it in. And I would plug it in the spot where I could see it from my bedroom. I remember, I remember one night and Rowan, and I still laugh about this, because she literally crawling. I could see her. Crawling in the dark, reaching out to grab the phone and take it into her room. And I remember being like, I see you, and both of us busting out laughing. But a lot of times we weren't laughing. A lot of times it was really intense. I mean, she had an iron grip on that thing, you know, and then covid, and then, you know, her story, and the family story. And, you know, we've never been a huge video game family, but the phone thing and the social media thing has definitely had a grip on us. And, you know, it just started to feel like it was all slipping through my fingers. And there's this underlying, mild panic. Do you feel that? I'm sure that you do this, like underlying, mild panic around, you know, this isn't okay. I think they have a problem. This is a problem, but, oh my God, I don't know how to navigate this. I don't know what to do. I can't fight this fight again today. And it feels so hard. But is it hard? Is it hard? I mean, is it really what's hard about it? Why is it so hard, right? And I think one of the reasons that it's so hard is our kids become obsessed with these screens, right? And it makes sense, because our kids, right? Our kids, they've grown up watching everyone staring at a phone. They go to a restaurant, they go to a doctor's office, they drive around in cars and look into other cars, and let's keep it real. Everywhere we go, kids are seeing adults and older, you know, and teenagers on their phones. And that's not their fault. It's not. We need to put our damn phones down and model what it looks like to live a life that is full and healthy and interact with the world around us instead of diving into these portals of our smartphones, right? And maybe you don't have an issue with it, I do. I definitely do. You know, it's an active practice for me to keep my screen time down right, and even then, I'm pretty disturbed by the amount of time I spend looking at my phone. And I do some work on my phone, like I can give you excuses, but ultimately, I'm on my phone too much, and I'm 50, and it's hard for me to navigate that. And we're handing these things over to kids as young as, I mean, I don't even know, seven, 810, 12, it's dumb. Stop doing it, right? We got to be more thoughtful and intentional. Sorry, sorry, sorry, that was really judgmental. Not stop doing it. But let's start being more thoughtful and intentional, right? It makes sense that as soon as possible, kids want to get their hands on these things, that everyone around them is basically ignoring them to use. So it must be pretty cool, right? Like, I want to end on that says the young kid,

Casey O'Roarty 12:53
and they start asking, like, when do I get a phone? When do I get a phone? Maybe they start seeing peers with shiny phones, right? And maybe for a while we're good at saying nope, nope, not yet, not yet, not yet. And then the conversation becomes like Rowan mentioned, I feel left out. The other kids have them. There's group chats that I'm not a part of. Planning is happening. I'm not a part of it. And you know what that discomfort of seeing our kids having a hard time are kids not being included? It's too much for us to hold. Is this ruining their life? They're feeling left out. They won't have any friends. We can't let that happen, right? We can't let that happen. So what do we do? Maybe we wait for the next birthday or the next school year, but sooner rather than later, the phone is bought and given, and then where are we at? We realize, oh, shit, what have I done right now? We're in the Wild West, and we have no rules. We have no guard rails. I've given them the thing, but we haven't built the runway to manage the thing. And just so you know, on Monday, Julietta and I are gonna go deeper into this. And you know she, I think, is somebody who we can all learn from as far as how their family has prepped their kids for phones and technology. So you'll hear that on Monday, but for today, man, yeah, like me, I was like, oh, god, wait, this is a thing. Oh, we have to do this thing. We need rules, what? And it seems like this is a place that is so hard to lean into firmness, so many parents seem to have given up, right? And it's tragic. It's tragic. I remember back in the 80s. How was it at your house? In my house? So I was 87 is when high school started for me. I graduated in 1991 and the rule at our house, at my dad's house, was that the TV was off by nine and the phone, the house phone, shouldn't ring after 9pm I remember that being a rule like it is not my fault if my friends call after nine, right? And my stepmom just being like, Well, you're the one that's gonna you know. Take the get the wrath, so tell your friends. And by the way, after nine is too late to be calling people. It's etiquette. So tell your friends. And so I had to make it known, don't call me after nine. My parents will freak out. And it was so annoying to me. I did not love this. I pushed back against it, and my parents were like, Yeah, too bad. Deal with it. That's the rule. They were not swayed by my grumbling about it, and I moved on pretty quickly as well. Like, I don't remember feeling like, Oh, I'm missing out on things right and now we've moved into this time of 24/7 access and availability. And it doesn't have to be like that if you're listening to this podcast right now and your kids, your young teens, have their phones in their rooms, and they have Wi Fi cellular access all night long. You need to do something about that. That is not okay, that is not healthy, and it's not their fault that they're on their phones all night. You have to figure out your internet system, right? Like, call the company, call the phone carrier, because there are ways of shutting things down. What did somebody tell me about family paws? Check out family paws. One of my clients told me about that, and that's a way to turn off all the phones so that everybody can go to bed and relax and leave the drama right, at least for a period of time, because this whole 24/7 availability, it's not healthy for any of us. And I mean, this is a place where I'm even working on this too. I mean, we get a text. I get a text from a client, and it's a Saturday. I got a text from a client this weekend. I was camping, and I really she's like, Do you have any time, you know, this weekend where I'm really struggling, and here's what's going on, and I had to say, I'm camping, and I trust you, and you have skills, and it's the weekend, right? So I want to be available 24/7 again, 50 our 12 year olds, our 10 year olds, our 15 year olds. Also have that desire. Can get wrapped up in the 24/7 access cycle, and it feels like they have to be available, right again. It's not a character flaw, it's the water we're swimming in. But firmness matters with screens, big time. Firmness matters. You have got to create some limits. You have got to create some limits, and you get to have non negotiables, right? I think a lot of times, and we've talked about that here on the pod before, with positive discipline where, yeah, it's tricky, right? And we feel like everything's in negotiation. So you know, if you're not okay with first person shooter games, video games. Or if you're not okay with social media, you get to have a hard line. You get to say, you know, this bumps up against our values. We're not going to do active shooter, first person shooter games. Or we're going to wait till High School for Social Media. It's okay for you to be disappointed, or you can't have your screen in your room overnight. This is a hard line. This is something we're going to be, you know, we're this is our family. We value sleep and mental health. You get to have non negotiables, right? You get to have non negotiables. You also get to say and invite in problem solving around the limit and collaborate, right? You get to absolutely listen to your kiddos, make sure they have a voice, right, hear them out. Be flexible. Tweak when it makes sense to tweak, right? You get to do those things both and firmness matters, because sometimes we're fixated on the wrong problem, right? Is it? You know, some of our kids that you know, if it's like a video game thing, and we've decided, we've come up with, there's a specific window of time that you can be on video games every day or every week, right? If you're not a video game family during the week and you're only a video game family on the weekends. What does that look like? What does the window look like? And then they freak out that they don't have more time. Is the problem that they don't have more time on video games? Or is the problem that they are lacking in the self regulation that they need to navigate the disappointment when it's time to put the video game down and away? Right? So what is the actual problem? What is the actual problem? So we get to go under the surface and figure that out and be curious, right? Like, and notice it's really tough for you. We created these limits, and it's really hard for you. I could have done this with Rowan, right? Like, I'm noticing it's really hard at bedtime, when it's time to put your phone away, you get really pissed and mad and angry at me. Can we talk about that, you know, and what's going to help you? How can we make this work better for you? What helps you feel better when it's time for you to put your phone away, right? So understanding being firm and then solving what the problems are that actually come up because privilege, which these phones are privilege comes with. With responsibility and without responsibility, privilege becomes entitlement, right? And we don't want to raise entitled kids. The world does not need entitled kids. Privilege also shouldn't be used as leverage. We aren't going to weaponize these things. You better do this thing or you don't get to do that thing. I'm going to take your phone away from you. No, no, it's a privilege, and when they can be responsible, they get to have that privilege, and responsibility is also and again, maybe you've heard me talk about this before, but when we talk about responsibility in the context of screens, part of that is we get to have conversations about screens. We get to create agreements about screens. We get to talk about overuse, misuse, right? We get to check in with each other without it becoming this ugly, nasty, criticizing, judgy thing, which that's for me and for them, right? So privilege comes with responsibility, because, yes, the phones, the screens, the video games, those are a privilege. They're not something that our kids need, right? Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs doesn't include screens, although screens absolutely can get in the way of some of those needs. So let's take a look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs the very first one, right? The basic psychological needs include food, water, shelter, clothing, sleep. Hello. Do you know that some of the symptoms of sleep deprivation can look like anxiety and depression and some kids who are having mental health issues and challenges when they start getting enough sleep, those things, those mental health issues, go away. Yeah, sleep deprivation is killing this generation, not literally killing them, but like it's making a huge impact on this generation, right? And their mental health. So, yeah, we've got to give the phones a curfew. We got to shut them down at night. The next level of Maslow's hierarchy is safety and security, right? Feeling safe and secure, right? And then you think about what they're doing on their screens. They're checking for likes. Who liked my post? Do I look perfect? Got to keep up my streaks. I got to respond to all these people, right? It's anxiety producing. So are we feeling safe and secure and anxious at the same time? No, it does not feel good, right? It does not feel good, and it feeds into this underlying discomfort for them and for us. I'm talking to myself as I say this as well. The next level of hierarchy is a feeling of love and belonging, right? A feeling of love and belonging. And I will say, you know, with the work that I do online, with my classes and the membership and the Facebook community, there is definitely connections being made online, and it is pretty intense, like I am amazed by some of the relationships that I have with people that I've never met in person. So yeah, it is true that we can create a sense of connection online virtually, but teenagers need to be together. They also need to be together. They need to mingle. They need to learn how to navigate nuance and facial expressions, and they need to be able to see body language. They need to be bored together. They need to find their people. They need to be able to mirror each other, right? All of that is lost. If they're only connecting with their people via video games and social media, they need to be together physically, right? Love and belonging is a need and self esteem that's the next level Maslow's hierarchy, confidence, achievement, respect from others, stepping into their uniqueness. Yes, yes, adolescence is a really powerful time to dip their toes in here. And yeah, there is again, opportunity for creative exploration and expression on screens. Yes, and there are roadblocks. Right? Body Dysmorphia and dissatisfaction has gone up for all of us who use social media. I mean, I did not know that I had a menopause belly until Instagram told me that and started pointing it out, right? There's the marketing that are that's happening social media companies. We are the consumers. Like the whole point is to make money off of us, right? They are using us. We are not using social media, they are using us, and even us midlifers and older, we get used, right? We absolutely get used. Why do we expect that a 12 year old or a 13 year old or a 15 year old really gets that right? They don't. And these messaging, the messages around how they should look and how they should respond and who they should be, are coming at them, just bam, bam, bam, all the time, right, and wrecking their self esteem. Yeah, it's real. It's real. You.

Casey O'Roarty 25:00
And then finally, at the top of the pyramid, thank you. Maslow, is that self actualization place? Right? That's the goal. How are our kids able to find their path to who they are when they spend so much time watching others being who they are, or at least their most curated self? Right? Our kids are on their screens watching other people live life. And yeah, I know, you know. I know this isn't new, and I'm not into like, scare tactics. My purpose is to take you from that place of, yeah, I know it's bad to I'm gonna do something about it, and it's a range and bigger than anything. We need our kids to have some skills for living with these things so that they can do better, perhaps better, than we're doing, right? So it's limit setting and it's also skill building. This is something just tonight. I have a workshop for my members, and we're going to talk about this. This both and yes, there needs to be limits and some monitoring, especially early on. And that's not enough. We get to we got to teach our kids to be critical and reflective and have etiquette and notice the bigger picture. Right to me, something that's so key is a willingness to normalize that we talk about screen time, right? If it feels like a trap, they're not going to talk about it. If it feels judgy and critical, they won't engage. If it feels hypocritical, they'll tune you out, right? So you got to stay away from that, and it might start with like, I'm so sorry that I haven't done better with this. Honestly, it's really hard to navigate, and I'm not sure the best way, and I kind of gave up, but I'm not going to give up on you. You're too important to me to wait and see what happens with all of this screen misuse. You're too important to me, so I am willing child of mine to get uncomfortable and keep showing up to this conversation around screens. Here's a way to think about it. So early middle school, sixth, seventh grade, you know, if you're pre screens, set yourself and your kids up for success, right? Like have the conversations about what things are going to look like before you get the screens. And this might require some relationship building, and it might require some cleaning up, and it might require acknowledging, perhaps your relationship with your screen and your modeling, right? You get to think about early middle school. What will monitoring and tracking look like? Do I think you should be monitoring everything that your kids are texting to each other? No, I don't, and I think there's a point of too much information. Is too much information? Should you track? There? Ever you move? No, you might become obsessed. I did. I do. And there is a healthy level. And there's all sorts of apps like bark and Disney has one called circle that just ping you if something you know, if certain kinds of words or language shows up in their screen use, then you get pinged like, Hey, this is happening. You might want to check it out. But should you read through your kids phones every night when they dock them in the kitchen or in the hallway? No, please don't do that. What does it look like? Used during the school day, right? That's the thing about these phones in their pocket and go to school, and the schools are drowning in smartphones, although more and more it sounds like more schools are actually doing something which is great, and getting stricter about smartphones in the classroom, which is awesome. But what are your values? What do you talk about during, you know, family meetings, or in conversations with your kiddos around school day use. And then are you checking up on that? Are you checking up on that? And what does that sound like? How are you connecting and communicating about that? And what are your hard limits? Are there hard limits? And how are you enforcing those as they get a little bit older, right? And Julietta and I are going to talk about scaffolding next week they get a little older, you're going to continue to check in and adjust as you feel appropriate, so they might get a little bit more time and space to explore, right? What does monitoring and tracking look like as they get into maybe later Middle School, eighth grade? What is their use during the school day? I think that this is really tough. I know with my youngest. You know, they do these a days, B days, they have these really long class periods, and the teacher would teach, and then they'd have time to do their homework, and then there was a lot of downtime. And he's like, Mom, we were literally doing nothing in class. That's why I was on Tiktok. That's why I was on Snapchat. And you know, of course, I was like, Well, what about a book? But you know, it's bigger than just stay off your phone during the school day. It's more about like, Well, what else can you do? And let's come up with some ideas, right? Let's come up with some ideas. Let's come up with some alternatives. You know, is that something they have access to during the school day, or do you want to block it? You get to decide what are your hard limits, and then younger high school years, right? Early high school years, you get to continue to check in and adjust as you feel is appropriate. You get to listen to them now you're in high school, what are we gonna open up? Right? What does monitoring and tracking look like? I do not think you should be monitoring your kids conversations when they're in high school. I just don't and yeah, you're gonna miss out on some maybe some sketchy mischief making. But don't read your kids texts unless you have, like, a real, solid reason, right where you're scared, and you say to them, I am scared. I don't know what's going on with you. This and this, and this is causing me a lot of fear, and I'm really worried. And I you know, and I had told you this should be something you have told them that if you know, red flags start to show up, or I start to feel uncomfortable, I am going to ask you to hand over your phone and do a quick spot check just to make sure everything's okay, but you got to tell them ahead of time, you can't be sneaky and reading, listening. How's that old school Gen X listening on the other line? No, now it's reading their texts. Don't do that when they're in high school. Have a conversation with them. Let them know your concerns. Trust them. Trust them to learn from mistakes. They are going to make mistakes. They are going to get mischievous. And so rather than I saw what you said you're going to do, and now I'm going to bust you like tell me about that friend. Tell me about your plans. I'm curious about how you're gonna stay safe. I'm curious about your thoughts about, you know, sex and relationship and drugs and alcohol and parties, and let's talk about it. Let's come up with a game plan. Tell me about your thoughts that's gonna do more for your kids than you reading their texts, right? And neither of those things are going to guarantee that your kids won't get into mischief, right? So early high school, there you go, later in high school, continuing to check in and adjust as you feel appropriate, right? It was up until, gosh, was it this summer. I mean, almost, well, maybe halfway through Ian's senior year, I finally took off so he had downtime. You know, his phone would shut down at a certain time during the week and then a certain time during the weekend. And I was always saying, like, Oh, I'm parenting a year ahead, and I really want you to practice. And he finally was like, Well, Mom, if you want me to practice, maybe you should take those limits off my phone, and we'll see how I do, which was valid and appropriate. And I did, and he did well, and sometimes he didn't do well, and we talked about that, and he got to feel the experience, right? I mean, later in high school, they're about to leave, they're about to go out into the world. They should be practicing the skills, right? Practicing the skills. And what are the skills? What are the skills that our kids need to be practicing, learning, seeing modeled right. Self awareness, being able to say, You know what, this phone thing is a problem for me. I don't like that. I sit on my bed for three straight hours looking at Tiktok or watching YouTube or, you know, whatever they're doing, self reflection, right? And you'll hear Julietta say, next week, we get to hold up the mirror so that they can reflect? Yeah, I do feel really grumpy when I come to the table after I've been on video games all afternoon and it's time for dinner. What do you do about that? Right? We want them to be able to ask for help, which means like it looks like your screen is getting kind of out of control. You know, do you want some help with that? What could that look like? Or me talking about like I needed some help. I wasn't liking what I saw as far as my screen time went, and I was trying to navigate it by myself. And then I heard about an app that could shut some things down during certain times of day, and I've been using it, and I talk about it with my kids and my husband, and anyone who wants to listen to me, really. So, yeah, getting help prioritizing, and this has been big for me. Just this week. I've got a big trip happening. On Wednesday, I'm leaving town for some fun. I've got all this work to do, and it's been really hard for me to focus. And so I've really had to prioritize, right? That's a learned skill, self control, learned skill, digital communication etiquette, right? We see people behaving so badly online, grown ups as well as kids, so we get to have conversations around. How do we respond when we see something we don't like? Do we respond? Is it important to respond, right? What is digital communication etiquette look like?

Casey O'Roarty 34:25
Let's have some conversations about it. And I think that's the thing, right? The biggest piece is normalizing the conversation about screens. And when I say normalizing it, I mean folding it into your family. Point out how weird it is. And it won't be weird to your kids, because they've grown up in this world, but point out how weird it is, like, Oh my gosh. Isn't this interesting? Here we are, and look around at what everyone's doing, right? Look around. Isn't that interesting? They're missing what's right in front of them, because everybody's on a screen. I want to pay attention, right? We get to. Point out what they might think is normal, and highlight like, oof, wow. They're missing a lot. They're missing a lot. And again, talking about screens in a way that is non judgmental, non critical. It's really for them, it's not about doing what you say, because you know everything, it's about helping them recognize what's the life they want to live. Do they want to be living and creating and experiencing life, or do they want to be looking into a screen and watching other people do those things? What do they want? And innocent? And there's days where all I want to do is, you know, watch a new Netflix limited series, and that's how I spend it. But when that becomes what's happening every day, all the time, that's a problem, right? That's misuse, just like with substances, screens also can be misused, and we've got to pay attention to that. We've got to we have to help our kids out. Gotta do it, peeps, we gotta do it. So like I said, I'm gonna be talking more about this on Monday during my interview with Julietta. But yeah, agreements, normalizing the conversation, making sure that you have limits those non negotiables. All of this is important. The screen conversation is here to stay, and we cannot bury our heads in the sand. We have to be leaders in our family. We have to lean into firmness. We have to grow our tolerance for our kids discomfort and disappointment, and we have to look at our own use and get into the soup with them around how to live our lives without being used by these screens. We have to We can't let our screens dictate the quality of life that we're living. Right our kids, ourselves, our future, their future. It's all too important. So that's my that's my not so little rant today about screens. And I know, I know I'm preaching to the choir. So let me give you just a couple of resources. So screen agers, you movie.com, so you may have heard of screenagers. It's a documentary, and it's probably a little out of touch, although I know that they're doing a Elementary School Edition. You can find a community screening. Delaney Rustin, who's a doctor here locally in Seattle, she's, you know, these have been her projects. She writes an incredible blog. I would sign up for her newsletter. I think you can get there through screenagersmovie.com she also has a podcast. I was one of her guests last year, but she talks all about screens and mental health. Another great resource is Emily shirken. She also has been on the podcast. Her newsletter is really, really useful. Her business is the scream time consultant.com I love love. Love her. And then finally, I mentioned him a couple times today. Jonathan Haidt, H, A, I, D, T. He wrote the anxious generation. He wrote the coddling of the American mind. And he is also a brilliant voice in this conversation around screens and what they're doing to all of us, not just our kids. So check out those resources. I will also pop my other screen related podcast links in the show notes. I know it's hard, and I wish that I was like, first you do this and then you do this, and then you do this. And it was like, super neat and tidy little formula for making screens not the biggest pain in your ass, but that doesn't exist. So it's messy. We do messy here. I hope that you pulled some nuggets out of this podcast. Today. I will be back with another solo show in two weeks. Enjoy the rerun next week. Enjoy the interview with Julieta next week, and I will see you soon. See you on the other side. Bye.

Casey O'Roarty 39:29
Thank you so much for listening in today. Thank you so much to my sproutable partners, Julieta and Alana, as well as Danielle and Chris Mann and the team at pod shaper for all the support with getting this show out there and helping it to sound so good, check out our offers for parents with kids of all ages, and sign up for our newsletter to stay better [email protected] tune back in on Monday for a brand new interview, and I will be back. Solo with you next Thursday. Have a great day. You.