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The Holiday Blind Spot Every Parent Needs to Hear About with Dr. Adriana Stacey (#252)
00:38:03
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- [00:00]
Dr. Stacy
Foreign.
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Melanie Hempy
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Screenstrong Families podcast, bringing you the best solutions for parents who are serious about eliminating screen conflicts in their homes. This is Melanie Hempy, and I'm so glad you're joining us today. If you're one of our regular listeners, welcome back. And if you're a new friend, we're so glad you found us. You are no longer alone on this journey of navigating screens in your home. You have found your people over here at Screenstrong. And today I want to just welcome Dr. Stacy. Thank you so much for joining us today. Dr. Stacy.
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Dr. Stacy
Hey, Melanie, thanks for having me back. I'm so excited to talk about this today. Heading into the Christmas season, I'm excited to, to talk about some of the things we're going to go over today.
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Melanie Hempy
Yeah, yeah. Well, once again, you and I were on the phone, what I guess it's been about two weeks ago. And I said, stop talking. We have to put this on a podcast because we get into these conversations, like, oh, no, all of our good words, we're using them up. But before we start, I just want to tell everyone this little story. I know I used to always open with a little story. I need to start doing that again. But I just have to tell you, yesterday I was, you know, starting to think about some Christmas shopping, which is just, you know, that's a whole nother thing altogether. But I was out. I was in a parking lot in a shopping center. It was just kind of a strip shopping center. It wasn't like the mall. And I was driving, you know, I wasn't driving fast. I, but I wasn't. I mean, I was just, I was just driving down, not the actual parking area where you actually pull your car in, but, but it was just the road next to that area. And there was this mom and her six year old, maybe, I was guessing maybe a six year old daughter. And I could see out of the corner of my eye that they were starting to walk across that street area and the mother was on her phone looking down at her phone. You've all seen this, people sort of walking around, you know, looking at their phone. And, and this child was with her. And do you know that that mom did not look up, in fact, never did look up. And it wasn't like I was gonna almost hit her, but if I had been, you know, distracted, I think I probably would have hit her because if I had been on my phone looking down and she's looking down, you know, and I'm just kind of going Making my way over to where I'm getting to the parking area. And so what happened was the little girl saw what was happening. I mean, can you believe this? The six year old turns and kind of throws her arms up in the air and says, mom, stop. The six year old had to stop the mom because they were setting themselves up to get run over.
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Dr. Stacy
Yeah.
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Melanie Hempy
And it was the moment, I mean, you know, you could see okay if the kids distracted or whatever, but the mother is actually walking through traffic with the six year old and it took the six year old. So anyway, I just had to say, okay guys, everybody, this time of year especially, put your phone down. Especially when you're out, everybody is, you know, so distracted and they're not paying attention and they're busy and we're all, you know, urgently trying to do all the things we have to do and we have to slow down. But I just thought it was super ironic that the kid was the one that figured it out.
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Dr. Stacy
Yeah, we all have blind spots, right? Parents. Parents as well.
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Melanie Hempy
So. Yeah. Well, the blind spot, I'm glad you brought that up. That's what we're going to talk about today because there is this thing that parents have. We have many blind spots. We all do. I think we have to have them actually. They're. They're kind of good in some ways, but in some ways they hurt us. But we have a blind spot. You and I were talking about this and it's just so perfect to talk about it right now during the holidays because we were talking about how one of the biggest mistakes that parents make is that they believe that they can, you know, talk to their kids and have conversations. But not only that, they believe they can somehow morph their kids into these little mini adult human beings. And I think we're all guilty of this. And so talk to us today about why do we do this? Why do we pretend that our kids are able to use all this technology? And then what I want to talk about today is why are we so vulnerable during the holiday season? Because it seems like we can kind of have our ducks in a row until it gets to December. And then we all get scared, crazy and clueless and we lose our mind and we start buying screens.
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Dr. Stacy
Yeah.
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Melanie Hempy
For kids, of course we know that's the worst thing to do. And the third thing is what do we do instead? So let's, let's. How does this happen?
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Dr. Stacy
Well, I think we all need, you know, we've all done that. Probably regardless of how old your kids are, you've bought that gift that you, after you bought it, you think, why did I do that? Maybe it's even before they open it or even like on Christmas. Like, think about when your kids are little and you buy them those toys that make all the noise and you're thinking, like, why? Why did I do this to myself? Right. So we all do it, and. But it can lead to an even bigger consequence when we do it with screens. And so that's why I think it's important for us to talk about this now, because we all get sort of pulled into this Christmas season, this holiday season, and sort of making our kids happy and doing all of this. This stuff that we shouldn't do. And so I think it's important for us to go into it with our eyes wide open. Right. And really using the judgment that we have as adults that we know our kids don't have.
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Melanie Hempy
And yeah, we lose sight. We're just losing sight of our logical brain. Okay. And we're doing that already during the year when it comes to screens, but now we're doing it. It's worse during Christmas. And it reminds me of the movie Jingle all the Way. I don't know if you remember if you ever saw that movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is so funny. But his kids wants a toy. Might as well be a smartphone, right? He wants a toy, and Arnold is going all around town trying to find the toy. The whole movie is just a comedy about what happens. Yeah, but you know what I mean, that's how I feel like that. I feel like that happens sometime when it comes to screens. Is. Is.
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Dr. Stacy
I had one family tell me last week that their kids are all teenagers and. And twenties, that every year their kids get the newest phone for Christmas and that they did not mean to make that a tradition, but now they feel like they're stuck in this. Like, you know, every year, Christmas, their kids expect. Expect the newest, you know, iPhone or whatever it is. So. And they were saying how stressed they feel about that, and they don't really want to be in that. In that cycle. But I want to say this to parents. I want us to work on collectively as a group of parents trying to race this next generation of amazing human beings of allowing trust to be greater than urgency. And I don't mean trust in our kids. I mean trust in the process of human development. So I want us to stop trying to be so urgent about everything that the next new thing, the next new thing, you know, we've got to, you know, know, be so urgent in all of It. I think that we need to learn how to trust ourselves, our intuition, what we know is right, and stop sort of on this chase of the next thing, you know, because here's the thing we all know, and I would love to hear from parents if this hasn't happened to you, but. Well, let me pause for a second. There's this trend right now online of parents videoing their kids and asking them what they got for Christmas last year. Because all of these kids don't remember it. They don't remember anything they got for Christmas last year. Right. So we put. They don't. They really don't. And so we put all of this sort of effort into making this the most magical Christmas and buying them the next new thing and all this. That's not what it's about. It's really about that feeling of, like, Christmas and being together and family time and one on one with your parents or your grandparents or whoever it is. And so we need to pull back on some of this pressure we're putting on ourselves to make our kids have the most magical Christmas ever. Right. I mean, I think that's part of. The. Part of the issue. And then when our kids get to a certain age, whether that's in your community, 11 years old, some communities years old, some communities, you know, closer to 13, there's this pressure that they need to get a smartphone right for Christmas.
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Melanie Hempy
I love that you're talking about this urgency and what you just said about trusting human development and not trying to urgently push the calendar forward on that.
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Dr. Stacy
Yeah. I mean, our growth that we see in our children now is going to get them where they need to go. And we can't skip steps, so we can't skip these steps in development that are necessary. And I think that's one of the issues with smartphones is it's making us skip these developmental steps and putting our kids in this adult box too soon. And I think that this waiting, this learning to wait, well, and waiting thing is something we really need to have on our minds as we're deciding what we're getting our kids for Christmas or. Or anything really, you know, is thinking about this process of buying the right gifts at the right time and doing all of that.
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Melanie Hempy
Yeah. Well, and let's talk about child development a minute, because we know logically, we're all adults and we understand this concept logically that our kids are not adults and they should not be exposed to all this stuff until they are. In fact, you know, we say 18 in some respects. I think even social media 18 is a big waste of time. Of course. But why? I guess. I guess it's. I guess talk about the guilt that we feel because we do feel guilty. Oh, and you're a great parent that
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Dr. Stacy
doesn't feel guilty about something. I mean, that's like one of the, you know, badges we hold as parents is all the guilt we feel. But part of the problem with guilt is that we make maybe questionable decisions when they come from a place of guilt. So, for example, we let our kids do something, and we know that maybe that's not what we would have wanted to let them do, but we feel some sort of pressure or whatever. And then in order to change that decision, you have to recognize that you made a wrong decision. Right? And so then we feel guilty about making a wrong decision. And so instead of correcting it in that moment, we continue to let that happen out of this feeling of guilt because we feel like, well, we did something wrong. We don't want to, you know, address the way we did something wrong and how we should change it. So we let that continue to happen with our kids. And. And this happens in all different arenas, whether it's like, what you let them eat or who you let them, you know, hang out with or, you know, what you let them wear to church. I mean, you know, you can extrapolate it to all different specific situation. But we have to be willing to sort of look at ourselves in the mirror as parents and forgive ourselves for the decisions we made that maybe now we have more knowledge and we wouldn't make that decision. And then allowing us to make a better decision and change that going forward.
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Melanie Hempy
And so what. What does a parent do then? Okay, what. What does it typically look like? I feel like it's kind of like we want our kids to have the best Christmas. We already feel kind of guilty. Why is it that during the holidays, I guess we feel like we're. Well, I guess it's rationalization, right? We're. We're trying to. We're trying to feel like we. We can fix it. Yeah, we can fix.
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Dr. Stacy
Oh, we rationalize everything. You know, it's like. You know, it's like we make a decision that we then realize, oh, I shouldn't have made that decision, but it's too hard or too uncomfortable to. To make a different decision. So then we talk ourselves into this idea that, well, maybe that was the right decision. You know, it's just cognitive dissonance. I don't know, is this sort of psychology term for it? It's like we do something and we know we should do something different. So either we have to change that thing we're doing or we have to talk ourselves into believing the other. Right? And so we're doing that with technology. And I know I work with a number of families where that's happened, where they didn't have the knowledge and information ahead of, you know, they let their 11 year old get on, you know, Tick Tock or Snapchat or whatever, and then they have a negative result from that and they want to change it, but then they feel all this guilt and they feel like, you know, I can't go back and change it. And so now I have to rationalize the reasons I gave them that and sort of tell myself some lies in order to make myself better about it. And so I'm not saying this or explain it to make us feel more guilty as parents. We do that enough on our own without someone else doing that. I'm just simply saying sometimes we have to have that talk with ourself, that hard talk with ourself about, okay, am I allowing this because of how I feel? And I don't want to sort of make myself feel worse about the decisions I've made, if that makes sense. So, you know, we all make decisions we wish we could change and like you and I talk about all the time. We're the coaches of our family team. And sometimes you have to adjust your game plan. So sometimes what you're doing out there on the court or on the field is not working. And so you bring the team together and you say, okay, guys, this is not you. You erase that game board and you start over. Like, here's how we're going to do it going forward. And there's some apologies in that and there's some redirection in that. But it's really important, you know, that we, that we do that and constantly adjust because we're learning new things and gaining new knowledge and we're getting to know our children more as they become, you know, older and older. And I think it's important for us as parents to really look at what we're doing and remain active in our parenting. Right? I mean, you have to parent your kids forever. I mean, you can talk to my mom. Like, my mom is 70 and she has, you know, six adult children and she's still parenting us in some ways, right? Because she has wisdom. She has wisdom that I don't have because, you know, she's quite a bit older than me. So it's like we have to continue to Adjust what we're doing to make the right decisions. And sometimes that requires us as parents to look at what we're doing, apologize to ourself and our children, and sort of make a better decision going forward. Which is why I think it's important to talk about how all of this goes this time of year with the gift giving. Because, you know, part of this issue is that our guilt gets worse as Christmas. Sorry. At Christmas. And why does it.
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Melanie Hempy
Why does it get worse?
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Dr. Stacy
I think. I think that part of the reason for that is because we can't see the truth for the magic. Like, we want this sort of, like, high dopamine hit, like, magic holiday that's gonna make everyone, you know, feel like it was the best holiday ever and they get everything they ever wanted and, you know, all of that. And so that puts us. Leads us down a road sometimes that we normally wouldn't go down because we really get sold this idea of the magic of the holidays. Not that it's not magical. It is, but we need to reframe it, I think, in a way of magical as far as, like, quality time with each other and things that we're doing to spend time together. Well, less of materialism.
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Melanie Hempy
That brings us back to kind of what you were saying a minute ago about the videos of the kids saying they can't remember whether Christmas.
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Dr. Stacy
Yeah.
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Melanie Hempy
Last year. And when you think about it, the experience type gifts, you know, and this isn't a podcast about gift giving, even though we probably need to do that before Christmas as well. That. That. But the experience gifts are the ones that you do remember.
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Dr. Stacy
Yeah.
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Melanie Hempy
Right. Because in your brain, that has a deeper hook, what you just said about that. You can't see the truth for the magic. I think that's a really, really good statement. And we need to ponder that for a minute because we're all guilty of this. So we're feeling guilty and then we do guilty things.
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Dr. Stacy
Yes.
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Melanie Hempy
And we do get dopamine. Right. When my kids were little, the grandparents would all call and say, I want to get them the thing they want the most. I'm like, well, not everybody can get them the thing they want the most. And what they want the most right now is what they're not, you know, going to want the most in two weeks.
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Dr. Stacy
Or you can be like my youngest. A couple years ago, when he was 5 or 6, on Christmas Eve, he wrote a letter to Santa. And every gift he asked for in the letter was nothing he had ever asked for before. Before 10 o' clock on the 24th. So, I mean, this is, this is how kids are, right? So we have to really sort of think about this in the bigger picture of the decisions that we're making at the holidays, to not let that guilt get to us or the rationalization or the, this idea of us as parents wanting this dopamine hit from watching our kids be happy and really look at making the holidays meaningful in other ways as well. And so, yeah, but the rationalization feels
- [17:50]
Melanie Hempy
very comforting because it's a way to shift that responsibility away from what we really should be doing, right? So we can rationalize it. We can say it was Christmas. And we can say, and this is where, again, the whole point of this podcast is to get parents to understand and just kind of revisit this blind spot that we have in general as parents and how it gets worse during the holidays. But it does feel comforting to us because we're all a little bit stressed during the holidays, right? And we just need to not have one more layer of stress. But.
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Dr. Stacy
Well, one thing we do is, you know, and I've talked to some parents that have been in this situation where you deep down feel like, okay, I really don't think I want to get my kid this latest device or whatever for Christmas. And then as it gets closer to the holidays, you sort of get worn down a little bit and you think, oh, you know, maybe I should get that. And you start to rationalize it, and then you start telling yourself this lie that you can teach your kids how to use it well, right? So you can sort of do this digital citizenship and, like teaching them, you know, now I'm talking about like 12, 13, 14 year olds, right? So, well, my kid will be different and I'll sit down with them and I'll have these conversations with them. I'll make them sign a contract and do all these things. And then you're rationalizing this gift that you really don't want to be giving. But here's the truth to that, is that kids don't have the necessary brain power to be able to follow all those rules. Like, they can't keep themselves from going down these trails of interest on the Internet or getting the next app or doing the social media thing or following the next porn site. I mean, they just, they get really drawn into it. And so it's not about willpower or they're not a good kid or, you know, fill in the blank. It's really just about, like I was saying, we have to trust in the process of human development. And we know that a Brain of a young teenager like that can't manage that. So we don't need to, as parents, put them in that situation. We're, well meaning, we're not meaning, you know, we're just trying to make them happy. Right. And that maybe is part of the problem is that we're constantly trying to give them what they want, even though they're not ready for it. Right? Yeah.
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Melanie Hempy
And this time of the year, it just gets harder. It's just more magnified. And what you. When you were just talking, this, this. This idea popped into my head that we start making up new brain science, you know, to make us feel better, like, oh, my kids are going to have more willpower. Well, the bottom line is, is they're not. They're not going to. Even if it's a phone, you know, from Santa under the Christmas tree, that's not going to change anything about the brain science.
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Dr. Stacy
Well, and the other thing I want us all to think about when we're deciding what to get our kids for Christmas is about the time exchange. And this is something we don't spend enough time talking about. I bring it up every time I give a talk or, you know, have anyone's ear about this subject is the opportunity cost. And so whether it's a phone or a new computer or a smartwatch or whatever it is, you know, even headphones to give your kids, there's only so many hours in the day. So when you're giving your kids whatever gift it is and they're going to use it, they're going to stop using something else. So we want to make sure that what we're doing is giving our kids a more enriching experience and more, you know, full life and sort of encouraging them to do the things that are going to lead them on the path to being a great adult. And I know that it's hard to be thinking about that all the time every time you're making a decision. It's exhausting as a parent. Right, but nobody said it would be easy. And it's a. You know, we're constantly learning and growing as parents. And so I think we need to sort of think about that too. And look at. Which is why we have the rule in our house where we don't give technology as a gift. It's not, you know, it's not a Christmas gift, it's not a birthday gift. We give technology and we feel like our kids need it as a tool. And it's sort of like a means to an end in a way, like if they need a computer for school, you know, for whatever it is, then that's when we sort of make that decision. Same with, you know, phones or whatever.
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Melanie Hempy
Sure. Well, I think it's important. It's important to also tell the grandparents these rules.
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Dr. Stacy
Right.
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Melanie Hempy
Because it can be this weird thing that they want to jump in and get the 10 year old the phone. And so you have to. That's a whole nother. That's a whole nother thing that we have to deal with.
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Dr. Stacy
Yeah. And you know, one thing that we could sort of talk about is you and I had the amazing experience a couple weeks ago to meet Angela Duckworth, who's a psychologist and she has written this amazing book, Grit that's a few years old. And I recommend everyone read it. If you haven't read it, our my kids school has all the parents read that when your kids are in 10th grade. And it's a really great book. She's done a lot of research. She's still doing a lot of research about this idea of sort of like grit and perseverance and self control. And when you and I got to see her speak a couple weeks ago, she was talking about situation modification and how important it is that we make decisions for like whatever our situation is to help us have better self control. So it's not always about willpower. A lot of it's about forming this environment that's going to lead to success. Success. And so we want to make sure that we're not contributing to a more difficult environment for our children. And we do that all the time. I do that. Like, for example, I love dark chocolate covered almonds. Okay. I love them. I think they're so good I could probably make myself sick on eating them. I would eat those over an actual meal. So I do not buy them. Okay. Because if I buy them, that is what I will eat. Okay. Instead of like grilled chicken or, you know, whatever it is. So I have unfortunately passed along my love of chocolate covered almonds to one of my children. And we will hide those things from ourselves, put them, you know, in the next room. And it's gotten to the point where they have to like be in the car because then you have to get up, go outside, get your key, unlock your car, you know, go get it. This is idea of like we're making, making our lives harder on ourselves.
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Melanie Hempy
Yeah.
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Dr. Stacy
So we think like, oh, we'll give our kids a smartphone and make it easier. They'll stop harassing me. I can get in touch with him better. And all these Things, but we're not seeing the actual situation, which is how much harder it's gonna going to make our lives when we're having to argue over screen time and put, you know, worry about the controls. And a lot of parents are like, well, I'm going to read all their texts and watch what they're doing. And we just can't manage that. I mean, that's. So we have to modify our situation for success. Right?
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Melanie Hempy
And we have to stop rationalizing it. And I know how hard it is. I know I lived that life the before and after, you know, the both the experiments that we did. And, and it does boil down to that. You do rationalize it. I rationalized with Adam and his video games. And by the way, do not buy video games for your kids for Christmas. It's just sending such the wrong message. You don't want to buy things that are addictive for gifts. You just don't want to do that. But I remember rationalizing it and I, I think it's just a sort of knee jerk reaction. You know, I didn't plan to rationalize, it, but I just did. It was maybe a coping mechanism. And I think during the holidays we are all a little bit raw, you know, like just kind of like that mom I was talking about walking through the parking lot earlier like she was not on her A game. I can tell you that. You know, we, we are, we have to realize that. And so I love your rule about no technology as gifts and of course I'm a firm believer in that as well, that you should never give something that you would potentially need to take away as a gift for Christmas. If you've already gotten the smartphone and you're listening to this right now, you can return the Smartph. You can absolutely return it. In fact, you usually have 30 days to return it. So don't keep compounding the mistake with more mistakes just because you start feeling guilty again. So it's just this vicious cycle and it's this blind spot that tends to get worse this time of year. So now I feel like that. I feel like we're all warned now, right? Yeah, I think you've warned us really well. So how can you encourage us now? What do we do? So we know that we have blind spots. We know that we're the most vulnerable during Christmas. So now what do we do instead? I mean, I'm not talking about just, you know, a gift list, which we have a fabulous gift list, the gift guide at Screenstrong. I can put it in the show notes Here and we can actually talk about that again in the next week or so. But what, what would you, what do you recommend? Like you said with your almond story, you just didn't buy them.
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Dr. Stacy
Yeah, right, but.
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Melanie Hempy
Well, and here you have to replace it with something.
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Dr. Stacy
Well, and here's one thing I want to say before we talk about the solution is that your kids are going to put these things on their list. Like if anyone listen to this podcast for any amount of time, you know how I feel about all of these things. What is number one every year on my boys Christmas list? Yeah, the latest video game, whatever it is, I don't care how many years it's been going on. I just got my 12 year old's list he handed to me last week. Number one on the list is whatever video game platform. It's a joke guys. I mean like he knows he's not gonna get it from me. Still leaning into this Santa idea that he's gonna get this. But, but they're gonna put that on there and he puts, you know, my teen at, my teenagers will say, you know, they'll kind of joke about I, you know, iPhone or whatever on there. And, but so don't, don't fall victim to that. Like I would love to put, you know, whatever the latest, you know, amazing, whatever adult toy on my, you know, whether it's a new car and just have someone get it for me. But don't be sort of pulled into that trap like, well, they really want it. It's number one on their list, you know. Oh yeah, we all want things, you know, that aren't good for, for us. And so like I said, we have to not buy the things because then it just leads to more fights. But one thing I want to encourage parents about how to sort of manage this. First I think you need to have this discussion with your kids about we don't buy those things for gifts. We just don't do that in our family. And you know, I understand some parents don't want to make that rule or whatever, but it has worked well for us and I do think that's an important discussion. We're talking about having discussions with their kids. There's this educational component that's really important. So as parents we need to get educated about the science behind, you know, screen use and what it does to the brain and all that. There's more information coming out all the time. And if you haven't gotten the kids brains and screens resources yet from Screenstrong, I really recommend that you do that. You could get your kids that for Christmas. You could get them the KBS course. But, you know, and I've done that course with my kids and they still talk about it. And I actually assigned it to my kids in my AP psych class and they loved it. And so I think it's important as parents that we understand the why behind, you know, why we're doing these things. Because we feel more empowered when we, you know, do that. It's sort of like when we decide we're not going to buy, you know, our 16 year olds alcohol or we're not going to let our kids eat donuts every night for dinner, it's because we have knowledge that then prevents us from making those decisions. So I really think it's important for us as, you know, coaches, as parents to get educated and then also educate our children. Right. Because I think they love to know this stuff and they love to feel empowered to make those decisions themselves. And also you're setting expectations for your kids that we just, we're just not going to do that. And maybe last year we did buy you the latest iPhone or we got you a brand new computer or we bought you, you know, an Apple Watch or whatever it was. But we've now learned more and we're changing sort of the ways that we're doing things and giving them that sort of information and knowledge. I think then you're setting expectations for them that are appropriate. So they're going to always want that next thing, right? I mean, yeah, we just have to be prepared for that and they can handle their disappointment beforehand, you know, and then you can feel like you're sort of setting up some expectations for them in that way.
- [30:59]
Melanie Hempy
Yeah. And I feel like they really do take their cues from you. Right. And it's just like a team and their coach, they take their cues from their coach. And if I love the rule that we just don't give technology for any kind of gifts and that that's a rule, we can tell our extended family and the grandparents and all the things and say, well, that's just, we just don't do that. And there are a lot of reasons for that. So I think that what we need to focus on, you know, instead. And if you have little kids, of course they're going to want toys. Hopefully they're going to want toys. You know, this is the other problem is that kids really don't want toys, like traditional toys much anymore. All they want is electronics. But we had to kind of bring the toy back. You know, that whole idea back and do things and get things that are more family kind of oriented, you know, whether it's, like I said, like a family outing or just any kind of thing that you can do together. Of course, board games are really, really popular. And the other thing that I want to say is it's really important to just to have a schedule so you don't end up with so much downtime that, that everybody's gravitating, you know, to their screen. So those are just some little encouragement, I think. When in doubt, don't. So that's always a good encouragement or a good rule of thumb. If you're listening today and you're just thinking, oh, I think after all, maybe my husband's right, you know, maybe my kids really are more mature than I think they are. And we're just warning you that during this time of year, your blind spot gets deeper. It gets harder to understand. The logic and the reasons for that is the guilt that we're feeling and how we do this crazy rationalization thing in our head. And I'm so glad, Dr. Stacy, that you could be here and help us understand this from just the psychology behind it, because it's not that we're bad people or that we mean to do this. There is a literal psychology behind how we do this, and we don't even know we're doing it. So is there any final words of wisdom to offer on this topic of, you know, making. Making us feel better, like, but, you know, because we're guilty, we feel all this happening and we're trying to put the band aid on it with, with that electronic.
- [33:20]
Dr. Stacy
Well, I think one thing is, is that we need to sort of relearn or retell ourselves that kids can get excited about other things. Like, a lot of parents, I think, feel like the kids aren't going to be excited unless they get the latest technology for Christ. But, you know, one year when our kids were a little bit younger, we were so excited because we've gotten together and planned this trip to Disney World for our kids to go to Disney. And we were so excited to give them this trip as a gift for Christmas. And you know what my son was the most excited about was this tiny accordion that he got that was like, from Walmart that was like his favorite gift of the whole. He didn't care anything about the. The trip. I mean, he wanted to go on the trip, I'm sure, but it was like, you can't predict, like, what they're going to be excited about and like, teaching our kids to learn to be excited about other things I think is really important and sort of figuring out what their interests are and sort of replacing that with other things. Because we know that when the kids pick up that first smartphone, they stop reading, they stop playing games, they stop, stop spending as much time face to face with their friends and all those things go away. So if we've already done that and you've already fallen into that trap with these younger kids with the smartphone, I just want to encourage parents that you can change your mind and Screenstrong is here to help you with that. We've got. There are so many resources. The Screenstrong website is full of information about how to help you do that. There's, you know, a reset, you know, screen fast, and there are lots of resources to help you replace that time with something else. But one thing we've done as a family is during the holidays we put a piece of paper up in our pantry, like that leads out sort of to the garage and it's to put things up there that you want to do over the holiday season. And so like last night, one of my kids, we were driving and we saw that there's like a drive through light display that we didn't know about at the fairgrounds. So we put that on there. And then one of my kids put like making gingerbread houses. And then somebody put watching Home Alone. And you know, there were, you know, having, playing Christmas Mad Libs, you know, like, and when things pop into your head, you can put them on that list. And then like you were saying, when you have downtime, it's like, let's go to the list. And you might end up with 50 things on that list and you probably won't even have enough time to do all of them. And so then you're sort of reminding yourself that when there is that downtime, we don't need to be on screens, we can be doing these other things. And if you have to work over the holidays, you can have your kids do some of those things, you know, on your, on their own, without. Without you sort of supervising them, you know, letting them do some stuff on their own. And if they need stuff to do, there are great ideas. Like you can write letters, Christmas, make Christmas cards and send them to your local children's hospital. Or you can find the address for like a retire community or a nursing home. You can send them Christmas cards. They love to get those. You know, there's lots of things that you can do with your time. And so I'll just encourage parents to really think about, you know, what you can do with your time instead and to not feel guilty about the decisions you've already made and to sort of take today as a new day and you have new knowledge today and you can make new decisions. It may not be easy to change that, but the rewards in the long term will pay off.
- [36:54]
Melanie Hempy
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for helping us make a decision right now today that we are not going to get technology for our kids for Christmas. Thank you.
- [37:04]
Dr. Stacy
You're welcome.
- [37:05]
Melanie Hempy
All the kids are thanking you, too.
- [37:06]
Dr. Stacy
Oh, I'm sure they are. I'm sure they are.
- [37:09]
Melanie Hempy
And what a great idea for that list. To put that, like. I'm envisioning some sort of, like, butcher paper. Just a long roll and just. Just have everybody get a right on the wall. That's really cute idea of things they want to do. Thank you so much for joining us and jumping on here with all your wisdom about these blind spots, you know, because a lot of times we just don't understand how our brains work. And I appreciate you coming on so, so much. Thanks so much for coming.
- [37:36]
Dr. Stacy
Thanks for having me.
- [37:38]
Melanie Hempy
So remember, we've got your back over here at Screenstrong, and we're here to help you have everything you need to to remove screen conflicts from your home. So until next time, stand up for your kids, stand out from the crowd, and don't get a smartphone at Christmas, and stay strong.