← Parenting in the Screen Age - The Screenagers Podcast
Parenting in the Screen Age - The Screenagers Podcast
ADHD, Screens, and Sleep: Strategies to Help Kids and Teens
00:40:35
Loading summary
Transcript100 lines
- [00:04]
Delaney Rustin
Hello, I'm Delaney Rustin, primary care physician and creator with Lisa Tabb of the four Screenagers movies. And this is Parenting in the Screen Age, a show about discovering the best ways to help our youth and ourselves navigate a rapidly changing digital world. I'm so glad you're here today because we're diving into a topic that many of you have asked about ADHD and what to do about screen time. My guest is Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez, a researcher and clinical psychologist at Seattle Children's Hospital who has spent a lot of her career focused on helping young people with ADHD and their families. She's published research on non pharmacological interventions for ADHD and she is the co creator and co director of something really special called the FAST Program First Approach Skills Training, a free evidence based behavioral program designed for parents giving parents skills to help their youth who have ADHD and other conditions. There's also tools for teens to check out as well. We discuss the program in the show and the link to it will be in the show notes.
- [01:09]
So in our conversation today, we talk
- [01:11]
about what does ADHD look like in different ages and Erin shares how she talks about ADHD with kids and teens. And we spend a good chunk of time on what parents can actually do, savvy parenting skills that they can work on to help their kids and teens with issues around screen time as well as physical activity and sleep. All right, let's get into it.
- [01:35]
Erin, I'm so glad to be with you today. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
- [01:39]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
I'm really excited to talk with you.
- [01:41]
Delaney Rustin
I want to start by having you talk a little bit about your work at Children's Hospital in Seattle. What is your role there?
- [01:50]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
I have been here at Seattle children's hospital since 2014 now and I am an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and I'm also adjunct faculty in the Department of Pediatrics. So I'm a faculty member on the university side and then on the hospital side. I'm a licensed clinical psychologist and I oversee our programming related to disruptive behavior and adhd. And I also direct a program focused on brief behavioral treatments for integrated primary care settings. So creating brief mental health tools including tools that address screen time problems and other health behavior issues.
- [02:37]
Delaney Rustin
Let's start with we used to use the term ADD and adhd. Now we only use adhd. Can you just say briefly why that change came to be sure.
- [02:49]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Well, it's been understood for a couple of decades now that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder doesn't always include the hyperactive part. So about 40% of people with ADHD have the predominantly inattentive subtype. So back in the 90s, we used to call this ADD, just drop the H. But in the DSM 5 that DSM 4 actually and DSM 5 are diagnostic manuals that came out in the early 2000s. And then circa 2012, they changed the name to all be called ADHD. And then three different subtypes.
- [03:33]
Lisa Tabb
Yes.
- [03:33]
Delaney Rustin
It gets us to the next question, which is there's a lot of confusion about ADHD out there, and I just wondered if you could talk first about kids who are like 10 and younger and then tweens and teens up.
- [03:47]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
So talk about what ADHD looks like in different.
- [03:51]
Delaney Rustin
Exactly.
- [03:52]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
So we know that the brain basis of ADHD really looks very similar across the different age groups. We see differences in brain structure and functioning and development, but the way that the symptoms show up is very different depending on age, temperament, factors, lived experience and gender and things like that. So we all know that young kids have a lot of energy. Toddlers, preschoolers have energy. They, they don't think things through very well before acting, and they're distractible. But what we're looking for, once we hit, you know, around, well, age four is the youngest ADHD can be diagnosed really. But we're really looking at more getting into the kindergarten and early elementary years, we're looking for kids who are outside of a typical range in how inattention and, or hyperactivity and impulsivity show up for them. So we're looking at very physically obvious symptoms often in the young kids. So a high energy kid, of course, is going to be on the go and climbing and curious and getting out of their seat and wiggling, and their impulsivity is going to show up in pretty physical ways, like grabbing a toy out of someone's hand because they were excited and they didn't think it through right, or getting so focused on grabbing a snack that they're knocking over things or not being very aware of their surroundings. And so we're really looking at those hyperactive and impulsive symptoms being the biggest symptoms that stand out in the younger age group. All kindergarteners and first graders are somewhat distractible and they're not very organized. So typically we're not flagging the inattentive ADHD symptoms as early as. So once you get into second, third grade, and above, we're expecting kids to sit for longer periods of time. We're expecting them to keep track of instructions for More than five seconds. We're expecting them to do multiple things at the same time. This is where we start seeing more inattentive problems crop up. So kids that are having trouble tracking instructions, their mind is elsewhere. They might get started on something but then get pulled away by something else that stimulating or forget what the expectation was. They're not going to be projecting themselves into the future and planning ahead as effectively. So they're going to be very in the moment. Whatever's exciting right now, whatever's motivating right now is going to get all my attention. And I'm going to miss social cues often. I'm going to miss other things around me that might cause other kids to shift their behavior. So I might be so excited on the soccer field about kicking the ball, booting it as hard as I can that I don't notice that the gameplay is going in the other direction and I'm off task. As we get into the teen years, we tend to see hyperactivity drops off. It goes from being something that's very outwardly obvious, moving a lot to often more of an internal restlessness that teenagers and adults describe. And we tend to see more problems coming up because of the inattention. So we expect teenagers to get their stuff ready for school on their own and remember what they needed for the day and keep track of telling my friend that I left something at their house and sort of self manage and we're going to see that again. That, that being in the moment that, that focus on whatever's exciting right now is going to cause people to forget and drop a lot of other expectations or things that they've been juggling. So we're going to see more missed things that are missing or forgotten that start to add up and cause problems.
- [08:02]
Lisa Tabb
I was going to say just add like sometimes lower motivation. I mean it can be confused with a lot of things, things hard making decisions, I mean other things that teens might experience.
- [08:14]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Yeah, yeah. We know that motivation is one of the core differences for people with adhd. They're not able to kind of keep their dopamine, that pleasure chemical flowing with internal regulation as well as others. They tend to be more driven by outward motivation. So it's hard to stay focused on a long term task that's maybe tedious or slow going right now. It's hard to get pumped up to get started. So we see procrastination and then it's hard to see it through because there's other stuff that's drawing your attention that's more interesting and Exciting.
- [08:54]
Lisa Tabb
And I wonder, Erin, I don't know if you saw the recent ABCD study that was published in Cell in December. When the researchers looked at the parts of the brain that the medicines that are used for young people with attention
- [09:08]
Delaney Rustin
problems, they found that they thought the medicine was going to light up in their brain and the attention centers, but it actually, exactly to what you're saying, lit up at the reward center of the brain as well as wakefulness. So it's just these young people needing higher, engaging things, whereas things that it's delayed pleasure, delayed reward, et cetera can be so hard for them.
- [09:32]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Yeah, absolutely. We're seeing that the, the bar is kind of higher for a person with ADHD to get excited and interested in something and stay interested. Their brain kind of needs a higher level of stimulation to wake up and get engaged. Yeah. That alertness can be part of the challenge.
- [09:53]
Delaney Rustin
How do you talk about it when you also want to point out positives about it when you're talking to kids and or teens about this new diagnosis, if that is indeed what they receive a diagnosis of?
- [10:06]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Well, we think of ADHD as being a quote unquote disorder because of the way that that brain type kind of clashes with the way we've set up the structure of our society, which is around a neurotypical brain. So we have not made school a very engaging and appealing setting for somebody who needs to move around a lot and needs more exercise and needs to move from one thing to the next at a faster pace. So it doesn't mean that there's something bad about the way your brain works. In fact, we see more people at the genius level of IQ that have ADHD than in the standard IQ range.
- [10:50]
Delaney Rustin
Wow, I didn't know that.
- [10:52]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Yeah, there's a lot of really brilliant people where their ADHD brain is one of their biggest assets. Because you're thinking multiple steps ahead of where the rest of the class may be. You're asking questions that the rest of the group hasn't even gotten to yet. And certainly we see creativity, we see charisma and really great, you know, front of house performing skills. We see skills that help people in crises, actually, because the ADHD brain can run on kind of higher adrenaline. It craves often adrenaline or it, it tolerates more adrenaline. So that can be great if you want to have a job that has a lot of intensity or you need to be thinking on your feet, making, you know, quick decisions and reacting while staying calm. So there's a lot of great things. And it also can really get in the way when it comes to keeping your schoolwork, your finances and your household details in order.
- [11:59]
Delaney Rustin
Yeah. And also, of course, we haven't even gotten into mood, but how discouraging and frustrating and how confusing it can feel. Just like, why can't I get this done? And that can become really a self prophecy of feeling bad. And so there can be depression, anxiety, different things, both directly related as well as not necessarily directly related.
- [12:20]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Oh yeah. I mean, we see once we get into the teen and adulthood years, we see that those years of feeling like you're struggling and why does this seem easier for everyone else? And why can't I do this the way other people can? It catches up and we see a lot of anxiety, depression and other mood struggles start to show up in those years. I really am hopeful that in our world where we talk a lot more about ADHD and we embrace ADHD and its gifts, that we have hope of that changing.
- [12:59]
Narrator/Announcer
Before we dive back in, I wanted to let you know about our four screenagers documentaries, which focus on helping kids and teens navigate the challenges of this digital age. We created these films to be screened in schools and at community events. Over 20,000 hosts have shown them thus far. Along with the movies. We provide discussion guides, promotional materials and other tools so that you can easily organize a truly impactful event for your community. And if your school wants to use the movies in the classroom or we have options for that too, along with a full curriculum of lesson plans designed for various grade levels. To learn more about the movies or inquire about becoming a host, visit screenagersmovie.com there's a link in the show notes. Now back to the show.
- [13:50]
Delaney Rustin
Let's get into screen time issues and we're going to definitely talk about physical activity and sleep as well. And I want to start by this first frame of savvy parental skills because really, behavioral management training for parents is such a big component of helping young people, their kids and teens with all of this. And I wondered if you can explain kind of just big picture what these programs are. Everyone thinks, okay, the kid has to do this, this, this. And yet parents need a lot of skills and scaffolding and ongoing support because they're in the home and they're a major component of the young person and getting on top of this and making positive strides in the face of these challenges.
- [14:35]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
For sure, psychologists tried for many, many decades, I mean, going back to the 80s and even earlier, to come up with therapies to kind of convince kids with ADHD to get more motivated or organize themselves and kind of cope better and not react so much. And what we've come to realize is that's developmentally not a good fit. It doesn't really make sense to expect a child who not only is going to have more challenges with executive functioning and not as much self control and then on top of that have ADHD to be learning skills in a quiet therapy office and then bringing those to the playground and bringing those to the classroom. What we find works is what the scientists used to call, we'll still call intervention at the point of performance. So that means helping kids in their real world setting where the behavior needs to happen. So we, that means adults need to be equipped with that skill set to set them up for success and respond and give feedback in a way that is helpful and not, not harmful in the moment. And of course, parents are the best equipped for this. You not only know your child better than anyone does, but you are with them the most. And they have the chance to get many hours a week of support from you rather than one hour a week in a sterile, quiet office with a specialist. So what we've found is if we can teach parents and educators everything that we've learned in the science about behavior change and supporting motivation and focus, that's where the change is going to happen for kids and teenagers too. Although at the teenage level, there are more skills that we can help teens actually start to use. And often they are getting motivated to use some new skills themselves. But I really don't see it being super successful without seeing some support in the environment.
- [16:48]
Delaney Rustin
And I, I feel like we don't speak enough about the fact that we love our kids so much that our emotions get very heightened quickly. So we can learn skills as parents, but we have to give ourselves a lot of grace that we're going to be triggered a lot or just get frustrated or having to keep working the skills as parents. Let's talk about focusing energy on the positives and less energy to the negatives and how that translates into a parenting skill.
- [17:19]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Individuals with ADHD are going to get a lot more negative feedback from their environment than people without adhd. You're getting feedback from your parents, you're running late. You forgot this. Why aren't your shoes on? You're getting negative feedback and correction at school from coaches and even from other kids who may respond poorly to impulsive behavior. So that adds up. And that's where we really see a toll on self esteem and managing anxiety and things like that. So we can really motivate people with positive feedback. So all of our parent behavior management training models focus on connecting the relationship, creating a lot of strength in that positive attachment bond, but then motivating kids with giving lots of attention to things we want to see more of, really engaging, drawing their attention to those things, rewarding new behaviors that we're maybe teaching for the first time and that are not habit yet. Creating external rewards so that kids can get consistent with the new behavior and have it become a habit and more automatic and just really celebrating successes rather than waiting for the train to leave the tracks and then trying to correct and get things back in the right direction.
- [18:47]
Delaney Rustin
Okay, well, let's apply some parenting skills.
- [18:50]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
I think it's important to acknowledge how families get into these traps with relaxing their screen limits and using screens as a parenting tool. It makes perfect sense because parenting is exhausting. A first thing that we start with in some of our tools is a family media plan. Not just setting timers on the kids screen, but modeling for the child how healthy screen use can look. So I encourage parents to think about when Your child is 16 and maybe they do have a cell phone at that age, maybe what do you expect them to do in terms of using that phone responsibly? What are healthy limits? When would you expect them to have that set aside? How much time would you expect them to use on it? And that's what we want to be modeling now for them at a younger age is the behavior we expect from them as teenagers. So that means not having it glued to your hand all the time. But it means setting some household boundaries around where screen use and when screen use is and isn't healthy. So maybe we have some limits that we don't sit in our beds zoned out on screens. Screens are used in the common area. We don't bring screens to the table. When guests come over, the screens go off. You know, setting some household standards around just general limits. And then certainly we can also look at specific time limits and such for kids. But we have to, we have to walk the talk too, for them. There's so many things you could do around introducing a new limit. I think importantly, you don't want to drop that on your child as they're on the screen. Guess what, you're getting cut off now. I've decided it's only half an hour. This is something that can be discussed in a family meeting and I think parents can frame it from a loving place. It's tempting to be like your screens are gone because your behavior is terrible. But Saying, you know, I've been learning more about how screens affect our brains and I've been learning that it's really not very healthy for any of us to be using screens the way we have, but especially kids. And we're going to create a plan as a family for how to have good limits with screens. If you used the example of you want your child to not watch screens in the car, but they have been historically watching screens in the car, so we need to have that discussion ahead of time, obviously. But then the car is notorious place for kids to get bored and they're going to create their own entertainment if they don't have it. And their entertainment might be haranguing you for screens and kicking the back of your seat if we don't have another plan. So that means setting up the car situation. So there are some stimulating ways for the child to engage and entertain themselves. So we're going to set ourselves up for success there.
- [21:59]
Delaney Rustin
Let's say in the house, at kitchen before dinner, they get a half hour but you put it away and they keep haranguing you for wanting more and more.
- [22:07]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
So you've taken the screen away and they just keep asking over and over again, okay, so this is a moment where it helps us I think as adults to zoom out and say, okay, I may 40 whatever year old woman and I'm arguing with my 7 year old, I don't have to play a power struggle with this. I can drop the rope and I can set a really clear limit. You've asked, I've answered, screen time's over. I'd be glad to talk about something else. But then we really redirect away from that conversation. Maybe it's engaging our child in a different way. Maybe we transition to something that gives them a little dopamine, something one on one, one getting them started with another activity. Or maybe we have to just stop reacting to that and busy ourselves to let that cycle run out. If we've told them already, I'm not going to compromise on this, screen time's over, we don't need to discuss that further at that time. And so that's telling our kids, here's some things we can do, but I'm going to wait till you're ready to do that with me. And it may be having to take care of yourself and regulate yourself, yourself as a parent. When your child is really pushing buttons to try to get you to back down on your boundary and let's say
- [23:31]
Lisa Tabb
a high schooler, you're frustrated because they
- [23:33]
Delaney Rustin
have a big project and they're not
- [23:34]
Lisa Tabb
working on it, but then they do get a little work done on it. How would that skill of focusing on the positive come into play there?
- [23:43]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
That's an opportunity. Sometimes we just think, thank God they're finally working on it. Okay, I'm going to hope the momentum continues, but we don't want to lose that opportunity to engage right there and and be really specific. Not just, hey, good effort, buddy, but saying exactly what stood out to us. That was awesome. Like, you really took initiative today. I saw you checking schoology to see what was due. You set yourself up with a list. I'm super impressed by how on top of it you're being. Be very clear about what you like and potentially stay engaged as they continue on to the next part of the task, if that's reasonable, depending on what they're working, working on. And then we want to show our kids if they are meeting expectations, if they're doing their job and being responsible, maybe they're earning more freedoms and privileges along the way from us. If they're showing self control, it means they can handle more freedom and so acknowledging big behavior changes with privileges and things like that too.
- [24:50]
Lisa Tabb
Is there another example for point of performance where parents need to have some skills for kids or teens?
- [24:57]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
We've talked with our child about how we want them to handle turning off the screen and we're seeing lots of behaviors we don't like, like ignoring the instruction to turn it off or going and hiding with the screen and trying to sneak the screen or saying just another minute, another minute. So if we have set up a clear expectation that's realistic, we're not going to get yes, mother, here it is. But if we're going to say, I'm going to give you a three minute wind down window to finish what you're doing and then by the time the timer goes off, it needs to be in my hand. We've been really clear the point of performance would be in the moment. As my child is struggling, it's time to turn the screen off. They're dragging their heels. There's where I need to have a clear prompt in the moment. And not a big lecture, but a prompt of, remember our family screen time rules. You have one minute left. And then we maybe need to create some dopamine in that situation to ease the transition. So instead of saying turn off the screen and start your homework, that's a dopamine cliff. We're going from highest possible dopamine to executive functioning nightmare. Let's go instead, let's transition. You have one minute to turn the screen off and then we'll go get out your Legos or then we'll go in the backyard or then I'm going to tell the neighbors they can come over to hang out. Transitioning to something besides work and chores afterwards and might also be letting them know the consequence if they don't follow through on the expectation, which could be losing some screen privileges.
- [26:42]
Lisa Tabb
Yeah.
- [26:42]
Delaney Rustin
Small consequences and get back in the game. Like say, hey, right, we don't want to prolong this. We know you have this ability. Let's have it. Here's a new opportunity to do this.
- [26:51]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Taking it away for a month, a week is going to end up being more punishment for the parents and the relationship. Sure, yeah. And the learning opportunity. What do you, you know, you don't get to practice your skills of transitioning and holding, holding those boundaries perfectly.
- [27:10]
Delaney Rustin
So let me ask you a question. When you talk about the type of screen time, let's not even go to video games yet, but just of what they're watching. Do you give much advice to parents of elementary school age kids around this?
- [27:26]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Yeah. There is some research showing that the pacing of the content you watch, I know you're really familiar with this stuff, you know, can determine some of its impact on your brain. So watching a nature show or a science show or something that has a slower pace is not going to create quite the dopamine frenzy and it's going to be easier to transition around. I think before I was a parent myself, I would have told you that I will never let my kids on YouTube. I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist. They can watch old school shows the way I did growing up and the problem is just the accessibility in today's world of these shorts and the apps and it's on the phone, it's on the tablet. I don't think it's a fail if you end up allowing your child some access to, you know, kids, YouTube or something like that. I do want to throw out there that you can manipulate their algorithm so you can go into who they follow and you can block certain content. You can follow high quality content from PBS and you know, good sources so you can adjust their algorithm. Ideally we minimize that instant gratification type of media but we also can help kids try to learn to use that responsibly as well and they inevitably will get exposed to it somewhere. So it's getting upstream of setting it up as best we can.
- [29:06]
Delaney Rustin
In terms of physical activity.
- [29:08]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
What happens in the teen years for teens with adhd.
- [29:12]
Lisa Tabb
Yes.
- [29:12]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Yeah. So we, we think of younger kids with ADHD as being more active than other kids. But quite quickly in the elementary school years and into the teen years, we see that kids with ADHD are actually less active than kids without adhd. And there's a lot of reasons for this. Is my research area actually is looking at the health behaviors with adhd. But screens are part of why they're becoming less active is they're more prone to hyper focus. A screen is easy. Quick stimulation for the brain versus going and taking a walk or getting a book from the library is a lot more effortful.
- [29:54]
Delaney Rustin
Or joining a sport or doing dance.
- [29:57]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Well, joining a sport is. It's a lift. But also, you know, we know kids with ADHD often have social challenges or maybe the coaches are on their case. So they're more likely to drop out of sports also or lose interest. That's part of ADHD too, is that was cool for a while, now I'm over it. So we see that they're not engaging in as much structured activity, but they're also just not moving around as much in their free time. And that of course is a spiral that affects sleep and then affects more screen use and can get kids even more stuck.
- [30:36]
Delaney Rustin
I just wanna point out that we put a lot on parents, but this is where the school counselor really it's about a support team talking to other parents about maybe there's a club you haven't even thought about, like Ultimate Frisbee, that they might try to not feel alone with this. Because I know in my clinic, working with a lot of tweens and teens, many of them do not have after school activities happening in their lives. And then I'm trying to work with them and they're parents to find activities for them. It's so important, so tough.
- [31:06]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
And again, I would just really validate that it makes sense how parents get stuck in that place where they feel like they burned. They burned bridges or they've already checked things off. And it becomes a real big stress point for parents often that their kid hasn't found that thing yet that's really keeping them engaged.
- [31:27]
Delaney Rustin
And let's talk about sleep as we're nearing the end here. Can you talk about what you often see with young people sleep with ADHD?
- [31:35]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
People with ADHD, about 70% have a diagnosable sleep problem. So it is extremely common. It's the norm for people with ADHD to have trouble with their sleep. The most common issue we find is this Night owl wiring. Right. So it's called delayed sleep phase syndrome. But basically that you're just kind of pre programmed to be more alert in the evening and have trouble winding down to sleep and then you're tired in the morning and you have trouble getting going and you feel sluggish and not motivated.
- [32:12]
Delaney Rustin
That's why we're at Screenagers, a big advocate for later start times.
- [32:15]
Yeah.
- [32:16]
But obviously the parent working with the young person to start winding down earlier. And I say it's really important around that a media plan, whatever you want to call it, about a time that homework has to be done and we
- [32:31]
Lisa Tabb
have a whole campaign around screen free sleep.
- [32:34]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Yes.
- [32:35]
Delaney Rustin
Any other pointers you give to parents?
- [32:37]
Lisa Tabb
Because this is hard.
- [32:38]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
There's a lot of kind of environmental tweaks that I think you guys also cover in supporting families. One behavior change. It's moving bedtime to be earlier. Parents will say, well my kid isn't tired at the bedtime we already have. Why would I move it earlier? But we want to capitalize on these melatonin drops and these windows where we're more likely to fall asleep and we don't get into the hyper stimulated state where we're going to kind of get wired. Right. And get adrenaline going to stay up. So even for teenagers.
- [33:13]
Delaney Rustin
Yeah.
- [33:14]
Lisa Tabb
And I'm. I'm hyper aware of that myself. When I have that natural decline in energy where I feel the sleep coming on.
- [33:21]
Delaney Rustin
I try not to get overly paranoid,
- [33:23]
Lisa Tabb
like I'm gonna miss it, but I'm just conscious. Like that's the time to get ready to do the bedtime. Because I do know if I miss that.
- [33:31]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Yeah.
- [33:32]
Lisa Tabb
I can get into that hyperdrive and then it can take a lot longer. That said, we already know for teenagers they tend to get tired later which is maybe 10, 11. But you're saying you still have to recognize that reality of that sleep, that they're not gonna get tired to them. But we wanna at least catch that if they tend to be 11, we at least don't want it to go past 11. Ideally try to get it to 10, try to wake up a little earlier, whatnot. How would you speak to that?
- [34:01]
Delaney Rustin
I just want to make it's a
- [34:02]
Lisa Tabb
little confusing because on one hand we're saying they're tireder later, but we should bring it back. But they're not tired yet. So I just wondered.
- [34:08]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Yeah. So if you have a lights out time in your house, it's 10:30. We're typically doing stuff right up until it's lights out. Right. So you can start by shifting it by five or ten minutes, like that's, that's progress as maybe as an experiment even, and shutting off things a little bit earlier. If you're getting up at the same time for school every day, typically our bodies will start to take advantage of the extra time that we're giving them.
- [34:39]
Lisa Tabb
Yeah.
- [34:40]
Delaney Rustin
And you're, you were just speaking to the teen like, okay, make your bedtime 1030, see if you can start to wind down earlier. And, and I remind people that just that laying down is part of the restfulness. You mentioned the ADHD brain. What regions of the brain do scientists find differences?
- [34:57]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
The dopamine system is the main system within the brain that is different. So the caudate nucleus, which is in this, the center of the brain and helps with the regulation of dopamine, we see that the volume of that on MRIs is actually lower. And then dopamine is then sent through the frontal lobe, which of course is organizing our executive functioning, our planning ahead, all of that, and is what keeps those processes sharp and flowing. And so the frontal lobe not only isn't having as much activity, but we also see about a 30% delay in the myelination of the frontal lobe for individuals with adhd. So we're seeing the advanced nerve development in the frontal lobe is kind of on a leg. Thinking about the fact that these differences in brain functioning can lead to certain strengths. The key is figuring out where the challenges are happening, anticipating those, predicting ahead of time where challenges will occur, and taking extra steps to set yourself up in advance to be successful in a given situation. Yeah. And as you get practice with this, you start to learn those hacks for yourself. You'll find little strategies for how you structure your work, time and reward for yourself and relaxation. And you also find jobs, hobbies, activities, even school settings that are a better fit for your brain than maybe the first ones you had as a kid and peers too.
- [36:36]
Delaney Rustin
So you're talking now as an adult.
- [36:39]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Sounds like, oh, teenager adult. You find people who will appreciate your unique brain and you will find those people as you get older learning those hacks how to set yourself up, how to organize yourself.
- [36:51]
Delaney Rustin
Yeah.
- [36:51]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
That you'll use into. Into adulthood.
- [36:54]
Delaney Rustin
Wonderful. Is there one of the behavioral management training programs you like the best or in particularly would recommend?
- [37:01]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Well, what I would recommend is the one that's evidence based but also free and accessible to anyone, which is the fast behavior program that we developed at Seattle Children's. If you go to seattlechildrens.org fast, you will find our landing page that has free mental health workbooks for all kinds of child and adolescent mental health concerns. A Fast behavior workbook is for parents of kids with any type of challenging behavior, but it comes from the research on adhd. So it's ideal for parents of kids with adhd. And you can work through that on your own, watching the videos. You can work through it with a pediatrician, with a therapist and hopefully take away some some tweaks that are going to make your parenting even more effective.
- [37:53]
Delaney Rustin
And have you found it helpful for parents to work together who have ADHD
- [37:56]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
kids and teens work with a community of other parents?
- [38:00]
Delaney Rustin
Yeah.
- [38:01]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Yeah. So at Seattle Children's, we run these programs as a group.
- [38:04]
Delaney Rustin
Oh, how great.
- [38:05]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
And that's not only because it creates more access, but it's because it is isolating to parent a child with different needs where more is required of you as a parent and bringing parents together to know that this is not your fault, your child is has different needs and it is possible to meet those needs with some with some extra strategy. It's really validating and it reduces that feeling of isolation.
- [38:33]
Delaney Rustin
So I recommend it to anyone listening who's in that boat or having a kid or a teen who's just hyper focused on the screen time even. There's lots that can be learned through that program.
- [38:45]
Lisa Tabb
So we'll put the link in the show notes.
- [38:47]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
There's screen time tools in there, including a family media plan. And I should mention there's a fast parenting teens version that is specifically for teenagers and there's a screen time problem section, sleep, schoolwork problems, a whole bunch of problems that are specific to teenagers.
- [39:06]
Delaney Rustin
Oh, Erin, this is so wonderful.
- [39:08]
Lisa Tabb
I'm just so glad we were able to do this.
- [39:10]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
Well, thank you. Yeah, I'm really glad to connect. Huge fan of screenagers. Thrilled to get to meet you.
- [39:17]
Delaney Rustin
Oh, wonderful. Thank you so much.
- [39:20]
What a gift that you tuned into the show today. The screenagers podcast and movement is all about learning together how we can best help our youth of all ages, our communities and ourselves best navigate our rapidly changing digital world. Make sure to follow subscribe to the
- [39:39]
podcast to get each episode automatically.
- [39:41]
And the more subscribers, the easier it is for others to find us. And if you give it a like and write a review, if you even just one sentence, that helps even more. Check out screenagersmovie.com to get resources for each episode and loads of other resources. Learn about our four Screenagers films and find my weekly parenting blog, TechTalkTuesdays and be sure to use the search bar to find many topics you might be wondering about among hundreds of my past blogs. Finally, I love hearing from you, so email me at Delaney,
- [40:16]
Dr. Aaron Schoenfelder Gonzalez
what ideas do
- [40:17]
Lisa Tabb
you want to hear for future episodes?
- [40:19]
Delaney Rustin
Today's show was produced by the following people me, your host Delaney Rustin, Lisa Tabb and sound editing was done by Alan Gofinski.