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Welcome back to the Starborn Parenting Podcast.
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I'm Rick Abina.
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And I'm Madeline Jurgensen.
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Madeline.
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We're going to talk about something that I know is such an issue for so many families.
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Every time I go to Reddit or Facebook, and there's these parenting groups, it's almost like the number one thing: screen time.
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All of these parents are having these issues with screen times.
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And uh there was a Surgeon General report that came out.
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I don't know if you had a chance to read this, but they labeled screen time as a public health crisis.
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They had this huge PDF, great figures, and they ask all of these important questions, but this is a five-alarm fire with no hose.
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Yeah, and it don't doesn't seem to be getting any better over the years either.
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Like we've you know, we saw it sort of start in, you know, was it 10, 15, 20 years now, and it's um it's just grown as popularity.
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I've seen a bit of a decrease with my peers who are in like early 30s, but it's um yeah, it's it's really tragic for the kids that get voked into it.
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Well, there it's it's this iPad kid generation, and everyone's talking about it.
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Teachers, psychologists, and you know, they'll describe these kids who can't go for more than 60 seconds without, hey, I need a screen, I need something to do.
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And I see this when I go to restaurants.
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I will be at my table with who whoever I am, and I'll look over and I'll see a family, and sure enough, there's a parent, and the kids will be on the parents' phone, or they just bring the iPad in.
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It is a big issue.
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And in this episode, let's talk about it.
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Let's talk about this through the lens of behavior science, and just say right now at the beginning, we're not gonna guilt trip anybody who's using screens, we're not gonna give you the magic number, like, oh, if you do X amount of time, that's great for you.
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Because there is no magic number out there, and that's really the wrong question to ask.
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So let's talk about the behavior science, and we we will discuss uh why are these screens out compete everything?
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Why are they so addictive?
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What's some of the research tell us it is doing in terms of uh damage?
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And sadly, this does damage with mental health, it also does damage physically, if you can believe that, uh, which you probably can.
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How do you build a screen plan for your for your family, for your home?
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And you know, what are some mistakes that parents might make when they're trying to help with this screen time, but yet it's it's a war.
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So let's start off by talking about this first section, and that is why do these screens win?
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When you think about screen time, what's the first thing you think about?
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Passive entertainment.
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Yes.
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Tons of passive entertainment.
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And this is something where it's not only passive, it's highly addictive.
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So you're right in the sense that it's passive that the kids aren't doing something active, but when people set up these screens, they are rigging them with all of these addictive features.
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And again, I'll use myself to talk about the the the some of the many things I'm addicted to on my phone.
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And when I use my phone, there's all these little things that I will engage in, and I know I'm addicted for these time frames, and if I'm not careful, like Instagram.
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If you're on Instagram, you swipe, you you see something funny for 30 seconds, and then oh, maybe you go two more.
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But the ratio of hits to misses is so high because they have these algorithms.
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And whatever it is you're interested in, they're just gonna keep feeding that to you.
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So if I happen to be interested in something funny, like a funny video of like there's this guy I follow who tells these really bad dad jokes, and you know, the joke is on him.
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He's like the old dad, and his sons are becoming the dad, and they're all joking around.
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And that just shows up on my feed.
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And I don't know about you, but this works like magic.
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All of these different things that they that these these tech folks have figured out, which comes from behavior analysis from our behavior science, they figured out how do you take these principles that we know and put it in the phone so that you can get engagement.
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And I put that in there quotes.
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Yeah, and I guess one of the first behavioral principles that I learned when I was in undergrad was this idea of the slot machine, where it's as like just like a slot machine that you see in a casino, the first pull might not get anything.
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The second poll might not get anything, but then third poll, you hit big and you don't know when you're gonna hit it, but you're gonna keep pulling because it's what we call the variable schedule.
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So your reinforcement or the good things that you get out of it hits at a variable schedule.
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It might not be the first, it might be the second, sometimes it's the fourth, sometimes it's the seventh.
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And just that unknowingness about where the next hit is gonna come gets us coming back for more.
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Um, just like when you're swiping on a phone, you might get something funny the first feed, and then you might have to go a couple more um you know, posts until you hit another one.
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But you know that if you keep going, you're gonna hit it.
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And you know, hours will slip away and you might not even realize it.
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Yeah.
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I am looking at uh so before this episode, I read over the Surgeon General's report, and it's a good one.
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But they have a glossary and they have all these different terms, and this is meant for parents and the public, and they have a term called gamble effication.
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And let me read this to you the integration of gambling-like mechanics, such as chance-based rewards, betting invariable ratio reinforcement into non-gambling products like video games, social media, and finance apps.
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So the Surgeon General is using our language.
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Yeah, just like you said, that is 100% right.
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It's variable ratio schedules, and what we know about this is like the slot machine.
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That's all you have to know.
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Your people will keep pulling that and pulling that because it's highly uh it's a behavior that's uh doesn't happen every time, and it happens on these random schedules, and it just makes you do it more and more.
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I mean, just think about this.
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These people are like, hey, I got a good idea, let's do it for kids.
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And okay, I get it if you're making these products for adults, but because there's no guardrails for kids, and because no, you know, the government is not coming in and again, can't blame it all on the government, but they do have a role and they're they're warning about this.
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And as technology has has grown, we don't have these guardrails in.
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And you know, certain people are trying to play catch up, but you can do all sorts of things for kids, which as a society I think we're just shooting ourselves in the foot by making these things so addictive and not introducing either legislation or some kind of guidelines that pull this back from uh what we're seeing right now.
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And I think the I mean the Surgeon General, as you state, is spot on.
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And uh one of the main things that I think is comforting to parents who might hear this is that it your kid isn't broken.
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They're operating exactly how they should be when you're given these type of stimuli.
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And so you might have your trouble, you know, we've seen this with kids where they're on a screen and they just will not get off.
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They are fully focused.
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And if you try to remove that, that reinforcement of the iPad, they will throw a tantrum like no other tantrum you've ever seen.
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And it's because their brains are hardwired to like this type of entertainment, this type of variable schedule of reinforcement.
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Uh and that's where, you know, we really see the I guess the negative sides of this much screen time with kids.
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But, you know, going back to that we're not trying to guilt you and and your kids not broken, they're just, you know, come become a victim of kind of this type of reinforcement schedule, which can get all of us at any point.
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That's it.
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We we should repeat this every episode.
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What gets rewarded gets repeated.
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And this is behavior that's getting rewarded.
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And it depends too.
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When we talk about screens, I guess we should have said this earlier.
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What do we mean by screens?
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When people talk about screen time, it's not just your phone, it's your iPad, it's your TV, it's any screen that's delivering content.
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And there's lots of it out there.
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There's toys that have screens.
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We're just surrounded by, and that's the era that we're living in.
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So I'm glad you pointed that out that this is just something that's naturally uh that the kids are just being a victim of these principles that people are using.
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Well, let's let's turn our attention to what the science says.
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What do we know about when you actually look at people who are saying, okay, we have kids who are using this, what are the effects?
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And I'd like to talk about one massive study that they did.
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50,000 kids.
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And what they found is that children that had four more four hours or more of daily screen time were 60% more like 60% more likely to show depression.
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Does that just not break your heart when you think about and that this is a this is a big study, and it's showing all these kids are being depressed when they're on the screen for an exorbitant amount of time?
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Yeah, I mean, just think about it, because it's it's not just the screen time, but it's what are they not doing instead of those four hours.
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Like the four hours that they're on the screens, that's time that they could be connecting with their mom or their dad or their caregiver, connecting with their friends.
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It could be spending time outside in the sunshine, it could be playing a sport, it could be doing some art, you know, it's it's all these times where you're just sitting and um it's I I I understand why that depression builds, because you're doing, you're taking away all the things that from the beginning of time humans have found enjoyment out of.
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Yeah.
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If we go back to our evolutionary history as we have evolved as a species, we were not being evolved with screens in mind.
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Just like you said, all of the things that we do.
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Like we live in a social world, and part of understanding in becoming a capable, competent adult is being in the social world, having conversations, telling jokes.
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Some of these jokes might be good, some of these might be really bad, some of these jokes might get you in trouble, but that's all part of learning.
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And uh you get shaped up by these rewards and punishments that happen just as you interacting with the environment.
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If all of a sudden you're taking a big chunk of that away, what are we doing to our kids?
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We're not allowing them to develop along this pathway, and their interactions can be stilted.
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And not just that, what is happening with the screens and what are they absorbing and how are all of these things coming together?
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It's it's really uh a troubling situation that we find ourselves in.
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Yeah, and you make a good point about like what are on these screens.
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And I when I was reading through the Surgeon General advisory, it's they never mention any exact number of like, okay, this is how much, this is how little that you should be getting.
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And that kind of cuts back to the point of like, we don't really know what is on these screens.
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It could be a video call with grandma or grandpa or some family member, or you could be, you know, building on Minecraft, or you could just be scrolling with autoplay on on, you know, YouTube or something.
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And those are gonna have very different types of effects than you know, uh uh to one another.
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Like for instance, with the video calls with a family member, you're not gonna get that variable schedule reinforcement because it's just you're just talking to somebody.
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Um, so it's much different than if you're just doom scrolling or something.
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Yeah.
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There were some other nice figures, well, nice in the sense that they're visually appealing.
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One of them that I'm looking at now, it showed screen time over the young adult lifetime.
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And it starts off with under two.
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It's like an hour.
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When they when they do this research, this descriptive research, and they look at how many hours are are kids engaging in.
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Babies, kids who just came into the world up to two years old.
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Like these are these are kids don't even have uh language.
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Like some of them might be saying a word or two, but that's a really young age.
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They're getting an hour of screen time.
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I don't even know what they're watching, to be frank uh with you.
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Uh kids between two and four, they're getting two hours.
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Kids who are five to eight, they're getting about three point five hours.
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Kids eight to twelve, they're getting four and a half hours.
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Kids 13 to 18, uh eight hours.
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These numbers, when you look at uh how much time they're engaging, this is average daily screen time.
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Average daily screen time that increases as kids grow up, but just those those numbers are incredibly frightening because if, like to your point, there's there's two things that we can look at.
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What are they being exposed to?
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Number one, but number two, more importantly, all the things that they're missing out on, which this is just not accounting for.
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So that is just something that if we haven't convinced you, screen time is a serious issue.
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And if you do, if you are dealing with screen time issues, we don't have to convince you, you already know this.
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Yeah, which I'm guessing if you're listening to this podcast episode or queuing into behavior and parenting, you probably uh are experiencing this in your home.
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So yeah.
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Well, it's troubling.
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It is scary what we're finding.
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You know, we could keep on talking about all the things that are happening.
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Like another thing that I'll just wrap that last section up is cyberbullying.
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Five out of ten teenagers are cyberbullied.
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Think about that.
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Half of the kids that go online are cyberbullied.
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And bullying in general, you know, cyberbullying means your kids being bullied online, they're still being bullied, and we don't even have to go into all of the negative effects of being bullied.
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Like that has its own thing.
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So just together, if you have screens, you can figure out how do we make screens happen less.
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Again, you don't have to completely take them away 100%.
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Some people do do that, but depending on your as a parent, depending on how you raise your kids and what you see is reasonable, there are some guidelines out there, and again, these are guidelines, they're not magic numbers, but the Surgeon General, and I'll just report them as an authoritative source, they suggest that if you are between if you're under 18 months, no screen time.
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If you're less, if you're uh six and under, less than one hour a day.
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Six to eighteen, two hours a day for kids.
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So these numbers are uh it's a start, but these are just suggested guidelines.
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And as a parent, you would need to come up with your own rules.
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But those seem uh reasonable to me.
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I don't know what you think about those numbers, but you could make them work or you could come up with your own.
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Yeah, I wonder if they calculate it in the amount of screen time that kids get in schools.
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I'm I I don't know how much kids are getting these days, but um I'm I'm curious if they calculate that in or if that's uh just screen time at home.
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That's a good that's a good point.
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I'm gonna guess if the Surgeon General is saying this to parents, they're probably not calculating what happens at school, assuming that the things that happen at school are all educational.
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If there's a screen and hey, let's watch a movie on a documentary on whatever.
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I'm guessing.
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But that's a good that's a good thing that we can follow up on and look at.
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Well, let's talk about ways that we can make some changes.
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Number one, you've mentioned this quite a few times, and now I'll repeat it too.
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It's redesigning the environment with antecedents.
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You will recall that things that happened before the behavior are very easy moves to make.
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They can help proactively stop some of these issues before they ever start and redesigning the environment and looking at here's some things that happened beforehand, let's work on changing that, and then maybe we can cut out a lot of this behavior in a very gentle way.
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With, for example, if you have a charging station outside of a bedroom, that's great.
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Have the kids charge their devices outside of the room so that way, for example, when they're in bed, there's not some enticement to pull out the phone and stay up until 12 o'clock at night talking with your friends or doing whatever you're doing.
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Very easy, simple first step with an antecedent.
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Yeah, I really like the idea of having charging station.
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I've worked with several families that have installed those, and it's been it worked out really well.
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Like it often they will be in like the kitchen, like some common area that the parents can kind of keep an eye on.
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And it's uh, you know, the kids just come home, they put their devices in, or maybe a drawer that has a charging stick inside.
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Yeah.
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And even so it's out of mind, out of sight, out of mind.
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Um, but yeah.
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Yeah, the the I remember when I got my first cell phone when I was in middle school, I think, and I would stay up so long, just like texting friends.
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Like it didn't even have like social media at the time, because it was before that time, but and now with like a newborn keeping me up, I'm like, why did I ever give up those hours of sleep at night?
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Yeah.
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I would love if I could just copy and paste those and get them now.
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Uh well, here's another simple rule you can engage in no screens at the the table.
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You're eating dinner, no screens.
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And I have seen parents, I've seen families that when they eat dinner, everyone has their own screen up.
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Super easy antecedent rule where you say beforehand, and that just cuts down.
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And what are the benefits of having a family dinner?
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Connecting with your kids, uh telling jokes, enjoying each other's company.
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Those are rewards that can compete with the screens.
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If you set it up where, okay, everyone, as you're eating, you need to be entertained and you watch your favorite video or whatever you're doing, you can just you have a new rule.
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That happens before this behavior ever starts.
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Very simple way to create a win.
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Yeah, I I really think it's worth restating the fact that when your phones are not at the table, that offers more connection, more opportunities for connection.
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And you'll hear this as we talk in this podcast.
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This is something we bring up time and time again is that you know, behavior analysis, having kids that are regulated and happy and in sync with the whole family dynamics are gonna create more opportunities for engagement and connection.
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And that's what really drives happy children, happy parents is building, fostering um a dynamics where you want to hang out with your kids, where you want to hang out with your parents because you enjoy your company and you won't get that if you're always just staring at your phone.
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Yeah.
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I suppose One last rule, which would be similar to the very first one that I talked about with the charging stations kind of getting at that.
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You can just say the devices are going to be in these spaces.
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In these other spaces, no, you can't have them.
00:22:16.799 --> 00:22:23.440
So we already talked about the kitchen table, but you could also say, you know, when you go to bed, no devices in there.
00:22:23.599 --> 00:22:28.799
Of course, it'd probably be easier just to have your charging station somewhere out and say, hey, we're going to charge.
00:22:29.119 --> 00:22:33.279
But you could just say there are no uh devices there.
00:22:33.519 --> 00:22:40.480
And anywhere else that that makes sense, you can then have that set up as a rule.
00:22:40.640 --> 00:22:48.480
And I'll tell you, I was spending time with a teenager uh not too long ago.
00:22:48.799 --> 00:23:00.319
And this teenager, when we were in this group setting, and we were going to a movie, this teenager was incredibly addicted to the phone.
00:23:00.480 --> 00:23:04.799
So we're in the car going to this movie whole time.
00:23:05.759 --> 00:23:06.799
Right on the phone.
00:23:07.039 --> 00:23:08.640
No conversation with me.
00:23:08.799 --> 00:23:15.519
You know, we we we got out, we talked a little bit, got some things before the movie on the phone.
00:23:15.759 --> 00:23:25.119
And it really saddened me on the one hand, and on the other hand, it kind of bothered me because it seemed like this kid was being rude.
00:23:25.279 --> 00:23:37.279
But when you think about it from a behavioral perspective, what that meant with the way I interpret it is there are more rewarding things going on with this phone than there are with me.
00:23:37.519 --> 00:23:38.960
And I can understand that.
00:23:39.119 --> 00:23:49.759
I'm not going to take that personally, but this is all the fun things that this young man was getting lived on his phone, and I just wasn't enough to compete with that.
00:23:50.079 --> 00:23:57.039
So as an antecedent rule, maybe you say, look, when we are in the car, no phones, or whatever.
00:23:57.200 --> 00:24:00.960
You make those rules, but this is good behavior science.
00:24:01.119 --> 00:24:01.759
It works.
00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:08.240
You set up these antecedent rules, and you can help cut that behavior off before it ever begins.
00:24:08.640 --> 00:24:09.039
Mm-hmm.
00:24:09.279 --> 00:24:13.519
And that kind of rolls into the next part we want to talk about was replacement behaviors.
00:24:13.680 --> 00:24:19.759
And we talked about this before is that if you ever remove a behavior, you have to put another behavior in its place.
00:24:20.079 --> 00:24:25.680
Because when you remove a behavior, you're going to create a vacuum and something is going to fill it.
00:24:25.839 --> 00:24:30.880
So you want to be the one to help fill that hole with something that's healthy, quote unquote.
00:24:31.119 --> 00:24:36.720
So instead of doing screen time, you could um go out to the park, do something outside.
00:24:36.799 --> 00:24:46.559
I personally, I think that's probably one of the easiest ways to kind of get a child out of the rut behavior of just the going in their screens, for instance, like after they come from school.
00:24:46.960 --> 00:24:54.720
And the reason why I like going outside is because it kind of goes into what you mentioned earlier about how there's places for screens and places without screens.
00:24:54.880 --> 00:25:04.319
And we kind of all understand that if you go to the park or you're, you know, playing soccer in the backyard with your parent, that's not a time you're going to be looking at your phone.
00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:21.119
And so it's much easier for the child to kind of resist that temptation to look at their phone if they're actively engaged in something physical outside, kicking a ball, climbing a ladder, um, you know, throwing a ball, something with their whole bodies involved in it.
00:25:21.519 --> 00:25:22.000
Yeah.
00:25:22.319 --> 00:25:24.319
I love that suggestion.
00:25:24.480 --> 00:25:31.440
There are so many things you could do aside from like being being outside, great.
00:25:31.839 --> 00:25:34.799
In at my age, I'm a Gen Xer.
00:25:35.039 --> 00:25:41.359
There are all these memes that people are proud to say on Facebook, like, oh, you know, we didn't have this, we did this.
00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:42.559
And that's just one of those.
00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:44.000
Every generation does this.
00:25:44.160 --> 00:25:49.200
They always show how they're the greatest generation, and every other generation sucks.
00:25:49.359 --> 00:25:50.000
I get it.
00:25:50.240 --> 00:25:53.359
We people do that, and that happens in my generation.
00:25:53.440 --> 00:25:54.960
But one of these things is very true.
00:25:55.119 --> 00:25:58.079
Like they'll show uh these, and I remember this.
00:25:58.240 --> 00:26:06.319
You would go out on the playground, and they had these playground things that were actually really dangerous.
00:26:06.559 --> 00:26:33.039
Like they had these things that would spin around, kind of like think about a merry-go-round, but it was just this circle, and then there were these bars, and you would stay on that, and then you just start going around fast, and then like you're hanging, it's like centrifugal force, and your feet are hanging out, and you know, the the those things people were proud of that there they were outside for all this time, so these screens weren't an issue.
00:26:33.200 --> 00:26:45.359
But now that these screens are there and these tech companies are doing all these things to addict people, uh you can look at all these other things that we as humans can find great joy doing outdoors.
00:26:45.519 --> 00:26:48.640
Again, you don't need to do something really nuts like that.
00:26:48.799 --> 00:26:53.200
There are some uh other fun things you can do, but I I love that suggestion.
00:26:53.359 --> 00:26:57.519
And I think uh even games, like play games, play puzzles.
00:26:57.680 --> 00:27:01.680
There's so much to do out there other than these screens.
00:27:02.319 --> 00:27:04.640
Yeah, I I think the game is a great one.
00:27:04.720 --> 00:27:12.000
I uh I have a number of friends who they do family game nights every night after they put the dishes away after dinner.
00:27:12.160 --> 00:27:14.640
They get the board games out, they get the cards out.
00:27:14.720 --> 00:27:21.279
Um, and my husband and I do that as well because when the kids go to bed, we have about an hour or so before I go to bed.
00:27:21.440 --> 00:27:27.119
And so uh that time can be easily spent just like on our phones if we're not careful.
00:27:27.279 --> 00:27:32.880
And every now and then we realize that we've gotten kind of into a rut, and then we'll take out a board game instead.
00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:35.759
So we just actually just started an exit game last night.
00:27:35.839 --> 00:27:36.880
And those are really fun.
00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:39.200
I highly recommend them if no one's ever tried them.
00:27:39.279 --> 00:27:47.920
It's like a box, and you have to do some sort of like sequence of puzzles to get to the end, and you have to kind of destroy the and destroy the game as you go.
00:27:48.079 --> 00:27:50.079
So they're cheap, but they're really fun.
00:27:50.240 --> 00:27:57.359
Uh, and that's a good way to like connect, recharge at the end of the day, and you're not just like, you know, scroll in.
00:27:58.000 --> 00:27:59.599
I did not know about these.
00:27:59.680 --> 00:28:04.000
I'm gonna have to look into that and bring it up with my grandkids because that sounds like a lot of fun.
00:28:04.400 --> 00:28:05.599
Yeah, they're fantastic.
00:28:05.680 --> 00:28:06.960
They have them for all different age groups.
00:28:07.039 --> 00:28:12.160
The exit game brand is is is one that we really like, but they come in all different types.
00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:12.960
Oh.
00:28:13.839 --> 00:28:23.440
Well, let's talk about one other thing that you could do, which is you can make screen time earned instead of just saying, you know what, you have it whenever.
00:28:23.759 --> 00:28:31.599
Last episode, you and I talked about token economies, and we talked about all the different things that kids can earn.
00:28:31.920 --> 00:28:36.960
Have your children through their behavior earning screen time.
00:28:37.119 --> 00:28:42.160
And I know parents that do this with YouTube, and it works really well.
00:28:42.319 --> 00:28:54.240
Like uh these parent friends of mine, they have a uh fifth grader, and the fifth grader would just like watch roadblocks and all these other videos.
00:28:54.400 --> 00:29:06.559
There's just so many videos that are so intriguing for kids that are on YouTube, and it's it's way more addictive than uh these other behaviors that these kids might be engaging in.
00:29:06.720 --> 00:29:13.359
So what the parents do is they say, okay, you can have 15 minutes of screen time, but you gotta do all these things.
00:29:13.519 --> 00:29:22.000
And the child engages in it, and it's great because the behaviors that they have set up for him to earn screen time are things that are good for him.
00:29:22.160 --> 00:29:25.519
And then when he does get on screen time, there's a cap to it.
00:29:25.680 --> 00:29:32.559
So it's not like you, okay, you do these five chores, and then you could watch YouTube for the rest of the night.
00:29:32.720 --> 00:29:37.680
There is a limit to how much YouTube, and if you do these five things, you get 15 minutes.
00:29:37.839 --> 00:29:40.480
Well, you do these other five things, then you could have 30 minutes.
00:29:40.559 --> 00:29:58.319
And of course, you can figure out what that ratio of behaviors that you want to see to screen times would be, but it's a really nice way of thinking about how you can use these behavioral programs to help with screen time.
00:29:59.599 --> 00:30:00.640
I really like that.
00:30:00.720 --> 00:30:05.119
And that reminds me of um a point that I wanted to mention with the screen times.
00:30:05.200 --> 00:30:10.160
You you talk about doing these screen time plans, and we'll talk more about this later.
00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:18.640
But um one tips that I've always found really useful when you're trying to get your kids off screens is to start pairing yourself with the screens before you remove them.
00:30:18.880 --> 00:30:25.680
So if your kid's playing with the screen and it's time for you know that timer to go off, that time is gonna come to an end.
00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:38.400
Sit down with them and try to engage with them with the screen so that then when it ends, you're kind of there to help them with the transition instead of it just like ending abruptly, especially if this is new to them.
00:30:39.039 --> 00:30:39.359
Yeah.
00:30:39.599 --> 00:30:53.440
I guess to wrap up talking about screen time and earning it, you know, we've discussed several times that if you're using rewards, it's not the same as bribing someone.
00:30:54.000 --> 00:30:55.279
Here would be a bribe.
00:30:55.440 --> 00:31:02.720
You have someone who maybe is upset about something and you say, hey, if you calm down, I'll I'll give you this.
00:31:02.880 --> 00:31:08.319
You know, you were you're dangling something, you're trying to get someone to do something.
00:31:08.720 --> 00:31:19.599
Where if you had simple rules, instead of dangling it, you know, you uh which turns into bribes beforehand, it's about timing.
00:31:19.920 --> 00:31:27.440
If you have rules that, as in the token economy, you're engaging in five things, then the reinforcer happens.
00:31:27.759 --> 00:31:37.599
That timing is a reward versus okay, you're engaging in this behavior, I'm gonna dangle this other thing out here to get you to stop that behavior.
00:31:37.759 --> 00:31:38.799
That's a bribe.
00:31:38.960 --> 00:31:56.960
So don't bribe, but come up with these rules so that you can help set up a s uh some type of program or something that's predictable for your child so that they know what they need to do to earn that screen time.
00:31:57.279 --> 00:31:57.759
Mm-hmm.
00:31:58.160 --> 00:31:59.200
That's really good.
00:31:59.519 --> 00:32:05.119
And um, and and talking as a family to figure out what your rules are around this as well.
00:32:05.359 --> 00:32:20.400
Because you talk about like these, you know, setting up screen time plans, but you have to figure out as a family what are your rules, how much time are you gonna have, and make that decision together with your spouse or caregiver, whoever's with the child, even with the child themselves if they're able to, if they're old enough.
00:32:20.799 --> 00:32:21.440
Yeah.
00:32:22.319 --> 00:32:25.440
There's so much to be said about communication.
00:32:25.680 --> 00:32:33.519
In every relationship we have, if you have good communication, there's a great probability that you're gonna have a good relationship.
00:32:33.759 --> 00:32:37.759
And it's the same thing with the family members.
00:32:38.000 --> 00:32:43.200
If you have some kind of media arrangement, like when should you do it?
00:32:43.440 --> 00:32:44.880
Who can you do it with?
00:32:45.200 --> 00:32:48.319
When is this okay with uh all of that stuff?
00:32:48.480 --> 00:32:49.680
What can I watch?
00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:55.039
You can have the kids be part of this conversation.
00:32:55.279 --> 00:32:56.720
They can write down the rules.
00:32:56.880 --> 00:33:22.240
Maybe you have uh a whiteboard, or wherever you put this, you state what the rules are, everyone understands it, and this way of working together as a family, it just makes things clear, and that can help resolve some of the issues that might come based with these excessive screen times if you don't have this.
00:33:23.359 --> 00:33:24.000
I love that.
00:33:24.079 --> 00:33:25.359
Yeah, that hits at this point.
00:33:25.519 --> 00:33:32.559
We were going to talk about in a little bit about why screen plans don't work and the inconsistency between parents is a big one.
00:33:32.799 --> 00:33:40.880
It's if you're if there's disagreement or miscommunication between the parents, um, that can really stop a plan from working.
00:33:41.119 --> 00:33:44.799
Um the other ones are are cutting, uh going cold turkey.
00:33:44.880 --> 00:33:56.319
So if you decide, you know, listening to this episode, or you read a book, or you hear read the Surgeon General warning and you're like, my goodness, screens are so terrible, take them all away, and your kids come home from school and the screens are just gone.
00:33:56.559 --> 00:34:00.720
Probably not the best way to introduce this.
00:34:00.880 --> 00:34:05.119
So do it slowly, figure out a plan, get agreement, build it up.
00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:09.440
Um, but going cold turkey, sometimes, you know, maybe your kids are okay with it.
00:34:09.519 --> 00:34:14.559
But for the most part, especially if your kids are really addicted, probably not gonna go over so well.
00:34:15.119 --> 00:34:22.719
I can't think of any addiction that anyone has where if you just try to stop it, that there's not gonna be some serious effect afterwards.
00:34:22.960 --> 00:34:24.719
That's not the way addictions work.
00:34:24.880 --> 00:34:30.320
And let's be honest, and let's just say this again: kids are getting addicted to these screens.
00:34:30.480 --> 00:34:31.840
And you're absolutely right.
00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:42.880
If you just say, hey, today we're stopping it, maybe you as a parent have some stoicism, you know, or maybe you are just someone that could say, I'm not smoking anymore.
00:34:43.039 --> 00:34:48.239
You know, you might have that discipline, but that doesn't mean that your kids will have that discipline.
00:34:48.480 --> 00:34:53.519
And this could create all sorts of issues if this isn't handled correctly.
00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:59.920
We talk in uh our field about this term called an extinction burst.
00:35:00.079 --> 00:35:09.280
And that simply means if you have a behavior that's being rewarded across time, you just have this regularity with how this works.
00:35:09.519 --> 00:35:12.960
Let's say that uh this is something that many people can relate to.
00:35:13.039 --> 00:35:14.159
You use a vending machine.
00:35:14.320 --> 00:35:16.239
You put money in, you get something out.
00:35:16.400 --> 00:35:18.159
You put money in, you get something out.
00:35:18.320 --> 00:35:21.360
What happens when you put money in and nothing happens?
00:35:21.599 --> 00:35:26.320
You start to get pissed off, like where's my mu where's my whatever, my Diet Coke?
00:35:26.480 --> 00:35:28.480
And this is what the extinction burst is.
00:35:28.559 --> 00:35:53.360
When something stops paying off, you can have emotional behavior, and it is a huge trap for kids if all of a sudden you just say, you know what, you're not doing this, and thinking that nothing's gonna happen, the kids are gonna uh start having all of these extinction-related behaviors, and it could get pretty ugly pretty quick.
00:35:53.760 --> 00:35:54.239
Mm-hmm.
00:35:54.800 --> 00:35:55.840
Really good point.
00:35:56.000 --> 00:36:00.079
Uh, that brings us to the next one is if screens are free somewhere else.
00:36:00.320 --> 00:36:05.599
So this kind of gets kind of back to this idea of the especially if you're using screens as reinforcement.
00:36:05.760 --> 00:36:18.239
This is more like, you know, if if you're using screens as reinforcement, we talked about this with the token economy last week, where if you know you're using somebody's reinforcement, but the kids can get it free somewhere else, it's going to diminish that reinforcement power.
00:36:18.480 --> 00:36:38.559
And so if, you know, you say your kid can only have five minutes of screen time, but they go to their grandparents' house or maybe their dad's house or mom's house, and they get unlimited access to screens, it's going to diminish your behavioral kind of control or um plan that you're trying to implement around the screen time with your kid in your setting.
00:36:38.960 --> 00:36:39.360
Yeah.
00:36:39.599 --> 00:36:41.039
Here's another mistake.
00:36:41.280 --> 00:36:46.800
Threatening kids that they're going to lose their screens if they don't do X.
00:36:47.599 --> 00:36:48.960
Hey, stop doing that.
00:36:49.119 --> 00:36:50.880
I'm going to take your tablet away.
00:36:51.119 --> 00:36:57.920
Anytime you start threatening, those are not good relationship builders.
00:36:58.239 --> 00:37:04.400
And frankly, again, what can happen is kids will call you out on that and they'll do the behavior.
00:37:04.559 --> 00:37:13.280
And if you keep threatening and threatening, and then after the fifth time, you know, you have this high tolerance level for what the kids are doing.
00:37:13.599 --> 00:37:24.719
You're just teaching your children that number one, your threats don't mean what they should say, what you think that they mean, and there's not going to be a consequence for that.
00:37:24.880 --> 00:37:28.719
And number two, uh, there's not a better way to behave.
00:37:29.119 --> 00:37:51.519
When there are screen timed and kids can earn them with their behavior, that's a much better way to go about this than if they're having trouble starting to use this as a threat and or if they're engaging in a behavior using that screen as a way to threaten them.
00:37:52.079 --> 00:37:52.559
Mm-hmm.
00:37:53.519 --> 00:38:09.760
Yeah, and using the like we don't want to take screens away, um, as you said, and with you know, uh during like a threat behavior, and we also we want to make sure that if we take away something, um, we add a replacement behavior to it.
00:38:09.840 --> 00:38:22.159
And we discussed this early in their episode, but just to loop that back in is that we want to make sure that if we take away this screen time for a learner, that we give them something else to replace it with.
00:38:22.400 --> 00:38:26.800
So we don't just take the tablet away and leave them in a room by themselves.
00:38:26.960 --> 00:38:42.159
We help them redirect to maybe a puzzle or playing with their brother, brother or sister outside, or maybe just hanging out with your with the mom and dad or caregiver, um, something else to kind of do in the place of the behavior of screen time.
00:38:42.559 --> 00:38:42.719
Yeah.
00:38:43.039 --> 00:38:50.159
Last mistake I'll discuss is when parents, one parent does one thing and another parent does another thing.
00:38:50.320 --> 00:38:57.440
There is nothing worse than to kill a plan than when you have inconsistency between the parents.
00:38:57.760 --> 00:39:01.440
If one parent's, we talked about the charging station.
00:39:01.599 --> 00:39:07.039
Let's say the one parent says, look, you have to follow this rule, charge your phone out here.
00:39:07.199 --> 00:39:09.920
But the other parents, like, ah, it's okay, go ahead and do it.
00:39:10.159 --> 00:39:11.760
What does that teach the kid?
00:39:11.920 --> 00:39:14.960
The kid is going to be going back and forth with these parents.
00:39:15.119 --> 00:39:28.400
They're not going to have clear rules, they'll be upset with the one parent that's trying to follow the rules, and the other parent that thinks they're being the good person by being friendly or whatever they're doing it, it just creates a mess.
00:39:28.639 --> 00:39:37.679
So make sure as a family that when you have these rules and these plans that you stick to them and you're consistent.
00:39:37.920 --> 00:39:49.360
Because even though there'll be some hard times in the long run, if your plan's working and you're collecting data on this and you see this working, it will benefit you and it'll benefit the child.
00:39:49.679 --> 00:39:50.159
Mm-hmm.
00:39:50.800 --> 00:39:56.079
And the last mistake that we see is that the rules don't grow as your child grows.
00:39:56.320 --> 00:40:06.079
So the agreements that you might make when your child is five or six years old is going to be very different than the agreements that you make around screen time when they're 15 or 16 years old.
00:40:06.320 --> 00:40:11.679
So just keep that in mind and make sure to reevaluate your the plan as your child ages.
00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:12.400
Yeah.
00:40:12.719 --> 00:40:15.599
There's so much that is involved with screens.
00:40:15.760 --> 00:40:19.920
We could spend an hour talking about all of this.
00:40:20.320 --> 00:40:22.480
There's all sorts of concerns.
00:40:22.719 --> 00:40:34.960
There are, I would say, if you find that your child's really having some serious issues, this is a time where it's okay to consult with other people.
00:40:35.519 --> 00:40:42.559
There are child psychologists, there's behavior analysts, even pediatricians that understand the principles that we're talking about.
00:40:42.960 --> 00:40:47.199
And there are kids that sometimes will have anxiety issues.
00:40:47.440 --> 00:40:51.679
There are some children that really have real attention issues.
00:40:51.840 --> 00:40:53.360
There could be some mood concerns.
00:40:53.760 --> 00:41:02.880
If you find that your child's having these issues, you can understand that you you're not alone, you can ask other people for help.
00:41:03.039 --> 00:41:08.639
But in the meantime, what we've talked about, all these behavioral principles, they work.
00:41:09.280 --> 00:41:18.800
They work because we as humans respond, you know, we live with these behavioral principles every single day of our lives.
00:41:19.119 --> 00:41:45.519
And understanding what these screens do, the negative things that they can do, how you can handle that, all of that is going to be something that if you work on a specific plan for screens, if your child has a problem, you can turn it around and you can make things much better for the child and much better for your family.
00:41:46.960 --> 00:41:48.639
Yeah, that's so well said.
00:41:49.039 --> 00:41:52.159
Um I know we had to go m I have to grab my daughter real quick.
00:41:52.400 --> 00:41:52.639
Yeah, yeah.
00:41:53.119 --> 00:41:53.599
Hold on.
00:41:55.199 --> 00:41:55.679
Hello.
00:41:57.920 --> 00:41:58.239
Okay.
00:41:58.719 --> 00:41:59.360
No problem.
00:41:59.519 --> 00:42:00.719
Uh poor little thing.
00:42:01.039 --> 00:42:02.239
She just needed her mom.
00:42:02.960 --> 00:42:05.840
Yeah, she was she was uh I I she woke up.
00:42:06.079 --> 00:42:09.360
We do these podcasts during uh uh during her nap time.
00:42:09.440 --> 00:42:14.559
So let me give everyone a little homework assignment if you're interested.
00:42:15.440 --> 00:42:21.519
This week just pick one antecedent that you could change.
00:42:21.679 --> 00:42:26.880
Maybe it's the charging station that we talked about, and see what happens.
00:42:27.119 --> 00:42:28.159
Very simple.
00:42:28.320 --> 00:42:34.400
You know, you can uh don't make a huge deal about it, but try it and see what effect it has.
00:42:34.480 --> 00:42:38.480
And if you find that it's working, then hey, you can try some other things.
00:42:38.800 --> 00:42:39.599
Yeah, that's great.
00:42:39.679 --> 00:42:47.920
I think that making a plan, talking with your spouse, figuring out what works for your family is really what what will help to address this.
00:42:48.079 --> 00:42:53.280
And as you said, you know, some kids, they this is not a normal problem from them.
00:42:53.360 --> 00:42:56.159
This is something that they're gonna need professional help with to address.
00:42:56.400 --> 00:42:58.960
And that's when you when you rope in the BCBAs.
00:42:59.199 --> 00:43:03.519
But for most cases, parents can address this with the right behavioral principles.
00:43:04.159 --> 00:43:04.800
Yeah.
00:43:05.199 --> 00:43:07.440
Well, that brings us to the end of the pod.
00:43:08.559 --> 00:43:12.880
Thank you all for hanging out with us as we help build better humans.
00:43:13.519 --> 00:43:15.280
We'll see you next week.
00:00:04.959 --> 00:00:07.440
Welcome back to the Starborn Parenting Podcast.
00:00:07.519 --> 00:00:08.480
I'm Rick Abina.
00:00:09.039 --> 00:00:10.720
And I'm Madeline Jurgensen.
00:00:11.759 --> 00:00:12.480
Madeline.
00:00:12.960 --> 00:00:19.519
We're going to talk about something that I know is such an issue for so many families.
00:00:19.760 --> 00:00:29.679
Every time I go to Reddit or Facebook, and there's these parenting groups, it's almost like the number one thing: screen time.
00:00:30.800 --> 00:00:34.560
All of these parents are having these issues with screen times.
00:00:34.880 --> 00:00:37.920
And uh there was a Surgeon General report that came out.
00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:44.320
I don't know if you had a chance to read this, but they labeled screen time as a public health crisis.
00:00:44.479 --> 00:00:55.679
They had this huge PDF, great figures, and they ask all of these important questions, but this is a five-alarm fire with no hose.
00:00:56.640 --> 00:00:59.840
Yeah, and it don't doesn't seem to be getting any better over the years either.
00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:08.239
Like we've you know, we saw it sort of start in, you know, was it 10, 15, 20 years now, and it's um it's just grown as popularity.
00:01:08.400 --> 00:01:18.000
I've seen a bit of a decrease with my peers who are in like early 30s, but it's um yeah, it's it's really tragic for the kids that get voked into it.
00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:25.040
Well, there it's it's this iPad kid generation, and everyone's talking about it.
00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:37.200
Teachers, psychologists, and you know, they'll describe these kids who can't go for more than 60 seconds without, hey, I need a screen, I need something to do.
00:01:37.519 --> 00:01:40.319
And I see this when I go to restaurants.
00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:54.239
I will be at my table with who whoever I am, and I'll look over and I'll see a family, and sure enough, there's a parent, and the kids will be on the parents' phone, or they just bring the iPad in.
00:01:54.640 --> 00:01:56.560
It is a big issue.
00:01:56.799 --> 00:01:59.920
And in this episode, let's talk about it.
00:02:00.079 --> 00:02:18.000
Let's talk about this through the lens of behavior science, and just say right now at the beginning, we're not gonna guilt trip anybody who's using screens, we're not gonna give you the magic number, like, oh, if you do X amount of time, that's great for you.
00:02:18.240 --> 00:02:23.439
Because there is no magic number out there, and that's really the wrong question to ask.
00:02:23.680 --> 00:02:33.680
So let's talk about the behavior science, and we we will discuss uh why are these screens out compete everything?
00:02:33.840 --> 00:02:35.360
Why are they so addictive?
00:02:35.520 --> 00:02:40.000
What's some of the research tell us it is doing in terms of uh damage?
00:02:40.240 --> 00:02:50.000
And sadly, this does damage with mental health, it also does damage physically, if you can believe that, uh, which you probably can.
00:02:50.159 --> 00:02:54.960
How do you build a screen plan for your for your family, for your home?
00:02:55.199 --> 00:03:04.080
And you know, what are some mistakes that parents might make when they're trying to help with this screen time, but yet it's it's a war.
00:03:05.280 --> 00:03:14.400
So let's start off by talking about this first section, and that is why do these screens win?
00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:18.639
When you think about screen time, what's the first thing you think about?
00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:21.599
Passive entertainment.
00:03:22.400 --> 00:03:22.879
Yes.
00:03:24.080 --> 00:03:26.800
Tons of passive entertainment.
00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:33.199
And this is something where it's not only passive, it's highly addictive.
00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:46.240
So you're right in the sense that it's passive that the kids aren't doing something active, but when people set up these screens, they are rigging them with all of these addictive features.
00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:54.319
And again, I'll use myself to talk about the the the some of the many things I'm addicted to on my phone.
00:03:54.639 --> 00:04:07.599
And when I use my phone, there's all these little things that I will engage in, and I know I'm addicted for these time frames, and if I'm not careful, like Instagram.
00:04:07.840 --> 00:04:14.960
If you're on Instagram, you swipe, you you see something funny for 30 seconds, and then oh, maybe you go two more.
00:04:15.280 --> 00:04:22.079
But the ratio of hits to misses is so high because they have these algorithms.
00:04:22.319 --> 00:04:26.800
And whatever it is you're interested in, they're just gonna keep feeding that to you.
00:04:26.959 --> 00:04:38.079
So if I happen to be interested in something funny, like a funny video of like there's this guy I follow who tells these really bad dad jokes, and you know, the joke is on him.
00:04:38.160 --> 00:04:43.120
He's like the old dad, and his sons are becoming the dad, and they're all joking around.
00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:45.360
And that just shows up on my feed.
00:04:45.680 --> 00:04:50.319
And I don't know about you, but this works like magic.
00:04:50.480 --> 00:05:10.000
All of these different things that they that these these tech folks have figured out, which comes from behavior analysis from our behavior science, they figured out how do you take these principles that we know and put it in the phone so that you can get engagement.
00:05:10.319 --> 00:05:12.240
And I put that in there quotes.
00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:28.000
Yeah, and I guess one of the first behavioral principles that I learned when I was in undergrad was this idea of the slot machine, where it's as like just like a slot machine that you see in a casino, the first pull might not get anything.
00:05:28.079 --> 00:05:37.600
The second poll might not get anything, but then third poll, you hit big and you don't know when you're gonna hit it, but you're gonna keep pulling because it's what we call the variable schedule.
00:05:37.759 --> 00:05:43.040
So your reinforcement or the good things that you get out of it hits at a variable schedule.
00:05:43.120 --> 00:05:46.720
It might not be the first, it might be the second, sometimes it's the fourth, sometimes it's the seventh.
00:05:46.879 --> 00:05:52.480
And just that unknowingness about where the next hit is gonna come gets us coming back for more.
00:05:52.639 --> 00:06:00.800
Um, just like when you're swiping on a phone, you might get something funny the first feed, and then you might have to go a couple more um you know, posts until you hit another one.
00:06:00.959 --> 00:06:03.199
But you know that if you keep going, you're gonna hit it.
00:06:03.360 --> 00:06:06.720
And you know, hours will slip away and you might not even realize it.
00:06:07.120 --> 00:06:07.600
Yeah.
00:06:07.920 --> 00:06:17.920
I am looking at uh so before this episode, I read over the Surgeon General's report, and it's a good one.
00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:30.399
But they have a glossary and they have all these different terms, and this is meant for parents and the public, and they have a term called gamble effication.
00:06:30.639 --> 00:06:43.360
And let me read this to you the integration of gambling-like mechanics, such as chance-based rewards, betting invariable ratio reinforcement into non-gambling products like video games, social media, and finance apps.
00:06:43.519 --> 00:06:46.399
So the Surgeon General is using our language.
00:06:48.240 --> 00:06:51.600
Yeah, just like you said, that is 100% right.
00:06:51.759 --> 00:06:57.120
It's variable ratio schedules, and what we know about this is like the slot machine.
00:06:57.199 --> 00:06:58.480
That's all you have to know.
00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:10.560
Your people will keep pulling that and pulling that because it's highly uh it's a behavior that's uh doesn't happen every time, and it happens on these random schedules, and it just makes you do it more and more.
00:07:10.720 --> 00:07:12.399
I mean, just think about this.
00:07:12.639 --> 00:07:17.040
These people are like, hey, I got a good idea, let's do it for kids.
00:07:17.360 --> 00:07:34.079
And okay, I get it if you're making these products for adults, but because there's no guardrails for kids, and because no, you know, the government is not coming in and again, can't blame it all on the government, but they do have a role and they're they're warning about this.
00:07:34.399 --> 00:07:39.759
And as technology has has grown, we don't have these guardrails in.
00:07:39.839 --> 00:08:04.480
And you know, certain people are trying to play catch up, but you can do all sorts of things for kids, which as a society I think we're just shooting ourselves in the foot by making these things so addictive and not introducing either legislation or some kind of guidelines that pull this back from uh what we're seeing right now.
00:08:05.680 --> 00:08:10.800
And I think the I mean the Surgeon General, as you state, is spot on.
00:08:11.040 --> 00:08:19.040
And uh one of the main things that I think is comforting to parents who might hear this is that it your kid isn't broken.
00:08:19.199 --> 00:08:24.480
They're operating exactly how they should be when you're given these type of stimuli.
00:08:24.720 --> 00:08:30.480
And so you might have your trouble, you know, we've seen this with kids where they're on a screen and they just will not get off.
00:08:30.639 --> 00:08:32.000
They are fully focused.
00:08:32.159 --> 00:08:39.440
And if you try to remove that, that reinforcement of the iPad, they will throw a tantrum like no other tantrum you've ever seen.
00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:46.960
And it's because their brains are hardwired to like this type of entertainment, this type of variable schedule of reinforcement.
00:08:47.120 --> 00:08:53.919
Uh and that's where, you know, we really see the I guess the negative sides of this much screen time with kids.
00:08:54.080 --> 00:09:05.519
But, you know, going back to that we're not trying to guilt you and and your kids not broken, they're just, you know, come become a victim of kind of this type of reinforcement schedule, which can get all of us at any point.
00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:06.799
That's it.
00:09:07.120 --> 00:09:09.360
We we should repeat this every episode.
00:09:09.519 --> 00:09:12.080
What gets rewarded gets repeated.
00:09:12.320 --> 00:09:15.840
And this is behavior that's getting rewarded.
00:09:16.320 --> 00:09:18.320
And it depends too.
00:09:18.480 --> 00:09:21.120
When we talk about screens, I guess we should have said this earlier.
00:09:21.279 --> 00:09:22.559
What do we mean by screens?
00:09:22.799 --> 00:09:34.960
When people talk about screen time, it's not just your phone, it's your iPad, it's your TV, it's any screen that's delivering content.
00:09:35.039 --> 00:09:36.720
And there's lots of it out there.
00:09:36.879 --> 00:09:39.039
There's toys that have screens.
00:09:39.360 --> 00:09:42.720
We're just surrounded by, and that's the era that we're living in.
00:09:42.799 --> 00:09:53.919
So I'm glad you pointed that out that this is just something that's naturally uh that the kids are just being a victim of these principles that people are using.
00:09:54.159 --> 00:09:58.080
Well, let's let's turn our attention to what the science says.
00:09:58.639 --> 00:10:09.919
What do we know about when you actually look at people who are saying, okay, we have kids who are using this, what are the effects?
00:10:10.240 --> 00:10:14.799
And I'd like to talk about one massive study that they did.
00:10:15.039 --> 00:10:16.720
50,000 kids.
00:10:16.960 --> 00:10:30.960
And what they found is that children that had four more four hours or more of daily screen time were 60% more like 60% more likely to show depression.
00:10:32.399 --> 00:10:47.600
Does that just not break your heart when you think about and that this is a this is a big study, and it's showing all these kids are being depressed when they're on the screen for an exorbitant amount of time?
00:10:48.639 --> 00:10:54.559
Yeah, I mean, just think about it, because it's it's not just the screen time, but it's what are they not doing instead of those four hours.
00:10:54.639 --> 00:11:01.200
Like the four hours that they're on the screens, that's time that they could be connecting with their mom or their dad or their caregiver, connecting with their friends.
00:11:01.440 --> 00:11:21.919
It could be spending time outside in the sunshine, it could be playing a sport, it could be doing some art, you know, it's it's all these times where you're just sitting and um it's I I I understand why that depression builds, because you're doing, you're taking away all the things that from the beginning of time humans have found enjoyment out of.
00:11:22.399 --> 00:11:23.039
Yeah.
00:11:23.519 --> 00:11:36.080
If we go back to our evolutionary history as we have evolved as a species, we were not being evolved with screens in mind.
00:11:36.320 --> 00:11:38.879
Just like you said, all of the things that we do.
00:11:39.039 --> 00:11:55.200
Like we live in a social world, and part of understanding in becoming a capable, competent adult is being in the social world, having conversations, telling jokes.
00:11:55.440 --> 00:12:02.480
Some of these jokes might be good, some of these might be really bad, some of these jokes might get you in trouble, but that's all part of learning.
00:12:02.720 --> 00:12:10.000
And uh you get shaped up by these rewards and punishments that happen just as you interacting with the environment.
00:12:10.159 --> 00:12:16.799
If all of a sudden you're taking a big chunk of that away, what are we doing to our kids?
00:12:16.960 --> 00:12:25.759
We're not allowing them to develop along this pathway, and their interactions can be stilted.
00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:34.559
And not just that, what is happening with the screens and what are they absorbing and how are all of these things coming together?
00:12:34.799 --> 00:12:40.559
It's it's really uh a troubling situation that we find ourselves in.
00:12:41.440 --> 00:12:45.120
Yeah, and you make a good point about like what are on these screens.
00:12:45.279 --> 00:12:55.200
And I when I was reading through the Surgeon General advisory, it's they never mention any exact number of like, okay, this is how much, this is how little that you should be getting.
00:12:55.360 --> 00:12:59.759
And that kind of cuts back to the point of like, we don't really know what is on these screens.
00:12:59.919 --> 00:13:12.399
It could be a video call with grandma or grandpa or some family member, or you could be, you know, building on Minecraft, or you could just be scrolling with autoplay on on, you know, YouTube or something.
00:13:12.480 --> 00:13:18.879
And those are gonna have very different types of effects than you know, uh uh to one another.
00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:27.360
Like for instance, with the video calls with a family member, you're not gonna get that variable schedule reinforcement because it's just you're just talking to somebody.
00:13:27.519 --> 00:13:31.679
Um, so it's much different than if you're just doom scrolling or something.
00:13:32.399 --> 00:13:33.039
Yeah.
00:13:33.919 --> 00:13:41.360
There were some other nice figures, well, nice in the sense that they're visually appealing.
00:13:41.600 --> 00:13:49.600
One of them that I'm looking at now, it showed screen time over the young adult lifetime.
00:13:49.840 --> 00:13:52.000
And it starts off with under two.
00:13:52.639 --> 00:13:54.000
It's like an hour.
00:13:54.240 --> 00:14:00.879
When they when they do this research, this descriptive research, and they look at how many hours are are kids engaging in.
00:14:01.200 --> 00:14:05.679
Babies, kids who just came into the world up to two years old.
00:14:05.840 --> 00:14:08.879
Like these are these are kids don't even have uh language.
00:14:09.120 --> 00:14:13.360
Like some of them might be saying a word or two, but that's a really young age.
00:14:13.519 --> 00:14:15.360
They're getting an hour of screen time.
00:14:15.519 --> 00:14:18.639
I don't even know what they're watching, to be frank uh with you.
00:14:18.799 --> 00:14:22.399
Uh kids between two and four, they're getting two hours.
00:14:22.639 --> 00:14:26.639
Kids who are five to eight, they're getting about three point five hours.
00:14:26.799 --> 00:14:30.639
Kids eight to twelve, they're getting four and a half hours.
00:14:30.799 --> 00:14:34.799
Kids 13 to 18, uh eight hours.
00:14:35.120 --> 00:14:43.759
These numbers, when you look at uh how much time they're engaging, this is average daily screen time.
00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:58.399
Average daily screen time that increases as kids grow up, but just those those numbers are incredibly frightening because if, like to your point, there's there's two things that we can look at.
00:14:58.559 --> 00:14:59.840
What are they being exposed to?
00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:06.799
Number one, but number two, more importantly, all the things that they're missing out on, which this is just not accounting for.
00:15:07.039 --> 00:15:14.559
So that is just something that if we haven't convinced you, screen time is a serious issue.
00:15:14.720 --> 00:15:19.679
And if you do, if you are dealing with screen time issues, we don't have to convince you, you already know this.
00:15:20.320 --> 00:15:28.720
Yeah, which I'm guessing if you're listening to this podcast episode or queuing into behavior and parenting, you probably uh are experiencing this in your home.
00:15:28.799 --> 00:15:30.159
So yeah.
00:15:30.879 --> 00:15:32.639
Well, it's troubling.
00:15:32.960 --> 00:15:36.720
It is scary what we're finding.
00:15:36.960 --> 00:15:40.480
You know, we could keep on talking about all the things that are happening.
00:15:40.639 --> 00:15:45.120
Like another thing that I'll just wrap that last section up is cyberbullying.
00:15:45.360 --> 00:15:48.879
Five out of ten teenagers are cyberbullied.
00:15:49.200 --> 00:15:50.159
Think about that.
00:15:50.399 --> 00:15:53.440
Half of the kids that go online are cyberbullied.
00:15:53.759 --> 00:16:04.879
And bullying in general, you know, cyberbullying means your kids being bullied online, they're still being bullied, and we don't even have to go into all of the negative effects of being bullied.
00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:07.200
Like that has its own thing.
00:16:07.440 --> 00:16:18.399
So just together, if you have screens, you can figure out how do we make screens happen less.
00:16:19.039 --> 00:16:22.960
Again, you don't have to completely take them away 100%.
00:16:23.840 --> 00:16:51.600
Some people do do that, but depending on your as a parent, depending on how you raise your kids and what you see is reasonable, there are some guidelines out there, and again, these are guidelines, they're not magic numbers, but the Surgeon General, and I'll just report them as an authoritative source, they suggest that if you are between if you're under 18 months, no screen time.
00:16:52.080 --> 00:16:57.519
If you're less, if you're uh six and under, less than one hour a day.
00:16:57.840 --> 00:17:01.120
Six to eighteen, two hours a day for kids.
00:17:01.279 --> 00:17:08.960
So these numbers are uh it's a start, but these are just suggested guidelines.
00:17:09.599 --> 00:17:13.599
And as a parent, you would need to come up with your own rules.
00:17:13.759 --> 00:17:17.039
But those seem uh reasonable to me.
00:17:17.359 --> 00:17:24.559
I don't know what you think about those numbers, but you could make them work or you could come up with your own.
00:17:25.440 --> 00:17:29.279
Yeah, I wonder if they calculate it in the amount of screen time that kids get in schools.
00:17:29.440 --> 00:17:38.000
I'm I I don't know how much kids are getting these days, but um I'm I'm curious if they calculate that in or if that's uh just screen time at home.
00:17:38.400 --> 00:17:39.759
That's a good that's a good point.
00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:51.599
I'm gonna guess if the Surgeon General is saying this to parents, they're probably not calculating what happens at school, assuming that the things that happen at school are all educational.
00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:59.279
If there's a screen and hey, let's watch a movie on a documentary on whatever.
00:17:59.519 --> 00:18:00.240
I'm guessing.
00:18:00.400 --> 00:18:04.480
But that's a good that's a good thing that we can follow up on and look at.
00:18:05.039 --> 00:18:11.920
Well, let's talk about ways that we can make some changes.
00:18:12.240 --> 00:18:17.680
Number one, you've mentioned this quite a few times, and now I'll repeat it too.
00:18:17.920 --> 00:18:22.400
It's redesigning the environment with antecedents.
00:18:22.960 --> 00:18:31.279
You will recall that things that happened before the behavior are very easy moves to make.
00:18:31.680 --> 00:18:56.480
They can help proactively stop some of these issues before they ever start and redesigning the environment and looking at here's some things that happened beforehand, let's work on changing that, and then maybe we can cut out a lot of this behavior in a very gentle way.
00:18:56.880 --> 00:19:03.839
With, for example, if you have a charging station outside of a bedroom, that's great.
00:19:04.079 --> 00:19:21.680
Have the kids charge their devices outside of the room so that way, for example, when they're in bed, there's not some enticement to pull out the phone and stay up until 12 o'clock at night talking with your friends or doing whatever you're doing.
00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:25.599
Very easy, simple first step with an antecedent.
00:19:26.960 --> 00:19:29.279
Yeah, I really like the idea of having charging station.
00:19:29.359 --> 00:19:33.680
I've worked with several families that have installed those, and it's been it worked out really well.
00:19:33.839 --> 00:19:39.519
Like it often they will be in like the kitchen, like some common area that the parents can kind of keep an eye on.
00:19:39.920 --> 00:19:45.920
And it's uh, you know, the kids just come home, they put their devices in, or maybe a drawer that has a charging stick inside.
00:19:46.079 --> 00:19:46.240
Yeah.
00:19:46.480 --> 00:19:49.680
And even so it's out of mind, out of sight, out of mind.
00:19:49.920 --> 00:19:51.039
Um, but yeah.
00:19:51.200 --> 00:20:00.960
Yeah, the the I remember when I got my first cell phone when I was in middle school, I think, and I would stay up so long, just like texting friends.
00:20:01.039 --> 00:20:10.720
Like it didn't even have like social media at the time, because it was before that time, but and now with like a newborn keeping me up, I'm like, why did I ever give up those hours of sleep at night?
00:20:11.680 --> 00:20:12.240
Yeah.
00:20:13.119 --> 00:20:16.319
I would love if I could just copy and paste those and get them now.
00:20:17.119 --> 00:20:23.839
Uh well, here's another simple rule you can engage in no screens at the the table.
00:20:24.160 --> 00:20:27.119
You're eating dinner, no screens.
00:20:27.519 --> 00:20:35.519
And I have seen parents, I've seen families that when they eat dinner, everyone has their own screen up.
00:20:36.880 --> 00:20:42.400
Super easy antecedent rule where you say beforehand, and that just cuts down.
00:20:42.640 --> 00:20:47.200
And what are the benefits of having a family dinner?
00:20:47.440 --> 00:20:53.839
Connecting with your kids, uh telling jokes, enjoying each other's company.
00:20:54.160 --> 00:20:59.039
Those are rewards that can compete with the screens.
00:20:59.119 --> 00:21:10.640
If you set it up where, okay, everyone, as you're eating, you need to be entertained and you watch your favorite video or whatever you're doing, you can just you have a new rule.
00:21:10.799 --> 00:21:13.680
That happens before this behavior ever starts.
00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:16.640
Very simple way to create a win.
00:21:17.039 --> 00:21:25.920
Yeah, I I really think it's worth restating the fact that when your phones are not at the table, that offers more connection, more opportunities for connection.
00:21:26.079 --> 00:21:28.400
And you'll hear this as we talk in this podcast.
00:21:28.480 --> 00:21:42.960
This is something we bring up time and time again is that you know, behavior analysis, having kids that are regulated and happy and in sync with the whole family dynamics are gonna create more opportunities for engagement and connection.
00:21:43.039 --> 00:21:57.680
And that's what really drives happy children, happy parents is building, fostering um a dynamics where you want to hang out with your kids, where you want to hang out with your parents because you enjoy your company and you won't get that if you're always just staring at your phone.
00:21:58.079 --> 00:21:58.480
Yeah.
00:21:59.039 --> 00:22:06.960
I suppose One last rule, which would be similar to the very first one that I talked about with the charging stations kind of getting at that.
00:22:07.279 --> 00:22:13.200
You can just say the devices are going to be in these spaces.
00:22:13.359 --> 00:22:16.640
In these other spaces, no, you can't have them.
00:22:16.799 --> 00:22:23.440
So we already talked about the kitchen table, but you could also say, you know, when you go to bed, no devices in there.
00:22:23.599 --> 00:22:28.799
Of course, it'd probably be easier just to have your charging station somewhere out and say, hey, we're going to charge.
00:22:29.119 --> 00:22:33.279
But you could just say there are no uh devices there.
00:22:33.519 --> 00:22:40.480
And anywhere else that that makes sense, you can then have that set up as a rule.
00:22:40.640 --> 00:22:48.480
And I'll tell you, I was spending time with a teenager uh not too long ago.
00:22:48.799 --> 00:23:00.319
And this teenager, when we were in this group setting, and we were going to a movie, this teenager was incredibly addicted to the phone.
00:23:00.480 --> 00:23:04.799
So we're in the car going to this movie whole time.
00:23:05.759 --> 00:23:06.799
Right on the phone.
00:23:07.039 --> 00:23:08.640
No conversation with me.
00:23:08.799 --> 00:23:15.519
You know, we we we got out, we talked a little bit, got some things before the movie on the phone.
00:23:15.759 --> 00:23:25.119
And it really saddened me on the one hand, and on the other hand, it kind of bothered me because it seemed like this kid was being rude.
00:23:25.279 --> 00:23:37.279
But when you think about it from a behavioral perspective, what that meant with the way I interpret it is there are more rewarding things going on with this phone than there are with me.
00:23:37.519 --> 00:23:38.960
And I can understand that.
00:23:39.119 --> 00:23:49.759
I'm not going to take that personally, but this is all the fun things that this young man was getting lived on his phone, and I just wasn't enough to compete with that.
00:23:50.079 --> 00:23:57.039
So as an antecedent rule, maybe you say, look, when we are in the car, no phones, or whatever.
00:23:57.200 --> 00:24:00.960
You make those rules, but this is good behavior science.
00:24:01.119 --> 00:24:01.759
It works.
00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:08.240
You set up these antecedent rules, and you can help cut that behavior off before it ever begins.
00:24:08.640 --> 00:24:09.039
Mm-hmm.
00:24:09.279 --> 00:24:13.519
And that kind of rolls into the next part we want to talk about was replacement behaviors.
00:24:13.680 --> 00:24:19.759
And we talked about this before is that if you ever remove a behavior, you have to put another behavior in its place.
00:24:20.079 --> 00:24:25.680
Because when you remove a behavior, you're going to create a vacuum and something is going to fill it.
00:24:25.839 --> 00:24:30.880
So you want to be the one to help fill that hole with something that's healthy, quote unquote.
00:24:31.119 --> 00:24:36.720
So instead of doing screen time, you could um go out to the park, do something outside.
00:24:36.799 --> 00:24:46.559
I personally, I think that's probably one of the easiest ways to kind of get a child out of the rut behavior of just the going in their screens, for instance, like after they come from school.
00:24:46.960 --> 00:24:54.720
And the reason why I like going outside is because it kind of goes into what you mentioned earlier about how there's places for screens and places without screens.
00:24:54.880 --> 00:25:04.319
And we kind of all understand that if you go to the park or you're, you know, playing soccer in the backyard with your parent, that's not a time you're going to be looking at your phone.
00:25:04.480 --> 00:25:21.119
And so it's much easier for the child to kind of resist that temptation to look at their phone if they're actively engaged in something physical outside, kicking a ball, climbing a ladder, um, you know, throwing a ball, something with their whole bodies involved in it.
00:25:21.519 --> 00:25:22.000
Yeah.
00:25:22.319 --> 00:25:24.319
I love that suggestion.
00:25:24.480 --> 00:25:31.440
There are so many things you could do aside from like being being outside, great.
00:25:31.839 --> 00:25:34.799
In at my age, I'm a Gen Xer.
00:25:35.039 --> 00:25:41.359
There are all these memes that people are proud to say on Facebook, like, oh, you know, we didn't have this, we did this.
00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:42.559
And that's just one of those.
00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:44.000
Every generation does this.
00:25:44.160 --> 00:25:49.200
They always show how they're the greatest generation, and every other generation sucks.
00:25:49.359 --> 00:25:50.000
I get it.
00:25:50.240 --> 00:25:53.359
We people do that, and that happens in my generation.
00:25:53.440 --> 00:25:54.960
But one of these things is very true.
00:25:55.119 --> 00:25:58.079
Like they'll show uh these, and I remember this.
00:25:58.240 --> 00:26:06.319
You would go out on the playground, and they had these playground things that were actually really dangerous.
00:26:06.559 --> 00:26:33.039
Like they had these things that would spin around, kind of like think about a merry-go-round, but it was just this circle, and then there were these bars, and you would stay on that, and then you just start going around fast, and then like you're hanging, it's like centrifugal force, and your feet are hanging out, and you know, the the those things people were proud of that there they were outside for all this time, so these screens weren't an issue.
00:26:33.200 --> 00:26:45.359
But now that these screens are there and these tech companies are doing all these things to addict people, uh you can look at all these other things that we as humans can find great joy doing outdoors.
00:26:45.519 --> 00:26:48.640
Again, you don't need to do something really nuts like that.
00:26:48.799 --> 00:26:53.200
There are some uh other fun things you can do, but I I love that suggestion.
00:26:53.359 --> 00:26:57.519
And I think uh even games, like play games, play puzzles.
00:26:57.680 --> 00:27:01.680
There's so much to do out there other than these screens.
00:27:02.319 --> 00:27:04.640
Yeah, I I think the game is a great one.
00:27:04.720 --> 00:27:12.000
I uh I have a number of friends who they do family game nights every night after they put the dishes away after dinner.
00:27:12.160 --> 00:27:14.640
They get the board games out, they get the cards out.
00:27:14.720 --> 00:27:21.279
Um, and my husband and I do that as well because when the kids go to bed, we have about an hour or so before I go to bed.
00:27:21.440 --> 00:27:27.119
And so uh that time can be easily spent just like on our phones if we're not careful.
00:27:27.279 --> 00:27:32.880
And every now and then we realize that we've gotten kind of into a rut, and then we'll take out a board game instead.
00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:35.759
So we just actually just started an exit game last night.
00:27:35.839 --> 00:27:36.880
And those are really fun.
00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:39.200
I highly recommend them if no one's ever tried them.
00:27:39.279 --> 00:27:47.920
It's like a box, and you have to do some sort of like sequence of puzzles to get to the end, and you have to kind of destroy the and destroy the game as you go.
00:27:48.079 --> 00:27:50.079
So they're cheap, but they're really fun.
00:27:50.240 --> 00:27:57.359
Uh, and that's a good way to like connect, recharge at the end of the day, and you're not just like, you know, scroll in.
00:27:58.000 --> 00:27:59.599
I did not know about these.
00:27:59.680 --> 00:28:04.000
I'm gonna have to look into that and bring it up with my grandkids because that sounds like a lot of fun.
00:28:04.400 --> 00:28:05.599
Yeah, they're fantastic.
00:28:05.680 --> 00:28:06.960
They have them for all different age groups.
00:28:07.039 --> 00:28:12.160
The exit game brand is is is one that we really like, but they come in all different types.
00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:12.960
Oh.
00:28:13.839 --> 00:28:23.440
Well, let's talk about one other thing that you could do, which is you can make screen time earned instead of just saying, you know what, you have it whenever.
00:28:23.759 --> 00:28:31.599
Last episode, you and I talked about token economies, and we talked about all the different things that kids can earn.
00:28:31.920 --> 00:28:36.960
Have your children through their behavior earning screen time.
00:28:37.119 --> 00:28:42.160
And I know parents that do this with YouTube, and it works really well.
00:28:42.319 --> 00:28:54.240
Like uh these parent friends of mine, they have a uh fifth grader, and the fifth grader would just like watch roadblocks and all these other videos.
00:28:54.400 --> 00:29:06.559
There's just so many videos that are so intriguing for kids that are on YouTube, and it's it's way more addictive than uh these other behaviors that these kids might be engaging in.
00:29:06.720 --> 00:29:13.359
So what the parents do is they say, okay, you can have 15 minutes of screen time, but you gotta do all these things.
00:29:13.519 --> 00:29:22.000
And the child engages in it, and it's great because the behaviors that they have set up for him to earn screen time are things that are good for him.
00:29:22.160 --> 00:29:25.519
And then when he does get on screen time, there's a cap to it.
00:29:25.680 --> 00:29:32.559
So it's not like you, okay, you do these five chores, and then you could watch YouTube for the rest of the night.
00:29:32.720 --> 00:29:37.680
There is a limit to how much YouTube, and if you do these five things, you get 15 minutes.
00:29:37.839 --> 00:29:40.480
Well, you do these other five things, then you could have 30 minutes.
00:29:40.559 --> 00:29:58.319
And of course, you can figure out what that ratio of behaviors that you want to see to screen times would be, but it's a really nice way of thinking about how you can use these behavioral programs to help with screen time.
00:29:59.599 --> 00:30:00.640
I really like that.
00:30:00.720 --> 00:30:05.119
And that reminds me of um a point that I wanted to mention with the screen times.
00:30:05.200 --> 00:30:10.160
You you talk about doing these screen time plans, and we'll talk more about this later.
00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:18.640
But um one tips that I've always found really useful when you're trying to get your kids off screens is to start pairing yourself with the screens before you remove them.
00:30:18.880 --> 00:30:25.680
So if your kid's playing with the screen and it's time for you know that timer to go off, that time is gonna come to an end.
00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:38.400
Sit down with them and try to engage with them with the screen so that then when it ends, you're kind of there to help them with the transition instead of it just like ending abruptly, especially if this is new to them.
00:30:39.039 --> 00:30:39.359
Yeah.
00:30:39.599 --> 00:30:53.440
I guess to wrap up talking about screen time and earning it, you know, we've discussed several times that if you're using rewards, it's not the same as bribing someone.
00:30:54.000 --> 00:30:55.279
Here would be a bribe.
00:30:55.440 --> 00:31:02.720
You have someone who maybe is upset about something and you say, hey, if you calm down, I'll I'll give you this.
00:31:02.880 --> 00:31:08.319
You know, you were you're dangling something, you're trying to get someone to do something.
00:31:08.720 --> 00:31:19.599
Where if you had simple rules, instead of dangling it, you know, you uh which turns into bribes beforehand, it's about timing.
00:31:19.920 --> 00:31:27.440
If you have rules that, as in the token economy, you're engaging in five things, then the reinforcer happens.
00:31:27.759 --> 00:31:37.599
That timing is a reward versus okay, you're engaging in this behavior, I'm gonna dangle this other thing out here to get you to stop that behavior.
00:31:37.759 --> 00:31:38.799
That's a bribe.
00:31:38.960 --> 00:31:56.960
So don't bribe, but come up with these rules so that you can help set up a s uh some type of program or something that's predictable for your child so that they know what they need to do to earn that screen time.
00:31:57.279 --> 00:31:57.759
Mm-hmm.
00:31:58.160 --> 00:31:59.200
That's really good.
00:31:59.519 --> 00:32:05.119
And um, and and talking as a family to figure out what your rules are around this as well.
00:32:05.359 --> 00:32:20.400
Because you talk about like these, you know, setting up screen time plans, but you have to figure out as a family what are your rules, how much time are you gonna have, and make that decision together with your spouse or caregiver, whoever's with the child, even with the child themselves if they're able to, if they're old enough.
00:32:20.799 --> 00:32:21.440
Yeah.
00:32:22.319 --> 00:32:25.440
There's so much to be said about communication.
00:32:25.680 --> 00:32:33.519
In every relationship we have, if you have good communication, there's a great probability that you're gonna have a good relationship.
00:32:33.759 --> 00:32:37.759
And it's the same thing with the family members.
00:32:38.000 --> 00:32:43.200
If you have some kind of media arrangement, like when should you do it?
00:32:43.440 --> 00:32:44.880
Who can you do it with?
00:32:45.200 --> 00:32:48.319
When is this okay with uh all of that stuff?
00:32:48.480 --> 00:32:49.680
What can I watch?
00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:55.039
You can have the kids be part of this conversation.
00:32:55.279 --> 00:32:56.720
They can write down the rules.
00:32:56.880 --> 00:33:22.240
Maybe you have uh a whiteboard, or wherever you put this, you state what the rules are, everyone understands it, and this way of working together as a family, it just makes things clear, and that can help resolve some of the issues that might come based with these excessive screen times if you don't have this.
00:33:23.359 --> 00:33:24.000
I love that.
00:33:24.079 --> 00:33:25.359
Yeah, that hits at this point.
00:33:25.519 --> 00:33:32.559
We were going to talk about in a little bit about why screen plans don't work and the inconsistency between parents is a big one.
00:33:32.799 --> 00:33:40.880
It's if you're if there's disagreement or miscommunication between the parents, um, that can really stop a plan from working.
00:33:41.119 --> 00:33:44.799
Um the other ones are are cutting, uh going cold turkey.
00:33:44.880 --> 00:33:56.319
So if you decide, you know, listening to this episode, or you read a book, or you hear read the Surgeon General warning and you're like, my goodness, screens are so terrible, take them all away, and your kids come home from school and the screens are just gone.
00:33:56.559 --> 00:34:00.720
Probably not the best way to introduce this.
00:34:00.880 --> 00:34:05.119
So do it slowly, figure out a plan, get agreement, build it up.
00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:09.440
Um, but going cold turkey, sometimes, you know, maybe your kids are okay with it.
00:34:09.519 --> 00:34:14.559
But for the most part, especially if your kids are really addicted, probably not gonna go over so well.
00:34:15.119 --> 00:34:22.719
I can't think of any addiction that anyone has where if you just try to stop it, that there's not gonna be some serious effect afterwards.
00:34:22.960 --> 00:34:24.719
That's not the way addictions work.
00:34:24.880 --> 00:34:30.320
And let's be honest, and let's just say this again: kids are getting addicted to these screens.
00:34:30.480 --> 00:34:31.840
And you're absolutely right.
00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:42.880
If you just say, hey, today we're stopping it, maybe you as a parent have some stoicism, you know, or maybe you are just someone that could say, I'm not smoking anymore.
00:34:43.039 --> 00:34:48.239
You know, you might have that discipline, but that doesn't mean that your kids will have that discipline.
00:34:48.480 --> 00:34:53.519
And this could create all sorts of issues if this isn't handled correctly.
00:34:54.000 --> 00:34:59.920
We talk in uh our field about this term called an extinction burst.
00:35:00.079 --> 00:35:09.280
And that simply means if you have a behavior that's being rewarded across time, you just have this regularity with how this works.
00:35:09.519 --> 00:35:12.960
Let's say that uh this is something that many people can relate to.
00:35:13.039 --> 00:35:14.159
You use a vending machine.
00:35:14.320 --> 00:35:16.239
You put money in, you get something out.
00:35:16.400 --> 00:35:18.159
You put money in, you get something out.
00:35:18.320 --> 00:35:21.360
What happens when you put money in and nothing happens?
00:35:21.599 --> 00:35:26.320
You start to get pissed off, like where's my mu where's my whatever, my Diet Coke?
00:35:26.480 --> 00:35:28.480
And this is what the extinction burst is.
00:35:28.559 --> 00:35:53.360
When something stops paying off, you can have emotional behavior, and it is a huge trap for kids if all of a sudden you just say, you know what, you're not doing this, and thinking that nothing's gonna happen, the kids are gonna uh start having all of these extinction-related behaviors, and it could get pretty ugly pretty quick.
00:35:53.760 --> 00:35:54.239
Mm-hmm.
00:35:54.800 --> 00:35:55.840
Really good point.
00:35:56.000 --> 00:36:00.079
Uh, that brings us to the next one is if screens are free somewhere else.
00:36:00.320 --> 00:36:05.599
So this kind of gets kind of back to this idea of the especially if you're using screens as reinforcement.
00:36:05.760 --> 00:36:18.239
This is more like, you know, if if you're using screens as reinforcement, we talked about this with the token economy last week, where if you know you're using somebody's reinforcement, but the kids can get it free somewhere else, it's going to diminish that reinforcement power.
00:36:18.480 --> 00:36:38.559
And so if, you know, you say your kid can only have five minutes of screen time, but they go to their grandparents' house or maybe their dad's house or mom's house, and they get unlimited access to screens, it's going to diminish your behavioral kind of control or um plan that you're trying to implement around the screen time with your kid in your setting.
00:36:38.960 --> 00:36:39.360
Yeah.
00:36:39.599 --> 00:36:41.039
Here's another mistake.
00:36:41.280 --> 00:36:46.800
Threatening kids that they're going to lose their screens if they don't do X.
00:36:47.599 --> 00:36:48.960
Hey, stop doing that.
00:36:49.119 --> 00:36:50.880
I'm going to take your tablet away.
00:36:51.119 --> 00:36:57.920
Anytime you start threatening, those are not good relationship builders.
00:36:58.239 --> 00:37:04.400
And frankly, again, what can happen is kids will call you out on that and they'll do the behavior.
00:37:04.559 --> 00:37:13.280
And if you keep threatening and threatening, and then after the fifth time, you know, you have this high tolerance level for what the kids are doing.
00:37:13.599 --> 00:37:24.719
You're just teaching your children that number one, your threats don't mean what they should say, what you think that they mean, and there's not going to be a consequence for that.
00:37:24.880 --> 00:37:28.719
And number two, uh, there's not a better way to behave.
00:37:29.119 --> 00:37:51.519
When there are screen timed and kids can earn them with their behavior, that's a much better way to go about this than if they're having trouble starting to use this as a threat and or if they're engaging in a behavior using that screen as a way to threaten them.
00:37:52.079 --> 00:37:52.559
Mm-hmm.
00:37:53.519 --> 00:38:09.760
Yeah, and using the like we don't want to take screens away, um, as you said, and with you know, uh during like a threat behavior, and we also we want to make sure that if we take away something, um, we add a replacement behavior to it.
00:38:09.840 --> 00:38:22.159
And we discussed this early in their episode, but just to loop that back in is that we want to make sure that if we take away this screen time for a learner, that we give them something else to replace it with.
00:38:22.400 --> 00:38:26.800
So we don't just take the tablet away and leave them in a room by themselves.
00:38:26.960 --> 00:38:42.159
We help them redirect to maybe a puzzle or playing with their brother, brother or sister outside, or maybe just hanging out with your with the mom and dad or caregiver, um, something else to kind of do in the place of the behavior of screen time.
00:38:42.559 --> 00:38:42.719
Yeah.
00:38:43.039 --> 00:38:50.159
Last mistake I'll discuss is when parents, one parent does one thing and another parent does another thing.
00:38:50.320 --> 00:38:57.440
There is nothing worse than to kill a plan than when you have inconsistency between the parents.
00:38:57.760 --> 00:39:01.440
If one parent's, we talked about the charging station.
00:39:01.599 --> 00:39:07.039
Let's say the one parent says, look, you have to follow this rule, charge your phone out here.
00:39:07.199 --> 00:39:09.920
But the other parents, like, ah, it's okay, go ahead and do it.
00:39:10.159 --> 00:39:11.760
What does that teach the kid?
00:39:11.920 --> 00:39:14.960
The kid is going to be going back and forth with these parents.
00:39:15.119 --> 00:39:28.400
They're not going to have clear rules, they'll be upset with the one parent that's trying to follow the rules, and the other parent that thinks they're being the good person by being friendly or whatever they're doing it, it just creates a mess.
00:39:28.639 --> 00:39:37.679
So make sure as a family that when you have these rules and these plans that you stick to them and you're consistent.
00:39:37.920 --> 00:39:49.360
Because even though there'll be some hard times in the long run, if your plan's working and you're collecting data on this and you see this working, it will benefit you and it'll benefit the child.
00:39:49.679 --> 00:39:50.159
Mm-hmm.
00:39:50.800 --> 00:39:56.079
And the last mistake that we see is that the rules don't grow as your child grows.
00:39:56.320 --> 00:40:06.079
So the agreements that you might make when your child is five or six years old is going to be very different than the agreements that you make around screen time when they're 15 or 16 years old.
00:40:06.320 --> 00:40:11.679
So just keep that in mind and make sure to reevaluate your the plan as your child ages.
00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:12.400
Yeah.
00:40:12.719 --> 00:40:15.599
There's so much that is involved with screens.
00:40:15.760 --> 00:40:19.920
We could spend an hour talking about all of this.
00:40:20.320 --> 00:40:22.480
There's all sorts of concerns.
00:40:22.719 --> 00:40:34.960
There are, I would say, if you find that your child's really having some serious issues, this is a time where it's okay to consult with other people.
00:40:35.519 --> 00:40:42.559
There are child psychologists, there's behavior analysts, even pediatricians that understand the principles that we're talking about.
00:40:42.960 --> 00:40:47.199
And there are kids that sometimes will have anxiety issues.
00:40:47.440 --> 00:40:51.679
There are some children that really have real attention issues.
00:40:51.840 --> 00:40:53.360
There could be some mood concerns.
00:40:53.760 --> 00:41:02.880
If you find that your child's having these issues, you can understand that you you're not alone, you can ask other people for help.
00:41:03.039 --> 00:41:08.639
But in the meantime, what we've talked about, all these behavioral principles, they work.
00:41:09.280 --> 00:41:18.800
They work because we as humans respond, you know, we live with these behavioral principles every single day of our lives.
00:41:19.119 --> 00:41:45.519
And understanding what these screens do, the negative things that they can do, how you can handle that, all of that is going to be something that if you work on a specific plan for screens, if your child has a problem, you can turn it around and you can make things much better for the child and much better for your family.
00:41:46.960 --> 00:41:48.639
Yeah, that's so well said.
00:41:49.039 --> 00:41:52.159
Um I know we had to go m I have to grab my daughter real quick.
00:41:52.400 --> 00:41:52.639
Yeah, yeah.
00:41:53.119 --> 00:41:53.599
Hold on.
00:41:55.199 --> 00:41:55.679
Hello.
00:41:57.920 --> 00:41:58.239
Okay.
00:41:58.719 --> 00:41:59.360
No problem.
00:41:59.519 --> 00:42:00.719
Uh poor little thing.
00:42:01.039 --> 00:42:02.239
She just needed her mom.
00:42:02.960 --> 00:42:05.840
Yeah, she was she was uh I I she woke up.
00:42:06.079 --> 00:42:09.360
We do these podcasts during uh uh during her nap time.
00:42:09.440 --> 00:42:14.559
So let me give everyone a little homework assignment if you're interested.
00:42:15.440 --> 00:42:21.519
This week just pick one antecedent that you could change.
00:42:21.679 --> 00:42:26.880
Maybe it's the charging station that we talked about, and see what happens.
00:42:27.119 --> 00:42:28.159
Very simple.
00:42:28.320 --> 00:42:34.400
You know, you can uh don't make a huge deal about it, but try it and see what effect it has.
00:42:34.480 --> 00:42:38.480
And if you find that it's working, then hey, you can try some other things.
00:42:38.800 --> 00:42:39.599
Yeah, that's great.
00:42:39.679 --> 00:42:47.920
I think that making a plan, talking with your spouse, figuring out what works for your family is really what what will help to address this.
00:42:48.079 --> 00:42:53.280
And as you said, you know, some kids, they this is not a normal problem from them.
00:42:53.360 --> 00:42:56.159
This is something that they're gonna need professional help with to address.
00:42:56.400 --> 00:42:58.960
And that's when you when you rope in the BCBAs.
00:42:59.199 --> 00:43:03.519
But for most cases, parents can address this with the right behavioral principles.
00:43:04.159 --> 00:43:04.800
Yeah.
00:43:05.199 --> 00:43:07.440
Well, that brings us to the end of the pod.
00:43:08.559 --> 00:43:12.880
Thank you all for hanging out with us as we help build better humans.
00:43:13.519 --> 00:43:15.280
We'll see you next week.
