Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Pixel Parenting, the podcast where we explore how to raise kids in a world full of screens using science and curiosity.
Today's episode is all about what really happens in our kids brains when they use screens and how we as parents can protect their development without panic or shame. We'll talk about the early wiring of the brain, the hidden power of persuasive design, and why things like dopamine, attention and emotional regulation matter more than any ever in today's digital landscape. You also learn about the five core healthy habits that can help your family set boundaries, create connection and take back control from tech. So I'm thrilled to welcome Juliana Laurentin. She's the co founder of Healthy Screen Habits, a nonprofit helping families navigate tech use with evidence based tools and a science informed mindset. Alongside with a team of experts in psychology, education and mental health, Juliana has spent the last seven years turning research into practical strategies that actually work for real families. She's also a certified athletic trainer with over 20 years of experience in sports medicine and she's a mom of four.
Thank you Juliana for being here. I'm very excited about this conversation and you have a great background.
So let's start with what inspired you to co found healthy screen habits.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Well, so my background professionally has been, you know, 20 plus years as an athletic trainer and as a medical professional in the sports medicine field. Our job is to prevent injuries, provide immediate care and then do rehabilitation of injuries. So at any given sporting event, the one that runs out on the field when a player goes down is your athletic trainer.
So as that was my professional background, but then my biggest job, my most important job was my four kids and as they were getting to be older and wanting a phone, looking towards social media in 2018, I was looking to see what the best practices were because when it comes to preventing injuries as an athletic trainer, you've got to know what the concerns are, you've got to anticipate them, you've got to prepare for them. That's why we tape ankles, that's why we brace different things that have vulnerabilities.
And so as I transferred my professional background into my life as a mom, it was okay, so what are the potential injuries, what are the potential dangers when it comes to screen use with my kids and you know, looking towards not just what the Internet says I ought to do or what this other person says I should do, but what are the research backed, science backed practices that are best practices.
And so I started talking with some of my dearest friends and who have Other, other skills, other professional backgrounds. And so one of them, her name is Hillary, she is an early childhood specialist and an educator and she had her master's degree where she had studied motivation and intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. And then my friend Jeannie, who was an educational psychologist and had a lot of great insights from that. And then my friend Amy, who is the licensed clinical social worker and worked in the schools in several different districts in the classrooms providing support to students that were struggling with particular different, lots of things.
So asked them what they had found to be best practices, evidence based, research backed. And as we really dug in as moms trying to figure out for our 14 kids between the four of us, what we wanted to do and what had worked for one or what had not worked for another, we realized that even with our professional backgrounds and abilities and knowledge, it was still really hard.
And so if it was that hard for us to find the information that we needed and to be able to figure out how to navigate parenting in a digital life, a digital world for our children. And it must be really hard for other parents also. So we decided to take all the information that we found, the best resources, the best information, and put it somewhere where every family would have access to it and then not tell them what to do, but basically say here's what the science says, here's best practices that come from that. Decide for yourself what that's going to look like in your own family and be intentional. Not that there's only, there's because there's not one right way to do something, but you've got to have the knowledge and then intentionally decide how that best fits within your family, what you want that, what you want your relationship with technology to look like in your own environment and within your own family. So that's how Healthy Screen Habits started. Those are the four co founders of a Healthy Screen Habits. Myself, Hillary, Amy and Amy. And so for the last seven and a half years, we've been just trying to use every method that we could to make it easier for parents.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: I love it and I love the scientific approach, as you know. So can you share? Why do you think understanding the brain science is so important for today's parenting?
[00:05:26] Speaker B: Well, I personally I nerd out over the brain science part of it because of my medical background. I want to know how the body works and, and I want to know why something does what it does when it comes to my, my mind and my body.
And so I personally feel like the more you understand about how your brain works and how your body works, the better you can know how to make good choices when it comes to what you put into or take out of or expose your body to.
On the other side of it is that the people who design our devices and the platforms that are on there, social media and other things, games and things that are on our devices, they hire people who are the experts on our psychology and on our physiology, and they design it to be as attractive, as addictive as possible. And so they know about our brain science and they use it against us. So. So if we know our brain science, then we can use it for our own benefit. So they use it to hack us to take as much of our time as they can. If we know how to hack our brain science for our benefit, then it evens out the playing field a little bit. So the more parents know and the more kids know, we can be empowered in the choices that we make.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: Yeah, it makes us feel more in control. Right? That's how I feel about it.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: Absolutely. When I'll go to middle schools, that's actually the way that I frame it for them. Them.
I'll ask them, you know, do you feel like you're the boss of your phone or do you feel like the phone is the boss of you?
And it's interesting how often they. They're really transparent and really honest with me. They're like, you know what? I really feel like it's the boss of me. And I'll ask them if I could teach you five things will help you take back control of your time and your attention. Do you want to know what they are? And they do. And it's so exciting to be able to share that with them and give them the tools to take back control through knowing their brain science.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: Yes. That's. That's the key. Right, so. So what do we know about how early screen use affects brain development?
Can you talk about that?
[00:07:40] Speaker B: Okay, so like I said, this is the part that I love.
The brain.
When a child is born, they have about a hundred billion nerve cells. And guess what, us as adults, we have about a hundred billion brain cells. What's different between the child's brain and the adult brain is how many connections each of those brain cells, or it's called a neuron, how many connections they make.
So when a newborn baby, there's only about 17% of those neurons. Those brain cells are connected. They have the potential for each brain cell to make about 10,000 connections with other brain cells within the brain.
So that's about. I had to do the math on it's about 1, quadrillion connections that our brain has the ability to make. And when early childhood through adolescence is when those connections are being made and when they're initially being made and then when it's being pruned according to use, it's when you get it, it's just fascinating seeing how it works and how important the that the way that those brain cells connect together is determined by two things. One is genetics and the other is by experience.
And so some things are going to happen no matter what. You know, once again, something that I'll talk about with my middle school presentations, I'll talk tell the kids that, you know, if you take a baby that's born in Sweden and a baby who's born in the United States, when they're born, they have genetically the ability to develop language.
And so that genetic predisposition controls some of those connections that are made in the brain as that child is developing. But the other part that determines how those connections are made between those neurons, how the brain develops is based upon experiences. And so the child in Sweden experiences certain sounds as they're being spoken to. They have certain parts of the brain that fire and wire together with other parts of the brain.
Now in the parts of the brain that hear the Swedish language and develop the Swedish language, that is the experience part of the brain development. So if somebody grows up hearing Swedish or hearing English, the different parts of the brain are going to connect. And that is what determines how our language develops. And when you hear about a child being able to develop multiple languages younger on, it's because there's still so much of the connecting happening, so many opportunities for wiring and firing together.
And so when people say, oh, I can't learn another language, I'm too old.
Well, early childhood is easier because there's more of that structuring, more of that wiring and firing happening.
So that tells us experiences in those early childhood years are vital.
So when the question is how do screens impact that brain development?
With that foundation, now that we know of how the brain develops, our screen habits affect positive or negative the development of our kids brains, our habits as well as their habits.
So if you look at a parent's habits when a baby is born, it's fascinating the ability to see, they have initially the ability to see about the distance between where a mother would be holding her baby or father and where they be. So then as you're feeding, as you're interacting, their brain develops, letting them know that, hey, I'm safe, I'm the Most important thing in my mama's life, because she's looking at me, she's talking to me, she's interacting with me.
Well, when we have our phones, and instead of looking at our babies, we're looking at our phones, it sends a message that we don't even know we're sending, that this is the most important thing and not them.
And they won't even realize when they learned that it's an implicit memory that they have.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: That's the way the neurons start connecting, right?
[00:12:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And then, you know, later on, if we're not talking with them because we're on our phone more, they don't have as much opportunity to develop those connections in their brain, to develop the skills, skill of recognizing what's being said and then responding.
There's so many speech pathologists that have been reporting how there is a serious delay in speech development, and it's, you know, secondary to us not having. If you're not exposed to as many words in a day, you're not going to develop that same parts of your brain that have the information. And then on the other side of it, you know, as far as our kids use of it, then it's blocking the time spent. Every minute that's spent on a screen is a minute not spent doing something else that develops another part of their brain. So there's. There's two different sides to how screens can impact the development of the early childhood brain and why it's so important to be aware and be intentional.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that you separated, like, both their habits and our habits, because sometimes we forget about our modeling. Right. As adults, and we're growing in this world when nobody taught us how to manage this technology. So we're setting a model that's. I don't know how to say it. That's not healthy, probably.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's the thing. It's like when we talk to parents, it's so we try to make sure that we tell them we're all figuring this out. There's no shame here. It's just a matter of, you know, you learn better and you do better, but until you learn better, you don't know that something is worth the effort to do.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:13:59] Speaker B: Another thing that, you know, another unintentional consequence of our habits with the phone is that, you know, you think about that baby now, they're a little bit older, and they're in a shopping cart at the store, and they're having a hard time regulating their emotions. And instead of helping them find ways to regulate by, you know, looking at this or talking to them with that.
What is the default? A lot of times you give them the device and then this becomes, whether we intend to or not, it becomes a source of entertainment.
It becomes a sort of a pacifier.
And so it becomes other things to them implicitly that it's a source of, like I said, entertainment and for emotional regulation.
And then they get a little bit older and they're swinging on a swing or doing something interesting or it's on their birthday and what do we do? We pull out the device to take a picture.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:15:07] Speaker B: And then it becomes the thing that determines whether something is of worth or not. That if it's with my old, with my oldest, I remember being at the park with him and he was swinging on a swing and he's like, mom, look at me, I'm swinging like a bird.
Mom, look at me. Those were his words. He wanted me to look at him because my attention validated the worth of what he was doing.
Fast forward. Okay, so my oldest is 22 now, my youngest is 13.
Even with, you know, trying to be aware of, of good habits. My 13 year old, when he was in the swing as a little baby sit, trying to get my attention, he didn't say mom, look at me, he said, mom, take a picture.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: Wow, never thought about that, right? That's a. Yeah, yeah.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: And that was because unintentionally I would always, oh, that's so cute, let me take a picture. And so I was sending that implicit message, creating that in his brain that it was only of worth if I took a picture of it. So this then defines their worth.
So then they get a little bit older and we send them to school or we said, oh, you're going to your friend's house, oh, you're going somewhere, take this with you so you'll be safe.
So then we're sending that message that this is what keeps them safe.
So it's now the most important thing in the room. A pacifier, comfort payment, safety measure, you know, whether something is worth anything. And then we give them this, they get social media or maybe they don't even have social media, but like unkind text, unkind messages on here or if they do have social media, everything that happens drama wise. In middle school, it used to be that middle school was when when parents would typically give us a cell phone. It's gotten younger because of our concerns for their safety or whatever or peer pressure. But we give them this and then guess what is the source of the biggest angst the biggest anxiety, the most threat to who they are and who they want to be and something telling them who they should be. The same thing that we have unintentionally told them is all of those things.
And they don't even realize because all of these memories are implicit memories. They're stored somewhere where they don't necessarily remember when they learned that, when that became their internal belief, because it's happened from our unintended screen habits. I really believe that that's one of the reasons that we have such an explosion of mental health struggles in our kids. And it is as young as middle school and early or late elementary school that we've got statistics going up like crazy on depression, anxiety, suicide ideation, suicide attempt. And it all comes from the.
Just the negative impact of smartphones. Too soon social media Too soon our brains can't handle was not designed for kids.
[00:18:36] Speaker A: It was not designed for kids. And actually related to that.
Can you explain, like, how is it designed so that it is so addictive and the dopamine role of all of it? Like, what's the science behind that design?
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Okay, so there's two kind of tag words that are in digital wellness spaces. One is called persuasive design and another is called attention economy.
So persuasive design is the word that describes the specific way that apps, that social media platforms are designed and video games, anything that they want to keep our eyeballs on for longer, they're designed specifically to hack the dopamine system of our brain. And lately they have also moved on to not just the dopamine system, but to also the oxytocin system of the brain hacked it to make us spend as much time as possible.
Because that other phrase, attention economy, the more time we spend, the more money they make.
Because advertisers and other things, they get money for eyeballs on the screen.
So when we're using it, we are not the customer, we're the product.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: How can we, how can we explain to children how does that work? So they're aware of, of, you know, the, the mechanism of that dopamine or oxytocin release.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: So one of the ways that I use to explain to kids is that I use the example of anytime you're looking forward to something, anytime there's something that you enjoy, your brain will release something in your, in the nucleus, accompany the part of your brain that controls your attention and desire and pleasure.
Every time you do something that you like, it releases something. And there's a normal level of dopamine that is supposed to be released. And if you look at things that are pleasurable, so eating a piece of chocolate cake, right, you know, you're anticipating it, you're looking forward to it. And the dopamine actually gets released in that anticipated pitori stage.
So it's not a pleasure thing. It is the anticipation of the pleasure. So it's. We learn more about dopamine. It's a lot of times people think, oh, I do something I like and it releases dopamine. No, we. It. There's the anticipation of it, and then that rewards you to and encourages you to loop back and do it again.
And so I use the idea of unboxing a birthday gift because every kid knows the anticipation.
And so, you know, I show them this little graph about how, as you're anticipating it, the dopamine's released, and then there's a climax as you open the gift, you see what it is, and then it naturally goes back down. And it's just this normal part of the way your body works.
Now. You take persuasive design and put that into it. And one of the techniques of persuasive design is to hack that dopamine delivery. And so then I tell them, okay, so that's how it works with opening a birthday present.
Now, when you think about how YouTube has all of these unboxing videos, why do people sit and watch video after video of somebody else opening up a.
[00:22:17] Speaker A: Box all under this?
Well.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: A hacking of that dopamine delivery, because.
So you're about to open it, they open it, you see what's in it. Well, YouTube uses a persuasive design technique of autoplay.
So before you have a chance to, you know, it finishes. What happens?
It plays another video.
And then, so right here, you open it, and then you go back up, and then another one shows, and then you go up. And so it's hijacking that system and delivering abnormally overloaded levels of dopamine, which then eventually leaves you feeling a lot worse than when you started.
[00:23:07] Speaker A: Because then you crush. Right?
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Exactly. And what it does is it makes it so that the normal dopamine delivery is not as interesting, it's not as engaging, because your body wants a sense of homeostasis, right? And so if it gets used to elevated levels of dopamine delivery, then the normal stuff is no longer enough to make you want to come back to it.
And so that's why when we spend too much time on these things that give us an overload of dopamine, it's harder to think, oh, I want to go read a book. Oh, I want to go, you know, lay on the grass and look at the clouds go by. And it makes it harder to tolerate boredom because you're so used to having those higher levels. And so that's kind of the dopamine side of things. And so there's different techniques. So autoplay is one of them.
The scrolling, there's an infinite scroll. There's never a stopping cue in normal life. There's a stopping cue whether it's in a chapter in a book, whether it's the last chip in the bag, whether it's the, the bottom of the ice cream bowl.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: Yes. The cake being the last candy.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: Yes, there's normal stopping cues in the way our bodies were designed to work.
But they, they're hacking that and making it so it removes stopping cues. There's an infinite scroll.
And something else that they do is they have and, and this is just fascinating but horrifying at the same time.
Proof has come out that Facebook, Instagram, they specifically target, they can tell through their computer programs, their algorithms that control what gets shown to somebody.
They can, can, they can see when somebody deletes a selfie, when like a 13 to 15 year old girl deletes a selfie. And then they were telling, in these internal documents, they were telling advertisers of beauty products that then they can serve up their beauty product to this adolescent young child, an adolescent Twain or teen, that hey, we identify their vulnerability and this is a perfect time to market your beauty product to this girl who doesn't think she's pretty enough because she just deleted the selfie. And that indicates to us that this is a prime time that you can.
[00:25:47] Speaker A: Yeah, didn't know that.
[00:25:51] Speaker B: And then also you, they.
Because they can identify what makes us linger on a video, what makes us stop and look even if it's just a half second longer. Wall Street Journal did a study and there's a number of other ones that have to the center for stopping hate. Anyway, there was a few different ones. But basically the outcome of these has been that the algorithms are designed to take whatever our greatest vulnerability is and then eventually make it so that they're feeding us mostly that content. The Wall Street Journal ones, they made a hundred different bots like different computer driven accounts. Each gave each one certain special interests. Two words were given to each one of what they would hover over a little bit longer. And one of them was like forestry. One was all sorts like cars. Another one, it was designed to hover just a little bit longer over sadness and depression.
And what they found is that the powerful algorithm of TikTok within 36 minutes.
If you, if you know how TikTok works, you've got your normal feed, but then there's also where you can see things that your friends post, but there's a for you page and 93.5% of the for your page within 36 minutes was all about sadness and depression because that's what the algorithm identified would make you look at it longer.
So if you have a child who's already vulnerable, if you have an adult who's already feeling vulnerable, but especially a child whose brain is developing or developing an idea of who they are, of what their worth is, what their role is in the world, and if you know the stages of child development that ages from 13 to 15, that that time is when they are developing their identity.
And if you've got this powerful algorithm of whatever platform they're on, they all do it, some better than others, but it is capitalizing on their vulnerabilities.
It also capitalizes on like. So maybe they're not depressed, but maybe they're looking at things in the news and the things that there's a saying that we like called what enrages, engages.
So you're going to be shown things that are more extreme, whether it be things in the news, things that are traumatic, things that are happening that are disturbing.
When it comes to content that is inappropriate. Like it's amazing how many boys get addicted to pornography because it starts on Instagram and then it, you know, feeds them more content.
That is what engages you look at a little bit longer, it's gonna feed you more of that and it's gonna reinforce that vulnerability and capitalize on it.
[00:29:13] Speaker A: Yeah, and as you said at the beginning, it's, you know, everything is an experience and this is an experience that will shape them like it's shaping their brains.
[00:29:22] Speaker B: It literally fires parts of the brain that wire with other parts of the brain that then, you know, you look at the statistics on erectile dysfunction in 18 to 22 year old men, I can't remember off the top of my head what the study was, but significant increase in erectile dysfunction in older teens and, and 20 somethings still within that adolescent range, the brain development time. It's because as they're getting an overload of that don't mean overload of those different things. The parts of their brain that should be able to function in a certain way are no longer able to work with their body to function A certain way.
[00:30:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And reality happens, right?
[00:30:07] Speaker B: Like yeah, yeah, yeah, well, and, and being able to. Not really. Sometimes it, then it becomes hard to separate between what should happen in reality and what we're told is supposed to be the way that things are happening in intimate relationships. It's creating a really warped sense of what an intimate relationship is. A healthy what, what it means to have a healthy intimate relationship.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: So, yep, definitely shaping the brains.
Let's move on to the healthy screen habits.
[00:30:39] Speaker B: So what do we do about it? How do we.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: Yes, this is happening. So what are the five core habits that you would recommend to parents?
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Because that's the thing. It's like we're up against all this. What do we do about it? Is it just. Are we, are we out of luck? Are we just at the mercy of them? And the answer is no. There are things you can do.
We've spent the last seven years as an organization trying to make it easier and easier for parents because we know how hard it is.
You know, we started out with this. We created our family technology plan that walks the family through. It's just a one page document that there's seven steps and free on our website to download.
Helps you figure out what you want technology used to look like in your family and how, what decisions go into. So that way as a family you can all decide together. You can write in here and then it's a unity building thing because then it's not just, okay, here's the rules, here's what you have to do so that way we don't end up with brains that are with ultimate brain rot.
But sometimes even that was too, too overwhelming.
You know, it's.
So then we just developed the five core healthy screen habits. This is also free on our website in English and Spanish.
And the five core habits.
We looked at what the dangers are. We looked at what we were trying to prevent, we looked at what we were trying to handle when it comes up, like I said, preventing injuries, immediate care of injuries, rehabilitation of injuries, how, what if we can make it five things? What will take care of most of the concerns? And so this is what we came up with.
Number one is give your phone a bedtime.
Number two is ask every time you pick up your phone, ask yourself two questions. One, what's my purpose? And two, how long should it take?
And then that way you can plan in advance how to fight back against all of that persuasive design.
Number three is remember the grandma rule because you know, if you wouldn't want your grandma to See it or hear it or know you said it. Don't send it, don't text it, don't say it.
That takes care of a whole lot of stuff. Or don't look at it if you wouldn't want grandma to know you looked at it.
Habit number four is whenever you're doing something that you need to focus on, basically put your phones away or on silent when you're with other people or when you are doing important things.
And then number five is no phones in the bedroom or bathroom.
And that's the. The brief. You know, that's just the rundown of what they are.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: And I love it. And those are applicable for adults too, right? Like for everybody. And.
And they're really hard. Really hard. So in your experience, which one is the hardest habit and why?
[00:33:55] Speaker B: For myself or for parents?
[00:33:57] Speaker A: Both. Yeah. Why not?
[00:34:00] Speaker B: So it's interesting, when I go to middle schools and I'm talking with the kids, I'll ask them. I'm like, because remember I said, you know, if you could take back control, if I gave you five things you could do, would you do them? And so then I'll. I'll show them this. Mike, pick one to try this week. Which one do you think would have the biggest impact?
And it's interesting seeing how it's different for different kids.
Pretty universally, kids will typically say the grandma rule, and they'll say, give your phone a bedtime.
[00:34:39] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:34:40] Speaker B: And I, I was surprised when it was give your phone a bedtime because, like myself personally, I feel like the most important ones as a parent and for myself are number two and number five, that every time I pick up my phone, ask myself, what's my purpose and how long should it take? And sometimes I personally will. Then when I say, okay, I'm checking emails and it should take me, I'm going to give myself five minutes. A lot of times I'll actually say, hey, Siri, set a timer for five minutes.
Because that way, it's a way that I can set an intention and set a way to be accountable to myself.
For parenting, the most effective, the biggest bang for your buck is number five, that no phones in the bedrooms or bathrooms.
Because if you do that one thing, if you have that one hill that you're going to die on, and it's a hard hit. The kids never say that one because that's the one they don't want their parents to do. That's the one that they don't want to do because they're so used to having it with them. And Being their.
Their presence.
And they can't imagine a life without it in their bedroom, without it in their bathroom. How am I gonna. Like, what am I gonna do? I'll sit there.
Yes.
So that's the hardest one. But it also protects against the most potential dangers.
Because we have something called the five S's on our website. You can see the little visual that has it. But one is it helps eliminate social isolation. If the kid doesn't have a screen in their bedroom, they're going to spend more time outside of their bedroom.
So there'll be more family interaction, There'll be more togetherness.
There's less likely that they'll get into sketchy content, and it's less likely that sexual predators will have access to them.
And then another one, the fourth S, is it provides a sanctuary. If the phone is in the bedroom, it steals that sanctuary.
This right now. It also, like all the things we talked about, that it can provide a false sense of, you know, it controls so much of what they think about themselves and what other people think about them. If the phone is not in their bedroom, that can be a place where all the drama stays outside.
[00:37:13] Speaker A: Makes sense.
[00:37:14] Speaker B: It can be the one place. When we were growing up, we left. When we went home, we left all the drama behind.
Wherever their phone is, the drama comes with that.
So if it is not in their room, that can be a place of sanctuary.
It can be a place of refuge.
And our kids need that.
And also, like checking grades this time of year. What are my grades going to be? They check grades on the phone. So once again, if homework, if your room is not the place where you do homework, if it's not where you check your grades, it's not where you check social media.
All of those stressors do not come into your sanctuary.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: Stay outside. Yeah.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: Yep. And you know, they're not gonna necessarily see what a benefit that is.
But as an adult, looking at it from a higher perspective of what all we see in their life, it's worth the battle. And it will be a battle at first. If that hasn't been something that has been part of your family phone policies.
But if you do start that when the kids are young, then it just becomes that's just what we do. There's no screens in the bedrooms.
If they. You are trying to. Okay, I know better now. I know it's worth it. But how do I dial that back? How do I. Yep. That's where it comes down to making sure they understand the why behind it. They may not agree with it.
But if you help them understand those reasons that I just shared, if you talk with them, have open conversation to where you are showing them the respect to not be just like because I said so, giving them the why makes a big difference in maintaining your relationship.
And, but even if they say I don't want to do that, yeah, I.
[00:39:18] Speaker A: Don'T care about the why.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: But at least you've, you've given them that foundation.
We, we finally, finally put the why in this book because we wanted to make sure, like I said, we're all about making things easier for parents. And so we're like, okay, how, what can we give parents that, that way it can teach them the why where somebody else is telling them. And then at the end of each chapter there's like some thought questions to, you know, process to consolidate what it's been teaching and then it creates a way to be able to talk about it. And our kids today are so smart, they're like, okay, what are your sources? There's three and a half pages of peer reviewed, scientific backed reasons. I've had parents that have said, bring me peer reviewed scientific backed research that says that it is good for you to have your phone in your room and then we can continue the conversation.
But for right now, I've got three and a half pages of research that tells me that my job to protect and take care of you and love you.
This is why I have to say this is what we're going to do in our house from now on.
[00:40:26] Speaker A: Yep. I love it.
[00:40:27] Speaker B: So hopefully this will make it easier for parents to be able to help them learn the why and eventually get to where. Even if they won't admit it, they know it's good for them.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And I have a question regarding this because we're talking about the house, the household, you know, my house. But then there are the grandparents and the caretakers. How, what's your experience with that? And how do you have them buy in all these? Or is it important to have them buy in or is, you know, every.
[00:40:56] Speaker B: Family there's a different dynamic. Some families spend a lot of time with grandparents, some don't spend very much.
Some have grandparents that are more permissive, some have grandparents that are less permissive and have judgment on what their kids are doing with their grandkids. As far as screens go.
[00:41:14] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: It's funny how many grandparents have bought our book to give to their kid to give to their grandkids. It's been really interesting watching that.
But as far as like what role grandparents play in this the more grandparents understand the same things that we want kids to understand and parents understand, the more they know the why behind things too. So if you have a grandparent that's, you know, is watching your kids and they're on screens the entire time they're there with them, talk with them about the brain science and about how much you want them to be able to have opportunities to develop a relationship with their grandparents and have them like let them know that you know things, mom, you know, things dad, that my kid has never had a chance to learn. Will you share that with them? You know, help them understand that their knowledge, their time with the kids, with their grandkids and affect that brain development through opening up opportunities for experience or through blocking experience by just putting them in front of whatever tablet or screen or.
[00:42:28] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah, thank you. That, yep. That's a, that's a nice way to think about it. I agree.
So already mentioned about, you know, it's never too late. So what would you tell parents who feel like it's too late? I'm already in this. All these bad habits. My screens are in the bedrooms, in the bathroom. So what how do you change habits?
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Well, number one is being willing to accept the hard knowing that you know, yes, it's going to be hard to dial that back. It's going to be hard to deal with the pushback but you got to pick your hard.
Do you want to have to deal with the self worth struggles? Do you want to have to deal with a child who is suicidal? Do you want to deal with all of those things that are so hard or do you want to deal with the hard of.
I hate you. This is stupid. Nobody else's parents do this.
If and I, you know, it's. It may seem like an oversimplification but let's say, say that you had a child and you didn't know how important it was to put a seatbelt on, to put them in a, in a child seat and you find out all of the reasons that they are safer if you do.
But you know, I haven't done it so you know, does it matter?
Yeah.
You know, when we know better, we do better and it doesn't if we didn't know.
Be kind to yourself. You know, don't beat yourself up and know that you can do it. You can talk with your child.
You can help them understand how their brain works. You can help them understand persuasive design and about attention economy and you can help them understand how they can develop the five core healthy screen habits. And how it literally will help them to take back control of their lives.
And as a parent, it allows me to keep my kids safe and help them thrive.
[00:44:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And I. I think also. And let me know if I'm wrong, like the fact if. If I'm doing something wrong, because as a parent, I didn't know just putting that out there with my kids. Like, I didn't know this was bad for you, and now I want to make it right. So this is how the new habits are going to go, because it's healthier you. And this is why then we're gonna. We're gonna change together. I'm. I was not doing it right. So, like, as a parent, accepting that, I think is. Is it. Is that something?
[00:45:17] Speaker B: Absolutely. I think that kids always appreciate when we acknowledge our mistakes, when we don't try to be this know it all or don't try to pretend that we know it all, when we are really authentic with them and just say, I didn't know better, but now that I do, that's why I really. I know this is what's going to be best for you.
And.
But yeah, definitely. Owning it. Owning it.
[00:45:49] Speaker A: Owning it. Yes.
[00:45:51] Speaker B: And recognizing that this is going to be hard, recognizing that it's an adjustment for all of us, but it'll be worth. It'll be worth the hard.
[00:46:03] Speaker A: Yes, let's. Let's hope so. So what gives you hope when it comes to raising kids in today's world? Because we've talked. We've talked a lot about the horrible things, but I'm sure there is hope.
[00:46:14] Speaker B: There absolutely is. You know, it's so exciting to be able to go and talk to these middle school kids and elementary school kids when we go and do presentations, to be able to hear them recognize.
And I love it when there's an audible gasp when I explain, you know, persuasive design and I explain attention economy and how they are not the customer, they are the product.
That realization. And they're like.
And, you know, like your life is talking about when they pick which habit they're going to start with and watching them talk to each other about how that will make a difference. Yeah, if I, like, give my phone a bedtime, I'm more likely to, like, actually go out and spend time with my siblings and talk to my parents. I'm more likely to get better sleep. They are smarter than we give them credit for.
And, you know, when we give them the information, help them understand how their brain works, how they can choose to develop these habits, it's you know, you're fighting against people hacking your time and attention, your physiology and your biology. But we can hack it right back and we can take that control and we can keep our kids safe and we can help them thrive.
[00:47:41] Speaker A: Thank you. That's a great ending for this episode. But before we leave, can you let people know and I'll add it to the show notes where listeners can find your work and tools of Healthy screen habits.
[00:47:55] Speaker B: Yes.
And I'm so grateful for this opportunity because we are 100% volunteer and we pour our heart and soul into this. So the more people who can find the hard work we have put into things, the better.
So our website is healthy screen habits.org and on the website you have access to a whole bunch of stuff. There's tons of information that gives you, you know, the awareness building and then there's a ton of tools and then there's information that allows you to be able to take action.
So in the tool section, some of the things I've shown you, the five core habits and the family technology plan free downloads in English and in Spanish. We also have social emotional resources too. This is one of my favorites. What to do when you're feeling meh. You know, a lot of times our kids, when they're feeling vulnerable, they don't know what to do instead. So that's something you can print off. And one side gives you ideas on what you can do to fill your heart because the phone is gonna. You'll end up with an overload of dopamine. You'll feel physically worse anyway. So that's one of my favorite downloads. Cause it shows you things you can do that will physically release other neurotransmitters, other hormones and things that will literally make you feel better. So that's the what to do when you're feeling meh or fill your.
There's. There's how to plan a fun summer day that walks you through how to organize like, what are some things to do other than screen time.
So tons of resources on there that you can download for free. And then also there's a tab that has all 13 seasons of the Healthy Screen Habits podcast.
We wanted to make it so that there was a library of resources for parents where whether you're struggling with screens and neurodiverse kids, we've got Temple Grandin on our podcast. If you're looking at brain development, there's Dr. John Hutton, who if you know, you know, problems with pornography or social media or anything screen related, there's probably an episode there and it's organized by season but also by topics you can watch. You can listen to them on any podcasting platform.
We also have a YouTube channel that's got a lot of helpful videos that if you need help teaching your kids more about this or that, you can go and find a video about, you know, brain science on there or about whatever you need.
This is the book that we wish we had to give our kids seven years ago.
And once again trying to make it as easy as possible. Go to Amazon.com click on it, it'll deliver it to your house in a day or two. And we made sure it was engaging for kids.
Colorful development. Like I said, we've got educational psychologists, licensed clinical social worker educator and then myself with the medical side of things. It's designed child developmentally appropriate for the tweens and teens age group.
We even picked Dixla Dyslexia friendly font.
[00:51:19] Speaker A: And it's super easy to read. So for those who are listening, it's easy to read. It's not a heavy book.
Parents also can use. You make use of it. So it's, it's great.
[00:51:30] Speaker B: Yeah. There's a letter for parents on how to use it to like springboard conversation. And like I said, if you need the backup of the, the science, the peer reviewed studies, that's there too. Or if you want to, if you're a science nerd like me, you want to go like find the, the research back, keep info behind it. It's all there. And like I said, we do this for you as parents and as families to make it so that life can be a little bit easier to navigate in this crazy digital age.
It's hard. Screenshots are harder, but you can do it.
[00:52:03] Speaker A: Yes. And I'll put everything in the show notes for everybody. So check it. So thank you so much. It was super fun and super interesting.
I hope the listeners got something out of it and got motivated to change their habits.
[00:52:19] Speaker B: Thank you for the opportunity to share.
[00:52:23] Speaker A: Thank you, thank you for listening to Pixel Parenting. If this episode made you rethink some of your habits or gave you hope for building new ones, make sure to check out the show notes for links to healthy screen habits, free downloads, their podcast and their fantastic book.
And if you found the conversation helpful, share it with a friend, leave a review or follow us so you never miss an episode. Raising kids in a digital world isn't easy, but you don't have to do it alone. Until next time, stay curious and kind.
[00:52:55] Speaker B: Of.
