Navigating Screen Time for Kids

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Rachael: Welcome to No One Told Us, the podcast that tells the truth about parenting and talks about all the stuff you wish you knew before having kids. I'm your host, Rachel Shepherd-Ohta, and today we are joined by Ash, who is a middle school teacher with over a decade of teaching experience. They believe video games can be part of kids' lives without being the center of their lives and that screens should be used in a way that benefits whole families. They're an educational content creator whose Instagram page, The Gamer Educator, is a wealth of information about all things technology and kids supporting and empowering parents since 2021. Ash, thank you so much for joining us today.
Ash: Well, thank you very much for having me. I'm happy to be here.
Rachael: I am just so happy that I discovered your Instagram page. I forget who shared it or how I found it, but I'm so glad I did because I think so much of the conversation around screens on social media is really shame -based and really guilt -based and parents are just wondering like what the hell to actually do about screens. So your page is just very refreshing. Can you tell us a little bit about like how you started and why you started this page?
Ash: You know it was really honestly kind of an accident. I was doing this more in an educational perspective because I'm an educator and I for a long time had played around with bringing in gaming ideas like not necessarily actual video games but like the structures that make them so compelling …bringing those kind of the things into my teaching…. just playing around with it and I liked it. I would go to like video game conventions and some local conferences and kind of share about what I was doing but it was really pretty low key and then COVID I realized that I was not gonna be going to a convention anytime soon. And I just felt this was like, I just need another way to kind of meet this need I have. And that's when I pivoted into social media. And I had kind of made this naive assumption that a lot of the hangups were specific to educators. 'Cause there is some data that kind of pointed at that. But then as I started posting, I pretty quickly realized that. oh no, this is something that a lot of just caregivers in general, regardless of background, are struggling with. And it turns out the audience is a lot wider than I thought it was. So that's kind of how I ended up pivoting to be more about screens and just management. I've long taken this approach of, you know, things can be part of our lives, without being the center of our lives, and I felt that for myself, I felt that for myself. my kid. So that was kind of why I saw that as a really important central tenant. And the fact that it was COVID, I think a lot of us were realizing that there's a lot more necessity around the use of technology than we might like to think there is, or that ideals would maybe have us think there is. And so I think that was another big, strong message for me as I started. Totally.
Rachael: Yeah, I don't know if you know this about me me, but I was a public school teacher for about nine years before doing this. And I taught kindergarten and then most of my career was in elementary special ed. And so we used technology all the time because we had to, it was an accessibility thing for many of my kids. But I did, I taught in a very affluent area with some very involved parents. And there were a lot of things that I didn't know. of disagreements about how screens should be used in schools and I didn't have kids yet but I was kind of torn about it because I was like well these kids are growing up in a world with technology they have to know how to use it, they have to know how to use it appropriately, but I also see the parents perspective where you know they're at school to learn and to not play games and that's you know that was their perception of what was happening. So yeah I just think it's a fascinating topic and then when I became a parent, and especially when I became a parenting content creator, I realized what is out there, as far as ideas and content that's created around screens, and a lot of it is very fear -based. And so parents, I think, are left thinking, like, well, this show is as addictive as crack, apparently, to my kids. So I can't do that, but I also, like, need to...to take a shower sometimes and make sure that my kid is gonna be safe so like what the hell am I supposed to do? So yeah I think it's just such an important topic to talk about with nuance and with understanding for parents and what they're actually dealing with in the real world.
Ash: Absolutely and I think we want many things in parenting life I'm sure you encounter this a lot. I am thankfully knock on Wood. I am past the stage of of needing a lot of sleep advice. You can see how superstitious I am about it. My kid is almost seven and I'm like, "shh, don't tell them."
Rachael: Don't tell anyone that they're a good sleeper because only this top, yeah, exactly.
Ash: Right, exactly. And I'm like, "oh shoot, make sure they can't hear me." Anyway, a lot of things as parents, we don't want to screw up our kids. We want to do what's right for them. And we just want someone to tell us what to do. We're like, "please shut up." tell me what to do and I'll do it, you know, and to make it easier to make them better, good, whatever, and to try and take these extremely complex things like sleep, like eating, like behavior, like tech, and reduce them into like binary, this is good and bad, this is good for the brain, this is bad, as if, I mean, that is, that all kids and all brains are all gonna be the same, and that's obviously not true. You know, when we think of it that way, we're like, oh, of course, of course all kids are probably gonna have slightly different needs, but then the flip side of that is that, yeah, we probably can't just assume that one show is gonna be a universally good or bad fit for every kid. It's a lot harder to give advice that way. It's a lot easier to say, never do this, always do that. It'll be fine. But the reality is it's a lot messier than that. And I think it's also much more empowering for caregivers if we instead frame the conversation around how can we make this work for you? And that obviously I think applies to many things besides just technology. Like we wanna find a philosophy of this, a way of managing this that feels sustainable for your family as opposed to... to just saying, "Oh, this is good and this is bad and you need to have this power struggle to get over it." I don't think that's going to set anybody up for success.
Rachael: Right. So do you think that like you said, there are kids with different needs and different brains and kids react to things differently. Do you think that there is ever a place for a child or a family to be screen-free? Like, is that really a thing that could benefit some people? or is it something that we really need to be teaching our kids to learn responsibly?
Ash: It's interesting to pose it in that particular way. 'Cause I think that in an ideal world, it's not mutually exclusive. Like I think you probably could be very screen -light and still on the back of your mind, yes, one day I have to prepare them for this, like eventual part of their lives. Yeah, but I would, I do wonder sometimes, if people are keeping that in mind. We do want to hold back from things that we think could be potentially damaging or difficult for our kids to manage. But we also try to recognize that eventually this will be something they need to encounter. And it's a lot easier to see that with things like difficult social behaviors or like eventual responsibilities they might have that are also kind of privileges like driving or encountering adult things. So, you know, my short answer is if something a family is doing is working for them, great. I try not to be like, "Oh yeah, you should never do that." I mean, if it's working for you and it's working well and it's managed and it's allowing you to manage tech for the whole family in a way that feels good, go for it. And if that, if no screens is working well and you want to stick with that, have at it and also, like, bless you. Because I could never. Right, exactly. Exactly. And, you know, the asterisk way that is just people have to decide if it really is working for everyone. You know, because if I am martering myself as a parent and never having a moment to take a breath or take a shower or meet my needs, is that benefiting the whole family? It's benefiting my kids. But, like, if I am, like, burnt out, and dysregulated and I'm gonna like snap because I am not getting any sort of break, then that is, you know, arguably not really meeting my kids needs if I am not an available parent. So if screens allow me to meet my needs and then I can meet my kids needs better, then yeah, that's probably also working to meet the needs of the family. So kind of depends how you think about it. My only caution when we talk about, you know, really delay, delay, delay, delay. is if we think about what that really is, what that really is is that's abstinence education. Right. And abstinence only education doesn't tend to work very well, no matter what we're talking about, right?Like, abstinence only, like, often can lead to kids who are like, well, I never got education about this, and I've never really got to do it. So now I really want to. And now I might not have the skills I need. to manage it. So keeping in mind that eventually they are going to be in a more technologically adept world than we are in right now, we might not like it.
Rachael: We can even conceive of, like we don't even know yet the type of thing that they will have. Right.
Ash: And we might not like that, like I don't necessarily disagree, but it's also kind of, it's kind of inevitable. Right. And so we know, well, this is something you're going to, or if I know, well, when they go to school, they're going to have a computer or they're going to have an iPad. If I know that's an eventuality, then yeah, I might want to start setting them up to handle that. And that doesn't mean I have to be allowing it at home. It could mean we're talking about how it's a school time thing or we're talking about structure. We're talking about what it's gonna be like. It doesn't mean we're having to allow it here because it's allowed somewhere else. But if we're just kind of passing the buck down the road, what could happen is that we're kind of asking our kid to take on the responsibility of managing it. And that's something we haven't really adequately prepared them for.
Rachael: And so what age do you think, I mean, there are so many different research studies and there's like official guidelines by the AAP and all of the stuff. What is your professional and personal opinion on what age screen time is appropriate?
Ash: So there are those recommendations by the AAP. They actually walked those back a couple of years ago and they made it a lot more kind of open -ended and on the family, which I actually think is good. But also I'm sure many families are frustrated by it 'cause it's not very black and white anymore. It's not very cut and dry. But what I like about that is that the new recommendations are really about making what they call a family media plan. So the AAP is now saying, you know, think about how media functions in your family. Is it something you do together? Is it something you do to get needs met? When is it going to be? Where I like the way they're framing it now, because it is much more intentional instead of acting like the number of minutes is the only thing that matters. Because really, that's not the case. There's so many things that can impact it, whether it's what they're watching, how they're watching, when it might fall in the day. And that also allows families to get a lot more thoughtful of like, is this working for us? If I give my kid a screen and suddenly it's really not working, they're having a really hard time. If I'm thinking more about how can I make this work, then I can think, okay, what else can we try? Can we try a different show? Can we try a different time of day? Can we try a different setting? Can we try a different activity before or after? after? Now I'm problem solving instead of just thinking, oh, it's 'cause you had too much, or it's because this show is bad for your brain. So I like the shift that they've made. There is definitely a pretty big body of research that shows that under age two, there is not any potential benefit from screen time. And depending on how you define benefit anyway, it's kind of nebulous. nebulous but you know a lot of like educational i'm putting that in quotes kids tv shows even ones that are you know Sesame Street ones have been around for a very long time when kids are really little under age two even if an adult is sitting there and talking about it with them the studies show that they're not really gaining from that in an academic way that does not mean that's the only reason we're using it right if i need Miss Rachel to be a babysitter because I can't afford a babysitter, well, that screen is filling in a systemic inequality so I can go take a shower. And I don't think there should be shame in that. I think taking away the morality of screen use is extremely important because we do need to recognize that a lot of the reasons we use screens are due to systemic inequalities or systemic gaps, not because parents are like, I just want to kick my feet up. and not parent for a while. So again, thinking about the ensues, but under age two the research sense to show, they're not really going to be learning from it. If you find that it's really great for your kid and it's something you enjoy and it's giving you a break, I'm not telling you not to do it. It's just, you know, the research is just. And then as they're getting older, the recommendation used to be like, try not to exceed an hour and then age five to twelve, try not to exceed two hours. hours. But like I said, the shift is much more now on like, how are we using it? And what purpose is it serving? And is it something we're doing together or individual? And I think thinking much more about, is this benefiting us all? I think it's a lot more kind of a holistic question.
Rachael: For sure. And I love that you touched on the systemic issue as well, because you do see a lot of parent shaming or caregiver shaming on social media about using things like Miss Rachel, right? Yeah, I love that you talk about taking like the morality out of it because yes, some parents just need to do it, whether that's because they work from home and don't have it by babysitter and they need their kid to be quiet during a phone call so that they don't lose their job or whether it's because they need to take a shower so they don't lose their shit on their kid, then yeah, like use Ms. Rachel, but you're also right when you talk about they're not necessarily benefiting from it. Because there are also so many claims about, oh, Ms. Rachel taught my kid to talk. Or like, Ms. Rachel is-- and I love Ms. Rachel. This is like, I'm a Ms. Rachel stan. We don't use it in my house because my baby is little and my older kids are too old. But I think she's a wonderful person. And I think, you know, her content helps a lot of people. So I am definitely not hating on her in any way. But I do see this, this kind of myth that like, has been perpetuated by social media now where it's like, Oh, your kid needs to be watching Miss Rachel to learn how to talk or to learn their colors or like to get prepared for preschool or things like that. And that's just, I don't think really shown to be true.
Ash: Yeah, I mean, we, my house we also skipped Miss Rachel, just because it was she didn't exist. when it would have been applicable to us. So like nothing against it. But I think it's also interesting in that is that ultimately what you're talking about with someone like Ms. Rachel or sub in other like kind of direct talking to kids content creators there is that really what you're getting is you're getting one on one like guided instruction.And so like, yes, I do not disbelieve families who say, oh, but my kid learned so many words from Ms. Rachel. I believe them wholeheartedly. And if they have the bandwidth to sit in front of their child and do a scaffolded lesson-- - Just like Ms.
Rachel's doing. - they'd probably be like, see the same things. - And they would also be doing, yeah. - Exactly.
They'd see the same things. - Yeah. - Right, they'd also be learning. So I'm not saying that to discount what the screen can provide, but more to say, hey, like, yeah, maybe that is a better substitute. for your presence than Cocoa Mellon or whatever else you want to put on. But if you also have the bandwidth, then sit on the floor and point out objects and colors and animals and make animals sound great. Yeah, that's awesome. Right. You know, we can, they're not mutually exclusive. I don't think people are saying like, oh, thank goodness Ms. Rachel exists. So I don't have to tell my kid what a dog is. Right.
Rachael: But I think it is that well, and it's a helpful tool for I think things that also show parents what to do, right? Exactly. They kind of teach parents how to interact with their kid and that's beneficial.
Ash: And that also speaks to other systemic gaps. It's like, you know what, arguably, we should not have to have contact creators whose job is to essentially model for parents how to talk to your baby. Literally. Yeah. But I'm not shaming parents with that. We should be, we should have free and accessible parenting classes about child brain development. That should be something that is available to all parents, particularly marginalized parents or parents who might have babies who are going to be at risk for certain access gaps. That should be something that we have available for those families. But guess what? We don't. Or if we do
Rachael: And we also don't have subsidized child care. Exactly. Or paid paternal leave or anything like that would that would allow parents to access classes or other things like that for their kids.
Ash: And if we do it might be in ways that are not accessible right like my local library system has incredible like parent baby programming. Awesome. It's on Tuesdays at 11 in the morning. Yeah, and you have to get to the library. Yeah, right. So it's like who's getting there people with nannies or people who aren't working.
Ash: Yeah, so So awesome, totally great, also not particularly accepted, exactly, for people with privilege. - Yeah. And so it's like, hey, if this is the substitute that you're able to get, yeah, that, for a lot of families, if they're like, well, my option is to turn whatever's on the TV or let my kids make a mess of my apartment and get complaints to my landlord or do something particularly unsafe, or Ms. Rachel, yeah. I'd probably be turning on Ms. Rachel too.
Rachael: Yeah, okay, I love that. And so what are your other recommendations for choosing content or choosing age-appropriate content or quality content? Because I know it's probably not one size fits all, right? But what are your main tips for that? 'Cause I think a lot of times parents, they know they wanna use screens, right? They're not like on their high horse about being screen free. They know that they're gonna give their kid an iPad or let their kid watch a show. But they still wanna be intentional and they wanna give them the best quality content or the healthiest content. So how do you choose? 'Cause there's so many things, like you turn on Netflix and there are so many freaking choices. How do you know what's good and what's not?
Ash: So it depends, I think, how involved you wanna be. If you want a good place to review, it's like you can just kinda look for guidance and then it's up to you to interpret it how you will. I really like Common Sense Media. They are a website and they review tons of content not just like movies or TV shows. They don't review like content creators but they do review apps, games, books, video games. And so like I'm a librarian and I really like reading their book reviews sometimes when I don't have time to like read a new YA title or something. So I really like them because they include not just like, oh, this is good for age five. They include more detailed reasons. They'll include sometimes like themes like, oh, this has a theme of like playground bullying or this has like a positive role model of acceptance where this has, you know, kind of play fighting. You can decide for yourself, like, oh, I'm not okay with my kids seeing fighting. even if it's play fighting. Well, then you can scan that. No, okay, we're gonna skip this. Because as I'm sure you've encountered and many people listen to this have encountered, age ratings are just, they're kind of meaningless. They're so broad. It's like, okay, something's good for a kid who's five. But like what families are represented and what language is used and is their name calling? Like every family is gonna have different thresholds for that.
Rachael: Well and two, five year olds are also two different. Oh, sure. A kid who just turned five and a kid who's about to turn six, very different. A kid who's five and neurodivergent, very different. So yeah, age ratings.
Ash: Yeah, and I like that Common Sense Media also allows parents and kids to post reviews of things, which I find especially on games and for older kids, I sometimes like seeing like what do kids have to - say? What did their adults have to say? So I do really like that 'cause my other recommendation is a lot more time consuming and I totally get why people don't wanna do it, which is that the best way to know is to screen the content and I totally get why that's like, oh my God, I cannot invest, like double the amount of time to figure this out, but especially for things like games or apps, and especially if you have younger kids, I will offer more time consuming content. take five minutes to open up one or two like new apps I'm considering and just see like, does my kid have to read to do this? Like sometimes there's a lot of like written texts and I have to decide whether or not they can navigate that or like, are the instructions spoken out loud? Is this something my kid would even find interesting? Like, do I think they could kind of handle the like physicality of what they're asking them to do and I just take a couple minutes like and if I find it frustrating or not fun then I'm like well we're not gonna keep that one and sometimes they also require just a little bit of setup so if I open up an app and I'm like oh it wants to know my kid's name so that then they can recognize it when they sign in like okay now I'm kind of setting them up for success so taking that time to kind of preview it can also kind of be helpful also so that later, if they are struggling or they don't know what to do or you're trying to connect with them about it, you have like some of the language, some of the idea around it.
Rachael: Yeah, okay, I like those ideas. And kind of on that same topic, you mentioned apps. We haven't really gotten into apps in my family yet, mostly just 'cause there's, again, it's so overwhelming to know which ones to choose. And I like the idea of them watching TV on the TV because-- then I can control when I turn it off and it's not like something in their hands. Do you think that there's like any benefit to like TV screen versus a child having their own iPad or does it not really matter or is it like totally based on age or personality?
Ash: I think it can be pretty family dependent. It also depends what you want them using it for. So like you said, like TV, it is more passive on the one hand. hand, but it also can be more controlled. And so you're very aware of what's on or even if your child is choosing, it's like you're still, you know, you're absorbing it. So there's a little bit more oversight that way. And I know that there are some times where it feels like, well, if they have an iPad, it feels like it's more like sequestered or they can just like be changing stuff and they don't have to have an attention span. I, for a long time, I kind of treated iPad or tablet screens like TV and that we would like choose whatever was going to be their focus for that amount of time. And we still do this with video games. Like my kid plays video games for half an hour, pretty much every day. And it's like, okay, what's the game going to be today? It's like we're choosing a TV show. And we just, for that's just always been how we talked about it. So now it's just the expectation they understand. And they're just down at an age where they sometimes ask to switch, but they're also old enough to understand what that really means and entails 'cause my kid is six and a half. So kind of going into it that way, like if we say like, okay, what do you want to play or watch on the iPad today? And then we're kind of opening it up or seeing them open up. There are some really good accessibility features that you can use on tablets, iPads, and I imagine on Samsung tablets like Android tablets. There's a feature called the guided access, which is actually an accessibility feature for people with mobility disabilities. But it actually can work the other way around to prevent people from leaving an app when that you don't want them to. So I do that on my phone. If I ever need to give my kid my phone, we don't have a bigger tablet or something. I will turn guided access on and basically it just locks the screen. So they can only access one app at a time. So it's like, "Okay, you chose this. This is the app." They can press buttons, they can swipe, but it won't read. So there are ways where we can put in more of those boundaries. If we want, you can have a curated set of things that you've downloaded, and those are the only things available. You can turn Wi-Fi off so that they can't access things that aren't available. And sometimes just having them in necessarily like a public space for the space where you can kind of usually walk by, check in, see what they're doing.
Rachael: Right, like not sequestered in their bedroom on the tablet. - Yes. - Able to like search anything they want on YouTube.
Ash: Exactly. And YouTube, YouTube can be its own like quagmire because I know people have many concerns about YouTube that I think are very grounded. So if people are wanting to know more about that, I have three. pretty long form blog posts on my website. They're all free about how to manage YouTube. There's many different ways to do that. You can make it very restrictive.
Rachael: That's super helpful, thank you. Now, we kind of have mentioned that this can happen is that kids have a hard time with boundaries sometimes with screens or really struggle when it's time to be done with a screen or you know, all of that stuff. So how do you... kind of manage that and how do you know like we talked about kind of towards the beginning how do you know if it's because they are overstimulated or they've had too much or the content was not right for them and how do you kind of start to put more of those boundaries in place so that the screen can be a helpful tool instead of like totally not worth it because now the meltdown is way longer than the show itself was.
Ash: Yeah that's the example I always gave of like okay if you're getting 30 minutes from a screen, but you're having to give like 45, then this is not a benefit anymore.
- It's a net negative, yeah, exactly. - Probably not a benefit, probably worth evaluating. Yeah, so this is where every kid is gonna be different. This is why I think it's really important to not just say, like, oh, every screen's gonna dysregulate a kid. I mean, for some kids, particularly neurodiverse kids, screens can actually be quite regulating.
Rachael: Exactly.
Ash: That does not mean it's the only thing. Like I say that and I'm sure people are like, but they should regulate in other ways. Sure, great. Absolutely. Guess what? We regulate with screens all the time. Adults do this all the time.
Rachael: How many times do you pick up your phone when you're feeling anxious or, yeah, exactly?
Ash: Or we all have a comfort show, right? - Yes. - There's a reason the office is like one of the most streamed things on Netflix in its history. Yeah, that's because clearly there are a lot of adults who are like, oh, I just want to I just want to watch something I can put on the background. I know what's gonna happen. Guess what? That's regulating. That doesn't mean it's the only way we regulate we take walks we journal we read we meditate we do yoga We we you know play with our kids and Sometimes we watch the office and those are not one of those is not superior to the other and so I think it's fine to have screens as a regulatory tool in our tool belt, even with kids, and we can also use that as a way to talk to them about other things that might help them. Because again, if we want them to have this with balance with other things, then we can, you know, we can be guides. Anyway, I'm getting off the top here. But when it comes to, you know, dysregulation, parents are going to know or caregivers are going to know what that looks like for their kid, or are going to be learning. what it looks like. So if you know, if you have a pretty quiet kid and now they're getting really loud, right? Maybe you're like, okay, this is not typical. For me, in my family, dysregulation tends to present in sort of atypical behavior. You know, if I have a kid whose body tends to be pretty calm and now they're like moving around a lot, they're getting really antsy. I'm like, okay, this is probably a sign. So a lot of it is just kind of learning how to read your kid. And it depends which way you want to go. On the one hand, I think it can be really helpful to kind of build in regulatory breaks during screen time. So if you notice, like, wow, my kid is like starting to bounce up and down on the couch. Well, then maybe we hit pause and say, okay, quick, run to the bathroom, come back, do a crab walk, you know, 30 second dance party, you're getting really wiggly. Let's get some of that out. Okay. So that then the message we're sending is not, screens are bad, they're making you this way, but just, hey, your body needs something right now, your brain needs something right now, a little bit different than what you're getting, and kind of building that in. When it comes to the actual boundary of, you know, screens turning off, there are ways that we can try to make that easier. You know, we can give warnings, we can have a visual timer, we can sometimes use the structure of what they're doing. to help us stuff. So if they're watching something, we'd say at the end of this episode, TV is turning off. If they're playing a game or they're racing, say at the end of this race, or when you reach the end of this level, if they're doing something really open -ended, a phrase I like to use a lot is, "How will you know when you're done?" Which is really just an executive functioning scaffold to get them to think about, okay, what's one more thing I can do today? What's the last thing I'm gonna finish today? And that way we can say, okay, tomorrow when you come back, the first thing you're gonna do is you're gonna keep building whatever you're doing to kind of help them build in those breaks. And if we do feel like we noticed, okay, that was really hard, it took me 45 minutes to turn that show off, then we can choose what's one thing, what's one variable I can do differently tomorrow. 'Cause we don't wanna just throw everything out and go, oh my gosh, it's the screen's fault, we have to throw it all out. Well, let's try one thing differently. We can change when we offer the screen, we can change what show we offer, we can change how long it's on, we can change what activity we do before or after, we can change how we warn them that it's gonna be done. Just choose one thing and think, "Okay, I can't change when screen says it's perfect time of day. I have to have it this time of day." Fine. Okay, maybe I'm going to try making sure that we are outside and doing something physical before we come in. Or maybe I'm going to make sure we have something really clearly defined for after the screen so that there's a really clear transition, like turning screen off, sitting down at the dinner table, or turning screen off. off, going out for a bike, right? So it's really clear when we see how that goes. And then again, then we can talk to our kids and say, like, what did you notice about that? Like, did it feel easier? Did it feel harder? How do you feel in your body? So that we are helping them build those skills of introspection and regulation so that they can hopefully one day do this for themselves.
Rachael: Totally. And I was a special ed teacher, so we talked about this kind of stuff all the time where it was like stopping a preferred activity for a non -preferred activity is really hard, really hard for most kids, right? So how can we, you know, I wouldn't necessarily say, "Okay, we're gonna watch a show "and then we're gonna get our shoes on "to go to the dentist or something." Like, they're not gonna want to do that. That's gonna make my life so much harder. But if I say, "At the end of this episode, "I have a special snack ready for you." in the kitchen. So, you know, they're going from something preferred to something that's also kind of preferred, like they love to snack. So that might not be as hard to stop the screen at that point.
Ash: We're giving them a choice and saying like, after this screen is done, we're gonna go outside. Do you want to ride bikes? Do you wanna draw with chalk? Do you wanna- And yeah, and if we know that they really like doing that, or they really like playing with us, then we can, you know, kind of-- put that in like you said to kind of make it a little bit of a smoother transition. I also say like I mean I know it's not easy and it's also one of those things where I joke like this is going to hurt me a lot more than it's going to hurt you, I think to myself, as I hold the boundary, I try to kind of inoculate myself sometimes by saying like, you know my job is not always to make my kids life as easy as possible…. my job is to help them navigate things that are hard. And like you said, it is hard. And I want my kid to be able to move into a dorm where their roommate has the PlayStation 6 or whatever at that point in time. And I want my kid to be able to say, "I have to stop playing. I have a midterm." And that is hard. And it's not fun. I get it. That also comes from... the difficult boundary holding that we have to do. And I think our own modeling can be really, really powerful. I am playing a lot of video games lately, much more than I typically do. I don't actually play video games very often, but the newest Zelda came out, and me and like 10 million other people are absorbed in our free time. And I have made a point sometimes to like, be kind of say my thought process out loud. I've like, oh you know what I'm supposed to be heating up your lunch. I need to make sure I'm stopping. or like oh man I am in the middle of this I really don't want to stop but I know that we're going to have to head to school soon… so I'm going to put myself right here so that I remember when I come back tomorrow, this is what I'm doing. or even just uh I really don't want to stop this is so frustrating and then I model some way of regulating then take a breath, I'm going to take a drink of water. I'm going to stretch. Because it doesn't happen in a vacuum. And I think our modeling is surprisingly powerful.
Rachael: I absolutely love that you just brought that up, because that was going to be my last question for you, was how, A, I love that you brought up the boundary thing, because that's something I talk about with parents all the time, with like, it sucks, because we want our kids to be happy. We don't want to hear screaming and crying, and we don't want to deal with it, and we don't want them to be upset or disappointed. But it is okay if if they are it's okay if they're disappointed that it's time for the show to be done they're allowed to be disappointed and sad about that right and we can still hold the boundary and our life will be easier for it if we if we continue in that way but the last thing I was going to ask you is about our own modeling of screen time because this is something that I as I'm sure you have a very hard time with since it is our job to be, partially your job, It's my full -time job to be on my screen, on my phone and on my computer. And so it is really hard for me to model that, especially when my kids are like off from school and they're home more and seeing me do that. So other than what you just said, like modeling, you know, I really need to stop this right now. It's really hard to get off my phone or on my game. What are some other tips you have for parents to model like healthy screen use?
Ash: I think it's very hard to that, you know kids, I think see phones or screens as leisure and it often is for them, but for us it is often productivity. It's work and it's work. Yeah, and so I think we are sometimes on our phones not because we want to be but because we are obligated to be. So I think that there could be times where You know, it's one thing if I idly scrolling and I'm like, okay, I need to like put my phone in the other room and and say, you know what, I feel like I've just been looking at a screen a lot. I'm going to put this away. I know I can come back to it later or I'll check it during rest time to put some boundaries out there. But if we do know like I have a meeting or I absolutely have to check email, I think even verbalizing verbalizing that, of like I have to do 10 minutes of work and I'm going to be checking email on my phone or I'm gonna get my computer out, I'm gonna answer five emails and then I am putting it away because I'm gonna finish my work and sometimes just making that distinction clear, I think may be helpful 'cause I think a lot about how invisible that is to kids or how they are probably not able to see the distinction or anything like that. that we can 'cause we're staring at the screen. The other thing I have been doing with this is a work in progress for me. I, as I'm sure it is for you too. But as I just started doing something recently, I really liked which is I did like a very deep dive into the like personalized settings I can use on my phone. And I got really specific on what apps can notify me. me or how. So I was getting all my apps giving me push notifications to my lock screen. So every time I looked at my phone, I was seeing a ton of stuff, even if it was like 50 notifications of likes from Instagram, which are not actually important. They don't need my urgent attention. Right.
Rachael: I can see that little hit of dopamine that makes you want to keep checking. It makes you want to keep checking.
Ash: It makes you want to open it to see who it was. And I realized, like, if I just don't see that, I don't know what's happening. And then it's a lot easier for me to just not check. So, being intentional about, like, what apps do I even see, or you can turn on certain settings for, like, okay, this day or this time, or when I get to this location, I'm going to stop getting notifications from, like, you can just have your work email stop notifying you when you get home and being really clear on those boundaries. But I think sharing them with kids, and I think sharing the struggle we have with kids is also important. We often are the ones who make rules. We seem omnipotent. We seem like we know it all. And part of us would like for them to think that way, but I think part of us also wants them to recognize that we struggle with this too. and if if we want to help them through the struggle I think there's a lot of honesty and vulnerability in just owning like this is hard, it's hard. I'm thinking about this thing at work and I really want to just fix it right now but I'm gonna put it away and I'm gonna be with you and work will wait for me tomorrow and sometimes I think just being honest about that can be helpful and can sometimes build in accountability too because I know I'm saying this to my kid, I'm kind of making a deal with them, then it's probably gonna mean more to me and be more buy-in from me if I'm sharing it with them.
Rachael: Yeah, like if I say out loud, mommy's gonna put my phone away and I'm not gonna open it till you go to bed or till dinner time or something then. I'm definitely not gonna go back on my word because they will call me out, so.
Ash: Yes, yes, but they probably love that, too. Oh yeah. could build that in of like, hey, if you see me, it's not your job, but like, hey, I'm trying really hard not to do this. If you notice, you're allowed to, you're allowed to say something if you feel like it, right? Yeah, absolutely. And they love catching us.
Rachael: Oh, for sure. Oh my gosh, that's so true. Thank you so much, Ash. This has been such a fun conversation and it's so important for parents to have these strategies that they can feel less guilty and a little more empowered about using screens in their home. So where can people find more information about you and your page and all of that? You have so much wonderful information.
Ash: Well, thank you so much for having me. I hope this is helpful for families. And you can read, you can find me on the internet, mostly at, on Instagram, @thegamereducator. And that is where most of my stuff lives. I have a website that doesn't really have a ton on it, but I do have some longer form things. I have some guides on things like Kindle set up and things like that. And those are all in the link in my bio, on my Instagram, @thegamereducator.
Rachael: Thank you so much. I'll put all that in the show notes too, and I'll link to it so that people can easily find it. You've been listening to No One Told Us. I'm Rachel Shepard-Ohta. Thank you so much for listening.

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