← Parenting in the Screen Age - The Screenagers Podcast
Parenting in the Screen Age - The Screenagers Podcast
Screen Time Solutions from the AAP's Leading Experts on Kids, Screens & Social Media
00:21:20
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- [00:04]
A
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 our rapidly changing digital world today. On this show I speak with researchers and pediatricians, Dr. Megan Moreno and Dr. Jenny Radesky, who helped launch and now oversee the American Academy of Pediatrics center of Excellence on social media and Youth Mental health. We begin with Jenny's fascinating research on how technology is sometimes used to calm children and what parents should be thinking about in those moments. She also shares practical strategies for managing screen time with kids in ways that support healthy development. Dr. Moreno discusses her favorite family rule and talks about the center of Excellence's wonderful online portal where parents, caregivers, clinicians, youth themselves. Anyone can submit social media and other screen time questions and receive evidence based answers.
- [01:13]
B
I'm so jazzed to be with you both today, Megan and Jenny. And I want to just start, Megan, with you to say a little bit about how you got started in this field of screen time and young people, because you've been at this from the beginning, really.
- [01:30]
C
I'd be happy to share a little bit about what my experience was. I was an adolescent medicine fellow, so that's the final part of your training when you're really transitioning to becoming a subspecialist. And I did my fellowship between 2005 and 2008, and during that time period I was hearing a lot of stories about a new phenomenon called MySpace. And I heard stories about how it was helping some of my patients who were homeless to find healthcare and find shelter by using information that youth were sharing with each other on MySpace. And I also heard some awful stories about youth who were being seen for chronic stomachaches because they had been bullied on MySpace.
- [02:18]
B
Jenny, how about you? How did you get started in this world?
- [02:22]
D
So I actually did my training at Seattle Children's Hospital. I've always been really interested in early parent child relational health, so. So how parents stress and depression and how lack of access to resources and other sources of toxic stress affect both parents, physiology affects how kids develop. And I just thought it was a fascinating experiment of these little computers that you could bring anywhere that you could do so many different things on. And so I kind of combined my interest in relational health and the kind of social and emotional spaces between families and routines and families that really matter for kids, emotional well being and how technology was kind of invading those spaces.
- [03:07]
B
Yeah, well, I really want to focus on some of your both of your research in this area and then get to all the resources and help that you guys are doing through your incredible center.
- [03:19]
D
Yeah, so I'm a developmental behavioral pediatrician. I was hearing all of these parents of very dysregulated kids, maybe because of early ADHD or trauma or autism, and they were using technology to keep kids behaviorally regulated or to calm them down when they were upset. And at the time I kind of brought this to my research group and was saying we need to study this and figure out is this displacing some of the learning opportunities. Kids are all wired differently and some kids need explicit teaching and practice and help learning to identify their emotion and how to cope with it. And that's a really, really hard part of parenting is having a kid who's just hitting you or throwing themselves down on the ground. It's embarrassing, it's overwhelming. And if you have a little screen that instantly makes them quiet, that can be so reinforcing for both the parent and the child. So we decided to study it. I heard from some clinicians who said maybe this is good for families, maybe it reduces stress so they don't yell at their child or hit their child. We wanted to study it longitudinally and see, okay, if this is a practice that you're doing over time, does it help or does it get in the way? We found that when parents were using technology more to calm kids down when they're upset, the kids, they had worse emotional reactivity over time. And this was just in boys and, and just in kids with really surgent temperaments. So that means kids who are just on the go all the time. Exactly. The ones that need that extra help learning how to chill their brains and bodies down and how to cope with frustrating feelings. There's been additional work from some of my colleagues or other researchers that's reinforced this finding and it's helped us at the center of Excellence really hone in on this as a mechanism between media use and mental health. Is that if we are over relying on technology to quiet down child behavior, it can lead to not building the other skills that really help us cope with the ups and downs of emotions that we know are natural in kids lives.
- [05:37]
B
Rather than hand over the iPad or whatever it is or let them play more video games. What are some interventions that you suggest to them?
- [05:46]
D
Yeah, so some are preventative in that you really create clear boundaries around where the iPad or the phone can be used so that there's a time and a place for that technology. It sleeps somewhere else overnight. Maybe you put parental controls on it. So it has certain times of day or durations that it can be used. And for little kids, I really recommend it being a consistent time of day. Kids are so responsive to structure and predictability. So if you have that particular time, that's when they get to watch or they get to watch Sesame Street. They'll internalize that over time and not be begging for the tablet any moment. The other tip I give is when they are having that tough moment. You can as a parent, first try to stay calm yourself. You know, say this is a learning moment. This is not because I'm a bad parent. Parents often get kind of flooded themselves with either distress or guilt or anger at their kids. For their kids emotions. This is more common. If you have trauma as part of your history, you've had an abusive partner. So first is staying calm yourself. Second is, I really like the term watch, wait and wonder where you are, wondering what's going on inside your child's mind that's driving that behavior so that you can help with the root cause of the behavior, not just react to the behavior.
- [07:15]
B
Are they tired? They just need something else.
- [07:18]
D
Exactly. What's the function of that behavior? Sometimes it's communication. Like they're, they're hitting because they want your attention. So you can teach them instead how to get your attention in a healthy way. You can tap my arm and you can say, hey mom, instead of, you don't need to like bowl into me. The function might be I'm exhausted and I just feel like a mess and I just need a hug right now, or I need a break from all the overstimulation that's happening around me. I have lots of patients who, their emotions go from 0 to 60 really fast. They have not learned yet how to slow that down. We help kids learn to slow down their emotional reactions through teaching them language about like a label of what they're feeling. That's why therapists recommend labeling an emotional state. Okay, you're tired or you're frustrated about something. And then I like using color zones. There's this great curriculum called zones of regulation, which has visuals from the blue zone where you're tired and grumpy, the green zone where you're calm and focused, the yellow zone where you're kind of agitated or wiggly or anxious, and the red zone where you're out of control and you're really, really angry or anxious. This resonates with kids so well and it lets parents use a non judgmental term for their child's emotional state. So you could say, okay, you're in the red zone. We're going to go to our calm down spot instead of saying, you're acting crazy. What is wrong with you? Which just escalates that emotion at that moment. And so these are a couple of the tips I work on with families.
- [08:57]
B
Can you, Megan, start with what the media plan is that you guys helped create at the aap?
- [09:03]
C
Sure. So the family media plan is an online tool. It's free. You can find it by googling AAP family media plan. And it breaks down rules and guidelines into key categories so that families can hopefully personalize and customize what's going to work for them. So some families are really drawn to, for example, screen free zones, saying things like, oh, our living room is just going to be a place where we're not ever going to have phones. We're going to know that when we're in here, we're really connecting, or we're having quiet time with books or games. And so there's a set of options of rules if you're interested in thinking, gosh, we might be a screen free zone family. So it really breaks it down by categories with the idea that you can focus on a few when you're going into the plan. Another key aspect of it is it's meant to be something that you're revisiting over time. So some common times that we hear that families revisit their family media plan would be at the start of summer maybe when school's out and thinking ahead to vacations. Maybe those rules are going to shift a little bit in terms of timing or what's allowed and what's not allowed. So a really key component of it is it's not meant to be static, but it should be updated over time. One of the things we found is that families pick between 10 and 15 rules. And I don't know about you, but I don't know that I could pick and remember and enforce and monitor 10 to 15 rules on a daily basis. We want families to pick rules and guidelines that are going to work for them and not feel like, oh, I have to pick all of these because that's what I'm supposed to do or that's what's expected of me. But really to hone in on, hey, these are a couple of the ground rules for our family and over time be able to think about what are we dealing with now and is it time for maybe a new rule, but maybe this other one we're doing so well, that we just kind of don't have to, you know, really monitor it in the same way or we've outgrown this rule. So I think to me that's a huge takeaway is that you want to pick a few key rules and guidelines that everybody knows what they are, everybody knows how they're supposed to be followed and not feel like more is better.
- [11:24]
E
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 trip truly impactful event for your community. And if your school wants to use the movies in the classroom, 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.
- [12:15]
D
This is our fourth year for our center of Excellence grant. So we've just been listening for four years also about what families are going through. And I've learned that families need these rules, like these house rules about like what are the zones, what are the times. But they also need dynamic problem solving because the tech world is moving so fast and it often is designed in ways that make it hard to enforce rules because it has a lot of what we call like engagement prolonging designs, habit forming designs that capture your attention and want to hold on to it. There's some kids who are so curious that they just want to try out the new AI chatbot. They want to try out whatever app or, you know, trend is going on that they hear about in school. So families also need to have some problem solving skills. Yeah, knowing how to have conversations and have some curiosity and open up. Like what's on your child's mind? Why do they want this new technology and help you find alternatives to that technology or help them understand why you don't really want them using that technology. We're really focusing on what else does your child need to get done in a day? A healthy night's sleep, undistracted homework, some time outdoors, some time with friends, some offline activities so that families are recognizing it's not just about restricting the amount of time, it's also about providing other opportunities that help with emotional growth and physical health. Here's an example of just a conversation I had with a family yesterday. About a six year old's afternoon after they come home from school. The parent was feeling like their gaming on Xbox was just taking up a lot of time. Transitions away from it were really tough. And so we worked more on like an afternoon schedule. How much time would really work for you before dinner or right after dinner? And we settled on an hour as the thing that they were going to start with and maybe give a little extra time if the child was transitioning off the Xbox. Okay, they might earn a little extra time, but very clearly not in that hour to hour and a half before bedtime. And that was really, you know, considering the context of what was working for that family. That's what we landed on.
- [14:23]
B
I just wondered in your media plan if parents with their teens were to sit down to do it, what are some of the key rules that you hope that they will think about for their family?
- [14:34]
C
I think one of the most important approaches or rules that I think about, particularly for teens is family meal time that doesn't involve people doing other work or checking other devices. And that's because the evidence around it is just so strong. It's shown to be protective for mental health and mental well being. It's shown to be protective for eating patterns and eating disorders. There's just so many health benefits of that act of sitting down and having a meal together that's not interrupted. Now the interesting thing is if that's something that families are already doing, I don't think you need to say that we have a rule around it because it's something, it's a pattern you're already doing. If it's something you're struggling to get back in the habit, or you've kind of fallen out of the habit and you're getting back into it, you might need that rule of a device free meal time for a while while you're getting back into it. But it really is a cornerstone and it gets to be quite complicated with teenagers and different schedules and work schedules. So it's something that can be a little challenging to put together, but has so many benefits. Having that time when a family is sitting down and they're engaging in food. Food has connections to family, to culture, to history. They're talking to each other. Kids often describe that dinner is the time where they really feel seen by their parents. And it also can be a time when siblings are interacting, hopefully not throwing peas at each other like my brother and I used to do. But you know, it's also a time for sibling interaction. And that feeling of being a family unit is also really beneficial.
- [16:15]
D
Yeah. For elementary school and for early childhood. I think focusing on content and tech, really having a time and a place like I, you know, think of growing up in the 80s when we just really had Saturday morning cartoons or I watched a lot of like, Thundercats in the afternoons or things like that coming up from school. I once interviewed the creator of Teletubbies who said, you know, kids used to make an appointment or have an occasion with media. It wasn't like on demand, available all the time. And there's so much content out there for kids, so much like more than you could ever, ever consume in your whole life. So being really choosy about content that is created thoughtfully by someone who understands kids is not AI, is a writer, is a producer, is someone who's really cared to tell a good story or send a meaningful message. Of course, you can have lots of fun times, too. It doesn't all have to be beautifully educational. But family movie nights where you can watch a movie, it could be a movie from your childhood or a new movie that's come out. Put your devices away. It's great connecting around a story and characters and sometimes themes come up in the movie or a sitcom that helps you talk about a tough issue with your kid. So content's really important. Especially I do a lot of research on YouTube and early childhood, and you can really tell between the creators who are just, we call them content farms. They just put a ton of stuff on there to make ad revenue. And there's others that have really taken a lot of care. So in our early childhood toolkit that we just released from the center of Excellence, we have a lot of tips for how to find good content. Yes.
- [17:56]
B
Wonderful. Well, Megan, let's turn to the center of Excellence on Social Media and Youth Mental Health. And what I love about this portal, with all the resources that it has for parents as well as clinicians and educators, is your Q and A portal. Megan, can you speak about that?
- [18:15]
C
Yes. We love the Q and A portal as well. So the question and answer portal is a segment of our website where parents, teachers, clinicians, even youth can submit a question. They can submit a question related to any aspect of technology use and any age kid. And what we do behind the scenes when we get that question is that we assign it to one of our two research teams. So one team is with Dr. Radesky at university of Michigan and then other team is with me here at University of Wisconsin Madison and we do a deep literature dive. We look at studies, we look at existing literature, we look at existing resources, we really look to see what is out there on this topic and then we formulate our answer based on that existing knowledge and evidence. So we don't want these to be advice questions. We want these to be really informed answers to try to help the person who asked the question be able to have an answer that's going to work for them. We get the question answered usually within about two weeks. It does take a little longer because of that background research. And then the question and the answer are also placed on the website so that families can look at previously submitted questions. We have them organized by age group, by category or topic. Another way that we've heard the portal being used as a tool is for families to sit down and look through previous questions and find a question that seems interesting and then look at the answer together and talk about what they think of what the answer is and what the question means.
- [19:58]
B
Well, wonderful. Thank you so much for being on the show.
- [20:05]
F
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 podcast to get each episode automatically and the more subscribers, the easier it is for others to find us. And if you give it a like and write a review, 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 TechTalk Tuesdays. 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 delaneyscreenagersmovie.com what ideas do you want to hear for future episodes? Today's show was produced by the following me, your host, Delaney Rustin, Lisa Tabb, and sound editing was done by Alan Gofinski.