Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another season of the Balanced Parent Podcast. I'm Doctor Laura Froyen and, and I'm so happy to be back with you after a much needed summer break. I have a lot of great interviews lined up for you this coming fall. But I'm very curious to know a little bit about what you want to hear from me on. I love getting to know your families, getting to know what's going on for you and getting to know how I can help and support you. So I would love to hear from you. Please send me an email. You can reach me at laura@laurafroyen.com. I, that's my personal email where I would be happy to have a little chat with. You hear about what's going on or if you check the show notes of this episode, you can find a link where you can leave me a voicemail. I would love to hear your voice. Um If there is something you are working through with your family with your kiddos these days, if there's something you have a question on that, you just want to get my take on or you know, figure out what to do about something I would love to hear about it. It would be so much fun to hear your voices, be able to play them on the show and then answer your questions. I think we all know that if we have a question, probably other parents do too. And so it would be really fun to build a community this way and hear from you a little bit more. So I'm excited to be back. I'm hoping that this coming year will be wonderful for you, for your families, for your kids and for us all here at the podcast. Welcome back.
Laura: Hello, everybody. This is Doctor Laura Froyen. And on this week's episode of the Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to be talking about the magic of noticing and how to live a more intentional and present life in a world filled with technology that is designed to pull our attention away from what matters to us most. To help me with this conversation. I have Joey Odom and he is gonna lead us through this conversation. So Joey, welcome to the show. I, I feel like you're the best person to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your story, who you are and what you do. So let, I'm so excited to have you.
Joey: Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you for having me. I'm, I'm excited, excited to have this conversation. And it's, it's a, what a fun. I'm sure the listener is kind of wondering what the heck is the life of noticing. So I'm excited to, to open that up and see what that can look like. And, and it's a, it's a really, like you said, we're kind of swimming upstream here when it comes to noticing. And it is because of these wonderful complex distracting things that live in our pockets and we all, we all feel that we can all understand that. And so we've said, if I'm on a, I'm the co-founder of a company called Ro, my business partner, Heath Wilson, and I have been on a mission for the last several years to help families make it easier to spend some time apart from their phones, physically distant apart from their phones and engaged in the real life all around them. So this began really, Laura, I'll take you back 11 years. So my son Harrison, who is now just like a month away from turning 16, he couldn't, you know, that you read all these things about how kids aren't getting driver's licenses. No, no, no, no. May 29th. That guy is getting his driver's license. He's so excited for it. So when he was five years old, he was playing his very first soccer season and this was kind of an ordinary Saturday afternoon, but on this particular day, something extraordinary happened.
So Harrison had never played soccer before and everybody on the team this season had scored a goal and he just hadn't scored a goal yet. And for those people who have kids who play sports, you always know that kid, there's always the kid who hasn't yet scored the goal. Harrison was this kid, sweetest kid in the world. And so midway through this particular game, it's almost like, and I and Laura, I, I kind of, I remember this, I can see this moment like it's in slow motion, like it's a movie, you know, cue the dramatic James Horner music. Harrison rears back, his leg kicks the soccer ball and it goes, rolls into the back of the net for his very first goal and everybody goes wild. The crowd goes wild. They all knew the kid who hadn't scored a goal, had scored a goal, his coach runs and picks him up. But there was this split second right in between all the jubilation. And when he scored the goal, when he did something that all five year old boys would do is he looked to the sidelines, to lock eyes with me, to lock eyes with dad and to share this.
Laura: Did you see it?
Joey: Yeah, this beautiful moment, right? I mean, what a, what a cool moment to see the pride on my face and the smile on my face and it really was pure magic except I missed it. I didn't see it. You see when Harrison looked over to the sidelines, all he saw was the top of my head because I was looking down at something on my phone when I say something. I mean, that very specifically, I have no idea what it was. I could have been making the most important business, you know, writing the most important business email of my life at that moment I could have been or I could have been playing a game or one of 1000 other things. But all the, all I know and all Harrison knew at that moment is that when he looked to, to log eyes with me, he didn't, he didn't see my eyes and I had this realization at that moment. Unfortunately, it wasn't the only moment that I'd had as a young dad, whether it was with relation to respect my kids or with my wife. I just realized this relationship I have with my phone, there's something wrong with it. Like it, it's getting in the way of all of these other relationships that I would claim are more important to me. Yet my actions were saying that this relationship was the most important one. So it just didn't feel right. We've talked to a lot of parents since it's kind of made me feel. It's kind of encouraged me to know that I'm not the only one, but it's also, you know, it's also kind of can be discouraging you think. Well, all of us are going through this, gosh, how this is really challenging and we're just missing these little moments in our relationship. I'll go back to that word again, specifically that relationship with our device is getting in the way of these most important relationships in our lives.
Laura: Yeah, I, I really appreciate you sharing that story. I think it's probably one that everybody listening can relate to. We probably all have those moments where we've just missed it because our attention has been pulled. And, you know, I, I also know that a lot of parents feel a lot of guilt and shame around their digital use, right? Their technology use too. And I want to just, you know, give a shout-out to all those parents who are just glancing at their phone for five minutes, you know, while their kid is playing at the park and you're not saying that it's all bad and we should just throw them away. But you're asking us to actually think about our relationship that we have with our phone. Right? So everybody listening is wanting to have really intentional relationships with their kids and their partners. Right? That's what this podcast is all about. And you're asking us to also think about how we can have an intentional relationship with the technology that we use and with our own ability to notice.
Joey: You're so right. And that's, and that's the, I'm glad you said that about the guilt and shame because that's something that we come across a bunch. And whenever people and I'm sure people listening right now probably feel this natural defense come up.
Laura: Of course, so natural.
Joey: And it's because it's like, no, no, no, don't preach. Please don't preach, please don't preach. And that's where that's what's great about what we do. Like you can even from that first story. None of this comes from self-righteousness. This comes from us saying, hey, we're all in this and we stumbled and we've stubbed our toes and we want to make it easier so that we don't have to look back at it because I do look back on that story. I just think, yeah, I missed it now. It doesn't go to this toxic place. Fortunately, and we're able to use that as an experience that helped me get stronger for the next one and I hope other people look at that. But, but we're so early, Laura, we're so early in on this smartphone experiment that we're going through and all of us feel it. All of us want to do better. And the only tools, the only weapons we've formed so far in combating this are the weapons of guilt and shame. And those are really crappy weapons. They're really bad weapons.
Laura: They’re so terrible, right?
Joey: They don't, they don't help us. They, they, that all that does is it, it begins to it, you know, when guilt and shame, what guilt and shame do they, they attack our identity and so they go to our identity and I, and, and instead of, instead of encouraging me to say I can do better, it just says, hey, you're kind of a man, you weren't really good there. You're kind of a crappy dad maybe. Or you, or maybe you're, you know, that's, that's something that you should get better at or something. And so it goes to my identity and then all of a sudden I start acting like somebody who's not very present. So it kind of devolves us. And so it's not a, those things don't work that well. And in fact, I'll actually offer an encouragement right out the gate here for parents if you're one of those parents. And we've heard this from thousands of parents. And this is very interesting, this line that our kids say to us, which can be mommy you're always on your phone. Daddy, put down your phone. We were talking to someone the other day that said they're 16 month old, 16 month old, grabbed their face to turn their face to them and grab their phone away from them. So from a very young age, her kids are saying get us away from our phone. But here's what I want to encourage you with that didn't sound like encouragement. I know. But here's what I want to encourage you with. If you've heard from your, your children from your kids, mommy, you're on your phone, daddy on your phone, put down your phone, put down your phone, put down your phone. If you've heard that, that is a great thing.
That's not something you should, you should beat yourself up. But that's a really good thing because it means two things. The first one is your child likes you. They wouldn't tell you to put down your phone. If they didn't like you, they want to spend time with you. What a great thing. That's not always gonna be the case. Hopefully it is for us all, but it's not always gonna be the case your kid actually likes you. And the second one is, and this is where I think it's really powerful is your child believes they're worthy and they're deserving of your eyes on them. They actually have some self-worth. They believe that they're valuable. They, they believe that your eyes should be on them, that they deserve that. And that's a great thing. Their foundational sense of value is there where we do need to get nervous is when they stop asking us for that, when they stop asking, because then all of a sudden they may have been conditioned to believe that our phones are more important than they are that they may believe that instead of our phones being a distraction, them being the priority. It may, they may believe it's the other way around that. Hey, maybe, maybe their phone is more important, maybe I'm less valuable. So if you've heard that from your child, that's a really good thing. Don't beat yourself up over that. Say, okay, I'm gonna continue to get better at this because my kid likes me and my kid believes that they're, they're valuable. What a great thing for all of us to have.
Laura: I would even add a third one to that too. Is that your kid is willing and, and trusting enough to give you feedback. You know, I mean, that, that feedback, sometimes feedback from our kids is really hard to take, you know, sometimes they aren't very good at delivering it in, in ways that are easy to, to let in. But the fact that they're giving us feedback tells us, you know, that they trust us, you know?
Joey: I totally agree with that. That's, that's so good. Yeah, they, they trust us there's this built up trust and foundation and they're not, they're not afraid to say that thing. That's true to them. Thank God. I mean, what a great thing they are that those little truth serums running around everywhere.
Laura: Oh, my God, they're, you know, they're so naturally good at being present. Right? So, kids are so good at this. They have a lot to teach us. So I'm kind of curious about the, the name of your company, Aro, it means notice, is that right?
Joey: It does. It's a term from the Maori language, New Zealand. And it's a term that means to notice because you know, there, there are a bunch of as people are talking about again, we're 16 years into smartphones. So it's very early. But as people talk about smartphones that you know, it, it, it can come across very vilifying, come across very negative and, and almost like think how to say this. Well, it's, it's almost like the putting your phone down for the sake of putting your phone down where there there's why would we need to put our phones down? Our phones are awesome. We only need to put our phones down if, if they can get in the way of other things that are more important, those, those relationships that are more important to it. So what if, what if we could, what if we were so captivated by the real life around us? What if we saw the beauty of the world around us, in our partner's eyes or in our kids' eyes or in the nature around us or in a cool breeze or in the lines of a novel or just in a feeling that we were experiencing ourselves. What if we recognized all those beautiful things? I think if we did really grasp that beauty of the world around us, if we'd noticed those things, I think our phones would become so much less captivating. And so the goal of our business is not, hey, go put down your phone. What, what, what good is that? It's put down your phone so that and then fill in the blank. What, what, what is after that? So that, so that you can go look that you see the sun glinting off your child's eyes at four, you know, 4:30 in the afternoon or go play with them jump on the trampoline. Some of my, my favorite memories with my kids when they were young and they're, they're about 16 and 14 now.
So my favorite members are just jumping on the trampoline with them and they could do it for hours and hours and hours. And so those are the moments like that, that absolutely trumps anything that could happen on my phone. So that's what we want people to, to go into is this lifestyle and notice and I know that sounds ethereal. I know that sounds like, oh, that's done. Let's out of this world of court. Like, like I understand not every magical moment, but we all know this from a friend of ours named Billy Phoenix who would always say he'd say that quality time only comes from quantity time. So unless you have that quantity of time, you can't go manufacture this great moment, but it will come from that quantity of time. And then all of a sudden, who knows? That thing pops up where your, your daughter opens up or your son tells you something, you have this great joke and you just roll in laughter. So this for us that life of notice that lifestyle of notice. I do believe that this is possible and it's accessible for everybody listening today that this is something that's accessible to all of us. However, we have to remove that greatest distraction in our lives first as a prerequisite when I say remove it Laura, I'm not saying go back to a flip phone. I'm saying find, find these moments where we are physically distant from our phones.
Laura: Yeah. Okay. So I mean, I think it's tempting to go back to a flip phone. I miss my Motorola Razor so much, you know, I remember, I mean, I did well, no, I had a red one.
Joey: Ah a red one, I got it.
Laura: Yeah, I mean, I remember the moment where I got my first like touch screen phone or phone that was going to have like the browser and how momentous that was the kids, you know, kids, they're not even going to know, right? And sometimes I wish I could go back in time and talk to 20. How old was I? 23 when that first touchscreen internet browser phone came out and be like, oh, Laura, you don't want that, you know, but they're here, they're not going anywhere and they're wonderful tools for staying connected, right? And so what are you, you've mentioned before, the idea of changing our relationship with our phones and, you know, we've talked a lot with various guests and the skill of noticing and I'm, I'm curious about if we need more skills, need different skills in order to change that relationship. So, do you have tips, like, help us?
Joey: I'd, I'd love to go back even deeper in this. You and I have talked for the last few minutes on and pretty naturally we're talking about this relationship where they have their phones. It's, we've not said anything that sounds that bizarre. But hold on one second. Let's just take it, let's take a moment and say I'm describing a relationship, a human, describing a relationship with an object. That's weird, right? Ho, hold on. Like, that's weird. I mean, you think about any other object in our life? Think about my lawnmower, right? I, I see my lawnmower about once a week, about nine months out of the year, right? But when a conversation gets boring, I don't go sneak in a quick mo, right. Like it's, it's not something that I have this, I have this deep relationship with and it's, you know?
Laura: It's a tool. It’s a tool.
Joey: That's exactly right. It's a tool that we have now. What's interesting about that is I've thought that we've thought a bunch about this and we've said, oh, well, you know, humans don't have relationships with objects. That's not entirely true. Adults don't have relationships with objects but kids do, kids have relationships with objects and there are things like blankies and things like pacifiers and there are things like teddy bear and there's a word for that, that term is a transitional object also known as a comfort object. So, and that serves actually a very important role in a child's development with a transitional object. We'll call them comfort objects for, for the sake of this discussion. A comfort, comfort object is something a child clings to. Usually when their parents leave the room, when their parents leave that they're holding on to this thing and they're getting a false sense of security from this object. When their real security, their parents are gone. So we have been devolved back into childhood. Oh, and by the way, the reason that's important. So one of these days, one of those days there, those kids realize, oh, I don't have to cling to the teddy bear. I don't have to cling to the blankie. I can do this on my own. So that object has transitioned them into independence, which what a great thing for a kid to know they can do it on their own. So we're kind of devolving back to childhood in this really weird way by clinging, excuse me, by clinging to this object.
In fact, instead of progressing us towards independence, it's actually devolving us into isolation, devolving us into, into dependence back on this thing and we're not doing and we're not holding on to this thing in the absence of relationship, in the absence of security. Like when with a child, when their parents leave the room, their, their parents are gone, they cling to this, we're clinging this thing in the presence of our relationships, in the presence of security of the people all around us. What are we doing? So it's devolved us back to childhood. So this is a real problem for us that we have this relationship. And the real question is okay so how did we form, how did it, we know what it is? It's a transitional object. But how did we get here? How, what, what, what is, how is it possible? We formed this relationship and it's, and we formed this relationship in the same way that we form human relationships. So there are three in our minds, there are three kind of kind of hallmark characteristics of a relationship. So the first one is proximity. When you are proximate to someone, when you're close to someone, you have a higher likelihood of being around being a forming relationship with them. So it all begins with proximity and when you're in proximity with somebody that leads to interaction with somebody, so proximity leads to interaction. So when, when it comes to our phones, beginning with proximity, we have our phones with is a shocking staff that 91% of us have our phones with us 24 hours a day. So we don't ever, we don't have to move our feet to get to our phones. 91% of us.
Laura: Wow.
Joey: Then and, and then what happens if you have your phone? Of course, we're going to use it. That's where it goes in the proximity leading to the interaction. So when we have our interaction, so our phones, 89% of us, excuse me, 89% of smartphone interactions are self-initiated. So when people say go silence your notifications, that's about 11% of your usage. That's not going to solve the problem, right? That's not gonna do it.
Laura: Yeah, yeah. Fascinating.
Joey: And so, and so we're using this. So we are, we are interacting with them all the time if we and that only if we have them with us. And I'm sure, you know, people make jokes about this all the time. I go to check the weather and the next thing you know, I'm down.
Laura: It’s half an hour later. And you’re watching like, same thing goes on Youtube.
Joey: Yeah, exactly. Like what was the 1984 defensive line for the Wisconsin badgers, right? Like who like you go down these, all these, like what are you talking about? So, so and then here's what's interesting that proximity leads to interaction and that leads to dependence. That's what happens. That's the third defining characteristic of a relationship. You have proximity interaction, dependence. You begin to depend on that other person around you in certain ways. And our phones, this is probably the trickiest one of all when it comes to the the kind of defining characteristics of a relationship because we actually need our phones. Our phones do really cool stuff for us, do really helpful things for us. Like, you know, we learn foreign languages on it and we order Jimmy John subs whenever we're hungry and we all, we have all these other things, these things we do on our phones. So that's good. But this is where it becomes really dangerous. So we begin to develop false dependencies on our phone. So we begin to think we need it more than we actually do. So I'll give you a great example. We all know that our phones are catastrophic to our sleep. We know that if we look at our screens 30 minutes within 30 minutes before bed, it's going to disrupt our sleep. We know if we get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and we look at our phones, it's gonna be terrible for our sleep, right. So we know all these things. However, most people leave their phones in the room for one reason. It's my alarm clock, right?. Hey, it's my alarm clock. I can't get rid of it. Hold on a second. This is a, a, false.
Laura: There've been alarm clocks.
Joey: You've heard of those two? You've heard of alarm clocks? I heard of those too.
Laura: I mean, this is one of the things in my house, you know, for, since I had children, my rule for my husband and I was that our phones go into the kitchen drawer where the charging station is and that's it. That's the rule because I want that to be our family culture. I know those kids will get. So mine are 11 and 9 and I know they'll get phones eventually. Hopefully, I'll push it off as late as I can. But I want them to know all devices go in a drawer at night. Like that's the rule. You know, mom and dad have been following it your whole lives. It's not changing just because you're 16 and have a phone now, you know.
Joey: Yes, you're so right. And, and what, what a great gift you're giving to your kids because of all of the, you know, there's, there's a bunch of stuff that our kids can get into. And this again, this is why we go back to relationship here. There's, there are a bunch of things that need to be solved on our phones. But if we could solve what you just described with solving your core relationship with your phone, that just says my phone doesn't sleep with me. I don't, they don't, they don't sleep in the same room with me. And so that core relationship will make a big difference because of that interaction piece. When it's around us, we're going to use it. And even more so when your kids the greatest, the I say greatest. That's a weird way to say what I'm about to say, the most effective form of torture, still after thousands of years of humans doing terrible things to each other. The most effective form of to torture is sleep deprivation. That that's the thing. And so we're giving our kids this sleep-depriving device to sleep within their rooms. If I, if I were 15 years old and I had access to the internet, I would have never slept. That would have been the worst possible thing for me. And so just the sleep crisis alone in America, just by the fact that we have our phones and we all have our phones in our rooms. So to, to put a bow on the, the soliloquy there on, on, on our, our relationship with our phones. That false dependence piece leads us by saying, oh, I have to have, I, I need it for an alarm clock or? Well, I have to have it at the dinner table because what if I want to take a picture or what whatever other rationalization we have in there. Now that's different from my kids are at school. I want it around me in case the school nurse calls, I get that. That makes perfect sense. But that those false dependencies, all those false dependencies lead us back to having our phones with us all the time. They convince us that we need to be proximate to them, which leads us to do what interact with them more, grow, more dependence. And so this, this kind of snowball continues to grow and it results in we have our phones with us all the time and it's to the detriment, the absolute detriment of our most important relationships around us. I didn't even answer your question, Laura, that was.
Laura: I don’t remember what the question was.
Joey: The question was, how do we change our relationship?
Laura: You had? No, you had to define it. It's so good. I'm so glad.
Joey: We got to know what it is, right? That that's, that's so critical for us to know what it is. And if we can view it as a relationship for me, this makes it so much more digestible like, oh okay, well, I can, I can, I can do that. So I'll grab a trail on you one more time if we also begin to look at our phone and this is what everybody says when everybody talks about their phone, they kind of laughingly say, I'm so addicted to my phone and they laugh about it as if we would do that with any other addiction. I mean, if I were saying, oh, you know me, I'm so hooked on meth, silly me. You know, we would never, we would never describe any other addiction with such a casual approach to it. Especially one that can have so much damage on our lives. And the reason why we kind of laugh it off one is because everybody's, everybody's going through it. So it's almost like, oh, you get it, you know what I'm talking about? Every, you know, we're all addicted to our phones. And then the other one is we're kind of excusing ourselves to some degree by saying that we have an addiction. Oh, I'm laughing at it. So it's ok that I have that I'm on my phone all the time. But what? So we, and, and by the way, there's, there's a bunch of science out there that would tell us that while there are addictive characteristics to applications on our phones, the phone itself, we actually aren't clinically addicted to our phones. Most of us, it probably falls when you're, you're a lot smarter than I am. So you can correct me here. It probably falls more into the, into the category of compulsive behavior.
Probably so something closer to that. But what if so if we just set science aside for a moment, which is a dangerous thing to say to a doctor. We set science aside for a moment and we just said, look, what if we just guarded our words if, instead of saying I'm addicted to my phone, what if we said I have a bad habit with my phone? And, and here's why I think that that distinction is really important. When someone says they're addicted, they go on a 12-step program. The very first thing they do is they say I'm totally powerless over this thing. What if instead, and that's an addiction. What if instead with a habit, we said I actually have agency. I actually do have, I can actually, I myself, I can do something about this. The other thing you do, obviously, when you're, when you have an addiction, you abstain completely from the thing. I don't believe we're at such a point. I don't believe we're so far gone with our phones that we have to abstain from smartphones. I don't, some people would say we do sure. Maybe. Would that be great? But that's impractical in our lives. That probably is not something that we, that's going to work for something that's sustainable.
Laura: I think, I mean, too is involving beings, beings that have developed the technology and now have to learn to live with it. Like the technology is not going to go anywhere. There's only gonna be more. And so we only need to build better skills and learn how to have better boundaries with ourselves and with the technology, you know, like it's just like.
Joey: 100%.
Laura: There's, you know, there's, this complete abstinence is great for some, but it's not a solution for everyone. And we need these skills to continue to, to, if we're going to keep building more things, you know, having more advanced technologies, we have to continue to build own skills, our own human skills.
Joey: So, right, because what happened when someone falls off the wagon of, of the abstinence wagon? Because that's such a binary like you either do or you don't when you fall off, then, then you don't have any skills to restrain it or to have a good habit. And so you're just, you're kind of all or nothing there. So I totally agree with you. So we believe those words are important instead of saying I'm addicted to my phone. What if we said we have a habit and understand you do have some power? So that's maybe that's, that's a quick pause to tell every listener out there that I believe you have an infinite amount of power in this. That if you, that if you have struggled with this, if you found your phone, if you've heard that line from your child, if you've heard from your spouse or even if you just feel it inside of you, I just want to encourage you to say, hold on one second. And I just want to promise you as someone who is, as someone who was so far gone, maybe beyond repair on just being so attached to my phone. My world looks different and we've talked with thousands of people who tell us my world looks different. So if you feel hopeless for yourself, if you feel hopeless for your partner, if you feel hopeless for your kids, I want to tell you that it can look different, that your world can look different. And I just don't even want to sit on that for a second Laura that it can and that, and you're listening to this, you're listening to this, to this podcast because you want to get better because you do need help and you do want clarity and you do want decisiveness and I'm just telling you, your world can look different.
Laura: How does it look for you? I feel, can you paint a picture of what it looks like because I don't even know, you know, gosh, you know, can we even remember what it was like before, you know, and what it would be like now, you know, because it's, when it's there, there is that compulsiveness, you know, the phones there, you can check it, you know.
Joey: I'll tell you a before and after which is maybe the best illustration for it. So when, when Gianna, who's my, who my daughter who's 14 now when she was 8 or 9, I had just begun kind of on this journey of, of Aro we were at the beginning stages. And we, the the premise of it is let's change our relationship with this. Let's get it away from us. The studies tell us that the only way for you, for you to reduce your screen time is for your phone to be physically distant from you and out of your visual field of sight. So we were just on this journey Gianna and I had just watched a Harry Potter movie together and like we did plenty of times before I, it felt about like the same experience to me. At the end of the movie, Gianna turned to, to me and she said, daddy did you and very factually this was not, she wasn't creating moments, she wasn't being judgmental nothing. She just said daddy, do you know that's the first time we've watched a movie and you haven't had your phone with you?
Laura: Wow.
Joey: Nine years, eight or nine years, Laura of every time, every time we'd had, we'd watched a movie, she had noticed that I wasn't fully present with her. She had noticed that. And so this was a little punch in the gut, but it was also this like freaking awesome, like holy crap. I just did a good thing. Of course, I wanted to do the, I wanted the next time to have this to do that again. And so I told her, I told Gianna this story probably a month ago, we were driving and I said, oh, I told that story about the movie about when you told me the first time that I had been off my phone and she, she laughed and she said dad, she goes, that would be so weird if you had your phone during a movie now. So what it really looks like is the normal to my daughter looks different and you know what it, you know what it wasn't, it, it, it didn't come from a, from a, a week, a week long retreat away from my phone. It came from the small daily deposits that I made the the small daily deposits of being away from your phone. I, I, I'm, I am curious, Laura, I, and I'm sorry to put you on the spot. People are watching this. I'm, I'm, I'm, I get emotional when I talk about this but I can see emotion from you in this. What, what do you, what do you think it is about this that gets us emotional?
Laura: Hm. Oh, that's a good question. I think the kind of the before and after that you just shared really highlights the normal that you've created for your daughter. Her being able to say dad that would be so weird if you did that. You know, you've created a normal for her that doesn't involve you being on your phone all the time, you know, and I think that that is beautiful. You know, because I think our kids look to us we are walking advertisements for adulthood. We, they, they look to us for modeling from the time they are born, they're watching us, you know, and I think she does make me emotional. I think most people listening. What model, the very best world that they can for their kids. They want to model intentionality. Joy, wonder, love, connection. Yeah.
Joey: It's, you would think after studying tens of thousands of hours and, and being, being in this world for years and years and years that I would be discouraged when you see the, the big monster. This is and all the AI is progression and a lot of stuff. But I, I, I just gotta tell you, Laura, I am, I'm so encouraged for where we're going. I'm so encouraged for people listening today because I'm, I am gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you four ways you can change your relationship with your phone. But underlying all of that is, is that you can do it, is that your world can look different that don't, it's so easy to get, you know, to cower, to discouragement. But understanding when you understand the power you have in your world and that it's never too late for your kids, never too late for your marriage, never too late for where you are. So that to me, I'm so I'm just so encouraged again because I'm living it and again, like I said, with thousands of people who said that their lives look different. And so this is, and maybe that is a perfect transition into this and I really want and these aren't, these aren't four throwaway, quick fix solutions. These are four things that if, if you take these to heart, you take one of them to heart. This is, this is where to begin. And the first one we call these, the four S's, the four Ss. The fir the first s is that I want people to start. If you may remember Simon Sinek wrote a book called Start with why, great book several years ago. Our first way to change your relationship with your phone is to start with I, I want you to start, I want you to begin with yourself. It's very easy with this to go cast the blame on others.
It's very easy with, with your, your spouse to say, oh, they're always on their phone or with your kids to say, oh, what are you gonna do? Kids are always on their phone or they're on their ipads at a young age and, and the historical kind of precedent for the way we've handled this. We call this the 3 Ms. So I got 4 S, we got 3 Ms. The 3 Ms are with our phones. When it comes to us with our phones, we, we have our phones and as parents, we model a bad relationship with our phones. We have them with them all the time, wrong places then we give our kids a phone and they do the second M, they mimic what we've modeled to them and then we do something absolutely crazy. This is the third M is that we get mad at our kids for mimicking what we model. They're just doing what we did right? So instead, what if, instead we model a great relationship and they mimic that great relationship and then we go make magic and make memories and any other cool em you can think of is that we have that. But it begins with yourself. So, as someone listen to this, I want you to look, this is a hard one. This is very hard. It's probably the most difficult of all four is to look in the mirror. And what are my habits? Am I modeling a relationship that I want my kids to mimic someday? So the first one start with I. The second one, I want people to go streaking and this is not, Will Ferrell running from the quad of the gymnasium on old school. When I say go streaking, I mean, I want you to, to start building up a streak of daily time, physically distant from your phone, daily time, physically distant from your phone.
And it sounds so basic. I know. It sounds so simple. I know. But when you do that, you just join the 9% club. 91% of us don't do that. 91% of us have our phones with us 24 hours a day. I want you to put it physically apart from you, Doctor Maxie Heitmayer at the London School of Economics I mentioned he says the only way to reduce your phone usage is for it to be away from you physically in a way out of your visual field of sight. So I want you to in in the amount of time people say, well, how much time that's gonna be the next question. The amount of time depends if, if you were to say, hey, go do a, you know, go bench press some weight, everybody's answer for how much you should bench would be different because I don't know how strong you are, right? So it kind of depends on how strong you are. So what I would say to somebody, if you've, if you've not done this in a long time, I want you to start for five minutes a day. That's it.
Laura: Yeah. Are there times a day that you would go for more than others?
Joey: I, I would say this will actually get into the, that'll get into the third one.
Laura: Oh, sorry.
Joey: And which will answer. No, I'm glad you asked that that because that's a natural progression. But five minutes a day build up from there to 23 minutes a day. It takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus after you've been distracted. That's Doctor Glory Mark at the UC Irvine after you've done that get up to an hour a day, just begin small, start at five minutes and build that slowly progressively. Make sure it's daily. The, the, the number of days is more important than the volume of time. The third one is similar to what you just asked is I want you to establish for yourself sacred times and sacred places of, of no f excuse me, excuse me, of, of no phone time, so sacred times and sacred places. And that's for you to determine. So those sacred times that could be the 30 minutes after you wake up in the morning, it could be the 30 minutes before you go to bed. The sacred places could be the kitchen table. It could be the dinner table. Sacred places could be. Here's a great one for young kids. Sacred place could be their bedroom. So you never take your phone into their bedroom. What a cool thing they know mom and dad are locked in. What if that's sacred? Let's say your place could be anywhere that you deem this is important to me. Here's another great one is the living room couch. What if you said that we're gonna watch a family movie without a second screen? So we're not demonizing screens. We're just saying establish that. What is it for you? Our highest usage people who use ro the highest usage is from six o'clock to eight o'clock in the morning and five o'clock to eight o'clock. In the evening. So that's, those are five o'clock, five o'clock and eight o'clock, five o'clock, nine o'clock. So those are the most important times. So establish those sacred times, sacred places. So first start with I, second go streaking, third, established sacred times and sacred places. And again, I want you to go to very small here. They find these small things. You don't have to it all at once. And then the fourth one, the fourth one's my favorite. The fourth one is I want you to, to search for you to search for cues or bids. The Gottman Institute calls them bids for connection. I want you to search for those moments of connection. So here's what that may look like. Let's say my daughter says something like, oh dad, you won't believe what happened at school today. That's a, that is a moment for connection. That's a bid for connection. My wife could say and say, hey, how are you doing? She's like, oh, I don't know, had a, had a, you know, had a tough conversation with my mom. That's a moment. That's a, that's a bid for connection. It could even be my son walking in. I just see his shoulders are slumped. By the way, this goes back to the, the magic of notice. You gotta be, you gotta be noticing, you gotta be searching for these.
And the thing you do when that happens is you say the six most powerful words in a relationship and it's silly and this is a 2024 line is let me put down my phone. So here's, here's, here's why that's important when my daughter begins with that. I said, oh, hold on, John one second, one second. I gotta hear this. Let me put it on my phone. Oh gosh, honey. Oh man, I'm sorry to hear that. Hold on, let me put it on my phone and you don't make a bigger deal out of it. But what you're signaling to them is that you're all there and that will absolutely change the dynamic in a relationship because the other, the alternative is when my daughter opens up to me and it just takes one glance at my phone to kill the intimacy of that moment. And our relationships are dying by, we, we were experiencing right now. Death by 1000 glances, death by 1000 glances or the intimacy in our relationships is dying as a result of those. So if we do that, that tells that person on the other side, hey, there are 8 billion people who can theoretically reach me on my phone. You are more important than every single one of them right now. I believe that transforms intimacy in a relationship. I believe that helps a young girl who's going through all the stuff they're going through, bullying body shaming all that stuff. I believe that that, that helps her know that she's safe and secure. I believe that helps my, my son who's a young man. I believe that helps grow him into becoming a good man. So I think that those things can change the relationships all around us. So the again, start with I, go streaking, establish sacred times and sacred places and search for those moments of connection.
Laura: Yeah. And say those six words, right? Let me put down my phone. I like that. Have you asked your kids if they, like when you say that?
Joey: I believe they’re.
Laura: Have you solicited feedback? Like brought it up.
Joey: That’s a great question.
Laura: I feel very curious.
Joey: Well, here's what I did at first. Laura, I am, I am a typical male and I overdid it and I tried to make it. I tried to be so dramatic, I'd say, oh, I want to be so present with you right now. I'm gonna, I'm gonna put them on and they dad stop or my wife be like, it's like I, I turned this thing that was about her into myself, like waiting for a pat on the back. So it really, really backfired in the first. But honestly, what's typical in my home is, and again, this is no self-righteous. This, this is, this is as a result of daily deposits is the default setting. The default place for my phone is the, again our product, the Aro box. So it is in the Aro box. That's where it lives when I'm not using it when I'm not actually using it, it's just living there. So, in, in a lot of, I, I don't actually have to posture because for that, because it's typically in that. So it's, I've not asked that question. That's a good question I am gonna ask but I try to do.
Laura: But you don’t even need to. You know?
Joey: I try to do it so subtly, I really do try to do it. So subtly that it's not that it's not something that draws a lot of attention. It's just normal for them and they just know like, ok, I'm locked in.
Laura: I mean, that's beautiful too. So you've mentioned your Aro box, but I, you know, my space in our house, we have a, we have a drawer in our kitchen that is our charging drawer and that's where the phone goes. And, you know, that's honestly the first thing I do if I notice my husband and I are being a little, a little catty with each other, you know, or snappy with each other. Okay, it's time phones, you know, phones away. But we have those sacred times. So I'm so glad to hear that. I'm already doing that. You know, we've, you know, no phones at our table at the dinner table has always been our rule from the time I gosh, even before we had kids, that was a, a rule for me and my husband. I, you know, sometimes I think I sound like a very fun person to be married to that. I have rules for, I like, I like rules.
Joey: I don't even know what called rules. Those are just, those are guard rails, right?
Laura: Yes, right guard rails. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. You know, and I, so I, I'm trying to think about some of the other common ones that, that we have. You know, there's one that I'm trying to add. So I have been fi finding myself going to my phone much earlier in the morning than I want to because I want to check the weather and I want to check my schedule for the day and you got me thinking about this, like, this false dependence. Like I don't need my phone to check the weather. There are other ways to check the weather, you know, like I don't have to look at my weather app, you know. So that makes me feel very curious because I am, I'm trying to build a, you know, an hour of sacred time in the morning that isn't there yet. And that's that, I think that that's interesting to kind of get creative. Like we used to learn the weather before we had phones. Like we, we could find out the weather, you know, like, I mean, I can always go to my computer and look at my calendar, you know, I don't have to get my phone out because my computer is a completely different thing than my phone. You know?
Joey: Exactly what's fun about this too. Is this is I love you're describing that use case and it's, it, this is just where anybody is on their own, on their own spectrum and their own journey and just figuring out. Okay, where am I feeling that energy being sapped? Or when do I have the most creative energy I want to devote to something else? Or when is it most important for me to be fully present with my kids or my spouse or whatever that is. It's finding those moments for you and it does require some introspection. But the cool thing is you don't have to do all of it right now. This is we're gonna be, I'm planning on living for a lot more years. A lot of us are. And so let's go ahead and just look at this as I'm gonna build a little bit of muscle today, I'm gonna build, I'm gonna do a little bit today and I'm gonna do, you know James Clear, talks about the Atomic Habits and you know, the atomic habits of small, little daily things that have great results over time. If we can look at it like a savings account, then it makes it a lot more approachable and easy and not knowing that I have to perfect this right now.
Laura: Yeah. Yeah. And II I do like that idea that these are muscles that we're building over time. That's just like anything that's new to you, right? Anything that's new, you have to start small, you have to practice. It's, you know, a marathon, not a sprint at something. You can't just hop off the couch. You've got to train for, you know, like these are good things to remember and that it's a similar thing for this. Yeah.
Joey: Absolutely.
Laura: I like that a lot. Okay. Well, gosh, Joey, I so appreciate what you're doing for the world and the way that you're sharing this mission. I'm here for it and on board and I appreciate the, you know, helping me think through some of my own use. You've got my wheels turning. I'm sure the listeners do too. Where can they go to learn more from you and about you?
Joey: Yeah. Well, we'd love for, for people to go to goaro.comWe didn't talk by design. This is not a product pitch that we didn't go into any, you know, real description on it. But if you're interested and you said, hey, I'm struggling with this, I, you know, I will say that's, that's who this is built for someone who says, I've, I'm, I've tried and I'm having a hard time on my own. We, we do, you know, I say it because I believe it that we're the most effective way to help change that relationship out there. So if that's something you're interested in for those on Instagram, we don't, we don't hate on the gram, we’re on, we're at, at goaronow and then we have a podcast called the Aro Podcasts. So we'd love for you to check us out on any of those.
Laura: Okay. Cool. Well, I really appreciated this conversation, Joey. Thank you so much.
Joey: Thanks, Laura. I really enjoyed it.
Okay, so thanks for listening today. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and if it was helpful, leave me a review that really helps others find the podcast and join us in this really important work of creating a parenthood that we don't have to escape from and creating a childhood for our kids that they don't have to recover from.
And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout out um and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too.
All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!
