Episode 112: A Curious and Collaborative Approach to Technology with Kids w/ Carrie Rogers-Whitehead
/Two things for you this week:
1.) I'll be going live on Friday at 12:30 on IG with my friends, Hannah & Kelty of Upbringing, to chat about sibling issues, especially helping prep kiddos for a new little one.
**Parents of kiddos under 2 or those that are expecting, be sure to read the PS
2.) Details on the podcast episode this week are below! We will be doing a giveaway on the featured book, so be sure you're following me on IG (@laurafroyenphd) for updates!
As a result of the pandemic, the use of technology has risen and changed the way we socialize and interact with each other, for better or for worse. And although we are slowly getting back to normal, there is no denying that our use of online technology will continue. I have been hearing from a lot of you that as you move back into "regular" life you're wondering how to set yourselves and your children up for success when it comes to tech.
And so for this week's episode, we'll talk about screen time, internet safety, and raising digitally literate kids in a way that feels safe and balanced for your family in a tech-heavy environment. To help me in this conversation, I brought in an expert and the author of The 3 Ms of Fearless Digital Parenting, Carrie Rogers-Whitehead. She is the founder of Digital Respons-Ability, a mission-based company that works with educators, parents, and students to teach digital citizenship. And she will be helping us:
Learn ways we can be more balanced around technology
Collaboratively set technology rules in our home
Set an example around technology with our kids
Visit digital-parenting.com and respons-ability.net for more.
TRANSCRIPT
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: Hi everybody! This is Dr. Laura Froyen. And on this week's episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to be talking about screen time, online safety and raising technologically savvy kids in the tech heavy world in a way that feels safe and balanced for your family. So to help me with this conversation. I'm bringing in an expert and the author of the Three M's of Fearless Digital Parenting, Carrie Rogers-Whitehead. Carrie, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.
Carrie: Thank you, Dr. Laura. I'm glad to be here.
Laura: I'm so glad to have you. Will you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?
Carrie: Yeah, so I'm the founder of Digital Respons-Ability. We provide digital citizenship education. That's a mouthful. Digital citizenship is like creating a healthy and responsible digital citizens. So, we talked about everything from safety. But also things like commerce, digital law, media literacy, like what's real, what's fake, how do we communicate, how do we be private.
So we do deep dive classes across where the state provider out here in Utah, teaching tens of thousands of kids and parents. So this book was created through tens of thousands of pre imposed test surveys and talking to kids and working with hundreds and hundreds of parents of like on the ground and I'm excited to bring what we've learned through that experience is and up to date research on how do we balance technology in our lives.
Laura: Well, I'm so glad to be talking about this with you. So my husband and I over the summer we watched the social dilemma documentary on netflix and I have to say it freaked us out. We have almost nine year old and a six year old at the time of having this conversation and they go to a media free school. So no cellphones are even allowed on campus even by parents, you know, so they're not exposed to a lot of technology at school, they use some games and apps on our ipad, but we are always sitting right next to them.
But I know that as my daughters get older that that's going to be changing and sometimes my husband and I feel really intimidated by thinking about that we're going to have to help them figure out how to navigate This online world in a safe way. We want them to be savvy, we want them to go out into the world and know how to be safe.
I love that phrase. Digital citizens, you know, understand their rights and their responsibilities online. It feels very overwhelming, especially for, to folks who were born in the early 80s. I mean we didn't come up with this. I know I did some really shady things on a well messenger as a kid and it's, there's so much more so for parents who are feeling overwhelmed and a little like almost like let's just ignore it and not worry about it because they're too young, which is, I feel like I've been in an avoidance place. What are some of the things you might say to me? I just threw you a lot. I know that was a lot.
Carrie: No, and I'm glad you expressed that I hear that a lot from parents when we surveyed parents in 2019, their biggest fears were around screen time specifically and you know how their child are interacting with screens. So those fears, and those you know, things are genuine because there it's out in the media all the time.
And I started off writing the book I wrote, I've been a freelance journalist for years and I tell a story about how my most popular story I ever written was never the popular positive. Hey, here's all the great things. It was one about the dark web. I got far and away more hits and views than anything else.
And so we kind of have a skewed version of reality of what's actually out there. To me, it's like we're, you know, the internet is like a car, we do it every day for work for school and you know, it's, it's, it's kind of like this common thing, but we treat it like an airplane and we freaked out about airplanes, We don't freak about cars, right?
Laura: So taking the point on that analogy, it's interesting too that I try really hard in my parenting to not parent from a place of fear to parent from a place of trust and relationship and connection. And I think that that's also kind of what you're saying is that it's easy to get caught up in the fear and when we let fear drive the ship, we don't always make the best decisions or teach kids what they need to know.
Carrie: We get more of authoritarian styles, more black and white thinking more just making rules for our own anxieties are we creating these rules and structures because of us or because it's generally helpful for them and I'm really glad you brought up the generational divide and that's part of why we see this with every generation, you know, like your parents are probably there all the radio, you know, oro like all these that the tv was a moral panic issue and I traced a little bit of the moral panic behind video games.
I mean we were freaking out about Atari, so there's always this panic between the generations because it's very unfamiliar and new and so, you know, you could say we're the last millennials are like the last kind of generation to not have it during childhood and now we're having to parent with no guidebook from, from how we grew up.
Laura: Yes. And you know, carry something that I experienced in my own kind of teens when I was learning how to navigate the internet and chat rooms and all of those things. My parents didn't know the questions to ask, they didn't know how to keep tabs on me and I worry that I'm not going to know how to have those conversations with my own kids, you know that they will know things about apps and we used to hide their activity online and all of those things that I don't know because I don't I'm not aware, I don't want to be in that position of not only want my kids to be well informed and good as citizens, I want myself to be well informed, you know?
Carrie: No, I think that's and that's great and it's like this balance between being informed but not overwhelmed because as I said before the media blows a lot out, it grabs the most scary possible thing about everything not just technology, so and I the first to say like especially around media literacy and what's real and fake, I want to consume media to know what's going on. But I do have those days that I feel like oh wow this is too much and it's just affecting my own emotions and I think we have to do that as parents around technology, we have to be like okay well we need to know but do I need to know every single name of every single app? Probably not.
Laura: Right. And I mean and even while you're talking about this like just because some kids out there doing these things that doesn't necessarily mean my kids are going to be out finding those apps and it's there's still room for a relationship and communication and connection over these things, right?
Carrie: Yeah, I like to talk about well the positives and that's why it's called fearless digital parenting but I talk about that as well, I'm sure there's a few places, a personal story of I was I had my own feelings around gaming, my own biases around even though I was a gamer is throughout my kids and teens, I was like this is a time suck.
This is a waste too much screen time and I have like the strong feelings around it and then I found that gaming became this amazing way to connect with my child and we play all the time together. I actually run a gaming review site now, so I've had to like say where did these feelings come from? And when I look back, I'm like, oh it came from this experience and this experience, but why am I taking those past experiences and and extrapolating it to something new just because you know, like we want to be open to the idea of the positives to.
Laura: Yeah, I know you're saying something that we talked about on this podcast all the time that when we bump up against ingrained beliefs, you know, we have to get curious with them and figure out. So yes, I think this right now, but do I actually believe this and is this the belief that is serving me and serving my family and you know, getting curious with where did this belief come from? Is it grounded in reality? Is it helpful in guiding our family and if it's not shifting it?
Carrie: Yeah. So can I ask you where did you, do you have a bias around our fear? I mean, I have had the gaming ones like that, that was a waste of time screen time issues. Did you have something like where did it come from and where do we get a lot of these? I'm curious for you.
Laura: I mean, so, yes, absolutely. I wasn't allowed to have video games or to play video games growing up as a child. I don't know that that's a track I will necessarily take with my kids if they start asking. I think that there will be conversations and ways to fit that in with our family. But now as an adult, I'm really uncomfortable with those games because I don't know how to play them.
Like I'm so terrible at them. So I mean there's those things too. And I mean, absolutely, my husband and I both grew up on farms and outside time was really emphasized and time spent reading was really emphasized. My mom was a reading teacher. I think the environment that we grow up in can communicate values. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, so, I mean, I think our early childhood experiences and I think worries and fears really informed things a lot for parents and I know that we all want to be moving away from parenting from fear. Right?
Carrie: Yeah. And we have a lot of the millennial and gen x parents that are raising them without some of these same childhood experiences. So they're not familiar and they bring that to it. I don't know what I'm doing.
Laura: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so let me just ask you then what are some ways that families can bring a bit more balance into their lives around the topic of technology?
Carrie: Yeah, so I talked a lot about working like creating this word norms because we create these norms and values in our family, right? And they start from a very young age and we don't even know that we're communicating these to our kids model behavior, They watch us there observing. So the first thing I did to tell parents to take a step back and what are you communicating of your norms and values around technology?
So when are you using it? Where are you using it? Why are you using it? Are we just scrolling because we're tired, you know, at the end of the day, I think parents come to some of my training and I think they expect me to be like this to tell them a lot about like how to fix your kids and I'm like no first step because we are not always the best models of that.
So especially at that young age when they're observing that as well, I tell parents, especially young kids and I get it because I used the YouTube kids app so I could take showers in the morning, get ready for work, but like why are we using it? Are we using it for a purpose? Is it just babysitting, is it we are don't want them to whine or we're trying to like why are we using it and how are we demonstrating that because of the kids?
Are we putting the tv in the background just because that's what's normal in our house. Do we eat at the couch with laptop? So dinner? Is that just because that was normal? So, and evaluating that because I think it's helpful to start what, what is normal for us? And is that the best? Is that the best way? And what are we communicating?
Laura: Yeah. And is that what we want to be communicating? What have we maybe perhaps unintentionally communicated so far? And what is it that we actually do want to communicate? Right?
Carrie: Yes. So some advice I give her parents is like narrative parenting is actually saying what you're doing on a device, like I am calling grandma, I am having to work and I think that's fair to say your kids, I'm working and because think of the kid's first exposure to technology when they're like infants and toddlers a lot of the time, it's their a game or through a video. So you've got young kids, they're like, wow, my mom's on her phone all the time, watching videos instead of looking at me. And what else are they gonna assume that, right?
But it also helps them understand that technology is a tool because so often with young kids, that's their first exposure as an entertainment device. They're probably not using it as much for a tool until they get into school and they're doing homework or other kinds of things. So Mary like what you're doing and why you're doing it. I also like to talk for, especially the younger ages, the concept of distracted parenting. There's a great Atlantic piece on it that I just like the concept is we have spent actually a lot of hours with our kids compared to earlier generations. I mean go millennials and gen xers, right?
We're gonna pushing back on some of that. We're working moms spend as much ours as stay at home moms did during the boomer years. So we're there were physically there, but we're not always emotionally there. And so often the technology is like a wall in between us. So we're there, but we're not there. So I have parents think about, are you? Yes, you're there, are you there? Because technology is a very easy way for us to zone out to have a wall and a space in between our kids.
Laura: Yeah. And that's not to say, but there was not room in space and time to do that vegging out for parents. Right? So like this is a guilt and judgment free zone on those things. I always think about, I saw this one article, I don't know once early in my parenting that was really coming down hard on a mom who was on her phone at the park, what she was missing while she was looking in the phone.
Then I saw a counter article to this lovely internet as good at, you know, showing multiple sides sometimes that just encouraged us to broaden our view and understand what that moment might have been for. That mom who was taking a second while her child was happily occupied for herself. And I think it's a both and right. It's not this either or you're either all one way or another.
It's just taking an open, curious, compassionate, self compassionate look, an honest look at are these am I there are there times when I could be more present for me, I have to put in boundaries around that for myself so that I can be present during those times because I work a lot on social media. That's you know, folks here who are listening who see my Instagram reels and my post, you know, that's work for me.
And so they see me on Instagram engaging in social media a lot and I have to be really mindful and intentional about my off hours. So I don't get on social media usually in the morning before school I and so once they're dropped off then I can work and then once they get home I usually have it away, my husband and I put our phones away for the first half hour or so after the kids are tucked in to prioritize our relationship to, you know, I have a human brain and these apps are designed to pull me in right? And so I put it away in a drawer, I have to it because if it's out of sight out of mind for me. And I think that that's modeling good boundaries too.
Carrie: And I like that you said that were intentional. And so when I talk to parents, I'm like, well, what are your device free zones or times? So I'm very much like, yeah, adaptable and flexible when I advise families and talk to them and consult with them. But I'm very, very strict about sleep if I'm going to make some hard and fast rules for kids, it's that devices are not in the room were very careful about things in the evening and nighttime because they do need that developmentally.
But I like that you so what are my times that I do this? What do we do at dinner time? What do we do at lunchtime? What do we do on trips and how do we communicate with the kids? That's why I like that term if you are, Yeah, look, I spend too much time probably on reddit scrolling somewhere that I'm tired and I admit that buzzfeed is my like guilty pleasure when my brain is tired in the evening. I do try to communicate it and I'm like, you know, I'm gonna be upfront with you son. Mom's tired and this is funny to me. So we're gonna look at fat cats here for the next half hour.
Laura: I'm just gonna get myself a quick little headed dopamine which to be good.
Carrie: Yes, so I try to communicate that and I was like, oh, mom's doing that, I want to be intentional. I don't want to unintentionally communicate that I'm not there or listening or care. Does that make sense?
Laura: No, it makes so much sense. You are wanting to make sure that the interpretation or the message that you're modeling is sending is one that you've chosen and you're not leaving your kid up to, you know, leaving it up to them to interpret what they're seeing and how they're seeing. You used technology and that's so important when it comes to modeling. I think that sometimes we think just doing it is enough and it it's not something we have to do, that narrative piece. And I love the way that you're advocating communication in a family. That's wonderful.
Carrie: Yeah. And especially even as they get older, you're constantly modeling that because as they get into tweens and teens now they're exposed to a wider variety of norms and values. And so if you haven't, like sometimes we create a foundation, hopefully like this is what our how our family is, this is what we feel what we believe, but now the peer pressure and the outside influences come in as they age.
And so that communication piece remains even more important as they age too, because there's all these outside influences and that leads to great conversations to? Well he does that over there and that's over this way. But what is it like for me? Because if you think about it, a kid is getting a wide variety of different rules.
They go to someone at a friend's house and there's a rule around the technology here, school has rules around technology, grandma's house has another rule, maybe there's a another parental figure and so all of these different norms and values across multiple locations, because as they age their out more out and about more requires us to really kind of be better communicators about that. Well, that's great that he does that. But over here as you know, we have no phones at the dinner table. So you are.
Laura: Yeah, okay. So what are some of the most common questions that you get from parents of kids?
Carrie: Well, I get questions around. Well, big one is when should my kid get a phone? That is it? That is a very that is a very big one. And my answer is I look a lot of this developmentally. So the three MSR Model, Manage and Monitor and it's like at different ages, you do different things just around technology. So I kind of kind of sometimes compare it a little bit maybe to a leash, we're letting the leash go out as they get a little older and they can Kind of like be more independent, have that autonomy and sometimes make mistakes as they age.
So understanding where they are developmentally, I recommend, you know, looking at that 13, 14 because the majority of kids are probably going to get their phone on average stats are in 80-90% around 13 and 14 and at that age their peers are really, really important to them and that's good for them. It's good for them to be in touch with those peers and have those social connections even though sometimes their peers may drive you crazy.
So I look at it in terms of when most of their friends are having it around those ages, those Tween ages if we can push it back a little bit because peer influence is strong. But we also have to recognize the need to be with their friends and talk to their friends and that's often where their friends are. So there's a great site called Wait until 8th that has some advocacy and things around pushing it to around eighth grade and I kind of aligned with that issues that your kid needs a phone earlier.
There are even more options than there ever was before with the watch. We did a smart watch for a while the stripped down phones that just the kids phones as they're kind of training wheels until a smartphone. But if you're gonna give your kid a phone, I always tell parents this, don't just give it to them create like a family contract together with your kid. Let's talk about these things before you just hand them the phone.
Laura: Yes. Let's talk about what the rules are the expectations all of those things for sure.
Carrie: And I like the values like we care about these things therefore that's why we have these rules and so hopefully you've modeled some of that.
Laura: Absolutely. I think it's really important. I like that idea of this that you know having kids get used to having access to phones and things kind of gradually. So tell me the three M's again.
Carrie: Models. So we're Modeling behavior, Managing behavior that means at those ages, maybe those Tween ages, we know some of their passwords, we know who their friends are, we're helping sending them up for accounts? We have we're more hands on right remaining accounts and then I pull back to monitor. So then you know they're teenagers are getting on their own and you're looking for red flags, You're watching your.
Laura: What are the red flags you're looking for?
Carrie: Yeah, well some of the red flags you'll find for technology around a lot that you find for things like suicide prevention and mental health. Are they withdrawing from? You know there's a certain amount of withdrawing that it's developmentally appropriate because they're just being on their own but are they refusing to participate at all? Are their sleep patterns different?
Are they constantly on our, do they have anxiety or fears around the phone? I especially tell parents to look at it dating red flags to those incidences that might run into as they start dating relationships because teenagers, they're learning to date and what healthy relationships are as they learn how to use devices at the same time. Also just things like grades, dropping, losing, you know, changing hobbies, not being as interested in there and and watching, watching, monitoring a lot of that.
Laura: Okay, so can we talk for just a second about balancing monitoring and trusting your kids? Because I'm in this great digital parenting group and there are some parents in their who've got their kids monitored and tracked and locked down all the time and it feels like a lot and not to criticize anybody. I wonder how that feels to the child and I know that I'm gonna want to be able to trust my kids too. And so how do you figure that out? How do you figure out like what the right level of monitoring is for your kid and in your family and do that in a way that feels respectful to the child too.
Carrie: Yeah, and that's a hard question and I get it. I don't recommend monitoring after their teenagers unless there's an issue of abuse or trauma or major mental health issues. But even then you tell the child this is what's going on, you have a phone contract and you say for this period of time and not forever, we're going to do this and then you back off and you have like a plan in place to kind of back off, right?
I think you have to give them some autonomy and freedom, but I do understand that some kids are have high risk factors and there are some issues and I get that this is a fraught subject. One time I was teaching a class and I had a mom and I don't, maybe brag is a strong word, but talking about how her daughter didn't know about all the tracking devices and all the things that she had seen on daughter phone. And I pushed back on that and it got a little heated because I'm like if your daughter finds out about that, then all trust is lost.
Like I understand your concern for watching it, but she doesn't know it's there and she's gonna find out eventually. Kids are really smart about figuring that stuff out and I just expressed, it's a major concern about this can go really, really bad and then at that point she's lost all trust. It's hard hard to regain trust.
Laura: So Carrie, I'm so glad you're saying that because I really think that oftentimes as parents, we are focused on being able to trust our children and we say that to our kids, it's really easy to lose trust and hard to gain it back, but it's trust is a two way street and I don't think we realize sometimes that they need to trust us to, you know, I also think at the same time that kids are entitled to parents who will keep them safe.
I think that kids deserve parents who will advocate for them and who will, you know, just like when they're, you know, three won't let them cross the street without holding hands, you know, and one that let them run into a parking lot, kids deserve that. And I think that that balance can be tricky. And I guess probably different kids need that at different times and need different bumpers kind of around their technology.
Carrie: But always communicate what you're doing. Don't key tracking software or whatever. But I, oh, like, oh, there's anything you can think of and monitoring, actually it's improved since Covid and all the remote work from home. I mean, it's like parents are often bosses spying on using the employees Spyware programs and like I have had parents say, well, it's, I bought it so I should be able to do it well, okay.
But also just think about the consequences of this because you want your child to communicate to you and when they're gonna, they're already, you know, getting on their own, which is normal and appropriate.
But if something goes bad, you want them to turn to you, you want them to come to you for advice and why would they come to you for advice when they feel betrayed and spied on you're there for your watching and I understand the concern about safety, but there's other ways to monitor your kid's besides sometimes tracking devices or instead of a tracking device, maybe you just have certain times that the wifi is on in your house or you have different, like you use screen time settings or you just regularly talk and have check ins with your kids and you don't freak out if they do tell you something to, which is a hard one.
Laura: Oh my gosh, yes. Like when they do tell you something like that's the time where you have to be like, okay, this is it, this is my moment, this is the moment, this is what I've been waiting for and I have to make sure they tell me the next time. So I can't do anything right now. That will decrease the chances that they'll tell me the next time because there will be a next time, right?
Carrie: Yes. I did a focus group of teenagers and interviewed teens writing the book and I remember having some teens tell me that they were frustrated with their parents because their parents think they're addicts and they're like, I'm not an addict at all why they keep using the word addict. They haven't even seen my friends, they don't know what I do, they don't know what it's at.
And there's sometimes we just label these behaviors and we react emotionally and we assume that this one team in the media is doing this and my team is doing this too. And I'm not stepping back to actually asking the kids what they're doing online, what brings them joy online who they talked to online and just assuming there an addict, which I don't use that word but yeah that's going to use a lot with our kids are labels so it and it shut in its silences them and it shuts them down.
Laura: Yeah you're really coming back to that spirit of curiosity which is so good in all relationships. Oh yeah that phrase, I think lots of parents think that their kids are addicted to screens or addicted to technology. I mean it seems like that was something that you felt really strongly about not using that word, Can you tell us a little bit more about kind of what that means to you what it can mean to kids and.
Carrie: Yeah so I don't like the word because sometimes it implies and people use it in a way, well I'm addicted so I can't help it and it absolves the responsibility in their behavior and you see that word, oh well and to be clear there are real addictions out there, but internet addiction is not in the D. S. M. Five and the gaming addiction in the World Health Organization, that's a highly highly controversial diagnosis and there's not alignment between the community on if these things actually exist.
So first of all let's say that but also like you hear that word flippantly, Oh I'm an addict, I can't help it and we can help it. And I'm not saying that it's not easy. I mean I get the algorithms are there to keep our engagement and our intention and, and I feel like yes, we need to do an individual, we should push back on the algorithms and the systems that are there. We should push on it. We should talk about it. I talk to kids about how algorithms create bubbles and how they can help with their bubbles.
But at the same time we shouldn't, I use the word habits because habits you can break and addictions just kind of succumbed to them and our kids, I believe in our kids, I work with kids, they're strong. They can do it and as adults can do it too, even though some days it's hard.
Laura: Yes. Yeah, I agree. There's this sense of, but I think that that's why parents use that word about their kids because they feel powerless. They say my kid is addicted to Youtube. You know, I think parents feel powerless like they're up against something that's bigger than them. And so for those parents who maybe even, especially these past year and a half have really relied on technology and screen media and social media because hey, we're all surviving here.
You know, we're all attempting to, you know, most of us were schooling from home and working from home, it was a lot, especially for moms, there's so much research on that. But now if we're at the point where we are wanting to take a more intentional look and perhaps scale back a little bit and there's resistance. How do you have any recommendations for parents on that?
Carrie: I mean, change is hard, right? Habits are hard to break. I think it goes back to not having a very top down approach. I mean, younger kids. Yeah. You know, three year olds, you can't let them run down the street. You're not gonna be like, so three year olds or do you want to run out on the street? You're gonna be like, you're gonna yank the kid right?
But as their older, you're communicating it with them and helping them come up with your values together. And as I talked to a lot of young people, they recognize the effects of technology on them, just like adults do. I heard many teams say that like I see the effects of this. I don't like this. I want to make my own goals. So we do digital goal setting and some of my classes, teens and I've watched saved so many goals and they're like, I'm gonna be on this less or I'm going to do this more.
So I feel like we're leaving our kids out of the conversation and assuming they're not having it and they're just addicts, you know, you have this like generational divide, but they are talking about the same things adults are. So let's talk with them about, okay, let's do this together. So you want this well how do we get there? How can I help you? How can you help me with my technology habits? And that's really a great intentional way to work together on this?
Laura: Yeah, I love that. I love that collaborative approach. I think it's so important and I really liked that answer a lot. I like this idea too of co creating our values with our kids. I think as soon as they are old enough to really sit in a family meeting like that, you know, is a great time to start discussing those things and if we're starting young then they have lots of experience with collaboration is different than compromise right?
Which is compromise is usually lose, lose or both giving up a little bit of something or as collaboration is win. Win. I think by the time they're older they know they're skilled in that and they know how to prioritize their values and their priorities and their goals and work together with you. I think that that's so wonderful.
Carrie: I like motivational interviewing who want to be online. How much time do I want to spend instead of this very top down. I'm going to tell you what your values are.
Laura: Yeah. And you touched on something to that I think is really heartening to hear that kids. No, they know the effect that it has on them and that if we're helping them reflect and get curious with themselves, they know that they often want to reduce how much they're using or reduce the pole it has on them. I read a study, I don't remember years ago now.
So maybe things have changed, but they were interviewing like 14-16 year olds and these kids preferred going to homes that had a no phones policy where the parents would make the kids turn their phones over when they came in the house. These kids preferred going to those houses because they actually got to like play and interact with their friends, which I think is really interesting. I think kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for, you know?
Carrie: Yeah, they're observing some things to do and I tell in the book, like be the scapegoat, be that parent who has that rules because they care so much about their peers, which is normal. Yeah. So put, but you don't care what a 12 year old thinks. Do you write like, you know, I, there's no reason for that. Like, and if, but you know, I'll do it with your kids, but you feel free to say if you feel this way child use me use me as the example why you can't, I'm fine with that.
Laura: Oh my gosh Carrie. That's something that my mom did for me when I was a kid and she was always willing to be the bad guy, like if my, you know, like if I had some friends who wanted to talk late into the night and I wanted to do my homework and go to bed. I was kind of a word and then and so she and I had a signal and when I gave her the signal she would say Laura it's time to get off the phone now and would totally be the bad guy for me. I also do that for my kids. It's like I'm always willing to be the bummer for them so that they can save face with their peers and still meet their goals, you know?
Carrie: Yeah, it's hard for them to put it, we forget that right. Like we don't just say no, just don't do it, what's the problem? But we forget where they're at.
Laura: But it's hard setting boundaries is hard, just say no, I mean how many grownups have a hard time saying no to an extra task at work or two, you know, a bake sale obligation at school. We have a hard time saying no to setting boundaries is freaking hard.
Carrie: But we often teach this about, we'll just say no to it, just turn it off. Just don't do it like a lot of that online safety that way and it's not really understanding where kids are developmentally.
Laura: It's not, they need help with some of those things too. Like I don't think we have to rush kids in that, I think it's okay for us to support them, you know, resisting peer pressure, resisting those things are hard. It's okay for them to lean on us for a little while while they can.
Carrie: Yes. Especially that in that tween age, right? When they get a little older, they kind of created their identities and they know themselves better. But that like 10-14 age, that's a high peer pressure age.
Laura: Carrie I really appreciate this conversation so much. I know that you were saying that perhaps we can do a giveaway for the book when this episode comes out.
Carrie: Yes, I will give away five free copies. I will mail them with a little note to you.
Laura: Okay? So everybody listening will give you the details on my Instagram and Facebook accounts for how to enter that contest. And those details will also be in the show notes here. But Carrie is giving away copies of the book.
Carrie: Thank you.
Laura: Carrie and I want to make sure everybody can go and find you. They don't want to wait to see if they won the copy of the book. So where can, where's the best place to get in touch with you?
Carrie: One great praise for parents is digital-parenting.com. And that's where I run game reviews. I have free resources with parents and I have blogs and other kind of information. They can contact us there. If you happen to be in the state of Utah, we can provide free parent education on this topic, but please contact us if you wanted to, you know, bring it out your way or have a consult.
Laura: Thanks so much, Carrie.
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.
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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.