Four reasons I kept screens out of my kid’s bedroom and bathroom

Why should we keep screens out of our kid’s bedroom and bathroom? Mandy explains four reasons this was a guideline for her own kids and why she continues to recommend it to keep kids safe. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Next Talk and bedroom rules
• 1:42 Preventing nude photos and pornography access
• 5:30 Better sleep and protection from online predators
• 9:06 Adapting rules as children mature
• 11:27 Walker's Promise and implementing boundaries

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Next Talk podcast. We are a nonprofit passionate about keeping kids safe online. We're learning together how to navigate tech, culture and faith with our kids. Today, I'm going to discuss four reasons why I have chosen to keep screens out of my kids' bedrooms and bathrooms. Now I am defining screens as anything with an internet connection, so that means phones, tablets, tvs, computers, xboxes, those sorts of things until they reach a certain age. Okay, so generally, when they're young, there's no screens in bedrooms or bathrooms, and I want to walk you through these four key reasons. I would love for you to hang for all four of them, and I want you to consider maybe considering this a new guideline for your home as well.

Speaker 1: 0:53

For those of you who may followed our story from the beginning, you know how old our kids, but if you're new here, my kids right now are 17 and 21. Obviously, the 21 year old she's out of the house, she's building a life, she's graduated from college, all of those things. My 17-year-old still lives at home, but our whole next hop journey started when my kids were five and nine. Back then, all those years ago, nobody had this boundary in place. One one day I kind of stumbled upon it, and it was like a light bulb moment for me that, oh my goodness, I shouldn't allow phones, particularly in the bathroom, this moment, and so this kind of goes into my point number one as to why I don't allow screens in bedrooms or bathrooms. So number one is because of nude photos, and let me talk to you about this teachable moment that I stumbled upon. So when my son was five. You know, we were just starting on this journey and I was trying to figure out, like okay, how do I keep them safe in a digital world? Back then, my kids neither one of them had phones. How do I keep them safe in a digital world? Back then, my kids neither one of them had phones, but we did have a family iPad where they would play games and stuff, and one day he had walked in on me and I was changing which was normal, right, but little kids do that. But old Mandy would have been like get out of here, Like give me a minute, let me get changed. New Mandy, though, like I had been doing all this research, and back then the big thing was nude photos. All kinds of kids were sharing nude photos, and it was kind of new on the horizon and I had been talking to a lot of families and kids and doing research on nude photos.

Speaker 1: 2:38

Well, in this moment of a five-year-old walking in and I'm undressed, my mind went to all this nude photo stuff that I was, the research that I was doing, and I remember thinking, oh, my goodness, here's a teachable moment. And so I put my robe on and I said to my son hey, bubba, that iPad, it takes pictures, but we never take pictures of people without clothes on. Like what if you accidentally would have taken a picture of mommy without clothes on? So from now on we're just not going to bring the iPad into the bathroom, like there's no need for it, because in the bathroom we're changing, we're taking a bath, we're going to the bathroom, like normally we're not clothed, so we really need to not bring cameras when we're undressing. And that was kind of a light bulb parenting moment for me, because I was researching all these cases and talking to all these families where their kids had shared nude photos and some of them were being prosecuted and everything back then. That was like happening and I remember just thinking, um, god showed me here how to plant a seed in my five-year-old about nude photos without overexposing him to big, scary content. So from immediately that point on, we had no phones in bathrooms. That was like a turning point for us. The other thing is we added on the bedroom thing because I got to working more cases, and so one is you're going to protect your kid from nude photos because it really will create a boundary in their mind that they shouldn't be taking pictures of body parts.

Speaker 1: 4:16

But number two is and this is more cases that I was working as I was getting into my advocacy work with Next Talk is keep your kids safe from pornography. Worked with a lot of families early on with a lot of pornography exposure and almost always it was at nighttime. You know they were behind a closed door and that sort of thing. So immediately one of our family guidelines became no bathrooms and no bedrooms, and you know that meant no screens at bedtime, no screens behind closed doors. Even if they were in the game room playing on the iPad, the door had to be open, right. And so just this concept of there's no private spaces where we've got a screen and you know their curiosity may be tempted or something may pop up and they don't know what to do with it. And then there's all this exposure Like that's what I was trying to prevent early on. So, number one prevent nude photos. Number two keep your kids safe from pornography. Number three, though and this is something like I did not implement this for this reason, but it has been very beneficial Three is sleep helps your kid do their best.

Speaker 1: 5:30

Research actually shows this like the more sleep your student gets, the better grades they'll get, and that is something that has been a positive impact of this guideline. Without me realizing it, it has really kept my kids focused, and so what I mean by that is, yeah, they may be on their phones or whatever, but when it's bedtime, it's bedtime, and so their phones would then go on the kitchen counter and they would get a good seven to eight hours of sleep, and they perform better as an athlete, they perform better as a student because they're getting the sleep that they need, and so that's just like a human need that we all need, and when you're talking to your kids about this too, like if you're going to implement this new guideline or you're going to move towards this, you could use this. So you know, american Academy of Pediatrics says screens should be turned off. I think it's 30 minutes before bedtime. That's just allowing your mind to shut down from all the intake that you're getting from scrolling or being on a device.

Speaker 1: 6:30

So, number one protect your kid from made photos. Number two protect your kids from pornography. Number three just help them get a good night's sleep, because it helps them be a better person. That's with all of us. And number four is something that has come on the horizon. As I've been in Next Top Like I didn't purposely create this guideline to protect my kids from this, but as I've seen kids literally lose their lives like I've been so thankful that we've had this boundary in place. And number four is online predators getting access to my kid. In recent years really since 2022, we've been following sextortion cases and you guys all know Walker's story and Walker's dad and if you're new here, go listen to those shows because they are just like part of our Next Top Family now.

Speaker 1: 7:21

But you know, many times we think our kids are safe when they're at home. Our kids are safe when they're at home and that's actually not true anymore, because now predators are coming into our kids' bedrooms through the devices and they're building relationships with our kids and they're manipulating our kids and terrorizing our kids and we've seen kids lose their lives because of that. And I mean these online predators have gotten very creative and smart in how they trap these kids and we've seen stories like Walker's from the first DM, which Walker thought it was a cute girl. Within three hours we lost Walker. This just creates a boundary in place that they do not have screens in bedrooms or bathrooms, so the predators literally it limits the access that they have to our kids. This is just a really important boundary and I know I get the emails that say well, kids could sneak it. Absolutely, my kids could get up in the middle of the night at 2 am and get on their phone and sneak it and still a predator get to them. Absolutely, that could happen, but it's an extra step that they have to take before the predator gets to them. Absolutely, that could happen, but it's an extra step that they have to take before the predator gets to them. So it's like everything in my power that I'm doing to help protect my kids. So four reasons Protect your kids from nude photos, protect your kids from pornography, help them get sleep. It helps them do better the next day. And number four is it helps prevent online predators from getting access to your kids.

Speaker 1: 8:56

There's a couple things I want to talk about as we round out this show, and this just a few questions that I get when this no bedroom, no bathroom rule comes up Well, does it ever? Do your kids ever age out of it? Is it a forever rule? And my answer to that is no. For example, my daughter had a bunny when she was, I think, 14, 15, and the cage was in her room and she wanted to take pretty pictures of the bunny you know cute pictures of the bunny. And so she asked me one day, like can I take my phone in there? I'll keep the door open, but I just want to get pictures of my bunny. And I remember thinking to myself you know, she's following our rules. I'm doing random phone chats, I'm not finding anything in there. I never see her sneaking her phone or screens at night. And so I was like of course you can. Like, yeah, you can, you can do that for the next hour. Just keep your door open, okay, and I know that you know how to be safe on that device. So let me know if anything pops up or you're doing anything else other than pictures.

Speaker 1: 9:54

And like we gradually were allowing her to have more freedom. The other thing was about six months before she left for college. I looked at my husband and I was like she's never had a phone in a bedroom at night ever and I don't want her college dorm to be the first time she ever has that phone in her bed. So we caught her doing something amazing and that was like she told us something that was happening with her friend group. She was super honest with us about it and didn't have to tell us and we said you know, you always confide in us, you tell us these things. So you're now kind of going to earn your phone in your bedroom at night. And it wasn't always great. She made mistakes with that six months before she left for college and she came on our show and kind of talked through that. I'll link that show if you want to hear directly from her about it. But it gave her this new responsibility right before she left our home so that she wasn't learning it the first time away from me, and I think that's really important. But I also think you can't let your guard down too early because we still need to protect our kids. Their prefrontal cortex is still not developed and we still need to protect them and put all the boundaries in place that we can in assisting them with keeping them safe.

Speaker 1: 11:09

We have recently worked with Walker's family and rolled out what we have called Walker's Promise, and what we're asking is for every family to commit to generally having a no-bedroom bathroom rule like the one I have implemented all those years. I'm not asking you to commit to anything that I haven't done myself. I would love for you to go to our website and look at Walker's Promise and consider praying over that and making that a new guideline in your home. I do want to say if you have an older child who has unlimited access and they have no rules and boundaries around where they take their devices in the home, I don't want you to just go home guns blazing one day and yank all those devices out of their room, because I think that will damage the relationship between you and your child and I don't want that for you.

Speaker 1: 12:05

The key here in keeping our kids safe is for getting our kids to confide in us and coming to us with things. So I think it's a different way to roll that out and we actually have a whole show on that that I will also link below. So if you are in that situation where you're like, well, I've already allowed this for a couple of years, how do I go back? And I hope that show will be helpful to you. It's really about educating your kids on why we have this new guideline and not saying that they've done anything wrong. But there's just a lot of online dangers out there that I wasn't aware of, and as I'm becoming aware and as I learn more, I understand that this is a really important guideline that maybe we need to all try and work together to have in our home. So I hope this is helpful to you and I hope you will consider signing Walker's Promise and making the commitment that I have made in my own home let's protect our kids' private spaces. Let's have no screens in our kids' bedrooms and bathrooms.

Speaker 2: 13:07

Next Talk is a 501c3 nonprofit keeping kids safe online. To support our work, make a donation at nexttalkorg. Next Talk resources are not intended to replace the advice of a trained healthcare or legal professional, or to diagnose, treat or otherwise render expert advice regarding any type of medical, psychological, legal, financial or other problem. You are advised to consult a qualified expert for your personal treatment plan.