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- [00:10]
A
Hi everyone. Welcome to the Screenstrong Families Podcast, bringing you the best solutions for parents who are serious about finally eliminating screen problems in their home. This is Olivia Kernighan and if you are one of our regular listeners, welcome back. And if you're a new friend, we are so glad that you found us. For those of you who are familiar with the podcast, you know that mine is not necessarily a familiar voice as I do not tend to host. I'm usually in the background producing and editing every episode. But I wanted to get on and introduce the concept for the show today. Melanie and I had a discussion about what we could do for a special Thanksgiving episode and we really wanted to do an episode focused on grand gratitude. We had the idea to reach out to our Screenstrong community and see if anyone wanted to hop on and share a story or two about Screen Strong and what they were grateful for this year and we were anticipating one or two people to respond, but the response was tremendous. I spent a series of three to four days recording clips from many parents who wanted to share their testimonies on what life was like before Screenstrong, what life was like after Screenstrong, and kind of the future moving forward. I'm so grateful for everyone who submitted testimonies and who were so willing to share their stories. We did have one parent email us a written testimony, so I am going to start the episode by reading that before we dive into the recorded clips. This testimony is from Sabrina. I can't begin to thank Screenstrong and Melanie for their incredible work. I have never listened to a podcast that has so deeply resonated and applied to my life. My friend shared the Screenstrong podcast with me about a month ago. I listened to the first one and knew right away it was 100% for me. Over the years I have read many parenting books but I always felt a deep sadness and like something was not right with my family. My kids never ran outside and played with friends and and I felt like something was just missing from their childhood. They weren't experiencing the same kind of magic that I remember having. Although my husband and I live in a beautiful small town and even moved into a house on the beach with the hope and dream of them spending hours exploring. I could never get my kids to go outside to play. I'm a stay at home mom who has done my best to make sure my kids are in a good school, involved in enriching activities like dance and music, but something was still not right. I even thought I was one of the more on it moms. Because my kids are the only ones in their grades 9th and 7th that do not have cell phones or video games. But they still had iPads at home and they grabbed my husband's and my phone all the time. As soon as I listened to the Screenstrong podcast I took my kids iPads away and locked them in my safe. I realized that all of us, including myself were addicted to our screens. We all had very short attention spans, creativity was being sucked out and sadly our brains were being damaged by the cumulative hours every week we had all been spending on screens. I was constantly trying to monitor screen time and my kids were drawn to the screens like magnets. Even though our lives were full with other good activities, the draw back to the screens for all of us was overpowering. I've listened to almost all of the Screen Strong podcasts in the last three and a half weeks since we have been doing our screen detox. I can say that my mind feels like it is being healed and restored and I have so many wonderful creative ideas for my family that are coming to the surface. I have read almost five books that the Screenstrong ladies have recommended. My mind feels focused and sharp. I can't get enough of their message because I know it has saved my family. I would say it has saved my family from living in a virtual world and brought us back to reality, which is so much better. It was all here waiting for us all along, but the screens were stealing so much from us. My kids come home from school and play Bananagrams and other board games instead of being sucked into their rooms onto their screens and the endless mindless abyss of YouTube videos. The sound of them playing piano fills our home and I don't have to nag them to practice. The other weekend we had friends over and did a fire pit and lots of snacks like Melanie had suggested in one of the podcasts. I knew I was winning when I saw my 14 year old daughter run out of the house with her sisters and friends with a baby doll strapped to her chest. They were completely immersed in a make believe game. How wonderful is that? Many toys and books around our home have been rediscovered. My 14 year old daughter also is taking out books from the library which she would never have done before. One of my other kids is interested in playing dominoes and we are all about to start reading the Diary of Anne Frank out loud together at night. I know these are all just simple things, but they fill my heart with joy because I know I'm doing the right thing for my Kids, I just want to thank you again, Melannie and Screen Strong from the bottom of my heart. I know this journey is like swimming against the grain in our society, but because of you, I feel equipped and strong to run my race well. I know we are just beginning on this journey and have a long way to go still, but I am filled with hope. I truly believe you have saved my family from a lot of potential heartbreak and set us on a path of victory and blessings in the years ahead. Wow Sabrina, what an incredible testimony to receive. Thank you so much for your vulnerability and for sharing. Me and the rest of the team, we talk about it often that we sometimes feel like we're on an island hoping that this greenstrong message is getting through. So thank you so much for letting us know that the message did get through and that your family and your children are thriving. Thank you so much. There's nothing like starting off with a bang, but now we are going to hear from parents who responded to the call when I asked for testimonies and I'm just exceedingly grateful for the feedback and the willingness from everyone to participate. I'm consistently astounded by the vulnerability and the transparency of parents to share where they're at in their journey in the hopes that their testimony about where they came from, where they are looking towards the future, can help others. We have an incredible screenstrong community and in my opinion, these testimonies are just the tip of the iceberg on the dedication of these parents to make countercultural change and to understand that living screen strong can be difficult, but ultimately the rewards far outweigh any other alternative. With that said, let's continue with the next testimony.
- [06:52]
B
Hello everyone, My name is Audra and I live in Louisville, Kentucky. My husband Doug and I have three lovely daughters. Their ages are 11, 10 and 7 and we have been a low tech family from the beginning since our first daughter was born. So our story is a bit different from many of the other screenstrong families who have courageously pulled their children from the grips of digital culture. As parents, we have said no and continue to say no to tablets, iPads, smartphones, social media and video games for our daughters. And as a result, we have said yes to family connection, outdoor time, reading, sports, dancing, music and a joyful life that we are proud of. And even though we know we've made the right decision with technology and our family, it can feel very isolating. We are witnesses every day to the rapid and shocking increase in kids with screens and where it has just become normal for children and teenagers to be completely disengaged in any setting. So we are so thankful that we found Screenstrong to remind us that we are not alone in our convictions and to encourage us to continue on this path. We hope to inspire other families and to be an example of the benefits of a low tech family life. Screenstrong has given us some shared language around this issue and solutions based resources that are backed by science. So when we talk to other families, we feel very confident giving them this as a resource and a tool for wherever they are in their journey. The most compelling part of Screenstrong for me and the thing that I'm most grateful for is Melanie's personal story of turning heartbreak into hope. It is so relatable as a mother to hear her be vulnerable and share something so personal and then turn it into a movement that is saving families. And it is a privilege to be a part of that, even in a small way. As a mother, I feel the heartbreak for all of the children and teenagers who are stuck in a digital world and are missing out on the best that life has to offer. They are being harmed. And Greenstrong gives me a platform to turn that heartbreak into action, to advocate for children and to keep sharing the message that we must do better. So my one piece of advice for parents is to get comfortable with being different. If you are on the screen strong path or you are planning to be screen strong, it will be difficult at times for you and for your children, but it will be worthwhile because when your life is focused on your family and on quality time together, you are strengthening the foundation on which the rest of their lives are built. And you do not have to be a perfect parent because there is no such thing. But be intentional. Find community, lead with creativity and humor, and most importantly, with love. And remember that you have a responsibility to influence your family's culture and values and choose wisely on that. I want to thank everybody at Screenstrong for the important work that you're doing and wish all of your listeners a happy Thanksgiving.
- [10:46]
C
My name's Becky Grant and I have two sons and they are 9 years old and 13 years old now. And I'm so happy to be able to say thank you to Screenstrong because it has really been life changing for us. My sons were 7 and 10 when we found Screenstrong and I'd always had boundaries around screen time. They were allowed an hour a day when they completed all their morning jobs and I even had a checklist. They got 30 minutes of iPad or TV time in the morning and then they got 30 minutes, which often turned to an hour when I made dinner. When the pandemic hit and everything locked down, my sons were suddenly online for four or more hours a day for school. We're in California, so that lasted over a year. That's when I really noticed a problem. By the time they finished online school and then they got their regular iPad or TV time, when I made dinner, they were just melting down. It was too much screen time. And the first red flag I saw was when my son's teacher called and told me his video camera was on, but he wasn't responding to her questions. I was out grocery shopping at the time and she thought there might be an Internet issue. I knew it wasn't a problem with the Internet and it suddenly made sense why my son was quickly clicking away when I walked into the room. The day before, I realized he was watching Minecraft YouTubers instead of listening to his teacher. And I was furious. But when I thought about it later, I could kind of understand. After all, when I was little and I was bored, I used to read under my desk. He was just doing the same thing. It was too much temptation. So I quickly put a stop to that. And now I had to camp out on the sofa whenever he did his online classes to make sure he wasn't watching YouTube. He also started asking to watch YouTube more and more during his daily screen time. And I didn't like it because the Minecraft YouTubers were always playing pranks on each other and they were always talking about the merchandise they had for sale. And even though it was kids YouTube, I felt like it wasn't bringing out the best in them and it didn't agree with our family values. Then they got a switch for Christmas because I thought it was the least problematic gaming system and I thought it might be nice since they were stuck at home so much. That actually turned out to be a terrible thing for our family. When they'd play Super Smash Brothers, the arguments were terrible. My oldest was short tempered with his little brother and he got really aggressive whenever they played. And in the past he'd been so patient and helpful with his younger brother. So that was a red flag. And then my youngest at this point had a really low frustration tolerance and he'd melt down at the slightest difficulty in both his schoolwork and when he played video games. About that time I discovered the Parenting in a Tech World Facebook group and it really opened my eyes to all the issues with the online world. I then read Dr. Dunkley's book Reset yout Child's Brain and recognized several of the behaviors she associated with what she called electronic screen syndrome in my sons. So I decided to do a screen talks and it was the best decision I ever made. Before I found Screenstrong, I decided to reintroduce video games on weekends only. But when I discovered Melanie's story and the Screenstrong podcast, I changed my mind and kept the video games away for good. Green Strong was the first place I really found that said you could keep these things away and that they weren't necessary for childhood. When I listened to her story about her son Adam, alarm bells went off in my head because a few months earlier my oldest son told me he couldn't wait to go to college because then I wouldn't be there to enforce screen limits. At that point, I knew in my gut he wasn't going to make it through college if I kept letting him game as much as he was. Not only that, but both my sons used to love to read for fun and they read a wide variety of books. But before we did the reset, they seemed obsessed with video games and that's all they talked about and those were the only books they looked for in the library. And as a teacher, I didn't like this and I also didn't like how gaming was the only things they would talk about. The last straw came when we had an opportunity to meet up with friends for barbecue and my oldest had a meltdown because it meant he'd miss his afternoon screen time. And this was from my really social child who used to love to talk to people and make friends with everyone at the playground. That was a huge red flag for me. The fact that he'd rather be home playing video games than actually going to meet kids his own age. It was time to make a change. So what's life like now? It's so much better now, even with a 13 year old son. I won't lie to you, things are far from perfect. My sons still fight with each other and still argue with me, but our life is so different. I like this quote from Glennon Doyle that someone put in the Screenstrong Families Facebook page. It says when we hand our children phones, we steal their boredom from them. We're raising kids with commodified views of sex, lack of real connection, filtered concepts of what it means to be human. As a result, we're raising a generation of writers who will never write, artists who will never doodle, chefs who will never make a mess of the Kitchen. I feel like the biggest benefit for my kids has been having the time and space to discover what they really enjoy doing. When I first took away their video games, I didn't think my oldest was a sporty child at all. Both my kids played a season of soccer, but he wanted to quit as soon as he finished the season. I knew I needed to find something to fill his time, so I got him involved in Scouts and in drama. At the time, he also gravitated to Dungeons and Dragons books. I let him read those as much as he wanted and he enjoyed coming up with characters. I think he was using it as a substitute for the gaming. But after several months of reading all the books, he scored really well in a school language arts test and his vocabulary score was through the roof. He ended up dropping drama after two plays, but he continued with Scouts and it's been such a wonderful activity for him. Sometimes you hear people talk about the psychological vitamins kids need, like autonomy, competency and relatedness. Scouts has really fulfilled these for my oldest son. He's now an assistant patrol leader and he often speaks at my younger son's Cub Scout pack meetings. He's had a chance to try so many new things as he meets his merit badge requirements. When he did his communications merit badge over the summer, he realized he's actually good at public speaking. Not only that, but the child I did not think was sporty ended up playing soccer on his elementary school team. And now he's taking fencing at middle school. And he goes outside to shoot baskets every day between homework assignments because all of his friends are into basketball. And I'm so grateful that his public middle school this year banned phones and makes the kids keep their bags locked in classrooms during lunchtime. So he and his friends are all out playing basketball. My youngest learned how to play independently, which he could never do before. He always wanted me or his big brother to play with him when I removed video games. I also signed him up for piano lessons along with his brother who was already taking lessons. I didn't think he'd be very good because he's super active and he's left handed, but he took to the piano immediately and started trying to play all of his big brother's pieces. My youngest goes to the piano every time he's bored and he's blown everyone away with how much he's progressed in the two and a half years since he started. That's the exact amount of time that we've been screen strong. Now every time he plays for people, they're Amazed, they ask what I did, and I just say, I took away video games. Not everyone will take to the piano, but you never know what your children are capable of if they become obsessed with video games like mine were. What I'm most grateful for is that my sons have had a wonderful childhood, mainly outdoors, like mine. Most people say this is impossible now, but I'm here to say that it's definitely possible. We now have all the neighborhood kids on board. Their parents are so happy to send their kids outside to play with mine and get them off their screens, even for a little while. They take bike rides together, meet at the neighborhood park for Pokemon club, meet at the school for recess games, even on weekends. And they're always outside with friends when they have free time. I feel like I've bought my sons a few extra years of childhood since discovering Screenstrong. I feel like they're discovering the things they enjoy doing and learning new things every day. One piece of advice I'd give to parents, as daunting as it seems to do something so countercultural, it's really worth it. You'll get through all the anger and guilt trips, and believe me, I had so many of those. My kids still occasionally call me mean and say they want video games back, but I know in the future they'll thank me. We have a really nice relationship now because they know I'm not going to compromise on the issue. And they're busy and they're fulfilled and they're getting all of their psychological needs met through all their activities and our family dynamics. Thank you very much, Screen strong this November season for giving my kids a childhood and making our family life so much more rewarding.
- [20:36]
D
Hi, my name is Tara. I live in Delaware now. Lewis, Delaware. It's by the ocean. I have three children. My daughter is seven. I have twin boys that are five. And I happened upon Screenstrong back when we were living in Pittsburgh, and my children were around one and three at the time. I was driving home from my work as an rn. I heard Melanie on a different podcast, and it kind of all started to make sense to me. It was like. So I had like an aha moment. All these screens, the phones, the iPads, they're a little bit sneaky in the way they enter our lives. Like, they're very easy to miss. It's a slow creep. And then all of a sudden, we have these routines that revolve around them, and you forget how it really began. At that point in time, our Achilles heel had really been our bedtime routine. Where my husband and I were using our phones and the boys were watching Blipp on YouTube. Kids and my daughter was watching slime videos, like people making slime. Both of those things sound very innocent. But when you pull the devices away, it's not like when they're done, like having a dance party and all the endorphins are flowing. It's this, like, angry, like a whole nother situation we have to kind of come down from. And so when I heard Melanie on that podcast, I did a little bit of a deep dive into Screen Strong. And within a couple days, we had a new routine and we just really replaced it with things that were more life enhancing. The kids were young enough where it only took a couple days, but it was our biggest point in which we kind of realized we have to scale back a little bit. I had always been of the mindset that I need to get my kids outside, we need to have a lot of exercise, we need to, you know, have good nutrition, and we need to connect with our family members. And that was always on my forefront of parenting. But I didn't have the other piece to it, which was, you know, I was kind of just watching what my friends were doing. And they were all well educated, you know, smart people, and, you know, they would hand their kids their phones and they would buy them iPads. And we didn't know. None of us knew. You don't know what you don't know. You could see the effect. But it wasn't really spelled out for me until I saw or heard Melanie on that podcast that day. So fortunately, I was, you know, my kids were young enough, I was in a good place. And that was our. That's when we pivoted. So life after finding Screenstrong is pretty much all about connections and doing things we love. My husband and I met skiing in Big Sky, Montana. So we're big skiers. So we always have like this outdoor, enthusiastic lifestyle. And my kids kind of have fallen into that pretty well. They do ask more. So my daughter so and so has an iPad, and that's what she does sometimes. But when I have that verbiage that Screenstrong has provided me with, she gets it. You know, this is what it's doing to your brain. This is what's happening. You can feel the difference between how you feel after a hike and how you feel after I let you watch YouTube videos. So she gets it. We're not screen free. We do TVs, we have movie or shows at night for a half an hour every Night. I'm very grateful to have noticed that slow creep into our lives of devices and what they were doing to my very young children. Now I see it everywhere, really everywhere you go. It's hard to miss, like out to dinner or having a babysitter come over. You have to kind of tell them that the phone can't be out, only for emergencies. But I'm very grateful that I am giving my kids pretty much the childhood that I had, which was a very positive one, filled with people that loved me and they were there for me. We played basketball together, we had catches, we went swimming. Like no one was really distracted. So I'm grateful that I noticed that and am able to try my best at giving that to my own children in a very different world. It's a lot harder to be present today versus in the 80s when I was raised. One piece of advice that I would give parents would be to look back to their own childhood at the moments they remember the most. Usually they're the simple ones. It's usually not when they're alone or when they were alone. It's usually when someone did something for them or had a conversation with them or took them out for ice cream or played catch. Those are mine. At least I do remember movie nights, and that's why we have them in our house.
- [25:48]
E
My name is Gisele Funchin and I live in Connecticut, in the Hartford region. And I have two kids. My son is 16, a sophomore in high school, and my daughter is 10. And in our school district, fifth grade is the start of middle school. So my oldest, around 2015, he was about 7, 7 years old or so. And that's really when the interest and the peer pressure started with either a handheld gaming system or even a mini iPad. I remember my parents had, had asked me, can we give him a mini iPad for Christmas? And my gut was I really don't want that. I didn't want to be rude. I was very appreciative of their generous gift and I said, okay, you know, of course he wanted all these games on it, but I really dove in into the settings to try to find the screen time limits, the maturity content limits, all the locks and controls that I could find. So I really relied on the manufacturer settings for anything that he had, whether it was a gaming system, an iPad. Eventually, about middle school age, I think around 12, he got his first iPhone and everything was locked down again based on manufacturer settings, what I could do with screen time settings. But, you know, as soon as you think you know everything about you Know the settings, there's more, there's new. You have to keep up with monitoring. It is just a never ending battle. And they're constantly requesting new games, more games, longer time. You know, oh, this is shutting off. I need, I need five more minutes. You know, it's just, it's, it's exhausting. So I really, you know, as much as I explained to him that it wasn't good for him, he needs to get off. I didn't have really any tools in my toolkit other than it's not good for you. I really didn't have anything that I could, I could share with him that was tangible for a teenager. So that's really when I started diving into a few different podcasts and books, even some of the news outlets that are starting to share more of the research that's out there. And I've just been sort of flooding myself with information again from many different sources. I feel a little more confident having gone through all of that information. But I really, I came across Melanie Hempy on a Screenstrong podcast, actually. I think she was a guest on a different podcast, actually. And they referenced her podcast and her site. And so that's when I found her and I started following. That was earlier this year after I dug in a little deeper and I learned that Melanie was a nurse as well. And all of her material was really science based. It had science behind it. I just fell in love with that. And one of the biggest changes I've really made is to have hard limits on where the phone is charged. The, the phone is charged in the kitchen. It goes off at a certain time. And as far as gaming, he can have, you know, maybe an hour on the weekend through, through his middle school years and now into high school, he is very involved in extracurricular activities. I've made sure that he tries something and if he doesn't like it, that's fine, you can say you tried it. But he to this day is an athlete involved in soccer, baseball, guitar, robotics. He's now the class president. You know, you often hear my son needs a phone to feel included, to be, you know, so he's not left out, so he can stay in touch with friends. He has a very social. There are no limits to his social connectedness, if you will. He's got friends. He, he definitely engages with everyone at school. He's. He does not have any social media. He just has the basic text features. I'm finding that my kids are, are happy. They're less anxious, irritated. They don't have that like just craving to constantly be on it. And if they do, if I see an ounce of that, it goes away. But I really haven't seen that in a very long time. They're happy to, you know, do things with friends, get out and do things as a family, you know, have movie time, what have you. They're definitely not glued to the devices. And I feel it's the peer pressure and the parent pressure to go with the culture because everyone's doing it, you know, what am I going to do? I can't fight this battle. But you can and you should. That's really the message. The content that Screenstrong provides, the science based content is just so extensive. It's, you know, nicely packaged on the website, the podcasts, the, the research. It's just nice having it all all together and it really helps you have the why and how, you know, those tools for how, how bad the screens are for, for your kids. I am so grateful for the encouragement, the support that Screenstruck has given me to really stand out from the crowd and to, to be strong. I feel like I have more confidence when I'm talking to other parents. You know, often you get into conversations about, you know, grumbles over the screen time or the screens, you know, when you're with other moms. But I feel comfortable now having those courageous conversations just, you know, not, not the doom and gloom, but just, you know, just putting a little, a few little things, you know, for them to chew on and so that they know that my kids don't do this or my kids don't do that or you know, just let them know it's okay to be a little different. You don't have to go all in if you don't want to. I would say, you know, we often hear that kids take easier paths or easier tasks with high reward. High rewards. Parents can be guilty of this too. We're often exhausted and you know, giving a device or screen time feels rewarding to us. It gives us a little bit of free time, a little bit of alone time, you know, kind of get them out of my hair for a little bit. But my advice would be to be strong, be consistent, be confident. It feels like a much harder path for sure, but the long term rewards are really so worth it.
- [32:39]
F
Hi, my name is Sarah Hendricks. I am a mom of a five year old boy, almost six year old, and am excited to be here today to kind of reflect on life before Screenstrong. My son was four years old when we became acquainted with Screenstrong and thankfully, we learned about Screenstrong through my son's school in a technology awareness week in the spring semester of the first school year that we had. And we had an ambassador come and speak about Screenstrong's mission and informed so many parents of things that were really quite a road ahead for me of what I would soon become, really a follower of Screenstrong, ultimately an ambassador of Screenstrong. Life before we knew about Screenstrong goes back to. We had a really little boy and I think we had as a family, we had awareness of the lifestyle that we wanted to have and how important being Screen Strong was going to be for our family. We also knew, I think, that the world was very counterintuitive to that and we could see it all around us. It was easy at that point for us to stay in a different zone because of his age, and we didn't go to Screens and toxic screens at an early age and have to backtrack. So we were lucky to be in a position before Screenstrong where we hadn't made any moves that we had to unlace what we did gain. Life after Screen Strong became so meaningful in a new way for us because we truly had information. We were informed in ways that we weren't before. We had the science behind the importance of Screen Strong and the avoidance of toxic screens and the things that we knew we wanted to stay away from. And so the Screenstrong lifestyle coming into our world really just helped to create greater awareness. It connected us to a community that we didn't know about before. It created a wealth of information and content that we were able to tap into. I followed the podcast on a weekly basis and I found that it was such a great way for me to become informed and. And really, a few minutes a day, a few minutes a week, the opportunity to continue to learn about the Screen Strong lifestyle and what the importance of all the components of it and the things that matter so much about what we were after. I'm so thankful as I reflect on our journey with Screenstrong from where we started to our current state and just the wealth of knowledge and awareness that we've continued to gain along the way. I think it's important to recognize that there's always learning, there's always an opportunity to continue to grow and to gain more knowledge and to react from that, that knowledge and to stay proactive on our approach forward. Things are always changing and I'm thankful for the ability to stay in tune with all of the content that Screenstrong produces being able to stay aligned as an ambassador and to be able to be part of this organization forward. I'm thankful ultimately as well for an organization that's rooted in health and well being of kids across the span of their childhood and really that that is really backed in purposeful, intentional and science backed content. The work of Screenstrong is as critical as ever from my perspective. I am thankful for the ongoing and relentless pursuit and achievement of progress in this space and the continuation of that day in, day out for this organization. I think it's important to come forward with some advice for other parents and families who are navigating it and navigating a screen strong lifestyle. I think what's really important is to just be okay with starting now. Starting from where you are. No matter where you are. If you're starting over, don't be afraid to start over. If you're starting later than you wish you were, don't be afraid to start at all. And if you're lucky enough to be starting without having to unlace things that you wish you wouldn't have started, then take action now. And what I would say is take pride in your screen strong path. Just keep going. Be comfortable in what you value for your kids and your family. Stay close to others who are on the same path for support and community and stay tuned to Screenstrong and all of the offerings that the organization brings forward. Always remember that there's science here behind your choice to live a Screenstrong life. And then lastly, I would just encourage everybody to model this lifestyle. As a parent, it can be really hard in our wired world to do so, but really take it upon yourself to model this as a parent and model this for the community that you wish to see.
- [37:13]
G
Hi, my name is Tracy Follenkamp. I have two boys who are four and eight years old. Before Screen Strong, I was really cautious about this technology like iPads as far as my kids using them. I just had this gut feeling how the technology could kind of creep into their lives the same way that it did for me. I had watched over the last, you know, 10, 15 years how I had just started using my phone for some basic things and then how it had really crept into so many different aspects of my own life. And passing that onto my kids really, really concerned me. But I didn't have any basis as to to why. With that gut feeling, it made some decisions really easy. Like my son, I dropped him off at this daycare center. It was like a one hour drop off when I was just In a pinch. And one day I showed up and they had iPads for the kids. And it was just an easy decision. I wasn't comfortable with it, so we were just never going to go back. But then I had these moments where like I had really hard decisions to make because remember, I was just going off of my gut feeling where we would hang out with another family, friends and you know, their kids would have iPads and use them as entertainment. Well, when they were doing that, I didn't know what, you know, what to do with my kids. Should I let them play with it, kind of introduce them to these new games. So there was those sorts of questions and then there was the other ones, like, what about educational apps? Like, they seem pretty harmless. Should we get these, you know, hooked up on the iPad and allow these certain times of the day or on the weekends or long car rides? So that gut feeling only helped me so much. And then there was like this whole other sea of like these questions that I didn't know what to do with. And so there was a big turning point when I hooked up with Karine Strong. We were getting ready for summer and we had this 16 hour car ride. You know, the easy decision obviously would be to plug them into an iPad each and it'd be this really peaceful journey. Well, I had my doubts and I just reached out to the group and said, what should I do on the 16 hour car ride? And somebody came back and said, there's so much stuff you can do. There's games you can play, there's the license plate game, there's, you know, games you can do as a family like scavenger hunts or books on tape and all of these things. And I thought, you know, it wasn't that long ago that that was what car rides were all about. And I can do this on that trip again, it was 16 hours. We broke it up into two days. And pretty much because it was such a big trip, I had to label hour by hour. We're going to bring out the books this hour. We're going to take a break. We're just going to be bored for this hour and listen to music. And then I allowed each day the kids were able to watch one movie and that was it. And we totally survived that trip and it was great. And we started this game of counting the Amazon trucks that drove by. And now that's like kind of ingrained in our family. As far as long trips, we know that's the game we start playing right away. And so that really showed me this other way of doing things, and that it was super possible and that it was even more fun in the end. And so after screen Strong, the entire direction of my family and our culture completely changed. As far as screens, it was like, absolutely. As far as toxic screens, we're not going to have any of that. And I was no longer ever having to live in that gray space. And that was just such a relief. We came back from that trip, we started chores, we bought a whole bunch of outdoor activities for the kids. We made sure the kids played outside on the street together. And then there were times I just watched my kids get bored. And it was so interesting to see just what would they do at that time. Although, you know, when you start to bring all of this back into our lives, all these things that we used to do that we're getting kind of slipped behind, There wasn't even a lot of time to be bored, but it was still great. So really looking back, the things that I'm the most grateful for is that by getting connected with screen strong, I was able to prevent any screen addictions for my kids during their childhood. And that is such a relief. The second thing is just clarity. Like, what is best for my family is so clear. Not only do I know it, but I can see it. And I see it unfolding in my kids. I can see their excitement when they score touchdowns. Like just being kids and living their childhood the way that it was meant to be. And then lastly, is it really reinvigorated me. I no longer thought, like, this drudgery of, like, how am I just going to get through the childhood in teen years? But how can I, like, take the next step up? How can I, like, thrive during this really short period of time when all of us are under the same roof together? And that's when I got excited about life skills and being involved with them and creating those memories and trying to keep our unity as a family. So it just really upped the ante for me. As far as my advice for parents out there, I would really, really suggest just having a zero tolerance when it comes to toxic screens. I hear so often somebody will say, like, oh, I get it, screens are not good. And, you know, I just let my kids use their iPads for a couple hours on the weekends to play these games. You just don't know where that slippery slope is going to begin. And then it kind of can unfold into these other things. It's better just to keep the lid on it and just not even let it be part of your family and part of your culture and not even have it be something that your kids think about. And again, we're really fortunate that we got to start this journey early. And the sooner you can start it, definitely the better. So that's my advice and just look forward to being screened strong with all these other families.
- [43:42]
H
My name is Laura Wurzberger. I really, like many families, started struggling with screen use in my home during the remote school year due to Covid. We really had screens pretty much locked down in our house and we were at a good place. And then they started really creeping into our everyday life when our oldest son, who is now in seventh grade, and our daughter, who at the time was in kindergarten, who's now in third grade, were home all day long. And like many families, I was using screen time as a reward for completing schoolwork. The screens were in our basement, so it was also just kind of time to give me a break as a mom. I didn't really know what was going on downstairs in our basement where our gaming system was. It was really out of sight, out of mind. I started really struggling at the end of that school year, and I spoke to my son's therapist and she had heard Dr. Victoria Dunkley speak on a podcast, and she recommended Dr. Dunkley's book, Reset your child's brain. I decided to read that book and it was life changing. I felt like my son had been in this case, the case study she was talking about. She was describing him to a table. I decided to try the 30 day detox. I got my husband on board, and in my heart, I knew that we could not continue down the path that we were on. But like many moms in that situation, I just decided I was gonna say 30 days and get the family to buy in. So when we chose to remove screens, we were still living in a Covid bubble. And things were easy because we weren't sending our kids to school where they were going to be told, hey, download Roblox, download Fortnite, hey, let's get together and play Nintendo Switch at your house. Most of our play dates were happening outside. Life was really simple in some ways in regards to hanging out with friends and screens. When we went back to school, there was a huge shift because we had all of that peer pressure kind of coming at us. And I was talking to my one friend who had heard about Screenstrong from one of her homeschool communities that she works with, and I just became obsessed. I felt like I had found my people. I binged all of the podcasts I just felt so seen and so heard. And it really gave me a lot of strength to have found this community. When we detoxed, it was June of 2021. We have been screen strong ever since. The things that have really changed in my family is that there's a lot more respect for me as a mom. The relationships between my son and my daughter have shifted tremendously. Prior to taking away screens, we had a lot of hitting, we had a lot of fighting. My kids may not be best friends, but they respect each other. We have a family of respect not only for the adults, but also within the sibling relationship between my two kids. We really enjoy spending time together. Interestingly enough, my kids don't want to go to any summer camps. They really wanted to spend the last two summers home together. And my seventh grader says, like, why would I want to be away from you when I'm away from you all school year? And so I think that is really telling of the culture that we have kind of created with our kids. So I am incredibly grateful for Screenstrong to give me strength to follow my gut as a mom and also to give me strength to really wait for what this lifestyle, what these parental choices that I'm making now with my young children, to really wait for the fruit of these choices to come to fruition. I would say that as moms, we, we know, we know in our, in our gut. I'd like to say that the first time my son ever threw the remote at the TV when he was gaming and punched me, that I had the strength to throw it out the window that day. If you have that gut feeling, take that as a, as a little seed. Don't just, you know, wash it away, but let it sit and let it see what happens to it. Let it see if it fertilizes, if it grows. And follow your gut on Olive that you're seeing within your kids and in your home. Because if it doesn't feel right to you and it's not sitting well, then it's probably not what's best for your kids. I am so excited to see who my children will become because of these choices that we made two years ago.
- [48:53]
I
So my name is Young Puntuske and we live in Santa Clara, California. I'm a stay at home mom with two teens. My son is almost 60, 16 years old and my daughter is 13. We're approaching three year mark. Being screen strong, we always had limited screens. I married a man who didn't own a tv. TV was and is never part of Our family life. When my son turned fourth grade, however, he started playing games with his friends. It was a thing then for boys to get together with their laptops or tablets to play multiplayer games together. And I really saw that gaming was taking a center stage of his focus and energy. So there was not a day that went by without my son agitated and begging, Mom, I'm so bored. There's nothing else to do. Can I play extra 20 minutes? I still hear that voice in my head. So I constantly found myself intentioned with my children and my husband, who sympathized with me but didn't have to watch the kids all day long and struggle the way I did. So I felt like I was the screen cop. And I really did hate that job. I was listening to a podcast three years ago and accidentally stumbled upon Melanie's interview. And that's when the light bulb came on. Can I really remove the screens? I somehow had not considered that option. I just thought that playing video games as boys was just what the boys did. That opened the door actually for me to look more into this and do some research. I watched the documentary Social Dilemma. I watched with both my kids. My whole family watched it together. And then childhood 2.0 on YouTube. I watched with my husband, read a couple of books and then, yeah, started really thinking about what this was doing. I am a very slow and timid parent. We started with the seven day detox. And even during those first seven days, I was not completely convinced that I could completely get rid of it. Seven day detox was very easy. Looking back now because my kids thought that I'm expected to have it back on the day eight, which they did. We talked about it and they said, oh, it was pretty easy. So then after that one hour on the day eight, I said, let's try another seven days. I think halfway through the second week, I was more than 100% that some of the screen time, at least the video game part, had to go. I think just through reading these books and connecting my kids behaviors, I just was convinced that this was not beneficial to my kids. And I realized how intentional all of these elements of the gaming was. Like I said about halfway through the second week, I told my kids, I'm still learning and so far what I'm learning is not very good. So let's try another seven days. So we did. But because I was completely convinced halfway through the second week, I told my kids, yeah, you guys, I was wrong. It's not going to come back. So that was December 2020. There was no pushback. I think my kids saw that I was really sure about this and so they were very quiet the first month. Let's say my husband was not fully on board when we started this detox. But maybe about a month, not even a month, two, three weeks into our new lifestyle without screens, we just felt peace in our home, complete peace. Every day my son would come to me or my husband. I'm bored. There's nothing else to do. Can I play extra X minutes? But that was gone and they were playing Legos, being silly games, being very creative and there was no struggle and tension. A couple months after we removed screens, my daughter said that it was such a waste of time and she doesn't miss it at all. My son told me that he was very unhappy with my decision at first, but he understands now. We go to church and our youth group has video games and I always found him in front of those video games on the couch. But I think two months, about two months after we stopped gaming, I found him elsewhere. Now I had not told him that he cannot play video games at friend's house or churches or anywhere else. It was just within our home. But he stopped playing video games at church or even at his friends homes. We really spent most of our free time with each other since we started Detox. And so my kids with each other and as a family. So I'm happy with our family life right now. But it would not have happened if I didn't find screenstrong 3 years ago. I think that parents may be afraid that their kids would lose friends when we did the detox. That was my biggest fear and my husband's. That was not the case for us. Our house became the hub for the boys, neighborhood boys who came after school and hung out, played board games or hide and seek, all kinds of stuff when we started three years ago. I love screenstrong podcasts where guest speakers have given many wise advices. If I may paraphrase a couple that stuck with me and add mine, we are living in an incredible time on so many fronts. Time is precious, short and urgent. So let's put away our feelings aside for the sake of our children's well being and put on the thinking brain on the issues of screenshots. Our children look to us for guidance to be that strong, unwavering, focused coach, using Melanie's term, that they're expecting us to be. I am most grateful that Melanie took a stand so that a timid parent like me found it easier to also stand when it's more comfortable sitting.
- [56:07]
A
On behalf of the team at Screenstrong, I'd to like to offer a big thank you to everyone who participated in this special episode and a thank you to our audience for listening today. Remember, Screenstrong's got your back and we are here to help you. So until next time, stand up for your kids, stand out from the crowd, and have a happy Thanksgiving.