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"Screens & Teens" Parent Seminar with Julia Storm

Added Oct 08, 2025 •

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In her Oct. 8 Parent Seminar, "Screens & Teens," Digital Media and Wellness Specialist Julia Storm discusses: How to keep your kids from getting addicted to social media, How to prevent video game overload, How screen time affects your child’s wellbeing, and How to achieve more life-screen time balance.

Show Transcript

about but I want to give you a little bit of background um before she launched her own company reconnect in 2017 it's a digital wellness company our guest speaker today spent years producing award-winning children's content for Netflix PBS and Amazon on she also holds a ba from Princeton a masters from UCLA and she speaks regularly at schools leads workshops for parents and Educators and has been featured in Time magazine in the LA Times wired Parents Magazine and many many more Publications but most importantly for all of us of all that she is the mother of 2 very digitally curious boys she has an eighth grader and she has a 10th grader so she is like all of us in it um and that's why we feel very fortunate to have her this morning to talk about screens and teens please welcome Julia storm good morning thank you for it's so nice to be here I've never been to Paul River so it's fun to get a peek I have a lot of friends who have kids here have gone through here um so sorry I'm I'm mindful that we're reporting because I'm looking at if I'm in frame okay um David basically told you about me digital Wellness educator I work with schools with families I translate all the information that's out there they can feel a bit overwhelming and really try to distill it into a format best practices for you guys what you need to know and steps that you can take to make raising your kids and the digital age a little bit less stressful so that's really my goal I'm not going to fear Monger um facts and I'm going to give you some strategies and hopefully maybe uh a little paradigm shift to help you approach the topic a little bit differently so let's jump in so there we go so just a warm-up question when you hear the word screen time when you think about your kids screen time what comes to mind you can shout it out yeah anxious a tent lost attention what was that social media out of control oh failing it's a parent okay yeah so I start with this question because I really want to bring to light just how much anxiety frustration overwhelm this topic really really brings up a lot of feelings for us and we then bring those feelings to the table when we're dealing with our kids and sometimes approaching our child with such fear Panic or guilt or shame can actually lead to a tougher time regulating screen time and more conflict we're here so so the first thing I want to address is the sort of overarching question that I know is really sort of at the heart of what a lot of parents are upset about which is I cannot stop fighting my child about this never-ending conflict and so how do we stop all of the fighting and all the bargaining around our devices so I'm going to propose a paradigm shift for you which is that you sort of switch from this like that I'm against this situation to really becoming your kids Ally and we're going to talk about why this is important and why just this like little mental shift you can really help you to approach your child differently and approach the screen time rules that you're going to set in a different manner so the question of being your kids Ally is where how do I situate myself in this situation and it's going to change over time right I'm sure it looks different to you now with the middle schooler than it did when you had an elementary school child and it's going to look different to you again once your kid is in high school so the first that really to being your kids Ally and to this whole paradigm shift is really to have some empathy for your child because they did not ask to be brought into the world that this particular moment in history where this explosion happened in technological advancement they were given in most cases their iPads and their phones by us we gave them to them right and they don't have a fully formed brain yet and so they're really at a disadvantage with all of these devices that are so enticing and the apps that are designed to hook us so there's a lot of reasons to really sort of empathize with kids who in many ways actually have a pretty tough growing up in this environment so what we need to do actually is to get curious about it and to be open-minded because when we just say like that's not for me or I don't understand it or uh it was so much better when we were growing up which probably was but that that state of mind is actually not helpful it's not helpful for us as parents and it's not helpful for our kids what is helpful is accepting that this is the world that they're growing up in and then learning about it and being curious about it being open not approach everything that they're doing on their as something to shame them about or to warn them about or to be scared of yes those things exist out there and we will talk to them about it but if we approach them like a little bit more of an open mind what happens is that you leave space for conversation and you leave space for communication and you need to do that because as your kids get older they're going to make mistakes online and if you you are someone they see as disinterested or shaming they're not going to turn to you they're not going to come to you when they need you and you don't want that so being open-minded actually gives you more of to stand on when you really want to sort of lay down the law about something when you have something that you really want to open their eyes to that you think is not good for them online if you're always saying that everything is bad for you or I don't want them doing anything they're going to just tune you out they're not going to listen to you anymore the next thing is you have to be a good role model because your kids are really looking at you and watching you and listening to you and so if you're on digital habit check they're picking up on that and then they're emulating that so it is important to do sort of a little bit of an audit of our own behavior at least around that and model what we want to see them we want just so whatever we tell them is a boundary or a value that we hold around screen time we have to stick to it we have to be consistent if you're inconsistent that's where they find ways around them it they're not really sure where they stand or where you stand on the issue and so they're just kind of going to do whatever they want and then you're going to get really frustrated and that's going to lead and then lastly this really is a space in which our values matter because there's so much information coming at us and coming at our children out there that they're going to have to learn how to intentionally ignore things and how to filter things out and you do that by knowing what your values are so you go like that doesn't align with me know that does align with me okay I'll let that in right and so we want to teach them what we value in terms of you know the content that we want watch the games that we play what goes against our beliefs and why we don't want that entering our homes or even just filtering through their brains okay so I want to talk about some pragmatic stuff some basic limits so the very first thing that I have on here is probably the most important limit actually and if I had to just pick 1 thing for you to do and you dropped every other thing it would be please keep those devices out of their bedrooms overnight devices in the bedroom overnight means less sleep for many reasons number 1 there it's very enticing to be on there and even if they have the best intentions and they know they need to go to sleep they know their friends are on there or their social media they're interested in or there's a show that they want to binge they're not going to go to sleep they're just not I've talked to enough teenagers to know that they will stay up to 3 in the morning even though they have to get up at 7:00 and aside from that you know there's interruptions there's notifications that interrupts their sleep there's so many ways days in which having a device in a teenager's room and it's not just the phone by the way it's the computer too okay because some parents feel like well I'll take the phone out but they have access to everything on their laptop and so if they want to watch something go on social media do whatever text they can do all of that a laptop too so I really really recommend setting up a habit where both of those things are charged outside the bedroom at night lack of sleep leads to higher rates of anxiety higher rates of depression a harder time focusing more accidents right and by the way everything you see in the media right now is about these high rates of depression and anxiety in our kids this is not helping so really really consider I know it's difficult if you haven't done it yet having a conversation with your child maybe it's just a test run let's try it for 2 weeks and see how it goes Alright and then check back in but this is the 1 Thing I would love for everyone to walk out of here and kind of hold on to um you do want to have clear rules in your home and as your kids get older into Middle School into High School these rules are probably going to become a little bit more flexy right maybe going to be less boundaries around it because they start to use their devices almost the way that we use our devices right so it's hard to draw very clear lines but whatever lines you do draw like stick with that be consistent about if your rule is no speeds in the bedroom it's no screens in the bedroom if your rule is um you know no devices at the dinner table it's no devices at the dinner table right so stick to those rules and be um I just talked about family meals try to encourage your kids to have a bit of a buffer before they go to sleep so that it's not just like from the device into the bed right that's hard to settle down and fall asleep when you do that you really need a bit of a buffer an hour is what's recommended I know sometimes that's just not realistic especially as your kids get older and maybe you're not doing like reading time and snuggles like I used to write so as they get older I would just aim for a half an hour explain to them that their body needs time to kind of settle into sleep mode to relax so that they can have a better sleep and an easier time we all need that okay um screen free zones I think are important mostly because it's so hard to find a space where a screen doesn't interfere with your life I mean pretty much every step you take you're pulling out a screen whether on a toilet whether you're waiting for you know a coffee whatever it is there's a screen and so thinking about well where can I carve space that I protect so that I can just think or I can just reflect sorry I'm going to have you hold your questions to the very end so I make sure I get through everything and then we'll do a Q&A so just write it down so you don't forget um I just had to have this conversation with my own son because by the way I deal with all of this just like you do okay my son who's 13 and a half he got into this habit that kind of you know how it happens like it's sort of like starts happening and it slips by you and then all of a sudden you're like how we get to this so that just happened to me in my home where my son had started just like when he goes take a dump he brings his computer in there with him and I'm like it's been a half an hour you know like what are you even there and I thought you know it's not even about what he's doing I'm I I think we've got that like pretty well settled in our home that he's not doing anything too egregious on there it's just the fact that he can't just sit and go to the bathroom and like I want him to have some space to think about the conversations that he had that day and so I just sat with him and I said hey and this is that Ally thing I was talking about I said hey you you know I just kind of noticed the shift in behavior that happened and this is a screen time conversation but it's kind of not a screen time conversation it's more a conversation about how I think I see you as someone who's thoughtful and reflective and I'm scared that you're not going to have space to think and reflect if you always have a screen in front of your face and he was like really open to it because I didn't come in and say like no screens in the bathroom you know I actually just talked to him about my reasoning and it resonated for him and he was like yeah that makes sense to me okay let me try not bringing it in and like then that was it so not every kid's going to be that easy but that approach respect and understanding it tends to work better um when you're not using them if you don't have a charging dock in your home I recommend getting 1 just put in the kitchen or some sort of public space and that can be where everybody maybe even you and your partner put your devices when you're not using them so when you're eating meals when you're going to sleep when you're all watching on TV or whatever together if you don't have to have your phone in your pocket put it in a charging dock when the phone is in your pocket you're just much more wanted to pick it up much more tempted to check the notification if it's in the dock then you're creating more space and more of a boundary um and then when possible and again this gets harder as your kids get older but I still think it's nice to co-wash together some stuff and the reason is that not just because it could be bonding but also because when you co view you you start to talk about it right you talk about what you're watching you think about it more critically and that's actually like the main skill that they need to navigate this world is to be able to really think critically about the media that they're encountering okay so I think this is really important to take some of the stress off of you not everything your kid does on a screen is bad for them you don't have to be upset about them being on a screen for every single reason that they're on a screen yes of course we want kids to move around to run around they're growing they need to be outside they need to move their bodies they need to focus their eyes on other things but they're very different types of screen time and in fact like putting everything into the screen time bucket it's not that useful because there's the type of screen time that is this sort of instantly gratifying High reward screen time and you know it when you see it and it's most of what our attracted to because it's very similar to junk food right it's basically it's like a perfect uh metaphor it's it's bright it's quick it's shiny it grabs our attention it gives us a quick burst of enjoyment but it has no sort of lasting positive effects right so that's the junk food stuff and it's usually very rewards driven it's um it's sort of has a hump to it social media content is usually in that category um even like anything that's likes or shares driven write anything that's Quantified like Snapchat which everything's being counted how popular you are how much how long your streak has been that kind of stuff of course big binges of that that's going to really elevate your kid's dopamine levels and the more time that they spend in elevated dopamine levels the more uncomfortable it is for them to not not be in that elevated dopamine State and so when they're not in that state things feel sort of dull and not as interesting and they're not as motivated to do stuff that actually takes a little bit of effort because this has been effortless and has given them this feeling of you know Joy or whatever right um I have  on there I'm going to get to that but so that's the type of stuff that we really want to talk to our kids about limiting you know if you're not going to have candy and cake as your main course for every single meal then you probably shouldn't have the equivalent of that on the online world as your main course of what you're doing online it's more like the desert or the side dish right we don't say no to it sure that everybody wants some of that it doesn't have to be your everything there's a lot of other stuff that we all do online and it's fine it's fine maybe maybe some of it would be preferable yes we would prefer that our kids read you know an actual book but frankly nobody's reading anymore so if your kid is reading online great like that's preferable to not reading um creating anything that they're creating online learning new skills doing school talking to friends um you know exercising whatever homework there's so much that they're doing online so just because you see them in front of a computer are in front of a phone it doesn't mean that they're necessarily doing things that's a bad thing all right all right social media we've got pros and we've got our cons list is much longer and that's kind of like all you need to know I mean yes there are Pros to social media definitely for and and again I talked to so many teenagers they feel the pros and the cons they they feel them both very strongly it is a place where they express themselves their likes their identity it's a place where they connect with people who have similar likes to them similar identities to them them they connect with their friends they can use their voice they can feel empowered um they can be silly they can keep up with culture keep up with news although I don't love that and then the cons are there's a lot of cons right I uh we don't need to list them but I will constantly comparison there are always fear of missing out they are quantifying how likable they are there's tons of adult content on their body image distortions I mean wasted our hours rabbit holes of content sleep deprivation it just goes on and on it's not great um my recommendations are if you haven't already you know your kid isn't ready on social media just try to wait till high school if you can or put it off sort of as close to high school as you can maybe you know wait till some point in the eighth grade and then go slow like not they don't get you know Tik Tok Instagram Snapchat like Pinterest everything all at once like pick 1 and stick with that they all get bad reputations I kind of feel like if you if you had to choose 1 of these evils it would probably be Snapchat because they mostly use it just to communicate with each other most kids aren't sitting there like scrolling through the like for you recommendations on Snapchat some maybe are but that's not really how they use it yes they're going to have to deal with the you know the like the quantification of Snapchat the likability the street scores all that but Instagram you know it's there's a lot side of comparison going on there it's not great um and Tik Tok just has the most um addictive algorithm that's out there so I guess if I had to choose I would choose Snapchat um know your kids temper every child is different every brain is different I know that we want like the big sweeping like yes or no Solutions it's not like that you know I love Jonathan Heights book it's great very black and white and 1 prescription doesn't fit every single child so I'll give you an example my older son he's like I don't know he's he doesn't get very sort of psychologically affected in the same way by what peers are doing um he's pretty confident in who he is he uses Instagram to follow he's obsessed with music so he follows the musicians that he loves and music news and that's what in his on there but that's really what he's doing my younger son who doesn't have Instagram yet or any social media yet he's an anxious person he's an anxious person he to get insecure he worries a lot he Compares himself so I'm going to treat him really differently when I think about should he have Instagram should when should he have this just the 2 different kids I have to look at them differently um when they do get social media just to have conversations with them about it you know let them know what you're learning but you don't want it to just be lectures you want to really make it a how do you feel about this do you ever encounter this you know what does it feel like when you see such and such those kinds of questions to really get them thinking about these things themselves that's what you're trying to do is plant those seeds and then do sets in with it set some time limits on it um set some clear boundaries about like night time and all of that okay video games um if your kids are playing video games they've probably been playing video games for a very long time so you may down but just briefly you should know what your kids are playing again a lot of this is about your values right it's like if you've been very clear for example that you um you know are are very anti-gun or whatever I'm just pulling something out but then you know your kid is playing first-person shooter games like Call of Duty maybe there's like a dissonance there right and so you want to at least talk about it see what they're playing understand it how have these conversations um and you know talk about their choices around games um you do want to make sure that if your child is playing games where they are interacting with people they don't know that they do know the red flags to look for for what it looks like to be groomed online once kids know and I start teaching this to kids when they're in third grade so once kids know what these red flags are they can I see that they can see when someone's being too friendly they can see you when someone starts asking them questions that are personal they can see when you know someone's trying to sort of engage in a relationship with them or giving them free stuff they but they need to know if they don't I don't know it's really counterintuitive because a predator is going to be really nice to them and friendly and fun so actually what I'm going to do is I'm going to send you David a PDF um that has these red flags for you and how to have the conversation and then maybe there's a way that we can get that out to everybody sorry I should have thought of that in advance but it takes a while to go through them that's why I don't have them in my presentation but I do really want you to know them and talk to your child um try to keep gaming out of the bedroom I know sometimes kids get PCS and they have those in their bedroom just you know set a a limit most of those have some kind of limit that you can set on them so that at at minimally they can't access it after a certain time um you know or between whatever 9:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. whatever you want to do but do set a limit on them because otherwise it's like it's very it can be tempting for some kids not for all kids but for some kids it can be tempting to have that in their bedroom um and then work together to have a usage plan video games they can  you in for hours right and so you want to again talk to your kid like how much time do we have in okay what else needs to get done you know what are your priorities let's work together how much time do you think you have for playing this game um let's be realistic about it and work together and again what we're doing is we're getting them to think about how should I do this what does make sense for me what are my priorities and then they're going to know how to manage it as they get older if you just lay down the law but they're never thinking about it they're not internalizing the reasons for these limits um and then do pay attention to behavior that looks problematic that looks addictive um gaming addiction really looks like an addiction what whatever you imagine an addiction to any substance to look like um lying sneaking craving uh flipping out if they can't get to it losing touch with their activities isolating themselves that's what a real addiction looks like and that's what it would look like if they were really addicted to gaming there's levels of addiction so your kid might have like a very bad habit around gaming um and in that case you know you probably you will need to intervene in some way and if that's you and your word you can come talk to me after and I have some resources for you okay have to talk about this because the average age that kids first consumed point is 12 okay that doesn't mean that your 12-year-old has seen it but that's an average age that's very very young to be exposed to  um I know this is a little bit hard to read this is from common media so if you want to look at their um studies on  and teens I recommend going on to their site um but a lot of kids are seeing 13 and younger 54% of kids are seeing that's a lot okay and you know by 17 3/4 of your kids have been exposed to  or are watching  um and then you know more boys are seeing it than girls but girls are also exposed to it now the most interesting thing here I think is that the kids who talk to their parents about are actually less likely to explore it and they're more likely to try to explore their sexuality in other ways so it is really important to have these uncomfortable conversations about  with your kids it's not easy to do and so if you I want to take a picture of this these are really sort of some of my favorite resources for helping guide you in those conversations with your kids about  it is you know I've been having these conversations that sort of different developmentally appropriate levels with my kids since they were probably 10 and I think it it works you know it I mean I can't promise that my kids haven't watched it but I do think they have an understanding of why it's better to try to stay away from it um and that's really what you want to cultivate for them is that like it's for their own good it's for the good of them having a health healthy sexual life as they get older um to really not spend a lot of time with um if you don't talk to them they will learn everything there is to learn about  reference so I highly recommend having them okay so real quick I'm not going to go very deep into AI because that's actually a whole other talk happy to do it but I can't today um but a little bit just so that we have a a sense of the landscape um Basics there's generative AI which is probably you know chat gbt is probably what you've heard most about or are using already there's also Google's Gemini there's Claude And basically generative AI is art intelligence that creates original content for you so you give it a prompt and it's going to generate an answer back for you chatbot is a type of generative Ai and you can chat with it it will answer questions it will provide answers and information for you but also it will develop more of an intimate relationship with you if you lead it that way chat box can often be sort of designed and catered to see what you want them to be so um if I want you know to talk with a uh you know 60 year old handsome man with long hair who compliments me at every turn I can generate some someone like that and you know start talking to him for young kids this is tricky we're going to get into why so the first thing that we need to remember is that it AI is biased because it's remained on the information that it's trained on online by the people who decide what it's going to be trained on so it's not always going to have answers that are you know Fair basically and that represent all points of view on regular subject um they have been known to give out misinformation as fact and so for kids who you know are eager to sort of just get an answer and move on they it can feel like they're getting a definitive answer to something when they're not and so kids really need to learn to double-check triple-check what they're being told an AI um particularly with the chat Bots I think it can be hard for younger people with not fully developed brains to distinguish between real human connection and a sort of you know simulated empathy uh it doesn't feel that different to them especially a generation that's been raised on texting where you know it feels natural to just talk via text and so kind of like what's the difference you know here's another text that I'm having a text um and then just sort of this lack of challenge so they're always they're sort of like you know they're always going to tell you your thoughts are the best and you're so smart and what a great idea and for young kids they need to be challenged they need to have relationships with people who say well I don't know or question them or put them in their place and to date these AI chat Bots are not going to do that um so if you're just curious about AI if you think they might be using it I would recommend exploring it together so sit down together prompt the AI with different things um some things maybe that you are an expert on or your kid is an expert on and how the AI does um play with it together see what what happens what comes up um make sure that you explain to your child that AI can be biased and that it can be incorrect and that they need to double triple check any information they're getting off up there um you definitely want to again in conversation explore questions with them about how it might affect you know culture how might it affect people's mental health um how might it affect relationships last night at the dinner table my younger son said um have you seen Surah do you guys know what Surah is Surah is the new um new feature from open AI what they they created Chachi party and Sora creates video and it's so realistic I mean it's just crazy and it can take sort of intellectual property that already exists out there there's actually a lot of lawsuits happening um and make it do whatever you why you can put yourself into it it's really um disturbing but my kids think it's like the coolest thing they've ever seen and they really want to play with it and so we I said I have like I I'm nervous about it I most honest I have nervous about it I don't know like I don't it's so new like what could the repercussions be and then I just said like well what do you think you know and we I tried to just generate a thoughtful conversation around it instead of being like you know don't know although I did say I really would prefer you guys not uh interact with chat Bots and I explained all these reasons why and I said I thought it was potentially dangerous and I didn't feel comfortable with it um So to that end you do want to discuss some rules around AI you know what do you feel is is okay with you what is not okay with you and that might be hard for you to do not knowing a lot about it it's kind of hard for all of us because we're all learning at the same time so do a little bit of your research and then make decisions based on that I don't want you to have this app or or um this is okay if you do it with me and make sure that you talk to them about your reasoning behind it um again I love Common Sense Media they're a wonderful resource and they've been putting a lot of time and energy into Ai and helping parents kind of navigate it so if you're wondering sort of like how do I even say this to my kid they have some really good resources ah okay okay so some last takeaways before our Q&A I really really believe that you can be your kids best ally here I don't think it just needs to be about fighting and blocking and restricting I think you need to keep you know good strong boundaries that are clear and that are consistent but you can step in as a mentor you can talk them through stuff you can get them to question things and you can work together so that they are learning these strategies as are protecting them so stay open stay curious try to hold your judgments unless it's something that you really have a very strong opinion about in which case yes 100% you should I'm not okay with this and this is why it goes against is my values because XYZ what do you think about it right like that um and then try to find support in your parent Community I mean doing things like this is really helpful if you're trying if you have younger kids and you're trying to hold off on getting phones you know you can get a whole group together you can do a wait until 8th pledge where everyone sort of comes together you just need 10 parents or more and you decide none of us are going to get our kids phones because we don't want to deal with the air pressure of it um it really works when kids don't feel the peer pressure they just don't need it as much um this is where you can find more from me you can scan that um and I tried to make myself as available as possible to people so don't be shy if you want to reach out you want to send me an email I'm always happy to chat um so let's open it up to Q&A yes yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I think it's really hard I'll be honest um if if it feels to you like your kid is keeping up at the homework they're doing well it seems like they're not too distracted it's then maybe it's okay um I think just like for us I mean for me if I can get really easily distracted when I'm doing my work like the New York Times Table and then Amazon I forgot I want to buy this and now I have to send this email and this person's texting me and so we're all in this situation right where it's very hard to block out all these distractions um for me I I try to recommend if you can with your kids especially if they're younger so you haven't really set it up yet that they're in their bedrooms um to have them do their homework like in a main space like this is the homework table like in the kitchen or we do it in the dining room maybe that could work once they get to high school it's a little bit trickier like they're probably just going to sit on their bed and do their homework and my feeling once they get to that point is like okay well you're going to have to learn the consequences of if you spent those 3 hours you know watching YouTube instead now like it  for you and the other thing that I do is that I call it that a certain point so I so like if your homework isn't done by Mike it's a little bit older but if you're not done by 10:30 sorry and then like your computer's out you don't get to stay up for 3 more hours to finish it and that's a natural consequence like you blew it you know you stay you spent 3 hours gaming or you spent your time watching YouTube and now you're going to have to wake up early and do your homework tomorrow or you're not going to turn it in on time so I am a big fan of those natural consequences I do think that they work um you know you just have to stick to it that that part is on you but I empathize because I do think the homework thing is hard I think in middle school I don't I met my middle schooler be in his room with his device with the door closed unless he's having like a private phone conversation with somebody that's fine but when he's doing his homework or whatever the doors open and if you're worried about it beyond that no headphones right so no headphones during homework time keep your door open when you're done okay fine do your thing yeah yeah how old are you guys how old are they well I mean you try you try your best and if you can make it happen you make it happen and if you can then you let it go I mean I'm not I you know we have to be like gentle with ourselves we're trying the best that we can but I think that you can sit down with your kid again like and just say hey guys I just didn't realizing how distracting it can be to sit and try to do homework with your devices and I would love to try and experiment where we just keep the door open for a while no headphones just to give you some accountability but that's what it's for right it's like I go if I can't focus I'll go work in a cafe because I feel like I have to focus right because everyone around me is working or whatever so teaching them like it can help to have a little bit of accountability knowing that I'm going to walk by it might just keep you on track with your homework so I would love to just try this are you guys going to try it for the next couple weeks and then let's talk and see how it went I feel like that's the best you can do right right again like once your kids are teenagers you can't they're just going to be like no you know um it's hard so you really have to like work with them yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I think it's fine I wouldn't do it during the week like what on school days um because I just think it doesn't it sets them up to not be able to focus as well if they're watching stimulating stuff right before school but on weekends I feel like your sleep is probably my priority and um you know as long as what they're watching is appropriate for them and it's not like the whole day it's a couple hours or whatever I just wasn't sweat it honestly um as they get older they will eventually probably sleep in more and like it's going to disappear that morning thing is going to disappear because they're just going to want to sleep yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah um I mean I would want to know a little bit more specifically and we can talk if you want about like how much time they're getting on their devices what are they watching and all of that but if you're really concerned like my kid has a issue like this has gone too far um I can't get them to do anything then you might need to consider sort of like taking it away for you know a few weeks and then creating some new boundaries and limits and slowly reintroducing it and The Taking It Away part is going to be painful for you they're going to really protest they're going to have a hard time they're not going to know what to do with themselves they're going to whine about it um part of when you take it away you do have to think a little bit about like how am I feeling that space right um if you take it away and then it's just like this empty void that's hard so I would just consider you know think about it a little bit in advance it's not an easy thing to do but sometimes it can be the fix because if your kid is very sensitive to you know too much dopamine then they may just need to actually like have some time to for their brain to kind of to homeostasis and then you can kind of start again and some kids are you know again like kids brains are totally different so for example if you have a child who has ADHD they're going to be way more attracted to devices probably they're going to get hooked a lot easier they're going to get obsessed with stuff and so that's going to be a different relationship to devices than if you have a kid who doesn't because they don't have that sort of do dopamine mean situation going on in their brain with the Cravings um kids who have ADHD I have a kid with ADHD they're more susceptible to addictions and this can become an addiction and so if that's your kid with ADHD you know there's a lot of things I have to say about that but 1 thing that I think is really important is for them to really understand their brain and how their brain works and why it's a little different in relation to stuff like this and so that they can look out for it you know with with my son I said you know listen you are more suscept you're going to be more susceptible to getting addicted to stuff you need to know that about yourself out and so that you can catch it when it's happening so that you can say to me like I I you know I I think I'm in a thing with this game um and and we've had times like that where I've said I've had to stop them and say like are you feeling like sort of addicted to it but we had the language because I'm trying I tried to empower him and say this is your brain you need to understand how it works um but we can talk more if I want big waving hand yes either question about the um but the number 1 my daughter yeah yeah and then how does that affect the brain waves and vision because yeah and now you're also yeah well I mean the way I think about it is you know we're animals we're human beings and we're not designed to sit sedentary for hours and hours and hours a day and our eyes are not designed to be focused on 1 thing you know 2 feet in front of us for the whole day so we're actually just not designed for it and because of that I think it's really important to engage our bodies in the way that we're designed to use them um and then that in turn of course affects your brain activity and affects your mental well-being as well so if you're not using all of your senses to go through the world to interact with humans we're a social species if you're not doing all of those things yeah that is going to affect you um so it really is about like finding that balance it's great men kids love to do creative stuff or listen to you know audiobooks for hours I don't really have a problem with that except for yes you want to have some space for thought right um now you don't need to tell me whether you're Market is does or does not have ADHD but I have found that some kids just feel like listening to something all the time gives them like this mild stimulus it's almost my son doesn't this music it's always on and he says to me that it's like it helps him he he can't articulate it but it helps him to feel more present so it's doing something to his brain to just have that so I don't know I think stories are great and I think listening to them is great so I don't really have a problem with it but I think it is about just talking to her about I love that you do this stuff I love that you do this online also you have to be in the world and you have to interact with people in real life and you have to move your body because that's how we get stimulus to our brain that's how we grow um so it's it really in the end it's just about finding a balance and for some people it'll skew 1 way more than the other some people would rather be outside all the time and that's they're going to opt for that and some people just are more comfortable a little more solitary doing their creative thing online and they still need to you know find some time to interact with the world so that the answer yeah um yeah I have 2 questions the first 1 is do you prefer parental control yeah and the second question is there's not social media how do you feel about texting yeah um I've thought about that second 1 um so parental control apps I don't love any of them um they're all faulty in different ways they're not um they're not like a perfect Safeguard most of them only work really well on an Android phone um not as well on Apple phones because Apple phones are have more privacy restrictions and so they don't allow app to like scrape what your kid is doing they're protecting their privacy um so a lot of the ones you've heard of like custodial and bark um they just won't do all the things on an Apple phone there's a new 1 that I've been hearing about and I don't have uh so but it's called I think bright Canary or something and um that 1 works specifically well with um well devices um I just I I'm wary of that because I think number 1 kids will always find a way to do the thing they want to do once they're teenagers they're programmed to just like find do thing they want to do um and if you're just setting up restrictions that you think are working but they're sneaking around doing other things then there's just like this lack of knowledge on your part and this lack of communication and Trust going on so I worry a little bit about that um I think it I think it feels bad to a lot of kids to be watched constantly in like a sort of Big Brother any way um they feel like they don't have space or freedom and I understand that a lot of parents are like well I don't want them to have space for freedom on their um and that's I get that totally but from their perspective I think they there's something about it that really rubs them the wrong way now what I do believe in is um you know monitoring setting limits with some of these control apps and I just use the basic the screen time app that comes on the Apple devices which is pretty good um well pets I mean if you have it you can set it so that they can ignore it and then it's like password protected you have to password protected um so um and by the way I have a really good Tech person who I work with she's wonderful so if you are like I need someone to set this up for me I have the person for you um so setting limits on certain apps having a bed time for the device that's set where it just goes into night you know sleep mode um you know restricting maybe uh downloads from the app store without your permission like there's a lot of things that you can do that make it a safer space for your kid you know limiting adult websites you know restricting rated art whatever all of these things um without having to like spy on your kid and try to see every single thing they're doing at all times that said if you have a kid who has been having a hard time and they break every single rule and you know maybe you need a little bit more restriction so I I think it's a kid by Kid basis but I'm not sure I think they maybe can cause some Rifts with kids sometimes I'm sort of on the fence but lean towards rather not but I'm not against them oh and then the other question about texting inside the house um yeah so we do this sometimes in my house because it's like I'm upstairs or downstairs and I don't want to yell um and so I'll text or like I know that my son is in the middle play video games but like I want to you know tell him something real quick so I'll text it to him so he sees it um and I was thinking about the other day and I thought like is this horrible that we're doing this um and then I thought well I don't know people used to have like intercoms you know in their homes and that seemed fine and kind of cool that you could intercom someone in another room so I think if it's not the only way that you're communicating I wouldn't have like real communication via text in the house but if like dinner's in ten minutes I feel like that's okay you know if you're really uncomfortable with it and you hate it just say I don't like it let's just talk to each other when we're in the house I there's no rule about comfortable with yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah um I have you know I have a list that I keep running like in my like in YouTube that I have like saved of um good videos for that sometimes I use them when I'm teaching um maybe what I can do I could probably make like a resource because that's I I've had that question before um uh where I sort of list some of those and maybe um put those up on my website for you I don't have 1 currently um but if you want to give me or if you want to shoot me an email or something I can because yeah there's some good stuff yeah you mentioned someone else 30 minutes or or really quantify yeah I mean the guidance has has shifted over the years because it's become clear that um not all screen time is bad for kids but if we're just talking about like the sort of recreational type of screen time um generally for this age group there's this very sort of broad guideline of like under 2 hours a day um which is Broad and so I think bearing that in mind of like maybe the uppermost limit um you know you you can then work from there I would just say that like it also depends like what's your kid doing have they been Super Active all day are they playing sports are they you know doing all this other stuff and then like they just want like to totally poop out for an hour and a half or whatever and relax and not think about anything or are they just like spending you know 5 hours alone in their room that's obviously not healthy for them so for younger kids it's a little bit clearer it's like I would say if your kids in elementary school or something like that like try to cap it maybe at an hour a day some parents don't want any recreational screen time during the week and only on the weekends there isn't really a specific recommendation it's just you know try to make sure that it's not the only thing they're doing that it's appropriate what they're watching and that I would try to keep it under 2 hours overall a day I know it's not it's not perfect but there actually is no exact recommendation for the little little 1 it's like you don't want any screen time until 18 months and then you know until 5 years old you want to keep it under half an hour and you want to co view but once you get to like late Elementary Middle it starts to get way more nebulous in terms of the recommendation cognitively and it's very social as well yeah and there's also a communicative aspect yeah and sort of this is a constant battle over here because the kids want to play video games with their friends and they're working together and experience yeah but it makes it still a little off my time 3 hours seems like a lot yeah that's a lot yeah yeah so is there a benefit there like it was like 2 hours like a good 3 hours feels like a lot for something so stimulating saying like that um I guess maybe an exception is like if they're working together to like literally build something in Minecraft or something right so like if that's what they're doing and they're really invested in this like creative endeavor I don't know if it matters that it's on a screen other than you want them to get up and move around every hour you know for a little while but if it's more of like a rewards-based type of game um that's high stimulus that's you know leveling up and Rewards words and lots of sounds and stuff like that I actually wouldn't try to like an hour to an hour and a half before they take like a good long break um because it's just a lot it's a lot of stimulation and you should just work with them I'm like well the thing about Minecraft is it's open-ended right so there is no end um and so in that case yeah like you want to know what they're doing on there and then they do need to take some breaks so if it's going to be 3 hours I don't how are you finding how are they finding 3 hours like on a school day even to do that oh oh I don't think I would worry about it if that's the type of thing they're doing it's been really sort of creative and with other kids um I think that's the best use of probably screen time actually is using it to come together create some thing be social um yeah well Roblox is Roblox and Minecraft are not the same thing at all Roblox is more problematic very high stimulant it's filled with all these sort of addictive hooks um there's a potential for predatory activity on there so it's not the same as Minecraft um Roblox I would definitely try to like cap it an hour I think I said cap it an hour um but you know maybe for you a half an hour feels more doable um half an hour really flies by especially if they're playing with friends you could also say like if it's just you do a half an hour but if you're playing with friends you can have an it's different right so again it's it's so frustrating because we all wish there was just like answer answer answer black and white and it's just not like that at all you want to get off of Roblox is that what you're saying okay okay um I think the technique is to have like a sit down not in the middle of playing but like on a weekend like sometime but have a snack sit down talk about your reasons why explain to him you know what what you like about it for him but what you also don't aren't that happy about maybe it's replacing time you could be doing other things or whatever it is and just say like you know I want to bring down the time let's talk about you know see if he can give you a reasonable I don't know let's say he's doing 2 hours now or 3 hours now and you want to bring it down to an hour or an hour and a half just say like you know I'd like to try bringing it down to an hour and a half what do you think about that he might totally protest and say I understand that that's hard for you you're used to getting to do it for time I've learned it's actually really not great for you it's not great for your brain your motivation um to do other things I still want you to enjoy it but in a healthy way um and then you probably are just going to have to like really hold that limit strong yourself which is the hard part is for for the parent to then have to really hold the limit that could be sort of the trickier part if then he can't stick to it and he's sneaking it or he disrespecting you know your new rules then there probably needs to be a consequence of taking it away entirely and I would make that clear right I would say like I don't want to take this away I can see that you enjoy it but if you can't go on on this journey with me to make this a healthier thing for you we'll just take it away yeah do you have any proof that the that the phone actually donates any kind of agreement sorry alarm um I'm always saying you need bloody I don't want it um the protection that but they argue that right um sorry okay um it's something that electromagnetic frequencies that um come off of electronic devices is something that's been studied and decided um and there are electromagnetic devices it's just a matter of like how much is coming off of a device um and I haven't seen conclusive evidence right there's been some studies I think in mice maybe that um you know having them basically like pressed up against an iPhone for days and days and days or weeks like can they grow a tumor or whatever but again like I think that's 1 Study I don't think it's conclusive that said like let's err on the side of caution and maybe like don't sleep with your device right next to your head every day day or like I tell my kids like don't put it like in your front pocket you know where it might affect your you know private areas um and I just say like we don't know but let's just err on the side safety with it yeah I I thought I saw something yeah I don't think I put creating content on YouTube but um I think I put like Tik Tok videos um yes if your kid uh wants to be a content creator um I feel like as long as you set some expectations and parameters around it and what's the contact going to be and talk to them about it it actually takes a lot of work and effort to be a content Creator and to do it well and um to commit to it and most kids say they want to do it and then they make like 2 videos and they stopped so if you have the kid who's like no actually I'm good at this I can do it I want to do it I feel like okay like let's just Mentor them through it and support them through it and talk to them about what they're putting out into the world and what's its value right you probably don't need another content creator play video games even though that's what most of them want to do you'll get bored of it pretty soon no 1's going to watch it um so yeah that's how I would rather them be creative um I mean I think it just depends like those are the conversations that you have to have with them you know this is like you're going to get stuck on this like wheel of affirmation right of needing affirmation for yourself um if you're putting your sort of like self-esteem locked into how many people are watching you or subscribing to you it's the same with social media right so these are conversations that we need to have with kids once they're entering that world of like you should be aware that your self-esteem is going to go on like a very big ride if you're linking it to how much people are subscribing to you or liking you online talk to them about it and then they'll have an awareness and they'll notice it when it's happening all right I guess we covered everything thanks everybody thank you guys all for coming and be on the lookout we're going to send another fly around probably in the next week or 2 for another speaker coming in November have a great day

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