Caller asks, “How do I keep my kids from playing on screens all summer?”

Of course we can simply say no screens, but what if we used this as an opportunity to educate, talk about a healthy balance and help our kids zoom out and see a bigger picture – where we focus on more than technology. 

Chapters

• 0:01 Introduction to Next Talk podcast
• 0:15 Managing summer screen time
• 1:41 Self-regulation and healthy boundaries
• 3:21 Creating summer goals beyond screens
• 5:52 The Red Flag Alert System
• 10:55 Final thoughts and nonprofit mission

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.

Speaker 2: 0:15

Hey, I'm an 8 and 10 year old and I'm just worried about summer and how I'm going to keep my kids from playing on screens all summer long and what you might have to say about that.

Speaker 1: 0:26

Well, at eight and 10, I mean, you know you can definitely just say no, we're not playing screens, or we're only playing screens this time and set certain hours, but, honestly, I would ask that you go a little bit deeper, because I believe that you can take your no and create education around why you're saying no, and that creates really good conversations with your kids. Eight and 10, you're managing screen time probably a lot. As your kids get older, though, and for any of you those who are listening who have older kids, we need to move towards self-regulation as well. So, for example, if you've got a kid who's playing Xbox and they're getting mad and angry at the Xbox, they need to be able, as they get older, to self-regulate and realize. I need to step away from that and not be on a screen right now.

Speaker 1: 1:18

I want you to think about solo screen time versus your kids getting on a screen with their friends and playing, because I kind of have looked at that a little differently over the years. For example, you know I have a teenage son and he plays the basketball game, and he'll get on and play with his friends. To me, that is almost like you know. You can hear them chatting with each other about their friend group and that kind of stuff chatting with each other about their friend group and that kind of stuff. That is not as alarming to me as a kid in a room by themselves with solo screen time.

Speaker 1: 1:50

So also like differentiate the screen time that's going to happen in the summer. I think that's very, very important. The other thing is have set times when you have no screens and set times when you allow screens. I think that's a good tip for the summer Always no screens in bedrooms or bathrooms, especially at ages eight and 10. You know they're going to start aging out of that rule about 17 or so, but at eight and 10, no phones in bedrooms or bathrooms ever.

Speaker 2: 2:21

How do you explain to children that I'm allowed to have my phone in?

Speaker 1: 2:25

my room. So one of the things that I say to my kids is you know, mom and dad, we need our phone in our room because dad gets calls in the middle of the night work calls that are important that he has to take and mom has a college student away. So if that college student needs me, I want to make sure my phone is available. But I'm not scrolling Instagram at 2am and I think that's the difference, like I'm not laying there rotting in my bed at night. And so until you get a little older and you can manage that on your own, you know we're just going to put the phone on the kitchen counter for the night. And that's kind of a standard operating rule in our home and always has been. My kids are 21 and 17. Now my 17-year-old, obviously my 21-year-old, she's an adult, college, all the things but my 17-year-old he does take his phone in his room now with the door open and that kind of stuff. He's graduated into that but he still puts his phone on the kitchen counter every night, every morning when I wake up it's there, because it's just been a standard operating procedure since I mean, he was little with all screens and when I say screens. We have no TVs, no PlayStations, anything like that, in the room until at least 17 plus, when they're kind of starting to age out of those guidelines.

Speaker 1: 3:41

A couple things about summer. I think it's great that you're already thinking about it. This is bigger than a screen time conversation. This is bigger than a screen time conversation, and what I mean by that is we want our kids to be creating a bucket list Every summer. When my kids were growing up, they had a bucket list. You know, go to the beach, play basketball, you know whatever. That creates some goals and gets their mind going on what they want to accomplish over the summer. Talk also about goals like.

Speaker 1: 4:12

I have an athlete in the house so my question to him was you know, how much do you want to bulk up over the summer? What's your workout schedule going to look like over the summer? You know, what do you want to gain with all these extra hours that you have, that sort of thing. So that just keeps them focused on things other than screens. I know sometimes we just zone in on okay, how much screen time are we going to allow? But we got to zoom out. How are we? They're stewarding all of their time that they're using every day, and I think that makes for some really good conversations. Maybe you're serving in your community, maybe you're baking cookies for the neighbors.

Speaker 1: 4:49

What are some sort of things that you guys want to accomplish this summer as a family and that gets them thinking outside of the screens? So I've seen with my own son I mean he's 17 now, but I remember a couple summers ago like he would say to me hey, mom, tonight, from four to seven, I'm playing a Fortnite tournament. Is that okay? I'm playing it with my friends and I would say, okay, sure, but then that day he would get up and he would work out, he would, you know, go swimming, do all kinds of outside activities, because he knew he was going to be on a screen for three hours. And that's kind of like how I started this. That self-regulation. That's what we kind of want to look for with our teenagers as they get older and moving into that space of helping them navigate it.

Speaker 2: 5:33

Can you tell me again what self-regulating might look like for an eight-year-old?

Speaker 1: 5:37

Say you have your day structured out right and maybe they're at camp in the morning, you do breakfast, maybe you have lunch together and that kind of thing, and you're saying, you know, from two to four you have free time at home and you can do arts, crafts or you can also do screen time or whatever. Like you're giving them that flexibility of these are the things you can choose from. And if your eight-year-old is every day for two hours on screens, that whole time, that may be a conversation and the kid doesn't get in trouble. But you're more like hey, I noticed that your free time, there's lots of things you can do during this two to four segment and I noticed you're always choosing screen time. Tell me why or what are you playing, or that kind of stuff, just to get him in the habit of picking other things over screens. But if he continues to do screens, I think that's okay because still, if that's the only two hour period a day, I think that's all right and you can have those conversations. But it's just a way to start their brain to regulate, like making good decisions with screens.

Speaker 1: 6:42

And the other thing I wanna say about that like, say, he plays for two hours on a screen and at the end of that he's real moody and he's got attitude because maybe his game didn't go the way he thought. I actually think that's a really good teachable moment, because I wouldn't try to have the conversation, like at the end of the segment you know the two hour segment I would let it go for a while, but maybe later that night at bedtime or maybe the next morning at breakfast I would say hey, do you know? You know, I really noticed that you were in a really bad mood yesterday after you played screens for two hours. Do you know what happened, like why did you get so angry?

Speaker 1: 7:20

Them thinking to themselves oh my gosh, I played that game, and before playing that game, I was nice and then, after playing that game, like I was mean, like they need to see that for themselves, like and they need to almost feel it, it's, it's, it can be a win when they recognize screens, change their attitude and so just things like that, little teachable moments throughout your day. And also like share stories with your kids of how you struggle with screens. You know, like I crawl in bed at night and I should want to just talk to dad, but sometimes I'm scrolling on Facebook and that's not healthy for me because that makes them feel vulnerable and they can share when they're not doing great with screens too. It's a family effort here to have this healthy dialogue around screen time and a healthy balance.

Speaker 2: 8:11

I love that. You know, yesterday I sent your red flag alert system to a couple of friends to print off and put on the refrigerator for the summer. And it's on our refrigerator. Print off and put on the refrigerator for the summer and it's on our refrigerator. And I know this summer in the mornings I'm going to get my kids to memorize some of the points on your red flag alert system. My kids are pretty familiar with no phones and bedrooms or bathrooms, but I like the one where you have always report to mom when you see someone in a bathing suit or less, and that's just going to become part of our summer routine to really implement that in their brain so they know. Oh, that's something I need to talk to my trusted adult about.

Speaker 1: 8:52

I'm so glad that you're implementing this and I'm so glad you're thinking about it. I'm so glad you brought it up. Thank you for saying that Summer is a great time to create these guidelines, and if you don't know what the red flags are, it basically is a reporting list. These are the things that I want you to tell me about, and you mentioned anything and anyone in a bathing suit or less. What we're trying to get there is to catch pornography right. Or if they go to a neighbor's house and somebody takes down their pants or whatever and shows them a private part, we're trying to get them a red flag to go off on the kid's brain. Oh, this is on my list. I need to report this to mom or dad. This keeps them safe when they're playing screens and something may pop up, but it also keeps them safe when they're going to summer play groups or summer sleepovers, if you're going to allow that. So it's a great time. We also have family packs where the language is more curved. So we have one for teenagers where it actually says you're going to report any pornography to me. You're going to report any violence to me. It's a little bit more specific.

Speaker 1: 9:55

This summer is a great time to implement to your kids. These are the things I want you to tell me about. They don't know what to tell you. Everything is snap, posted, shared. They're so overexposed in this world that they live in. They hear all kinds of new words every day, and so we have to steward that. All that incoming knowledge is coming into their brain. We want to create this reporting list. These are the things that I want you to tell me. If you see or hear any of these things, I want that red flag alert to go off in your brain, to come home and tell mom or dad so that's a great thing to do over the summer.

Speaker 2: 10:31

I think this is a great start and your information is really helpful.

Speaker 1: 10:35

All right. Well, you've got this. Keep on and remember. I am all for guidelines, setting those guidelines when they're younger, but always do the conversations too. And as they get older, you've got the conversations to carry you as they're learning to self-regulate even more and make technology decisions on their own.

Speaker 3: 10:55

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