Episode 152: Navigating the World of Social Media with Kids with Lena Derhally
/As my child approaches ten and has started to ask for a phone, it is important that as parents we know how to guide our kids in navigating technology and social media with intention and safety in mind. An important aspect of this is figuring out how to model for our kids the boundaries and relationships with social media that we want them to have.
To help me in this conversation, I have brought in Lena Derhally. She is an author and Imago-certified psychotherapist in private practice. She was formerly a clinical instructor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the George Washington School of Medicine, where she mentored medical students, and she is on the advisory board of 1455 Literary Arts.
We will talk about:
Narcissism and Social Media: Is social media making us more narcissistic?
Facebook Narcissist: How to Identify and Protect Yourself and Your Loved Ones from Social Media Narcissism (Book)
How to navigate social media with our kids and teens
To know more about this topic, follow Lena on Instagram and Facebook. You can also check out her works on www.lenaderhally.com
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: Hello, everybody! This is Dr. Laura Froyen and on this week's episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we're going to be talking about navigating social media with our children especially as they are teens and tweens and moving into having their own social media presence and their own lives online. It's something that I've been thinking about a lot as my child approaches ten and has started to ask for a phone and I'm so glad to be able to have this conversation with an actual expert who's going to help us understand how we can support our children in navigating the world of social media. Please welcome to the show, Lena Derhally. I hope I said your name right.
Lena: You did. Thank you Laura. I'm very excited to be here talking to you.
Laura: I'm so glad to have you too. Why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do and then we'll dive in.
Lena: So I'm a licensed psychotherapist and private practice. I'm Imago certified which is actually a type of relational.
Laura: We love Imago.
Lena: Imago. Yeah, I'm Imago certified, I actually, I don't just use it with couples, but I use it with families and I actually think Imago is really great for applying, applied to parenting. So that's why I say the imago part and you'll hear Imago in various parenting experts, you know, in themes that they talk about. So I'm really very passionate about Imago. I'm also very passionate about violence prevention and so a lot of the work that I've done and I'm an author and the books that I've written are around violence prevention with domestic violence.
So I've written true crime and my new book which is about social media is called the Facebook Narcissist and that was sort of about these. What I was seeing as a parent on social media and just as an individual on social media that we are just bombarded with all this sort of shallow fast content and it was really disturbing to me and I was just thinking about, well what does this mean for a generation growing up with this?
Laura: Yeah. So what did you find out what like because it makes social media makes me worried for myself. You know, having boundaries and my kids aren't there yet, but I know lots of our listeners have tweens and teens who are starting to step foot into that world. What did you find in your research as you were writing this book?
Lena: I found a lot, one of the things that I talked about a lot is a study I found, which was I think really very alarming and they pulled parents of children I think from the age is about 7-11 or 12 and they asked them what did…
Laura: They’re so young.
Lena: Yes. And they asked them, what do you, what did your child.. They told the parents what did your child want to be when they grow up? And the top two professions were Youtuber and influencer. So they were separate. And then I think number three was like veterinarian. But the majority, when you put the two together, was like 65 to 70% of kids in this age aspired to be a Youtuber or Influencer. And then the next question they asked was, what are the motives? And the motives. The predominant motives were fame and money. So that was really jarring for me because it was something I kind of suspected. But then I was like, oh there's actual data here now and I've seen other studies that were similar to this particular one that I referenced in the book, but that was really alarming.
Laura: And tell me what you like, like when I heard you say that, like my heart sank a little bit. What is alarming about that to you?
Lena: Well, I just think and you know, I interviewed this, I interviewed a lot of experts for my book and the field of narcissism and sociologists and psychologists. And one of them is, she's wonderful. Her name is Anne Mann, she's a sociologist and social philosopher and she's written a ton of books that your audience might find interesting too. Some of it is related to parenting. But she had told me about a study she saw that looked at girls journals over the years, let's say, I think it was the past hundred years and sort of this trajectory of where it used to be that girls would write about, that they want to be a good person and developing their character and you know, kind of contributing to the world as a good citizen.
And then as the journals get closer and closer to, you know, the time, social media started and beyond. It was really all about looks and altering their bodies and even, you know, looking at fillers and botox and things like that. And so we saw she saw this progression of girls throughout the past, you know, hundred years and their journals where like, we're really changing what we view as our values, you know? And that was really alarming to me because it's a therapist, you know, you and I know Dr. Laura that people, happiness does not come from the superficial materialistic things. It certainly doesn't come from external validation. And so that was really concerning to me that those are the values that social media is perpetuating in our young kids.
Laura: Yeah, it's heartbreaking, I think is what I'm experiencing as I'm hearing you say these things and I just, you know, I feel like it's easy to come from a place of fear and lack and not wanting for this for our kids. I think I'm really feeling compelled to talk for a moment about compassion for this generation. Like so much compassion for these kids who are coming up in a world with a technology that has grown so fast with very little regulation, with very little understanding of what it's doing to our human brains. I just have a lot of compassion.
Lena: Thank you for saying that. I don't think that's actually something, you know, when I do interviews, nobody has ever brought that up before. And so I think that's really important. You know, one of the… when I told people I was writing this book, the things and Laura, you and I talked about we’re eighties babies and a lot of my friends are too. You know, some even from the seventies and we all said we are so glad we didn't have to grow up with this. And so that is about having to have compassion for our children who are forced because as we said, it's not going anywhere. This is a part of now school, not social media, but my children are both on laptops doing tests and things in school. And so technology in general has, has just become a part of their life and it was something that we never had to deal with.
Laura: I mean and it is part of school. Like teacher Tiktok is one of my favorite places to be. I love teacher Tiktok but they're doing their filming in class like they're, you know, I mean, social media isn't like it is in school. I know kids are taking pictures of themselves and posting two stories and doing Tiktok in the hallways like that is happening. You know, it is, it's not going to go anywhere. And so coming from this place of compassion then as parents, it can feel so we can feel, I don't know sometimes like my kids go to a technology free school and they'll be there till they're in eighth grade.
And so there's not a lot of social pressure to have a phone because nobody there has a phone. They're not allowed to have it at school if they have a phone, they have to leave it in their bags, you know, which is not the case at most public schools now. Most public schools, kids bring it in and everything. But I think about like, oh God, like they will go to public school for high school, they will suddenly be in this space and I know other parents are probably, you know, facing this with their kids even younger. So what can we do when we have this? Like it's not going anywhere? There's this feeling of powerlessness and also…
Lena: I want to, I want to say we need to have compassion for parents navigating too because I know that it's easy to say, oh I'm just not going to let my kid have a phone. But I know a lot of parents feel so guilty because they feel like their kid is starting to get left out of stuff if their kid is the only one who doesn't have a phone. There's actually an instagram account that I really like, it's called, wait until eighth and it's about taking a pledge to wait until giving your kids.
Not necessarily a phone because I feel like where I live, the public middle school, like my kids will go to. A lot of them walk home and so some parents might give them a phone that doesn't very basic, just so you know, you can call. I know, my parents freaked out when they can't find their kids, they're supposed to pick them up somewhere and their kids not there and they have no way to contact them.
Laura: So my kids have like, they have a Gizmo watch that they share that allows them to text and leave us and send us via text, which…
Lena: Which I think is really nice.
Laura: It's awesome because I feel comfortable sending them to the park so…
Lena: Do you remember growing up in the eighties? Like we were just like on the bike, I don't know about you, but like, you know, there was no way for my parents to get in touch with me if I went off somewhere and I did, you know, we were running around the block doing things.
Laura: Yeah, I grew up on a farm and I was just, I was just outside in the woods until I was hungry.
Lena: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, nowadays it's a little bit different, but it is nice just, you know, to know where they are and things like that. So compassion for parents navigating. So I don't, you know, if I, if parents feel like they need to give their kid a phone or a device or some social media because they feel that that's best for their child to keep them connected. Like there's no judgment there because I understand, you know, that, so there's not a one size fits all. I think that's important to say too…
Laura: And compassion for the parents who kind of with like just because it's what you do allow those things to happen and now they're realizing, oh gosh, I didn't like, I don't know that I prepped my kid for this, I don't know that I like and now we're facing a needing to walk things back, you know, so much compassion for everybody in these circumstances. It's really hard.
Lena: Yeah, I think, you know, talking to our kids which sounds so basic, but before we give them social media, especially with our girls. And one of the things we talked about before we started recording was I talked about this law that Norway passed, it was in July 2021 where they made influencers or you know, people with public accounts label when they alter their body image or their face or filter in any way and they made that punishable by a fine or by prison. And the reason was there. Norway is facing a huge mental health crisis with their girls around body dysmorphia and body image.
And so I thought, wow, that's so profound that a country is making a law about this. So we are really seeing a strong correlation between body dysmorphia and social media. And so I think we have to prepare our children will one, you know, for the comparison effect, right? Which is everybody's life on social media is going to look way better than it's just a highlight reel for a lot, a lot of the time. You know, and so talking to them about reality versus what's online, you know, and just sort of preparing them for that I think and just having those open conversations. And again about the filtering and the body image and things like that.
One of the PhD researchers and psychologists I talked to for my book, he's actually probably the most well known expert on narcissism and has done the most research on it and his name is Keith Campbell. And he said with his teens that he has like an acronym called CPR which stands for compassion, passion responsibility. And he sort of looks at it as if we're having our kids, if our kids are compassionate, if they find something that they're passionate about doesn't matter if it's like stamp collecting or whatever and they have responsibility. You know, he feels like those are three things that are really important to instill in our kids. And then sort of if they are online, like as long as they're spending most of their life offline, which is in person with friends. Maybe again doing something that they're passionate about, getting their homework done, things like that, like putting the focus with your kids on what you're doing offline.
So that's another thing I think that's really important is fostering like what the kid is doing off of social media. Another thing is making sure they don't have their devices in their rooms at night because I hear a lot of horror stories about, you know, kids staying up all night or becoming addicted. And staying up till three, four in the morning, so you know, really putting limits like you may take the phone at eight o'clock, you know? Make sure there's designated times where phones and that's for, I'm sure your audience is already very aware of like having intentional time and not having the devices on, right? So it's like, you know, fostering all of these types of habits where the emphasis is really on your in person relationships and like building passion and compassion like that Dr Campbell said and all of those things.
Laura: One thing that I'm doing now is a that we do now as a family, we've had rules about phones for parents, my kids whole lives because I knew at one point they would get phones and I wanted them to know that in our family we have these limits with screens and they don't just apply to kids, they apply to adults too. So we have phone free hours, we have no phones ever at the table and my kids are very strict in enforcing those rules with like grandparents to come over and don't always know the rules. And my husband and I charge our phone in a drawer in our kitchen every night. And so our kids see that every night we put it away and they see us get it out in the morning, like when we're checking our schedule for the day. And my hope is that if they've seen us engaging in that limit, that kind of, you know, that rhythm of phone free time, my hope is that they won't push against it too bad when they get their own phone.
Lena: Yeah. And I would suggest if, you know, a parent can holding off on social media as long as possible. Yeah. One of the things that actually concerns me the most is cyberbullying. And so I have a chapter in the book specifically about cyberbullying and cyberstalking and trolls. Cyberbullying is a huge problem again that, you know, we didn't have to deal with when we were kids. I actually was bullied very badly and I cannot imagine what, you know, how intensified it would be if cyberbullying was on top of it because it's relentless and now kids using rumors. Yeah, there's some links to, you know, some suicides that are related to cyberbullying and there's, you know.
I did a lot of research on that and I'm very passionate about this anti bullying movement because I think it's so damaging and it causes PTSD and it's something, you know that people carry with them for the rest of our lives. You know, I’m in my forties now and I still have reactions to being bullied when I was 13, like visceral reactions and so, you know, I think it's really important that we tell our kids, you know to actually be very cautious about what we share online too because all this can be used against you and it's forever. And so there is also, you know, talking about you never share nude pictures. You know, if somebody's asking again that's you know, that's forever and that doesn't go away. And so it's just about I think having a lot of these open conversations about what the potential of what could go wrong. And again their kids, their brains are still developing, teenagers are impulsive, so we're not going to be able to control it all either.
Laura: Yeah, they're impulsive and they don't… their problem solving skills, like not their problem solving, but they're like rational decision making skills, you know that part of the brain doesn't fully develop until the mid twenties. And so of course, they're not always thinking about the long term consequences of what they're doing online when it comes to things like cyberbullying, what can parents do to prevent their child from being on the receiving end of that, but also prevent their child from being the bully because it's easy to get caught up in that sort of thing too. Good kids, good sweet kids can do really harsh things online.
Lena: Right. And that's one of the things I really wanted. So the book I do offer a lot of tips as well and I really wanted to make sure parents had those tips, which is what to do if your kid is being bullied, also what to do if your kid is the bully? And again, the first step usually is going to the school now, I know all the time. The schools don't necessarily respond in the ways that people want, but hopefully schools now are being more, I think more aware of what's going on and trying to foster more cultures of kindness in the school systems. And so again, you know, alerting the teacher then you may have to go higher up. It depends how bad it gets, you know?
But in those moments if your kid is really being badly cyber bullied, I would take them off social media completely and just protect them from having to be involved in any of that or see anything, you know? But definitely go straight to the school, I would say and see what they can do first. Talk to your kid, make sure you know, see what they're comfortable with as well because some kids are very different preferences. If they want, you know, their parents getting involved or not. But definitely the school should be the first place. Some people, if it gets really bad, you know, I hope that it won't happen to anyone, actually have to go to law enforcement sometimes. So that's like from A to Z.
Laura: Alright. And what about if you are realizing that your child is the bully?
Lena: Yeah, so that one you probably know is first like you want to talk to your kid, not punish them necessarily, but ask them questions and get curious, right, is like kind of what's underneath this, like what's going on about this? And also making sure that your admonishing the behavior and not the child, right? So I'm sure you know all about that too is being curious about why is this happening and this behavior is unacceptable and you know, like our family probably know that it's unacceptable.
Laura: They probably know that my guess is that they know what they're doing isn't okay. And then I also agree finding out what's driving it, what's going on under the surface. Is it a need for, you know, trying to make friends or stay connected to someone else by doing these things, Is it? You know, there's, there can be a lot that kids…
Lena: Yeah. And underlying, you know, a lot of anxiety and kids or anger and anger outbursts and kids is actually underlying anxiety, which a lot of parents don't know. So I have a lot of parents in my community come to me, you know confidentially and saying they're really worried their child's acting out. Their child's have anger outbursts and I always say, first of all, do you think they might be anxious and I'll point them into some resources and they're like, wow, that's nobody knows that some of those are manifestations having anxiety.
So I think, you know, there could be so many things going on underneath it. But yeah, to not necessarily be really harsh with the kids, like you said, just being really curious about it, and then talking a lot about empathy, which again, hopefully be like, how would you like it if somebody did this to you? You know, kind of walking them through that. Now, some kids may respond. I've actually seen kids respond before, like, well, I wouldn't care if somebody did that to me. And then, you know, there's also I think like, if you're really concerned about it and some of those interventions aren't working and like, but you know, you as the parents want to try to stop the bullying, maybe that's taking away the kids phone, you know what I mean?
Well, if you're going to be bullying, you can't have this device, you know, taking away that privilege, so you do as much as you can, but if you're really concerned, I would definitely look at getting a child therapist. And same for the kid being bullied too. I should say that too, if it's really taking a toll on your child's mental health, getting as much support as possible, is going to be, you know, in different types of support. You know, whether that's in the community of therapist, close family, like just making sure that they're really taking care of and supported while they go through it.
Laura: Yeah, I think that's what I so agree. It's so important, I feel curious about, so this is something that, like, I think is difficult to navigate. So a lot of the parents here are attempting to move away away from more kind of punitive and control based parenting, you know? And more into collaborative and respectful parenting. And the phone has always been an interesting thing because how can you, without seeming like it's a punishment, take away the kids phone? Right?
Lena: Right. Yeah, I thought about that.
Laura: I know, it's just so interesting to think about this, this line of protection and wanting to do what's best for your child. And I think about it almost like, you know, so a rule in my family as if your scootering or bike riding, you're wearing a helmet, like it's just a non negotiable. If you are riding your bike or sorry, riding in the car, you are wearing a seatbelt, you're using the booster, that's right for your body. That's just what's happening because we don't go anywhere where our bodies aren't safe, right? And part of me feels like the phone is like this, that it's my job as a parent to protect you and if you're not able right now for whatever reason to use the phone safely until we have a plan in place for your safe usage of the phone, we can't have one, you know, what do you think about that reasoning?
Lena: Yeah, no, I think I think about harm and harm reduction in violence prevention, those are things that are really interested in and I think if the child is causing serious harm to other people, there's only or to themselves, there's you know, you really have to take it, you know, there's no one size fits all again, right? So it's if the phone, you know, I saw some stories where some parents are suing social media companies because of their child's addiction to it, because these apps and these platforms are designed to addict the brain to… Us parents are suing.
There's even some laws now that are, you know, in the works for being passed where social media companies would be held responsible for certain things. And so you know, one family I heard that was doing that was trying to sue their daughter was so addicted, like it ruined her life, like she couldn't like it was an actual true addiction and so in that case like taking the phone away from her would be a very good thing. It would, you know, reducing the harm, breaking the pattern. There are correlations to not every bully of course, but with conduct disorder and narcissism like budding narcissism.
And a lot of the times there's not a lot of respectful collaboration you can do, you know, and so again these are very extreme situations, but just to sort of point out when there's harm being caused, I actually did a lot of research and interviews on the you've all day and the social media component. Because the perpetrator, I won't say his name. It was very disturbing. He was posting, he was murdering cats online and torturing them and you know, making videos threatening rape and kidnapping two girls on these, some of these chat platforms, you know, making all kinds of threats and things like that.
And again, there wasn't necessarily a parent there who could just take away the phone. But again, I'm just thinking about it like from a harm reduction perspective. I think there's definitely kids that we can have respectful, you know, maybe we can have more conversations about, you know, respectfully using the phone and not taking it away. But I also think there's times where you have to see where again, it's all about preventing the harm to other people's children and your own and those are again, individual decisions we all have to make.
Laura: Yeah, I think it certainly isn't a black and white thing. Right? Yeah, absolutely. So what I'm thinking about readiness, right? I'm thinking about like as our children are young, we think a lot about their readiness to do things. And I'm curious if you have any ideas on how a parent can tell when their child is actually ready for a phone. Are ready for social media accounts, not when they're asking for it, but when they're actually ready. Are there some markers or things that parents can be looking for, that would show they're ready. They're responsible enough? They're ready to try this out.
Lena: Yeah, I mean, I think I look at my kids are elementary school and they do roblox. So they don't have phones, they don't have watches, they don't have anything, but they do roblox and they play with other kids online. And sometimes there's public rooms and so, you know, one of the things we do is like, I'm allowed to read their chats and you know, and we talk about again, they're very good at, about this. Like, they never give their real names, they can't give pictures, they can't give any identifying information.
And, you know, we talk about it, we try to have this culture of honesty in our home where we're like, you can tell us anything your parents and we will never get mad kind of thing, like, you know that because we want them to be able to come to us. And so they will, they'll come and say somebody said that f word on this chat. But the moderator blocked it. So roblox has all these moderators where people out and stuff, but they're exposed to things on there, you know? And I think they showed me they were ready just because, you know, we were having open collaborative conversations about it and again the conversations are fluid.
They're always changing. Like, oh, the person said the effort in the chat room, how did you feel about that? You know? And so I think that you can sort of just get a sense by how the kid is, you know, you know, your personality to. Yeah, like I'd say my, my oldest, my son who just turned 10, he is a kid who doesn't care what people think, which I love. You know, and so I feel like if everybody had a phone, he wouldn't need one, like he's not the kid who's like, so I feel like, you know, we all know our children's personality.
Some other children may be more susceptible to wanting to go along with the crowd and more, you know, my daughter who is now just turned eight, asked me six months ago if she was fat and I was like, what? How, how did she get this? You know, just like, you know, and she starts starting to see her, I don't know where she's getting it from, but starting to see her like kind of think about her body and things like that. So I might be a little bit more with her, a little bit more reluctant, you know, with the social media and like delaying that more just, and I think again, parents kind of know their kids, their kids readiness. I think we're all the best gauge of knowing. And so I'd go with your gut, you know, with your individual child.
Laura: I read recently, study recently that said the average age for the first diet for this generation of kids is eight for girls.
Lena: Oh my, I did not know that. But yeah, it's very disturbing.
Laura: It's disturbing and I think it's all related. You know, I think it was related to our exposure. You know, we were talking before we started that, you know, when we were teenagers, we had all, we had really what to look at was like 17 magazine and that was hard enough. You know, I remember my mom sitting down with me as we were, she had saved a 17 magazine from when she was 17.
She had kept one from the late 60s and she pulled it out and she put her 17 magazine next to mine and we just looked through it page by page at the different bodies that were in it. The ways girls were represented, the different topics, and she very compassionately talked to me about how when she read magazines when she was a teenager, the girls in the magazine looked like her, their bodies looked like her. And then she, you know, this was in, we were doing this in the, you know, the late nineties.
Lena: Nineties, like… grunge and heroin.
Laura: You know the way you know, and she was like, it's just, she's like Laura, it must be really hard to, to look in these magazines and not see an athletic body shape to see these girls who don't look like you. And I mean it was just a very kind and compassionate conversation that I'll always remember. And then I think about, you know, my girls, what they'll be exposed to. It makes me feel sad and worried. But I also know that I can have similar conversations.
Lena: Yeah, I was just going to say, I think you've hit the nail on the head, which is like, it's more simple than people think it's like having those type of conversations or the things that you remember and that open again with the respectful parenting, open collaborative conversations. The curious questions like nothing, you know, the idea that nothing's off the table. You can come to me and ask me anything and we'll have a good conversation about it.
Laura: And I think that starts now. I think it starts for those of us who are listening who have little kids. I think like those open conversations, if they are lifestyle practice now, they'll be used to it later.
Lena: Yeah. I mean, I remember, you know, I work with a lot of just as a therapist in general, like I've had a lot of clients, women who have past histories of sexual abuse and sometimes I'm the first person that they've told. And so I, you know, early on in my career, this was years ago I started seeing that as a pattern and I was like, well I was curious what can we do as parents? And so I interviewed a bunch of therapist and trauma experts who that was their specialty childhood sexual abuse. And I wrote an article for the Washington post because I used to freelance for their parenting and all this to say that it's really about conversations as they're as young as two and they're like, you're changing the diaper and you're modeling for them. You're talking about, you know, proper usage of the genitals like penis, things like that. Sorry. That, I know, that was like,
Laura: No no no. They’re body parts. We don’t freak out saying the word elbow. No.
Lena: Yeah. I don't know what the… if there's kids listening. Yeah.
Laura: Hopefully all the kids learn proper … I learn belly buttons and elbows why not…
Lena: Yes and right. Exactly. So, you know, those are the conversations but that just goes to show again how early, you know, when we're even starting at two or three, but consent, right? Like we're talking a lot about children and consent and as young, you know, you can talk these conversations really, really young now. And I think it's just all about again the conversation and the openness because the commonality that I had with all the clients I had that were abused as children. And I was the first person that they told they always said they never felt safe to tell anybody. Like because the culture in their home was so closed off, like they didn't feel they could ever tell a grown up. And that really it's seared in my brain just this importance of again, being this safe place that your children can come to where they feel they can talk to you about anything.
Laura: I remember one study that I read a while back about kind of the researcher interviewed teenagers and they asked where do you get your information about sex and you know, your body and stuff and they said the internet, pornography and their friends. And then the researcher asked where do you wish you could get that information? And they all like it was like 95% of the teenagers that they interviewed said that they wish that they could get that information from their parents. I so agree kids are, kids want to be able to have that connection.
They want, they want it. They want to get that information from us. I also I like I like just reading random studies too. Sometimes I also read another one where they interviewed kids about phone usage while with friends and these were teenagers. And they, I really like it when the researchers like are able to pull out like kind of like inconsistencies. So the kids all said that they, when they're with their friends the majority of the time they're on their phones talking with friends who aren't there. And then they asked the kids how would you like it to be? And they all wished that they would put their phones away and actually be together but they're not doing it.
And it was so fascinating. And this was a qualitative study. So the qualitative studies, our interview based for the most part questionnaire based. And so the researcher has the discretion to ask follow up questions. And several of those kids mentioned that they had one friend who whose family limited phone usage when the friends were over. There was like a basket or a little bit that the friends would have to put their phones in and that all of their friends preferred to going to that house to hang out and they grumble about it. Like this was a really, I loved this study but the kids would grumble about it and be annoyed and act like you know, why did we have to give up our phones? But they secretly liked it.
Lena: Yeah, of course because it's all about connection, right? And I think that's what's exciting now about like this new generation of parenting is that we're really focusing now on connection being the most important thing. And like you know this excited really is evidence for that is like I want to hear that from my parents, not the internet, like I want connection and that's what we all want. And I think like that's really, again it's sounds simplistic but I think it's the foundation for every good relationship and I think like having connection with the child connection to the parents is what will help them navigate social media for the best, right? Like I think it just comes down to being as simple as that.
Laura: I think so too. And and and being prepared like being prepared. Our kids will you know gosh that I think the average age children find pornography online is nine now? And you know I mean like like those things will happen like they will experience low self esteem, like those things will happen and just being prepared that this doesn't need to be anything that you know just like we knew when they learned to walk they would bump their head. You know this is a developmental process, there will be ups and downs and we can handle it.
Lena: Yeah. And I think that's trusting them to write. It's like I you know I said I trust my kids, you guys can play roblox and you know we're just gonna have conversations about it and we're always gonna have conversations about it. And I think that's really it is like also trusting your kid not necessarily keeping them in a bubble right? And removing them from everything because sometimes we know that backfires too. And kid can't have something then they're gonna go crazy and they can have it. So it's also sort of like letting them navigated a bit on their own with their secure attachment base which is you.
Laura: Yeah. Beautiful. Well Lena thank you so much for for sharing with us. I want to make sure that our listeners can find you if they want to learn more. Where would they go well if you want to find me on social media and I just have an instagram which is Therapy with Lena. I just kind of post articles, research things, some humor on there too.
Laura: Isn't it so funny how we can be so uncomfortable with social media and then we have to use it because…
Lena: Yes. Yes, exactly. Yes. And you know, you can find me on linkedin, my websites, lenaderhally.com and you'll be able to contact me through messaging or anything on any of those platforms.
Laura: Alright, well thank you so much lina, you're, you're really helping us navigate this. So I appreciate it.
Lena: Thank you for having this wonderful podcast that disseminates such great information for parents who are so compassionate.
Laura: Oh gosh, I've just got the best listeners. It's so such a, such an honor to get to, to walk alongside this amazing group of parents. It's such a blessing that I get to do this work.
Lena: It makes me feel hopeful. Thank you.
Laura: I'm so hopeful and I feel so for this generation of kids.
Lena: Me too, very exciting. Yeah, it's very exciting. It's so different. Yeah, well thanks again for having me.
Laura: Absolutely.
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!