Well, welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. Oh gosh, I have the just immense privilege to introduce Emily Cherkin to you. Emily, welcome to our little podcast special.
Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here.
We've known each other for a good long while and all these years, you know, 20 plus years later, you've come out with this wonderful book, but also your work has led you more and more into this issues around how to give children a childhood, if I can put it that way, in a broader brushstroke. And some of the things that are happening around that. I wonder if you, before we get into the book, could just give us a little bit of a broad brushstroke.
What led you to actually focusing so much of your life on this theme? Yes. So after graduate school, I ended up becoming a middle school English teacher. And so I spent 12 years working with seventh and eighth graders, which is my favorite age group.
Not everyone's. But what I realized in that time, so it was about 2003 to 2015. And in the time I was in the classroom, I witnessed some big changes technologically.
One was the request of me as a teacher to move more things online, my gradebook, my assignments, the way I communicate with parents. And the second thing was the amount of technology access and use my students were having outside of the classroom. So back in that early age, it was Facebook and MySpace.
And of course, now it's TikTok and Instagram. But that spillover from their interactions online into the classroom initially really stopped me in my tracks. And I thought, I can't teach a vocabulary lesson.
These kids are talking about, excuse me, all these things happening online at home. So, you know, I did what I thought a good teacher should do, which was let's have a conversation about this. I want to understand this better.
And my students pushed back and they said, it's our parents. Our parents are texting and driving. Our parents are looking through their phones when they're bored.
They're the ones on social media. And I thought, aha, this is not a kid problem. This is a parenting challenge and it's impacting children.
And so I pivoted to realizing that the work I could do more effectively was with parents in a more education capacity. And so there are a few other life events that transitioned me out of the classroom. But I felt like that experience was very formative to helping me now advocate for what I talk about as tech intentional approach to parenting.
And I would argue teaching and learning as well. Yeah, the term tech intentional really caught my ear as well and caught my eye as I was looking through your book, reading your book. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and give us like an overview of what you cover in the book? Because one of the things I noticed looking through it was how well designed.
You take us on a bit of a journey in the book, don't you? And it's but it's all highly relevant. There's not a step of the way where I don't think, oh, that doesn't apply to our lives today. Every single step does.
And I wonder if you can walk us through these steps to give us a better understanding about becoming tech intentional parents. Yes. Yes.
Well, I really appreciate that feedback. When I wrote the book, I wrote it because I wanted it to be something I'd want to read. And the stories, the books that I like to read are usually taught through story because that's how I remember things as a student.
And it's how I like to read a book. I like nonfiction, but I find when they're illustrated with examples that helps. So that was part of my intention in writing it.
And I wanted it to be applicable even as technology changes so rapidly. I wanted the tools of the book to be relevant even as technology changes. And so this concept of tech intentionality, I found myself saying every time I would talk to parents or do presentations, I'd say, well, I'm not anti-tech.
I'm not anti-tech. And I mean, I live in Seattle. There's a lot of tech here.
And so I found myself kind of wanting to clarify that it's not that I think it's all bad. It's that we have to approach it like with other things in life with intentionality. And so I started to talk about this idea of I'm not anti-tech and tech intentional.
And for me, that means making decisions about how we use technology in a way that is in alignment with our values, with what we know about development and brain growth and relationships and humanity and, you know, limiting and delaying and resisting types of technology that interfere with health and development. I mean, that's the TLDR, to use the modern lingo, is later is better, less is more, relationships first. It's the simplified version of that.
You know, one of the, and this is where our work is so closely aligned, is that one of the pieces that I often talk to parents about is that, again, I'm not anti-tech. I'm not anti-screens, but I'm passionately pro-human connection, passionately connection, connection to nature, connection to friends, not friending and not watching nature videos, but really involved in nature. So soothing and calming, really involved with friends and all that the learning through maintaining a friendship takes.
And then the third circle is connection to family, because so much of what's happening on screens is eroding family life. And all that leads to this connection to self, to sense of self, to my, we all want our kids to grow up with that. This is my true north, not the magnetic north of toxic pop culture.
And I think that's a deep held wish that our kids will follow their own star and not be pulled and pushed by whatever is being required by screen marketers at the time. Now, you lead us through that very elegantly. And I wonder if you can talk now and just walk us through some of the steps that you kind of, almost like each chapter in the book is a step.
It's like a step, step, step. And I wonder if you can lead us through that. Yes, I would love to.
So I'll hold it up. Yes, please do. The icons on the cover just have both that, the app icon, but also the images are more of the real world engagement activity.
The screen solution. I just say it out loud. Yes, Screen Time Solution by Emily Churkin, a judgment-free guide to becoming a tech intentional family.
And the judgment-free piece was very important to me as well because, I mean, certainly in the context of relationships, no one likes to feel judged. It doesn't make us be kinder, better behaved, whatever. And so that was an important message for me to get across because I think, especially Screen Time is so fraught with uncertainty and guilt and shame.
And I wanted to say, come as you are, and here are some ideas about no matter where you are in your parenting journey, there's something here for you. So one of the things I really thought about for the book too was how often I would hear, well, I watched TV when I was a kid and I turned out fine. And I wanted to illustrate how different it is for children today.
And I mean, even, it's crazy to say, but I would argue it's even more different now than it was five years ago. Like it's just this shift is so, so significant. And, you know, I go into it more in the book, but the very germ of that idea is the persuasive design component of modern technology, the way it is designed to hook our neural pathways, manipulate our attention and hold us there.
And so it's very different than just turning on cartoons on a Saturday morning on the television that the whole family watched. And so I try to write, I try to do a kind of comparison between those experiences. The other thing I hear a lot about from parents is my child needs a phone to be safe.
And one of the things that I really try to promote is this idea that we have to differentiate between what is scary about the world and what is truly dangerous. Because I think very often we give a phone in reaction to what we hear things, things that sound scary, but aren't necessarily actually dangerous. And I say this as a parent myself who has struggled with these very fears and how often I have to talk to myself and say, by choosing to give this device, I'm not actually making my child safer in these circumstances, for example.
And so that I try to dive into that a bit as well for parents to help them. The example I always like to give is right now the number three fear in America, according to Pew Research is kidnapping. But kidnapping is a statistically, I mean, it's almost nil in terms of risk.
But what happens, of course, as parents, we have these things. Is the reporting. It's the reporting is disproportionate to the risk.
And yet giving a child, ironically, the number one and number two fears are mental health and cyberbullying. Right. And so here we have a device that we give in the name of safety.
Which is number three. Which is number three. Makes number one and two worse.
And so, again, I think there's a lot of content and experts out there who are going to shame shame and blame parents for that choice. My approach is always to say it's not your fault, but it's your responsibility. Like this is a problem that we can fix.
It's hard. It requires work. It requires change and introspection and lots of conversations.
But I also always say it is a fight worth having. And so that's the next sections of the book are talking about how the approach to screen time has to be grounded in family values. It has to involve us as adults looking at our own use of screens.
I think a lot of times there's You know, I can't tell my kid not to do it because I'm doing it all the time. It feels hypocritical. Yep, it definitely does.
So that means we have to look at our own use as well. And then sort of concluding just again with that piece of connection, IRL connection, the in real life part that it's through the relationships and I was very pleased that this fall there was some new research out about The right questions to ask because the questions I get asked all the time are how much is too much screen time and what parental controls. Do I recommend And I go into that a bit in the book because I have a very strong opinion about parental controls, which is generally actually don't recommend them.
Which is a separate question to address. But the questions we want to address the questions that we need to know the answer to as parents is Do I know what my child is doing online, which is contingent upon the second question is, do I have a strong relationship with my child and that the knowing Yes to both of those is actually the future proofing and the harm prevention of helping our children be successful, be secure, be Emotionally stable, not without bumps. Life is full of them.
And that's normal, but not the scary, scary stuff that we read about or they, you know, All of the all of those clickbait headlines that do make our anxiety go up. So that is important to me for parents to understand that there is this The wrong questions to ask. And then the ones that actually I think are more meaningful and effective.
So you were establishing a baseline. Of of connection, but also a baseline of if if a child does see something on a screen. And I know you mentioned this, that there's, there's the connection and the non non judgmental and non freak out space that they can come and and download and decompress and make meaning of it with the parent, but I'm getting ahead a little bit there.
Let's take a look at the other steps. That's fine. Um, well, yes.
So that that's, that's a very important one because we want To establish the type of family environment where our children will come to us, not if they see pornography when and that's a hard thing for parents to hear, but it is That's the day and age that we live in. I wish it weren't, but it is. So that's another one.
Another thing I talk a lot about in the book is prioritizing certain skills before we hand out screens and one of the I have this sort of set of three questions that parents can ask when they think about giving a screen as a Solution to whatever it is often I hear it's I have to get something done. I need to make dinner. I've got to run in there and here's an iPad and sometimes that might be my dog is barking.
So sorry. Sometimes. Might be a good Sometimes that might be an option that we choose.
But what I really encourage parents to think about is when I choose a screen based option. What do I gain Maybe peace and quiet, maybe an hour of time for myself. That's not terrible.
The second question is, what do I lose or replace and Again, this is where the intentional approach is so important because I say a little bit of screen time is okay. A lot is too much. And so If there's moments where that may be the choice you have to make.
Okay, but it has to be the exception of the rule, right. Because we don't want to displace or lose opportunities for other skills. And then the third question, of course, back to the parenting piece of what do I model.
And so the skills piece to me is especially concerning for what I'm seeing happen in education today with the increased use of technology. It used to be as a thing that we learned some things about and we learned to type and we learned research skills and we learned maybe how to Do cool things or are any things we can do technologically to now computers form the basis of all of the learning that happens, whether it's, you know, effective, efficient. Or best practice for children learning.
And so that's one of those things I think parents are More aware of the home screen problem and less food into what's happening at schools, although I do think the pandemic pulled the curtain back a little bit more on that. So Paradoxically, we also upped the amount of tech. So it's kind of like we're more aware and there's more of it now.
Yeah, yeah. And And I know that the figures that you cite in your book similar to when I first wrote the chapter on in simplicity parenting book called filtering screens filtering out the adult world which screens were a part of that. Interestingly enough, I also included unguarded adult conversation in that as well.
But You know, when I first wrote that Emily was like we were still talking about blackberries. And so when the editors came along and said, or could we do a 10th anniversary edition like a second edition of the book. I jumped at the chance because technology had moved so quickly so far, but the data was really interesting because the Kaiser family foundation, their data was that kids were exposed the average 12 year old was exposed To seven and a quarter hours a day.
But The follow up study and by the common sense foundation common sense media foundation. That's up to, isn't it like nine and a quarter hours now and that's excluding multiple screen use. Yes.
Outside. This is key outside of school time. Yeah.
So the New York Times years ago, you know, they wrote this article. If your child is awake. If your child is an average American kid and they're awake, they'll be on a screen because you it's it's nine and a quarter hours outside of the many hours of screens during the day.
Can you take us down that road a little bit more the school home and just simply the amount of time. I think that's been one of the biggest shocks for parents is to put those numbers together because again, I would say, you know, even 10 years ago, yeah, there was more screen use in the classroom, but it was still less than more. And so when we hear those high numbers and we're like, oh my gosh 569 hours a day.
Okay, well at least school is this place my child goes where I know they're not on the screen right and actually for a lot of parents who weren't even paying attention to the home screen use that was a benefit to their children. They, we who were concerned new. Well, at least those kids are at school not getting it.
That's not at all what's happening now we have kindergartners with iPads for reading and learning, we have math programs we have full learning management systems. I'm a big fan of the internet safety labs research they do a lot of independent research on ed tech and they found that on average each school uses about 150 different platforms for school. And so, you know, I'm a lot of the work I do in the advocacy side of my work is around student data privacy and pushing back on the pieces of ed tech that are I believe are harmful for children, not just in the learning context but also the privacy.
Oh, there's a lot. And so the fact that there's, you know, 150 platforms for school there's no way even the most well intentioned district or principal can monitor can know what's going on and know how that's happening and anecdotally I see it in my own house my 12 year old is a sixth grader comes home with a school from from her computer from her school and she can get on YouTube from her school computer, you know, and, you know, YouTube may have some fun videos on it but YouTube has a lot of terrible things on it too and so there's, I think parents are often shocked at what their kids can access, you know, they assume that schools can block or limit, and I call this digital whack a mole, because you just can't, it's never possible to block or limit or restrict or filter everything you want. And part of that is because human language is so nuanced right like we can inadvertently search for something that I use the example my son when he was young really loved Harry Potter wanted to order a scarlet robe for his costume.
I know where this is going. Exactly. The word scarlet connotes something very different than just maroon or red, you know, and so he typed that into just even an Amazon search to get a scarlet robe and he got lingerie, you know, and it was just like, that was a relatively minor, you know, use of a search term gone wrong but it really stuck with me that like nuance you know this is computers don't have nuance they rely on data sets and impersonality and, and that's hard because you hear a lot of like well technology will make our life better technology will ease things for us it makes things easier I hear this a lot like the frictionless technology, and you know this.
That's a problem for learning, because we learn in the friction, we learn when it's hard and messy, and if we are imparting, you know, tools in the classroom or for homework or for students that make it easier we're not raising more critical thinkers were raising kids who choose the easy way out, because that's what the brain wants. And it's, it's interesting Emily you mentioned you're a 12 year old because at my graduate school at Antioch where I've taught for many years, and we met at grad school at a different grad school years ago, but the, the 12, a mom of a 12 year old came into our, into our cohort into our class. A ghast at her child who had been set homework, and how she happened to walk by.
And there was some fairly disturbing pornography happening on the screen. And so we, we took the questions that he was meant to research her son. We all did a search we decided to all do that that search.
And because of the algorithms, and because of the keyword searches in, and when we're in YouTube. The quickest, someone was offered pornography, just from a homework a sixth grade homework question was three minutes. And then the longest was around 28 minutes that took before pornography was offered, and it's offered right there you see it, and then when you go into it it's on, then it leads to more and more and down.
It's on autoplay. And that's the algorithm. So a child is just sitting there and her son was shocked and it took him weeks to get over, seeing what he saw with his hardcore pornography site, just in what they were putting out there in the.
But the speed at which it leads a child down that pathway, and all sorts of research as you know Emily, that are now is now widely known about how that dramatically interrupts healthy intimate relationships in future life, because of the feeling that one is performance oriented it's performative, but also that kids and when they're when they're in intimate relationships. are feeling a little bit like they're running the tapes of being videoed even though they're not being, but they're running those tapes and they're not in the experience, they're observing themselves, having it, rather than being in this beautiful intimate relationship. And I know you speak about that in the book and it's increasing right? Very much so and I love that you did an experiment right there and then about that because I think that's a very powerful exercise for parents and one thing that I did this similarly with Snapchat so another very popular platform among young people and just as a side note, I mean, the federal law says that to use these platforms you're supposed to be 13 or older.
Now, I am the kind of person that enjoys watching congressional hearings of big tech CEOs getting grilled by senators, and there have been several one more recently but a couple of, I think it was in October last year they were asking them about, you know, the 13 year old that was the CEO of Snap and Instagram and all of that and they were saying you know like how this content you know it's no, they were saying no 13 year olds under under 13 is on it. I mean, excuse my language, but bull crap. That is not true at all we know so many children are on it.
In part, sometimes parents sign their kids up on their behalf right. That's one problem but the other problem is how quickly they went to justify well it's age appropriate for 13 and everything's age appropriate so some senator had done this in his office and I thought I'm going to try this myself. I made a Snapchat account, I pretended to be 15, I gave them the benefit of the doubt that okay let's let's say I am 15 and I, it was within seconds, I got pornography seconds not minutes seconds, and that's simply with only telling them my birth date, and a fake name, and not my real birthday obviously 15 year old one, I'm not 15.
And so, immediately you just got the hop over into the discover mode which is the algorithmically driven content that pushes it to you. The other thing that I think is important to note here and I didn't mention this in the book but it's very interesting to me is people are up in arms about children's rightfully so to be clear I'm not pro porn for children, to be very very clear. But part of the problem is the algorithm learns and when you're in a household that has multiple devices.
They communicate with each other. So if one person in the household is consuming pornography and it might be an adult who is doing it legally. That's going to start to show up in the feeds of the rest of the family's devices.
And so that's one of those things where I think we haven't quite made, put those together yet as like if kids are accessing it maybe that the algorithm has learned something about the household or I don't know it's an older sibling or an adult like. And again, that's just one of those things we don't know because the algorithm is sort of this mystery black box, although it's, that's intentional right the companies don't want us to know how they work, but it is only getting smarter there's only training on further, the more data we give it the more efficient it becomes it's far from perfect, and I there are many problems with it but it's worrisome. Yeah, and part of what I read about and I think this is, it is an education for parents to understand this but it was also our job as parents to educate our children about it and to just say, and, and I'm talking at three and four years old, we have to start these conversations because the child, you know, don't give them the device if you're not ready for them to see for, and how that looks, you know how you talk about that with a four year old is a very different conversation than a 14 year old but we have to start from the beginning, because it's just like, you know, it's, it's again, not if but when.
So, hey guys, you're going to have this time on the iPad. There are pictures that make you uncomfortable or you see something you don't understand I want you to turn it off right away and come and tell me, right, I mean, any way that we can just normalize them coming to us, because it may not be porn could be bullying, it could be violence right there's lots of other awful stuff. And so I do this with my daughter and her friends my daughter doesn't have a phone but her friends some of her friends do and I will just walk by them in the house and just say remember there's porn on there and don't talk to creepy people or even people who don't seem creepy.
Constant broken record in my house of like over and over again and I want them to roll their eyes I want them to go, gosh, mom, you know, leave me alone, because then they're listening. And, you know, that's, walk us down that road a little bit Emily as we pivot to what is it that parents can can do about this because I love these chapters. Now we're combining more than one but I love this aspect of your book that gave these.
I think of it as small doable changes that small is beautiful and small and doable is even more beautiful. So, can you just walk us down that road, some of the things, and there are stories in the book about this. This isn't in any way just theoretical, but can you give us a give us, you know, if you just can walk us down that road a bit.
Yes, I, one of my favorite tips strategies to give to parents is this concept of living your life out loud. And I actually learned it from a colleague at a center for ADHD that I worked out for a while and she used it in the context of teaching executive function skills to have children narrate what they're doing as a way of sort of building on those executive function skills. I took that idea and I thought, oh, this is perfect for screen time this is perfect for adult mentoring, not monitoring to quote Devorah Heitner.
And so what I tell parents is when you pick up your phone, and this is a parent task not a child one initially. Anytime you reach for that device, it's out loud. I'm picking up my phone, I'm looking to see what time soccer practice starts I'm going to check Google Maps to see how long it's going to take me to get there I'm going to text your friend's mom find constant narration mundane, boring details.
80% of the time I always tell parents go 80% we're trying to live within our values operate that would be the parent we want to be 20% we're gonna mess up that's normal, healthy, cut yourself some slack right this isn't about perfection. So narrating it is so powerful for so many reasons. First of all, it gets us right as an adult to the accountability piece what are we doing when we pick it up by lifting it up, I have to tell you out loud.
The other thing it does is the story I get I can't remember if I put this one in the book book, or lived in New York City for three years and in 2000 to 2003 and one of the things I loved is writing the subway into the city, because I could look at this sea of humanity sitting around all reading different newspapers in different languages. And I remember thinking, this is the coolest thing in the world like I were all consuming news, but in a language that's different from like 20 people around me. What happens now right we get on the subway, we might all still be reading our news, but no one knows it all looks the same from behind.
And so I thought about that a lot for children. We have to tell them what we're doing because this is, I always say it's not a switchblade it's a Swiss Army knife, it's, it's a multi tool. And part of educating kids about digital tech and being tech intentional is helping them see how we use it all of the different purposes of it.
Then we can add to that right so then I think about how we can, it's our accountability, it's how we use it. It's the emotional component, how does it make us feel, what are the reason we reach for it, if we're doing the narrating out loud. I could say I'm reaching for this and I'm scrolling through Instagram there's no end to my feed and I just, I don't feel better and just all these people and they're beautiful pictures and I feel like our life is so boring compared.
You start to make these connections and, and again this is adults talking we're still in adult parent mode here right, but our kids are listening. We know that children become the tech users, we are by watching and listening fast. So we know we've got work to do on that, we have to start here.
And, you know, I don't open with that in the book because I think that can be, again that parent defensiveness I always joke that I need a sandwich board that says I'm not judging you. Anytime I walk into a parent presentation I'm like I'm not judging you. One of the things I loved about the talking out loud, the narrating, is that one of the thoughts I had was something I talk with parents about too, is that to differentiate between a tech tool and a tech toy.
Yes, yes. And, and so if I'm when I read that I thought, what you're doing in saying okay I'm checking what time soccer practice ends, or I'm checking on, you know, yes, you're into tech tool land, and over and over and over you're showing tech tool. Because a lot of what we do as parents is is tech tool.
Yes. And to save and I would now add this to save tech toy time, tech toy time until after the kids aren't around. Yeah, so tech tool, and, and then something I hadn't thought about is narrated out loud and thank you for that.
I've quoted you to many people. So, so you're using it as a tool. And that is, and you what we want is for our kids as you say to become those users where tech is a tool, and not consuming more and more of their life through passive play.
Yes, and I will say one of the things that muddies that distinction is the fact that schools are giving iPads as tools, because to a child and I've had as a toy, certainly to a, you know, a young child pre educational stage, and so that to me is actually really problematic, because then it makes it much harder and then, you know, again you ask any child what is an iPad is it a school device or it's an entertainment device. I'm going to say, Oh, well, I might have it at school but I use it to watch videos or play games. And so, and of course we murky the water even more when we make educational games, you know, then when we take math and we gamify it so it feels like a video game or it feels like an online.
And anyone who's listening to this and not watching Emily she just put educational games in air quotes right. And, you know, I Dr. Dimitri Christakis who's a Seattle children's pediatrician and he has a wonderful TED talk actually about tech and pacing the pacing of technology how that's changed but one of the things I love to quote him on is he says anything is educational. It's just, what is it you want it to be teaching.
Right. And so, slapping a educational label on an app might make us feel better as parents but they're all teaching our kids something it's just that the question is what is it that they're actually teaching and are we okay with that is that in alignment. Development.
Again, I, you know, like any yummy thing in life, anything dopamine driven, a little bit so okay I mean sure there are some very clear exceptions to that but like, it's okay to say like hey we're going to watch a movie together as a family. But what and I hear this all the time my family movie night and my next question is, is it one screen one family, because family newbie night movie night might involve parents sitting on the couch on their phones while kids watch a movie that's not family movie. Just call it what it is, it's okay if it's everybody on their own screen in one room night.
That's not a family movie. And so, helping parents to see that and make those nuanced decisions I talked about it in the context of choices within choices right so okay we're choosing to do technology as a family. Well then, intentionally within that do it together, right, some families like playing video games together great do it together.
And if you do it separately sometimes call it what it is, let's just stop saying it's for learning and it's for family bonding when it isn't, or when it isn't always. So, as we get towards the end of our time Emily let's let's move even further down the road of solutions because the book is so rich in solutions, and I'm keen for us to get as many of those small doable solutions to as to for us as parents to absorb and you'll thought about this a lot. Can you give us can you walk us through those.
Yes, well certainly living your life out loud is pretty easy you can start today, no skills required just start talking, and you know it's working when the kids roll their eyes. Number two would be, get your phones out of the bedroom. This is parents I'm still talking about and I'm talking about even if you have infants, get them out of the bedroom, because it is going to make those teen years a lot easier when you say, I don't keep my phone in the room, and all our phones stay here at night, and that you know there's benefits from the modeling side but also for us as adults for sleep, we know that sleep is sort of the low hanging fruit of happy and healthy right and when we get enough we feel better and so the more we can decrease our scrolling interfering with our sleep process.
I always say Twitter before bed messes with your head. It's like, we don't need that in our brains before we're trying to rest. And so, even if you can't move it physically out of your room I always say make it so you have to get up to reach it, you know, don't get up in the morning and The next question I always get is well what it's my alarm clock, and I say alarm clocks are very inexpensive and very available still so get a real alarm clock, put the phone away.
Another strategy and this is a little more of a unique one, but I've been thinking about it because I realized as I, as my children get older my son is almost 16 and my daughter as well. That question of when to give a phone is really hard. And what I, again, emphasize and recommend is to delay as long as possible and one thing that makes that much, much easier is when a child school has a policy of a no phone all day policy that, if any, educators are listening here, this is the single most helpful thing you can do for parents from the, on the phone side of things is just have a universal rule they're not allowed.
Unfortunately, Yeah, and that's taken off, Emily, that is so, in Britain, have you been following? Completely taken off and when there were some parents bold enough to say we need to get phones out of schools. Yeah, they just put a couple of moms put it out there, they have been overwhelmed with thousands and thousands of supporters. And I do think the pendulum is swinging in the US as well.
I mean, I know a lot of the activism I do, there are several groups pushing in the US as well. It's a little, it's not a perfect, as you know, it's complicated, but it is the right thing to do. So that helps.
On the other side of that, the sort of more unorthodox approach that I have taken with my daughters, I share a phone. So this is one of those things that people go, Oh, I could never do that. But then I want to say, well, what did you do when you were growing up, we all shared a phone, that was normal.
We had one phone in our house, everybody used it. And yes, I know it's very different. But it has been such an illuminating experience.
And it has made our relationship stronger, which as we mentioned earlier, is one of the most important pieces to that future proofing and helping our kids be resilient in adulthood. When I read that, Emily, it was interesting, because one of the things, again, this is where I work intersex and a lot, is that when you hand a child a phone, it's a very primitive thing. You're saying, here is your bone.
This is your not phone, but bone. And now you try to take the bone off. And it's like, and then you get this, you're then because of the dopamine, you're taking away the child's property, their safety, they're all the things that dopamine does.
And now you're no longer the connecting parent, the loving parent, you're the predator. Oh, that is brilliant. Yes, that's that is it.
And actually, it's funny you say that, because I was working with a client last week. And I, she said, Well, actually, my son pays for his own phone line. And I thought, I actually am going to encourage you to stop, I'm going to ask you to pay for it, in part, for that very reason.
It's not going to solve all her problems right away. But I do think that's a brilliant way to put it. I love that.
It is. It is. And that's what dopamine is, we think of dopamine as pleasure and reward.
And it is, but dopamine's origins. And the reason it's evolved with us as human beings, is it's got to do with when you have that pleasure and reward, that means you are safe, and you secure, you have enough food, you have enough water, you have enough shelter. Now, if dopamine is related to security, food, shelter, water at a very, very primitive level, and then we take the phone away, we are not, we're not just, we're breaking something so important to us as parents, is it's our loving connection with our kids.
And that's why kids can react so strongly, when we do take their phone away. Because, because they can't, it's not, it's, you know, Emily, it's not their fault. I agree.
It's hormone, it's the dopamine, it's the neurotransmitters. Oh, that's beautiful. And I often, I do say to parents, it's not that your child's bad or weak willed, it's you versus the dopamine and the hijacked neural pathway, it's not you versus child, it's triangulated by this.
And I think that's so powerful, and it helps it, it's a great way to help understand why the reaction to removing the device is so disproportionate. You know, if you were to come up and take away a book or a game, you know, kid might be annoyed, but this, it is so different. And that's, like I said, in the very beginning of this conversation, not like when we were children.
That's why this is harder. It's not that we're worse parents, it's that we are straddling this. And that's the other thing I think is so amazing is this parenting generation will be the last one to know a digital free childhood, an internet free childhood, and I feel eternally grateful that I have that experience as a child myself.
And I, oh, you know, the pendulum always swings. I know I keep saying that phrase, but I do think there is a very interesting data point, microscopic change, but that the dumb phone, you know, old school Nokia have had a tiny uptick in sales. I find that fascinating, because I do think people are saying, I'm too tethered, I'm too addicted, I'm too attached, and they don't like that anymore.
And now you can have gab, you know, like the gab phones, which look cool. They look like an Android-ish sort of phone, maybe a little like an iPhone, more like an Android. They look like, but they're text and talk only, which takes care of the safety side of things, because, and so much, and studies show this, so much of kids' communication, there's safety.
That's why we, one reason we do it. And the other is that we don't want them to be socially isolated from their friend. But still, to this day, with all this Snapchat and Instagram, all that stuff going on, the primary way kids communicate is still through texting online.
This is true. And I'm glad you mentioned the FOMO, right, the fear of missing out, because I hear that a lot, that parents feel like, well, I have to give it, they're the only one without it. Unfortunately, I also tell parents when they get it, they will feel even more FOMO, because first of all, you know, a gab phone or the like isn't a real smartphone in quotes, right? But it's an option for some families at work.
I have also heard stories of kids who feel it's babyish, and so then they find workarounds. They get on social media through Pinterest, for example. A lot of parents are shocked by that, or through their school computer, right? And so it's one of those things where, again, the conversation, the relationship is that piece that has to be there, so that if and when you give a device, whatever it is, the conversation has happened before.
The relationship is a place to troubleshoot, because it's not, that's the other thing about parental controls. I say, don't assume that by implementing a bunch of parental controls, your problems will go away. They will not.
And Emily, one question I have for you, which often comes up is, we talk about parental controls, but what advice do you have for someone listening in or watching today, that where one parent has really serious concerns about this, but the other parent has normalized it? Yes, I hear this so much. I love doing in-person talks, because there's always a couple in the front row, or one of them is elbowing the other. Yes, or looking meaningfully certain.
Exactly, exactly. So, you know, for that, and again, you know, I'm not a licensed mental health professional. I'm an educator by training.
But my tips for that is, find common ground, that it is normal to not see eye to eye on this. And oftentimes, the parent that's very permissive with it might feel guilty about their own use, or know that they are part of the problem, because their phone is constantly around. It's often the case.
But to say, what is our common goal for our child? What is it that we want? And then to approach it, like I say, with everything, with curiosity. What is our goal here? What is it we want our child to have by the end of the school year? What are the things that we think are important for them in adulthood? And how do we get there together? And it's hard. I mean, I think there's often a lot, that's the tip of an iceberg.
Often, there's other challenges. I hear it a lot with split households, where one household has very different rules than the other. You know, and to quote a friend of mine, you can only control your controllables, right? So how you model, how you use your phone, how you talk about it to your child, and even how you talk about your co-parent or your ex around them matters for relationship building.
And, you know, it's harder, perhaps, but I don't think it means we just toss up our hands and give in or give up. Okay, so last couple of tips before we round off, because I know there are a couple of others through reading the book that you give that is golden, but things that you feel like are on top of the wonderful tips you've already given and tools, they're more than tips, they're real tools. Anything else you'd like to add, just as we close? Any time that, yes, I would go back to that choices within choices.
So, you know, rather, there's so much nuance to this, right, that it depends on the child, the family, the age, the development stage, the time of day, right, all the content on the screen. Any time you can make a choice that is a bigger screen, better, right, we know visually it's better, we know auditorily it's better, because we can see it or hear it from the other room, or even better, choices within choices in a shared environment, you know, so we never want kids on a headphone in a bedroom alone in the dark. Any time we can move away one, two, three steps from that, the better it is for us and for our kids.
So that is a huge one. If your kid's going to have the screen time or the iPad time or be on a phone, do it in a public space without headphones, right, it's with headphones, still in a public space, right, so each time we're micro-tweaking these choices, always leaning towards that. Replace judgment with curiosity is something I talk about a lot in the book, in my talks as well, like I joked that I don't, you know, people feel judged all the time, but sometimes with screens, we have to go backward to go forward, is what I talk about, so it might be that you absolutely despise the video games your child is playing, you want them to go away, but if we approach it immediately from that, it is us versus child, we don't want to do that, we want our children to know we're on their team, we're working on this together, it is a problem I'm here to help you solve, it is, I'm worried about it because, but you start by engaging them in the game, perhaps, you might tell me why you like this game, how do you, you know, Minecraft comes up a lot because that one is sort of never-ending, and I think there's some neat things about Minecraft, I'm actually not anti-Minecraft, but it does never end, and so it's hard for parents to get the kids to turn it off, so then it's sitting with them and saying, oh, tell me what you're building, and before you shut it down, let's leave a few minutes to put your things in the chest, and tell me what you're going to do next time, and when we shut the game off, let's go and make a plan for what you're going to do after, or next time you have time online, so any way you can kind of bridge the experience of using it into the real world, right, so it's soften that transition, I think can help, again, every child is going to have a different reaction, and you have to try these things more than once, I think that there isn't a quick fix here, and that is, you know, I wish there were, I don't think we'd be talking if there were, and that is a very hard thing, I think parents want the silver bullet, there isn't one.
Well, one of the things that a podcast that I put out just recently, Emily, was, I titled it, it's a term I think I invented, you know, you think you invent something and you probably haven't, but through phone use, through parents' eyes going to the phone when kids are around, the notification going off their eyes, and the child's playing right in front of them, and then they're looking, I call it micro abandonments, and that micro abandonments are cumulative. And now, like you, I'm an educator, but also mental health work, and it is a big part of my work, and micro abandonment is a very, very real, I'm seeing behavior of kids these days, that I have, when I was trained, I was taught that was abandonment behavior. But these kids have a perfectly, you know, available parent, available, I'm air quoting again, but they're not available, and it's death by the relationship by 1000 micro abandonments.
Oh, that is very powerful and very accurate, I think, and that is another, again, so here another slight change we can make as parents is to turn off any of our notifications. Notifications, yeah. Including text messages, which people, what, what if I, I mean, the reality is my phone's always nearby, I never miss anything.
But what it does, my husband actually said this, and I love it, when we are engaged with a child in the real world, you know, play or whatever, and our phones alert us and pull us away, we're giving permission to someone who isn't even in the room, we're giving them permission to interrupt us. And that's shocking when you think about that, like, that this entity, not even physically near me can pull me away so completely from my child. Yeah, that is the screen is supreme.
That's the screen is supreme. And it's saying to a child, now I have to behave in a way that is either whining, angry, provocative, outrageous, I need to do that, to get back into your frame of consciousness. Can you blame them? I mean, I think that's, that's what makes children amazing is they're going to do everything they can to get our attention, even if it's behaviors we don't want.
And a friend of mine always says where attention goes, energy flows, right? So if we are responding to that negative behavior, then they're going to, you know, it's that reinforcing piece of it as well. So this is again, you know, as much as I talk about the screen time solution, and I think parents want it to be the solution that we'll think kids will do, it's actually us. You know, and I don't mean that like, parents, you've done something bad, but we have an opportunity.
This is about changing the way we show up around our children and technology. Well, I think that is a beautiful note to round off our conversation. Emily, we always ask at these interviews, you know, how can people find more out about you? Can you just, can you can you give us those details? Well, the irony is not lost on me.
I have a digital presence. So I do have a website at the screen time consultant.com. I have social media platforms. I have an assistant who helps me with them.
So I'm not on them all the time. And I and my book is available anywhere books are sold. And I always like to give a plug for the independent bookstores.
If you go in and request it, they can order it directly. Not everyone can. And can you can you hold it up again and tell us our name for the people who are just listening and not watching.
Yes, it's called the screen time solution, a judgment free guide to becoming a tech intentional fam. And I am Emily Church. And a dear friend and colleague Emily, thank you so much for sharing this with us today.
Well, thank you for all your support. I am truly honored. You were a gifted teacher who made an impact on my life.
And it's wonderful to reconnect. It's an absolute pleasure. Thank you, Emily.
