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The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
1KHO 511: Parents Are Right to Nag Their Kids to Go Outside | Thomas Kersting, Disconnected
01:01:48
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- [00:01]
Jenny Erich
This is the way it feels to move through summer in Lululemon iconic aligned softness without the front seam for our smoothest look and feel ever, Summer won't.
- [00:15]
Thomas Kirsting
Know what hit it.
- [00:17]
Jenny Erich
Stretch your limits in the non stop flexibility of the new Lululemon Align no line pant in select stores and@lululemon.com welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Jenny Erich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside and I am so excited and honored that Thomas Kirsting is back. Welcome.
- [00:38]
Thomas Kirsting
Hey Ginny, Good to be back. How are you?
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Jenny Erich
Good. You are one of our very first podcast episode guests. Like way back when a couple years ago. And then in between those two times we talked about your book Disconnected. And then in between then and now, you wrote another book called Raising Healthy Teenagers, which is a really big deal. Can you give us a little bit of your backstory about how you ended up in this line of work?
- [01:00]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah. So I worked as a public school counselor for 25 years and had my, I'm a licensed therapist and had my private practice after school hours. So this goes back to 2008. I might have talked about this a couple of years ago when I ran this committee called the 504 Committee at the school and we were getting this influx of students diagnosed with adhd that were 14 years old, which didn't add up to me because I talk about this in Disconnected. The average age of diagnosis for ADHD is 8 years old. And it's a neurological condition that you're born with. And all of a sudden we have all these 14 year olds. So that's why I started really researching and started coming across some compelling studies about, well, not an official term, but a term people may not have heard of called acquired adhd. So essentially, according to some of the researchers, potentially millions of kids diagnosed later with ADHD didn't have it. They had the symptoms of it. So that's when I really started to study and figure out what was going on. Everything pointed to technology and the highly stimulating nature of that and what that does to the brain and how that affects brain neural pathways and how it affects executive functions and can trigger attention deficit like symptoms. So that's where it started and then it has just morphed as I've been lecturing to parents and organizations and kids about screen time and everything else that comes with it for the last 16 years.
- [02:20]
Jenny Erich
Wow. So you, you're on the front line, you're dealing with kids all the time, seeing what their problems are, and you kind of see Patterns. And then things drastically change in 2008. At what point were you like, I'm going to write a book about this?
- [02:33]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah. So I was doing a lot of media. Okay. Like a TV media. I still do a lot of that, you know, going on, you know, national TV a lot, talking about mental health stuff. It was back in, I guess, let me think, what year? Probably about 2014 or 15, when I finally said, you know what, I gotta, I gotta get this message out in a larger capacity. So that's when I wrote, you know, the first edition of Disconnected, you know, and I just continue to do this work as a therapist here in my office, you know, lecturing throughout the country, doing a lot of media appearances, you know, just to try to help really, really catch the parents. Yeah, you know, you know, just, you know, and everything that you guys do, you know, a thousand hours outside, like the importance of that, you just don't see kids at the playground anymore, you know, kids, literally the majority of kids would prefer to, you know, be inside on their phones, their devices, and their natural habitat is outside, you know, starting at a young age and being there with other kids. And that's how you develop, you know, critical skills as you evolve into a, you know, adolescent and then an adult thereafter.
- [03:33]
Jenny Erich
What's interesting is, is when you replace it with something else, something that's more human, you don't end up having a lot of the same problems that other families are having. That's what we've noticed. We do have some screens, but no one's really addicted. People ask to play them here or there and then they turn them off when it's time to turn them off. And I think that's because they've had so much of the wiring toward nature and toward friendship and toward hands on experiences all the way throughout their childhood. And you talk about something similar like there's so much focus on the phone and get the phones out of the schools. Don't start social media till a certain age, which I totally understand. But you're talking about something even deeper, like how do we know ourselves? And then how does that affect how we live our day to day life? Can you talk about that? Cause that's a really unique thing that you focus on.
- [04:19]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah. So, you know, one thing we hear all the time is that these devices are a distraction. Right. So I want to take this a little bit deeper. So whenever I'm lecturing, you know, to a group of students, I speak to adults in the evening, I get to a point in my lecture, I call it Cyber self esteem, something I talk about and disconnect it. I will ask a kid in the front row. I'll say, who are you? Okay? And I know what the answer is going to be. That kid is going to tell me their name. Then I go to the next kid and I say, who are you? And then the next kid, and then I ask one of them to ask me who I am, and they say, who are you? And I go on to say, I'm not Tom Kirsten. That's just a name my parents gave me. Let me tell you who I am. I am a spiritual, loving, caring, grateful, motivated, confident, powerful being, okay? And I go on to explain to all these kids as their jaws drop, like, what is this guy talking about? I go on to explain to them that the reason I'm sharing that is because every single person in that audience right now, every one of you, is those things as well. But you can't know that, because the self, the true nature of self, is sort of like the rest of the iceberg. So when you're living on your phone, in your device, and, you know, middle school kids and high school kids are on devices literally constantly, so what they are distracted from is self, which is within. That's the rest of the iceberg. All right? So what I implore them to do is to sit in silence for 10 or 15 minutes a day, all right? Which is going to be. It seems like it's going to be very challenging because it's something 99% of them have never done. But I make it easier for them. And I tell them, while you're in this silence, without any distractions, all I want you to do for 10 or 15 minutes is take inventory of everything that you're grateful for. You could say your family, your friends, but right down to the socks you're wearing, right? And by doing so on a daily basis, right, really honing in and cementing that message into your subconscious, it's an incredibly powerful, uplifting sort of thing that starts to happen, right? All of those resources that were born with the confidence, motivation start to rise from the surface, okay? And then you get to know what self is. And when you're operating from a place of, you know, of confidence, motivation, gratitude, and all of those things, then you. You're sort of an invincible force. And I tell these kids, I say, if every, you know, teenager in America right now did just that for 10 or 15 minutes a day, that attitude of gratitude, I would predict that the mental health epidemic that we're. That we've been in would decrease by 80% just by doing that.
- [06:38]
Jenny Erich
Wow. Can you talk about, since you've been in this field for several decades and you saw the change in 2008, you said, all of a sudden these kids are coming in, they have these diagnoses that you hadn't seen before. Can you talk about the change from then till now? Now we've got AI, so it's, you know, it's almost like you could write a book every couple years.
- [06:58]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah, I know. None of it really, you know, it never ends. You know what I mean? So 2008, that was a critical year. Then 2000, you go fast forward to 2012 and I'm sure you've had guests talk about this. Now 2012 is when we start. We started to see, you know, the mental health epidemic skyrocket. And that's consistent with when smartphones became mainstream. It's also consistent for me because back then in 2012, when I was still working at the high school and doing my private practice after school hours, I saw an incredible escalation of anxiety disorders in middle school age kids and high school kids to the point where that year I got more referrals starting in 2012 for middle school age kids with major anxiety. I got more that year than I think I had gotten collectively the previous, like 10 years combined. And it goes to show you that when human beings are not one with nature, when we're not outside absorbing, you know, what has been given to us on this planet earth, and when we're not engaging, you know, socially and emotionally with our fellow humans because we're isolated by a phone, that's a component that starts to trigger the anxiety. Because you become comfortable in this room and all of a sudden the outside world your mind perceives as being dangerous, plus all the stuff being downloaded into these kids brains, plus the fact that they're already insecure because they're adolescents and trying to figure out where they fit in and all these other things. So it's like this perfect concoction, you know, the perfect storm that has created, you know, where we are at this point and have been for many years.
- [08:27]
Jenny Erich
Do you think that because most parents are not on the front lines like that, that it just doesn't seem quite as alarming? Because I think if everybody had a front row seat and was like, I've never seen this before, and then all of a sudden this has exploded from one year to the next, I would think that most people would be like, oh, yeah, this is clearly a problem. So we're not going to do, you know, we're not going to give the kid the phone, we're going to hold off on screens. But most people only are in the microcosm of their own children, their own family. So they don't see the before and how things have changed. Do you think that that's part of the reason why? I mean that 2012 is kind of a long time ago at this point, but man, people are still giving their kids phones. Age 10 is about the average age. Think.
- [09:09]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah, it is 10. 10 years old is the average age of first smartphone issuance. And interestingly, when I, you know, I don't do this anymore because I don't want to put people on the spot. But over the years, you know, if I was speaking in the evening to a group of parents, I would say raise your hand if you think it's smart for a 10 year, for an 11 year old to have a smartphone. Right. Never once did a single parent ever raise their hand. Then I'll say, oh, so we can all agree it's a pretty bad idea to give an 11 year old a smartphone. Yeah. Well, what would you do if I told you that the majority of you sitting in his audience now that think it's a bad idea have given your child that AJ smartphone? That's called social conformity. And that's something I talk about and disconnect it. Where human beings tend to do what everybody else around us does. Right. We don't want to admit that it's sort of a built in peer pressure, but that's what's going on here. Like I remember, like, you know, my son was, for example, take a parent, Johnny's coming up to him, oh, can I get, you know, please can I get a phone please can I get this? No, you know the rules, you know the rules. Then all of a sudden all of his friends start getting it. And then we feel this pressure that if we don't do that for our own child, they're not going to fit in, they're not going to be able to socialize. So we kind of give in, cross our fingers and hope our own kids don't go down into this deep dark rabbit hole and develop mental health conditions. So, you know, people are aware of this. So we got to create a new, you know, a new sort of social conformity which I've talked about. I do. I did create something in disconnect. It's called a phone free school pledge where you know, imagine a parent of a kindergartner, you get, and when you get that packet of mail over the summer. And it says there's a sheet in there that says, I agreed not to get my child a smartphone till late adolescence. What do you think they're going to say? They're like, yeah, duh, of course, if that sounds good to me. And then talk to your friends in town, they're going to sign it. And you just keep the momentum, starting at a young age, going in that direction. And you can create a new conformity because kids, they don't want anything that nobody else once. Right. So, like, you know that. What's that cup called? I can't think of it.
- [11:03]
Jenny Erich
Oh, like a Stanley.
- [11:04]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah, the Stanley Cup. All right. That's like a perfect example. Like, why does everybody want a Stanley Cup? Does your water taste better in the Stanley Cup? No, it's because we see what everybody else does and we want to kind of fit in, you know, so I'm a big advocate of, you know, teaching our kids how to be leaders, right? Instead of followers of the crowd, we don't want to unintentionally put them into the follower zone, you know, So a leader is always going to kind of, you know, be outside the pack, break free from the pack, still part of the pack, but not doing everything that the pack does.
- [11:35]
Jenny Erich
And so if there could be this different type of pressure, counter pressure going in the other direction, it would make such a difference for the kids. And so in order for that to happen, parents, teachers, schools as a whole, and I've heard some cool stories as of recently where some schools are taking the stand on this. And it really matters for kids. They don't feel like they have to spend an hour getting ready every morning because they're not going to be videotaped or have a picture taken of them. I can't even imagine the amount of pressure that that would be for a child. So 2012, all of a sudden, there's all this anxiety. It's happening for middle schoolers. Have you seen that? It has stayed the same. Has it gone up?
- [12:14]
Thomas Kirsting
It continues to escalate. So it has not gone down. Okay. Continues to escalate because again, the technology continues to expand. Big Tech, you know, continues to. To model their products so that it targets that pleasure seeking part of the brain, which is, you know, associated with addiction. I talk about that too. And in raising healthy teenagers, you know, an incredible increase in oppositional defiant behavior. You know, the kid has an outburst towards the parents, punching holes on wall, cursing, getting physical at times. Right? And the common denominator is always when the parent takes away the Xbox or the phone, and that's. That's a crash, that's a sign of addiction. Your brain is craving that dopamine hit. And when that's removed, the crash and the withdrawal manifests itself that way. So I'm seeing a lot more of that, you know, these behavioral issues that are just, you know, off the charts that some of these things. Forget it. Like, if I ever talked to my parent like that back in the day, first of all, it would have never happened. But it's very, very common now. And it's, you know, 100% caused by this withdrawal from the stimuli. And in this case, it's the digital stimuli.
- [13:21]
Jenny Erich
So it just kind of keeps getting stacked one on the Next. It's like 2008, then 2012. Now we've got these behavioral things. And then what comes next? I don't think anybody really knows that. People are throwing out some ideas about AI and the confusion that that causes and how it's really easy to feel like that's a human and what is going to happen with all that. It's just another tier, it feels like. But let's talk about something else that you talk about quite a bit that I don't think it gets talked about enough, which is multitasking. And we've become this whole culture, kids and adults, that are constantly multitasking because you've got your phone and you're going from this task to the other and switching really quickly and trying to kind of juggle a bunch of things at once. What does that do to the quality of our life and the quality of our output?
- [14:05]
Thomas Kirsting
So the reality is this. We, you know, you can ask somebody who's a multitasker, and they'll say, oh, yeah, I'm great at it. So the higher the level of multitasker, the more lousy you actually are as a multitasker. Because the truth is, your brain cannot do more than one thing at a time. So, for example, schools right now that I've been speaking at and so forth, are starting to take the position of eliminating phones. Whether it's through the yonder pouches or not allowing phones in school, or if a kid is seen at any part of the school day, even during lunch with a phone in their hand, there's consequences. The issue there is if you take a high school student, let's say, and they have a phone in their pocket, and that buzz goes off, let's say it just buzzes. They can't digest what that teacher was just saying. Brain Cannot, because the brain is now going towards, oh my God, did somebody just like my post on Instagram, is somebody trying to get a hold of me? So they cannot possibly digest what that teacher is just teaching and it, and even, you know, so many kids I've talked to, you know, when they're sitting at home doing their homework, they have that device next to them. Right. You can't write an effective five paragraph essay if your brain is being distracted every 10 seconds with an alert. Can't do it. You don't enter the deep hypnotic state that's necessary to effectively write. So multitasking is a major problem. We need to get back to. It takes away the present moment. We need to get back to this present moment, focusing on one thing at a time and that's going to be better for us.
- [15:34]
Jenny Erich
One of the things that you talk about is how it will drop your iq.
- [15:37]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah, I mean there's some studies, I think I talk about it in disconnected, you know, so an IQ is relatively fixed. Right. But you can bump it up a few notches. Right. You know, if you have a 110 IQ, you know, you can't, you're not, no matter how many books you're reading, not going to get it to 140. But if you're not, you know, if you're not doing things, you know, that are deeply concentrated, like reading. Right. Reading is like fundamental to boosting the iq. But every time you get distracted, you know, you're not really deeply in there, you know, creatively expanding your brain.
- [16:06]
Jenny Erich
It's interesting times because, you know, we talk about all of these other things like you talked about in the anxiety and the ADHD that wasn't diagnosed until age 14. Men are talking about these behavioral issues. But there are so many other things that are going on that maybe just are lesser, maybe they're lesser known or they kind of seem of lesser importance and in comparison to these other things. But that's a big deal. Like you talked about how it's, it's almost like it's dropping you to, you're like an eight year old, you know, I, we have an eight year old, you know,' a third grader that when you're multitasking it's dropping your capacity to that of a third grader if you're an adult. And so these are important things to know about.
- [16:47]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah, Another, another thing, Jenny, real quick too, is like some other things that I see, and this is anecdotal, is I see more kids that have very poor hygiene. They don't like Comb their hair. They're not brushing their teeth. I have parents tell me it's impossible to get my son, or mainly boys, I don't know why, boys to brush their teeth. And I think part of that is there's such an overload of information and things to do from these devices that it's like, oh my God, brushing my teeth is for a minute is way too much time to do that. And so I'm seeing a lot of that. And even, you know, another thing I've noticed over the years is, you know, more kids, not all, but more than ever, that just have a sort of social awkwardness. It's just like an awkwardness and a lack of profound communication skills when you're in the presence of another person. And the reason is because all those skills communicating, you know, which we communicate, I think 70% of our communication is non verbal. It's more energetic if you're not in the presence of other humans all the time. You're not going to develop, you know, those, those robust social and emotional skills and that, and that emotional intelligence.
- [17:54]
Jenny Erich
And that's one of the things, the things you talk about in your books, which I think is really important because this is what differentiates us from machines. You write social emotional skills are perhaps more important than any other life skills. So all these life skills like brushing teeth are important. And so our social emotional. I can't even really imagine being in a position where, I mean, obviously there's other things going on. But you go to a therapist, I don't know, and you're like, my kid won't brush their teeth.
- [18:21]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah. And it's like, it's right. I mean, think about that, right? That's like, that's, that's automatic, you know, I mean that's like automatic, like thoughtless. You know, if you have to put into something like that, you know, then you know, we're compromised. But, you know, so it's part of the social emotional stuff, you know, the, the EQ emotional intelligence. So having an EQ is the ability to understand one's emotions, to regulate your emotions, to empathize with the emotions of others. It's the ability of a recent college graduate that didn't even do all that well to go into a job interview and just wow the people in front of him or her. And that's part of emotional intelligence. And people with high EQs. It's been stated that having a high EQ is twice as important for life success as having a high iq. But EQ is not inherent. It's not fixed. It's something that's developed and how it is developed, the only way is from face to face interaction with other human beings.
- [19:14]
Jenny Erich
And this is what we don't have.
- [19:18]
Thomas Kirsting
I think you're on mute.
- [19:19]
Jenny Erich
Workday starting to sound the same.
- [19:22]
Thomas Kirsting
I think you're on mute.
- [19:23]
Jenny Erich
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- [20:59]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah, I mean, I see this. I go to the gym every day, right? That's like a big part of my life. And, you know, younger people at the gym, they will not make eye contact. So I put them in an awkward position. I'll say, hey, good morning. And it's like. And they look at. And they'll be, it's like I pull them out of something, like, oh, and they're friendly about it, but that's very awkward to them. I'm. I'm not far from New York City, right? And I'm a very social, outgoing kind of person. So if I went to New York City today and went and sat on a bench next to some stranger and said, hey, how you doing? The person would get up and run because they'd think I'm crazy, right? And all I'm doing is trying to be social. One other thing, a lot of the kids I see here at my office, at my private practice, go to sleepaway camp for seven weeks. You know, upstate New York, stuff like that, Pennsylvania. And they're not allowed to bring their devices with them. So when they're leaving to go to sleepaway camp, it's like they're leaving without their left arm. Right. When they come back. And parents will call me back early September, oh, I want to get my son or daughter back in to see you. So over the last, like, let's say eight years, I haven't seen these kids in seven weeks. And I'll say, oh, how was sleepaway camp? I was great. And I asked them what was the best part of sleepaway camp? And the number one answer is not having my smartphone with me there. And they didn't expect that. But, you know, they experience something that human beings inherently crave, which is that social dialogue, making stories around the fire and in the bunk and bringing memories from that experience. They have their phones up there. They're not going to have any of that.
- [22:22]
Jenny Erich
And it's interesting because that's what everyone used to get. That was part of being a kid. And I think it's something really sad that a child could grow up and not experience that. Our kids go to a camp while our oldest, he's lifeguarding at this camp. Same thing. No phones allowed at all. And he, you know, it's like every year he wants to go for more weeks. And I. I definitely think that's part of it, because it's the whole culture of no one has it, and they just get to be in the moment. And I think it's a wonderful, wonderful thing. And we have to remember what did we get and try and provide that for our own kids. You talk about your own childhood. You're like, well, I loved how you wrote about it. You're like, out on your big wheel, no helmet, nothing is planned for you. I mean, even that right there, nothing is planned for you. That almost seems like a negative. But in this day and age, when you have to figure out what you're going to do with your own time and be creative and learn self and draw from your inner resources. To me, that's an advantage.
- [23:20]
Thomas Kirsting
Totally. And it's like, you know, that we are where we are. I mean, everything is planned and organized. Play dates, camp, you know, day camps during the summer. Yeah, yeah. Like when I was a kid, it was like my parents didn't even have to say go outside. It was like they'd have to shout to us to come inside for dinner at 5 o' clock at night because we were out all day long. Nothing was planned. We just, you know, that's where the creativity came in. All the kids would just, you know, random. We just be outside and randomly meet up and play Wiffle ball and then take our bikes out, go fishing, ride the bike to the swim club, catch fireflies, play manhunt, just be out all day long. That's what children are supposed to be doing. I mean, that's the bottom line. But it's not happening as nearly as much. You know, play is down like I think 70% in recent years.
- [24:00]
Jenny Erich
Yeah. You talk so much about playing your books, which is fantastic. Parents can pick them up. And you talk a lot about playing outside. You write. Parents are right to nag their children to go outside and play because it is good for their psychological well being and for so many other things as well. It promotes creativity and imagination, teaching, responsibility for nature. They have higher levels of self confidence, enhanced brain structures. I mean all of these things, they're happier and smarter as well as more attentive and less anxious. All of these things are what we really want for our kids. So it's, you know, school just got out. I guess depending on where you live, it gets out at different times already though for us it just got out like about a week ago and already you're seeing the back to school stuff in the, in the stores. You know, it's like such a quick turnover.
- [24:45]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [24:46]
Jenny Erich
Like, oh, it's coming. What advice would you give to a parent? I would like to go through the different ages, especially since you work with all these kids. What advice would you give to parents of. Let's start with the really little ones, babies, toddlers, as it relates to screen use and their long term success in life.
- [25:02]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah. So you know, the American Academy of Pediatrics, you know, recommends zero this for entertainment purposes. Zero screen time for children two and under. And then for kids like three to five, I think it's an hour, three to eight, an hour a day. And then anybody over the age of eight, they recommend no more than two hours per day for purposes. We know that, you know, kids, you know, eight and over, more like, you know, middle school, high school, are spending really nine hours a day for entertainment purposes. Right. So you know, limiting it to just a couple of hours a day, which is an ambitious endeavor. Is going to pay big dividends for your child, because if they're not on that thing, hypnotized by that, they're not just going to sit there and stare at the wall. They're going to go find a friend. They're going to go be creative. They're going to go and take action and do things for themselves.
- [25:50]
Jenny Erich
People just would follow those guidelines. Yeah, it would change so much. No screens, 0 to 2, then 1 from 3 to 8. So you're talking about. You're into. You're into elementary school at that point. You're in about third grade, one hour. And I actually think that's really interesting because it does still give you a little bit of reprieve. You need to hop in the shower, you want to make dinner. Like, you know, the hour would give you a little bit of peace and quiet as a parent, you know, the digital babysitter, whatever, you know, and that's what we did growing up. We watched some cartoons and two hours a day for older kids, that's still kind of a lot.
- [26:23]
Thomas Kirsting
I know, I know. Isn't it like two and think about that. Right? So even just two hours a day, let's say a kid is playing, you know, Fortnite, two hours a day, right. And that's seven days a week, 14 hours a week. Imagine what you can accomplish with an extra 14 hours a week. Imagine what you could do if you're an athlete, if you're practicing an extra 14 hours a week.
- [26:39]
Jenny Erich
Or a musician.
- [26:40]
Thomas Kirsting
Or a musician or a writer. Right. And it's. It's definitely driving a wedge into, you know, really accessing our true capabilities as humans. Right.
- [26:51]
Jenny Erich
And that's like the low end, and that's what no one's doing. They're doing nine hours a day on average. So what I have started to notice, and I would imagine that you would agree, it's like if we just go back to some historically normal practices, those types of things will set your kids up for success in a way that almost nothing else can, which is, can you talk to people? You know, can you have a little less time on your screenshot? Can you go outside? You know, these are. It's very. I mean, very sort of simple things that really set your kids up to stand out in a way that helps them in a rapidly changing world.
- [27:28]
Thomas Kirsting
Yes. Even in. You just reminded me of something. So in. In my book, Raising Healthy Teenagers, you know, I talk about something I call cocooning. So remember during COVID right. Everybody was like, just like, take teenagers. You know, they were Just in their bedrooms. Right. The bedroom was their bedroom where they slept. It was also their, their class room. It was also their play pen. Right. And if you took a child that was relatively social prior to Covid, and now for several years, they're locked in this box called their bedroom after Covid. When it was time to go back into the real world, many, many young folks started experiencing major anxiety. And the reason for that is because that square box, which was their life, became their safe space. Right. They didn't know that, but it became, there's no danger there. And then the way the brain works is all of a sudden I got to go back out into this great big dangerous world, you know, triggers that, that fight or flight response, that sympathetic nervous system. So many kids that were social before that, it was very, you know, really experienced. Those kids that had underlying anxiety before that, many of them became total, you know, school avoidant behavior type kids.
- [28:35]
Jenny Erich
Yeah. I mean, the ramifications are pretty large and far reaching and that goes along with fear. You talk a lot about fear and the news and this is something that's different. You know, you say just childhood has completely, kids haven't changed, but this environment around the kids has changed so radically. And I remember growing up, I mean, I don't think I ever watched the news or, or really knew what was going on at all.
- [28:57]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah. And you know, I could put that in perspective too, is this, this is a big component of the anxiety. So even this morning when I was, I came over to my office, you know, I see the parents dropping their kids, you know, off at the top of the street, right. And thinking, like, why are you dropping your kid off the top of the street? They, it's a three, two minute walk. Right. And that's because there's this idea that, you know, there's a kidnapper lurking in the bushes, right. And all that. Like if there's a kidnapping in the middle of Mississippi, you know, 10, 15 years ago, you would never even hear about it. Now you know about it instantly. And even though kidnappings at an all time historic low, Right. So now we, we absorb that information that's being fed to us from the media and we now think, oh my God, it's dangerous out there. There's kidnappers, I, I can't let my kid walk to school. What's the message we're sending our child right there? That if that this world is very, very dangerous. It's not as dangerous as you think. It just appears. Yes, there's some dangers, but it's just that every single danger is caught on camera. Now every incident is caught on camera. It gets into our mind and now it processes that as like, you know, we got to be very careful everything we do. There's a murderer over there, there's a carjacker over there, there's a kidnapper over here. And we're. And we're sort of imparting that on our children unintentionally, which creates more of a fear mentality inside of them. That's just one little example.
- [30:10]
Jenny Erich
Yeah. And I think if they're tracked.
- [30:13]
Thomas Kirsting
Oh yeah, yeah. That's another thing. Yeah. That I forget. What is that called again? Life360.
- [30:18]
Jenny Erich
Yeah. And there's a lot of them. You can get an air tag. Like I've seen people who will cut out a spot in their child's shoe and insert this air tag and then re. I guess re glue in. I don't even know, you know, you see these things so that they, you know, are they putting it actually like in their clothing so that they can track them?
- [30:38]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah. And like, I want parents listening right now. Right. So let's say you do that, right? That's on you. Right. That's your fear, right. To know what your kid's doing. What if there's, what are you going to do anyway? If all of a sudden you see that your kid is not here or there. Right. What are you supposed to do? It's just, we're just, you know, creating, you know, way too much of a, of a fear filled mindset ourselves. And again, like I said, that's being imparted on our kids. Even the phone, you know, so I'm an advocate, huge advocate for literally banning. Forget about the yonder pouches. I'm all for full banning. There's no cell phone coming into the school. The problem there, which I talk about in disconnected, is the parent. Most of the time it's because of the parents, because that phone is the umbilical cord between them and their child. And the idea of not knowing everything that's going on with my child, you know, that's debatable. Some people are going to disagree with me. But just think back to your own childhood. You know, what if there is an emergency, you know, at school, whatever kind of an emergency it may be, they're just going to pick up the landline and call you. But I know it's this idea of, you know, school shootings and stuff, but I remember the, the shooting in Florida several years ago. I'm watching the news and the news is Always looking for footage, right? So they some somehow got the footage of, of a student that was on lockdown. When you're on lockdown, you're in that classroom in a corner, right. And that kid's first instinct was to take the phone out and start recording. Instead of going to self preservation mode, protect oneself, their first instinct was to take that phone and my God, let me see if I can capture anything on camera. Do you really want your child doing that during a lockdown?
- [32:12]
Jenny Erich
Right. I mean, I've read different things. It's like if you really think about it, like if you really use your common sense, you want your kid to be fully engaged and aware of what's going on. So I used to be a teacher, so we would practice those different kinds of drills, right. You want that kid to be completely engaged in the moment so they can listen to the teacher, so that they can hear if there's any other instructions or things that you're supposed to do and not be distracted on a device, a device that can make noise. I mean, all sorts of different things there. So it just, it doesn't really make much sense. And I had read recently about how common sense, right, that with kids and they're getting on their phones either at lunch or during passing period, which normally was the time that you would be talking and making eye contact and having all of these social interactions, that, that is just going to increase your distraction level because it's like, well, who posted what and what are they saying and who said what to me? But you only have five minutes, so you don't really have enough time to kind of dive into what's going on. And then you enter your next class completely distracted. And that's happening at the end of every single period plus lunch. I just am like, where are the empathetic adults? Because we were all kids and we would know what it would feel like. You, you, you know, you should be able to in your mind, you know, I had a ton of freedom as a kid too. So I think we grew up the same time period in the world. It's like a ton of freedom. Ride on my bike, we're at the park. Like you just, you feel trusted. Someone has confidence that you're going to come home in several hours and have had an afternoon of adventure. How would that have changed if I had a tracker in my shoe?
- [33:41]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah.
- [33:41]
Jenny Erich
Or if I had someone, you know, my mom texting me five, six, seven, eight times about how I'm doing and where I'm at and who I'm with. And when am I coming back? That type of thing, like it completely changes the whole experience.
- [33:54]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah. And interest to your first point there. So last month I did. I gave a lecture to a school. They had me come in because that week was their first week of that particular school. Banning phones, right? No phones. If you're seen with a phone, it's being confiscated. If it happens twice, you're getting suspended, you know, you get a detention, Right? So when I spoke to the students, when I addressed the students, they were two days in to this smartphone ban, okay? I had a whole bunch of teachers come up to me to tell me that in just two days that they've seen a substantial difference in those students. One teacher told me that there's a student that sits in the front of her class that she's never seen smile or laugh, and now this child is smiling and laughing. Another teacher told me that, you know, as a kid that's fallen asleep half the time in class and she can see that this kid is fully engaged. The cafeteria at that school is now loud. It used to be quiet because everybody was on their device and the kids are talking. Other schools that I've spoken to over the years, ones that have already implemented this ban, every metric has improved, okay? Socialization among kids. Far fewer disciplinary infractions, far fewer mental health incidences, higher test scores. Overall, happier children, less anxiety, more attentiveness just from not having that stupid thing at school during the school day.
- [35:19]
Jenny Erich
It's a no brainer. And I think that if adults were empathetic and could think back to their own childhood and think, what would this have been like for me had I been in this awful environment, then they would make decisions that are for the kids. Whole child development, for their whole health. And how neat, though, how neat to have those stories in two days. It's summer. Time to enjoy long days, lazy nights and great food. Because UberEats has deals all summer long. So when hunger strikes, don't sweat it. Delicious deals are just a Tap away on UberEats. Enjoy all your favorite grocery items delivered straight to you.
- [35:56]
Thomas Kirsting
Get ice cream soda and snacks from.
- [35:58]
Jenny Erich
Your favorite spoon stores like Wegmans and cvs. And make the most of every moment.
- [36:03]
Thomas Kirsting
Now that sounds like a good summer. Order now on UberEats Terms, apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.
- [36:10]
Jenny Erich
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- [36:39]
Thomas Kirsting
Have you ever spotted McDonald's hot crispy fries Right. As they're being scooped into the carton and time just stands still.
- [36:55]
Jenny Erich
So let's talk about that. You definitely talk about the time for kind of a reset. So I think that that's a really hope filled message that in two days you might be noticing a difference. I mean, it's going to happen really quick, but also it takes about 30 days to reset the dopamine balance. So that's a bit of a time, you know, if you're changing out your tech habits In a home, 30 days, you're kind of in it for the long haul. Can you talk about what happens once that dopamine balance is reset and what a parent can look forward to?
- [37:25]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah, so like we have, it's called homeostasis and that's evolutionary, right? So dopamine is the feel good chemical in the brain. You hit a home run in a baseball game, you get a hit of dopamine. Right. It's, it's associated with it, with every drug and any, any kind of addiction. Right. Is an overload of dopamine. So our kids are like, I talk about walking around with like an IV drip of dopamine all day long. So it creates this imbalance and you don't want that because through evolution, when you go back to when times were scarce, you didn't, we weren't, weren't able to hit a button and have something delivered to your house or doordash delivered to. There was none of that instant gratification. The brain developed this balancing act because you don't want to have too much dopamine and you don't want to have too little. So for a parent, if you all of a sudden say, all right, we're going, we're unplugging for 30 days, right? What's going to happen because your child's dopamine levels are imbalanced is you're going to have a major handful on your hands. Your child is going to, the withdrawal symptoms are going to expose themselves. Your kid is going to be one nasty somebody you don't even want to be around, maybe even aggressive, right. But gradually it takes about 30 days for that balance to restore itself. And if you pull that off for 30 days, you're going to see that your child that you once knew has now returned.
- [38:34]
Jenny Erich
Yes. And there may be some better, you know, better things early, you don't know, maybe. But 30 days, you have to give a commitment to it. You wrote, the moment we stop, we experience universal symptoms of withdrawal if you're hooked on dopamine, such as irritability, anxiety, insomnia even, and more. And so for a period of time, they're going to feel and seem pretty miserable.
- [38:56]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah. And speaking of insomnia. Yeah, they're going to feel miserable, of course. Just like if somebody that's, you know, an alcoholic, if they stop drinking, they're not going to feel great initially, but gradually they will. Or drugs. And they're not going to feel great, but gradually they will. But the insomnia thing, you know, this is something for the parents listening right now, you know, a little takeaway from this. Six years ago, I think six, seven years ago, when I was still working at the high school, I might have talked about this. Maybe I didn't. In one of the previous podcasts, I did a survey with a hundred students at my high school. All kids who knew me that would come down to my office, they like to hang out sometimes, they needed help, stuff like that. And this was over the whole course of a school year. They all trusted me. And I asked each and every one of them a simple question. I said, I want you to just be honest with me. I'm not going to leave my office, I'm not going to even use your name, I'm not going to call your parents. Do you trust me? Yes, I do, Mr. Kirsten. And I asked them, I said, all right, here's the question I have. It'd be 100% honest. And the question I asked them was this, what time do you go to sleep on school nights? And 93, 92 or 93 out of those 100 students told me that they went to sleep between 1 and 4am every night and that their parents had no idea. And that's because the phone is in the bedroom with them. So parents listening right now. This is a non negotiable item. The phone no longer in the bedroom with your kid at night. That by itself is going to pay big dividends because we have a major sleep deprivation epidemic among kids in America and all the stuff we've already talked about. Jenny, let's pretend we didn't talk about any of that. A sleep deprived child, which the majority of them are, is a non functioning human being, is an individual that's going to be riddled with anxiety. Moody, not very social, can't concentrate and focus to their potential, cannot achieve academically to their potential, athletically to their potential. That's such a simple concept. The phone downstairs if they're in their bedroom, 10:00pm 10:30. Non negotiable.
- [40:58]
Jenny Erich
Yeah, it's just interesting because, and I've talked about this here and there, but you know, it's, this is how society used to be set up for kids. So when I was growing up, when you were growing up, it's like we would watch. There was network television for families that included kids. So I just interviewed the DJ Tanner from Full House. So like I grew up watching Full House and Home Improvement, like these different network shows that were kind of like for your family to come together. You watch these shows and they were at like 8 o' clock or 7:30. I mean they were all over. They were all done by 8, 8:30. There weren't shows at 9 or 10 for families with kids. It was done. And so it's just really interesting. I just think if we took some of those same parameters and we're like, yeah, screens are done at 8 o' clock.
- [41:44]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah. I mean 8 o' clock would be, would be fantastic. All right. You know, because, you know, maybe your child's not going to go to bed at 8 o' clock, but maybe.
- [41:52]
Jenny Erich
Right, but they're gonna have some wind down time. I mean, I think that's the whole point. Right. These shows for kids weren't at from 9:30 to 10. And then you go right to bed. It was like they were earlier in the evening and then it ended. And then the shows that came next to her for adults and you know, it's like there was common sense there in terms of programming for families and for kids.
- [42:11]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah. And it's, you know, we, you know, us parents, you know, we have to model the appropriate behavior ourselves, which we're not very good at because we're on our devices. I talk about, you know, how you, if you look at the typical family of four, you know, if you look at the definition of that in the encyclopedia, it resembles the Brady Bunch. Right. But it's not really like that anymore. It's more like four individuals that live under the same house and are all in a separate room on some kind of a device. And that's, you know, the number one predictor for a child's mental health outcomes is the relationship they have with their parents. And if you have your family, nobody's with each other. Eight o' clock at night is a perfect example. Maybe you're going to be with your family, watch a little tv, snuggle on the couch. That's a relationship. Communicating when everybody's isolated, that's not a relationship.
- [42:53]
Jenny Erich
Right. It's almost like, look, just go look back 30 years and see what they were doing then. And then if you can emulate some of it, then you're really going to set your kids up and your family up for success. Let's talk about this. This is one thing that you talk about quite extensively is exercise. And if a child is on a screen for nine hours a day on average, there really isn't much time for anything else, including exercise. And you said this. I attribute everything I've ever accomplished to exercise.
- [43:27]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah, that's from personally, for me, it's the most important part of my day. I do it in the morning. Right. And when I'm at that gym, you know, bodybuilding, doing cardio, it just illuminates the mind. It illuminates, you know, it releases those endorphins.
- [43:44]
Jenny Erich
Tell us what you do.
- [43:46]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah. So I go, I'm there for two hours every day. Like, when we're done, head over to my gym and then come back to my office, you know, so I do, you know, two hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [43:55]
Jenny Erich
How long have you been doing that?
- [43:57]
Thomas Kirsting
Well, I just upped it. I used to do it for like an hour, hour and 15. But like, the last three or four months, I've been. Been elevating that quite a bit, you know, just to keep. And it's not necessarily for the physical attributes. I mean, that's part of it. It's good to, you know, it's nice to feel good, but it's more for my mind, you know, it just sharpens that mental blade. And when you look at kids, talk about kids outdoors, you know, here's something that really irks me now. So even the kids that are outdoors on their bikes, many of them now have E bikes, electric bikes, they don't even have to pedal anymore. Right. And we have this, you know, biggest epidemics is the, you know, overweight epidemic among kids. And that's from being sedentary. And now the ones that are outdoors, there's no pedaling, so they're not really getting any exercise.
- [44:39]
Jenny Erich
What a change, because that used to be a main part of childhood. Okay. So then you, you talk about how. And this is. Goes along with the dopamine. It's like, okay, especially if you're going to be pulling back from screen usage and you're going to maybe have some of this withdrawal. A thing that would be excellent to put in its place is movement. Because you write about how whenever we're physically moving, our brains release endorphins, which are powerful chemicals that make us feel good. Exercise boosts our mental energy while naturally relieving stress and tension. It promotes better sleep, sharper thinking, and higher self esteem. You say exercise. Regular exercise is something I prescribe to just about all my patients. Talk through what you would think an ideal day for a family would look like. Like incorporating some exercise, incorporating some time out, outside, pulling back on screens, being together, you know, just cast a vision. What could that look like for a family?
- [45:31]
Thomas Kirsting
It would look like the Urich family, what you guys have, right? So look at the. Imagine this, right? Let's just not summer. Let's just imagine it's the school year. Right. Child comes home from school. Okay? Right. They got homework to do, maybe they play a sport. But then every single night the family has dinner together at, let's say, 6pm Right. With no distractions, just the family together. You don't have to talk about, oh, what'd you do today? How'd you do in that test? You got to study just being together, communicating. Right. And in that family either goes for a nice walk, you know, for half an hour, an hour, or gets on the bikes and goes for a bike ride somewhere around the neighborhood or, or goes for a hike in the trails. Right. And that, you know, it's a multifaceted thing. You, you're now getting outside number one, you know, get in touch with nature, which is where we're supposed to be. We're with, we're in the presence of our family members. Right. There's dialogue within that presence. And we're burning calories and releasing endorphins at the same time rather than, all right, everybody's going to eat dinner at different times. Right. I get it. We have two, two parents working. And then Johnny and Susie are going to go up in their bedroom for the rest of the night and sit on their beds, on their phones. You know, we need that reversal. And I could just see the image. It brings me back to when I was a kid, you know, and it was, you know, again, we're not in that generation anymore. But doesn't mean we can't do an about face, you know, and, and, and take care of our own family that's under our roof, that's come. That starts with us.
- [47:02]
Jenny Erich
Yeah. And there's all sorts of different little ideas and I guess the tricky part is that sometimes we would discount little ideas and think that they don't matter much, but they do. So I talked to a mom. She was like, everybody puts their running shoes by their bed. And the first thing that we do when we get up is we go outside, we go for a mile or two. You know, some kids run, some kids walk, some kids are in the stroller, whatever. That's what we do when we get up. So we get that morning light, we get movement, we release endorphins, you know, and then we come back and have breakfast together. And obviously, every family is in a different situation in terms of what they're doing with schooling. But you could also build that in, like you said, in the afternoons, maybe you tell the school, I only do this amount of homework. This is it. You know, we give you 40 minutes. That's all we're going to give you. And the rest of the time we're going to play, we're going to be outdoors, we're going to have dinner together, we're going to do that walk, we're going to say, you know what? The screens used to end at 8:30, you know, back in the 90s. And so that's what we're going to do in our home. Screens end at 8:30. You had written this sentence, which I thought was really intriguing, and I thought, well, gosh, it would be a great conversation topic for today's child. Right. So they don't know what they don't know, but we all have imaginations and we can have these discussions about, well, what would it have been like if no one had a phone? What would it have been like if this, you know, the programming for kids stopped at a certain time and there wasn't all of this programming that's available constantly. You wrote this 2011 teens. 2011 teens had more in common with 1950s teens than with teens in 2022.
- [48:32]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah, yeah. And that's my, you know, that's how I look at it. Right. So 2011, that's before 2012. That's before everybody had a smartphone in their hand. Right. So those kids, 2011, 10, 9, 1950s, I think of like the show Happy Days. All the teenagers are at Arnold's. You know, they got their cars, they're socializing, drinking milkshakes, dancing, all this other stuff. They might not have been doing that in 2011, but they were out getting in their cars, going to Starbucks, you know, doing fun things, exploring things of that nature. As soon as 2012 kicks in, you know, all that's out the window now because everybody's just staring at this, you know, the modern day weapon of mass destruction, that smartphone, and they're reclusive. So. Yeah. So I would, I would relate. 2011, closer to like 1957 than I would to 2012.
- [49:21]
Jenny Erich
Unbelievable. Yes. 2022. It's like our kids were. Our older ones were babies and toddlers at that point. But if someone's growing up as a teen, I mean, it's just so unbelievably different. And, and I think that those would be good conversation topics. How. And how could we structure our life so that it's a little bit more healthy for our kids and making sure that the world around them is just not so different? And the problem is, is that it's just gonna get worse. And it is getting worse with the AI. I actually, I was talking to someone recently and they were telling about how in the. You probably already know this, but as someone who worked in the schools as a counselor and you're working with families, they're already implementing social emotional chatbots as therapists for kids during the day.
- [50:08]
Thomas Kirsting
So let me explain. So you hear about the, you know, these, this virtual therapy stuff. Right. All right. So as a therapist, for how many years I've been doing that? 25 years. You know what the most important part of therapy is?
- [50:21]
Jenny Erich
I don't.
- [50:22]
Thomas Kirsting
The counselor patient relationship. The actual relationship. Right. So it's not necessarily the words that I'm providing, but it's my own energy. Energy. And, and in my mood. Right. Which I work very hard on myself, is to be very elevated. That's a contagion. Okay. And it's, and it's, it's sort of unconscious. So that stuff. Can it help? Maybe a little bit. But you being, you know, in the presence of another human being, like an expert like myself, that's what therapy is, a chatbot. You can't have a relationship with a.
- [50:54]
Jenny Erich
Chatbot, but it can appear like one and it can sound like one. And that's what's really interesting is that this is what's being advertised. The person who said it said that in the school. They're advertising it, like on the school news in the morning. You know, they're really pushing it. If you're having a bad day, we have this chatbot that you can come talk to and it will have a voice that sounds like you and it sounds like me, and you can have a conversation and it has intonation and there's pauses. I mean, doesn't sound like a robot.
- [51:21]
Thomas Kirsting
Well, I think that school probably should look into, you know, hiring some better real counselors. Then if they need to rely on chatbot, they have. Schools are loaded with counselors nowadays because schools I talk about, you know, used to just be academic institutions. They're now half academic institutions and half mental health institutions. So there's a lot of counselors at people's disposal. So the chat bot therapy thing is, I, I don't know much about it, but to me it sounds like, hey, whoever came up with that idea is going to capitalize on that, you know, make some, make some moolah doing that.
- [51:53]
Jenny Erich
Well, sure, because then what can you do? You can displace all of the human employees with this chat bot and no one. Back to the empathy. It's like no one is really thinking through. Well, what would that be like for a kid?
- [52:05]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah, you know what I'm. I was gonna say, you know, what I'm concerned about. I'm in a, you know, early stages of starting to research all this AI stuff. Right. So I think it definitely has some very positive attributes. The thing I'm concerned about is, you know, I can't tell you how many kids that I see here that tell me that they, they use chat, you know, chat GPT. They have a paper, they just put some, you know, chat GPT and then they change things around. So it's affecting, it's completely affecting actual learning. And you're, you know, you were a teacher, you know, that's not what learning is. Learning is, you know, getting a little bit stressed about how, where am I going to find the research I need to support my claims in this paper? What's the topic I'm going to talk about? How am I going to create a nice flow to this paper that has a good starting point and a good end point. Now it's like you just hit chat gbt. There it is in two seconds. You don't have to think and you could say, all right, ah, this makes sense. You know, I could take this and manipulate this and put my own spin on it, but where's the. Where's the deeper, higher level thinking? That's what I'm worried about. Like the mind, what's going to happen to people's brains if. If that's being replaced by a computer now?
- [53:12]
Jenny Erich
And then there's a piece, you know, you talked about, there's a little bit of stress and there's also a fair amount of learning how to manage your time. I mean, I feel like that's a big part of adolescence, is you come home from school, you have all this homework to do that you don't want to do, you'd rather be doing something else, but you have to set aside the time to get it done. And that's part of adult life. You know, there are things that you don't want to do, but you do them anyway. And, and so if a child is able to take an assignment that maybe over the past would have taken five hours in the course of a week, then they can do it in five minutes and go back to their video games.
- [53:45]
Thomas Kirsting
Yeah. And that's one thing I, you know, when I'm doing my lectures and stuff, I tell parents, you know, one rule, and again for me, non negotiable, is no video games during the school week. Because if a kid. No video games during the school, because, you know, parents, oh, you know, my kids do it okay in school. And if as long as they do all their homework, then, you know, then what's the big deal if they play video games? Well, what happens, you take a middle school, sixth grade boy that knows that he's allowed to play Fortnite when he finishes his homework. You think that kid's going to sit there and like really take his time on his homework? No, he's going to fly through it. Fly through to studying to get to the fortnight. Yeah.
- [54:22]
Jenny Erich
Wow. One of the things that really stuck with me and has since I read your books is just this question of how many of today's kids will say I had a phenomenal childhood. Because you talked about that, you wrote I had a phenomenal childhood. I don't remember any kids in my neighborhood having anxiety or depression or taking medication. And I certainly don't recall anyone taking their own life. You are, you are free. You know, you were a kid, you were free. And we expected nothing from anyone, including our parents. If we wanted something, we worked for it. Life is very, very different for today's kids. So they're great books to read to remind you of what it used to be like. And what were the things there that were mainstays of those childhoods that led to someone saying, I had a phenomenal one? And you just look at today's kids and you're like, what percentage do you think would say I had a phenomenal childhood?
- [55:14]
Thomas Kirsting
Wow. Not many. And for me, and it's interesting, Ginny, when I was, you know, my younger part of childhood, you know, my parents had four kids by 25, they got married at 19 to 20. So there was, we didn't have, we had a 13 inch black and white TV, no cable. We didn't have any air conditioning until I got a little bit older. Right. So we didn't, we didn't have all of these amenities, but we were happy, right? We had a great, My parents were wonderful. Right. And just our friendship and all that stuff. And today I talk about this in raising healthy teenagers despite, you know, this generation having so much more, having everything and you just push a button and you have it all this stuff. I believe it's the least happiest generation in, in history. So it goes. It's just the important things isn't the stuff and the even, you know, the followers, the likes, the streets. It's the freedom as you, as you, as you put it, the freedom of being out there and just having fun as a child and being with your parents and having dinner and you know, and doing things together. Those are the memories that you're going to take away. You're not going to, kid's not going to say, oh, I had a wonderful child away. I don't really remember doing anything other than, you know, sitting in my bedroom and scrolling through my, my, my TikTok videos. You know, what a thing, what a.
- [56:33]
Jenny Erich
Thing that if you really were to choose for what's best for the child, the optimal is a 12 inch black and white TV and no air conditioning. Oh, you know, it's counterintuitive. You know, you like. No, the best is like constant streaming and a phone in your pocket that can act like a supercomputer. Like of course we want that and everything to be air conditioned and perfect temperature and we can dial up and dial down. But no, for our humanity, we want the one that's got a little bit of a struggle, that has a little bit less that's drawing us in the 12 inch black and white and the lack of air conditioning and young parents, young parents who don't have a ton of resources yet that, that, you know, that led you all of those circumstances to say I had a phenomenal childhood. The books are fantastic. I'm so glad that you came back. Thank you so much. Disconnected how to protect your kids from the harmful effects of device dependency as well as raising healthy teenagers, equipping your child to navigate the pitfalls and my notes cut off and dangers and dangers of teen life. I so appreciate your time.
- [57:39]
Thomas Kirsting
Thanks Jeanne. It was really great seeing you again.
- [57:42]
Jenny Erich
Hi, Zoe Saldana. Welcome to T Mobile. Here's your new iPhone 16 Pro on us.
- [57:47]
Thomas Kirsting
Thanks. And here's my old phone to trade in.
- [57:49]
Jenny Erich
You don't need A trade in.
- [57:50]
Thomas Kirsting
When you switch to T mobile, we'll.
- [57:52]
Jenny Erich
Give you a new iPhone 16 Pro.
- [57:53]
Thomas Kirsting
Plus we'll help you pay off your.
- [57:55]
Jenny Erich
Old Phone up to 800 bucks and.
- [57:57]
Thomas Kirsting
You still get to keep it.
- [57:58]
Jenny Erich
There's always a trade in. Not right now.
- [58:00]
Thomas Kirsting
@ T Mobile. I feel like I have to give.
- [58:01]
Jenny Erich
You something in return for karma. That's okay.
- [58:04]
Thomas Kirsting
I don't really have much in my purse. Oh, let's see.
- [58:07]
Jenny Erich
Hand sanitizer.
- [58:08]
Thomas Kirsting
It's lavender.
- [58:08]
Jenny Erich
I'm good. Seriously, Let me check this pocket. Oh, mints.
- [58:12]
Thomas Kirsting
Really, I'm fine.
- [58:13]
Jenny Erich
Oh, I have raisins.
- [58:15]
Thomas Kirsting
I'm a mom. Wait, wait one sec. I've got cupcakes in the car. It's our best iPhone offer ever. Switch to T Mobile, get a new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Apple intelligence on us. No trade in needed. We'll even pay off your Phone up to 800 bucks with 24 monthly bill credits. New line, $100 plus a month on experience beyond Finance Agreement 999.99 and qualifying.
- [58:35]
Jenny Erich
Ported for well qualified plus tax and $10 connection charge.
- [58:37]
Thomas Kirsting
Payout via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days credits end in balance due if you pay off early or Cancel.
- [58:41]
Jenny Erich
See T mobile.com hi, Zoe Saldana. Welcome to T Mobile. Here's your new iPhone 16 Pro on us.
- [58:47]
Thomas Kirsting
Thanks. And here's my old phone to trade in.
- [58:49]
Jenny Erich
You don't need a trade in.
- [58:50]
Thomas Kirsting
When you switch to T mobile, we'll.
- [58:52]
Jenny Erich
Give you a new iPhone 16 Pro.
- [58:54]
Thomas Kirsting
Plus we'll help you pay off your.
- [58:55]
Jenny Erich
Old Phone up to 800 bucks and.
- [58:57]
Thomas Kirsting
You still get to keep it.
- [58:58]
Jenny Erich
There's always a trade in. Not right now.
- [59:00]
Thomas Kirsting
AT T mobile. I feel like I have to give.
- [59:02]
Jenny Erich
You something in return for karma. That's okay.
- [59:04]
Thomas Kirsting
I don't really have much in my purse. Oh, let's see.
- [59:07]
Jenny Erich
Hand sanitizer.
- [59:08]
Thomas Kirsting
It's lavender.
- [59:09]
Jenny Erich
I'm good.
- [59:09]
Thomas Kirsting
Seriously, let me check this pocket.
- [59:11]
Jenny Erich
Oh, mints.
- [59:13]
Thomas Kirsting
Really, I'm fine.
- [59:14]
Jenny Erich
Oh, I have raisins.
- [59:15]
Thomas Kirsting
I'm a mom. Wait, wait one sec. I've got cupcakes in the car. It's our best iPhone offer ever. Switch to T Mobile, get a new iPhone 16 Pro with Apple intelligence on us. No trade in needed. We'll even pay off your Phone up to 800 bucks with 24 monthly bill credits. New line, 100 plus a month on experience beyond Finance Agreement 999.99 and qualify.
- [59:35]
Jenny Erich
Imported for well qualified plus tax and 10 connection charge.
- [59:37]
Thomas Kirsting
Payout via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days credits and amounts due if you pay off early or cancel see t mobile dot com.