Tweens and Teens: Managing Tech & Mental Health

Do you worry about the impacts that screen time, social media, or gaming have on your tween and teens' mental health? We spoke to Brittany Anderson, an author, certified play and narrative intelligence practitioner, and the founder of Renala, which helps families become creative, vision-driven leaders—beginning at home.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What are the most common concerns that parents and caregivers have about their tween or teen’s tech use?
• Are those concerns more about the amount of time kids spend on devices, the content they’re seeking out, or the content they stumble upon?
• What are the differences in concerns between parents of pre-teens/tweens (11–13) and older teens (16–18)?
• What does current research say about how much screen time is considered healthy—or at least not harmful—for our tweens and teens? 
  • Is the amount of time as important as how that time is being spent?
  • Are there particular times of day when device use is more problematic for mental health (e.g., late at night)?
• What types of online content are most worrisome for the tweens and teens in our homes?
• What mental health effects are we seeing most often in tweens and teens related to tech use? 
• What are the symptoms of mental health that parents and caregivers should look for?
• Why might kids with a history of trauma and loss, prenatal exposure to alcohol or drugs, or neurodiversity be more vulnerable to tech-related mental health challenges?
• How do issues like attachment, identity, and resilience intersect with device use?
• Are there specific risks associated with online relationships, gaming communities, or social media for these children?
• What can adoptive and foster parents, as well as caregivers such as grandparents raising their grandchildren, do proactively to reduce some of these risks before problems arise?
• What role do boundaries, monitoring, and co-viewing/co-playing have in prevention?
• How can they help their child develop self-protective, self-regulation skills, such as learning to prioritize their own mental health and manage their device use? 
• If a tween or teen has already had a harmful tech-related experience, what steps should parents/caregivers take immediately? 
• What does a healthy “tech culture” in a home look like for tweens and teens? 
• One piece of equipping and empowering advice for leading with purpose and mission around the issues of technology, devices, and tweens’ and teens’ mental health

RESOURCES:

• Managing Technology and Screens
• What Resource Parents Should Know About Prenatal Exposure
• How to Cu

Chapters

• 0:49 What are the most common concerns that parents and caregivers have about their tween or teen’s tech use?
• 2:58 What are the differences in concerns between parents of pre-teens/tweens (11–13) and older teens (16–18)?
• 6:24 What does current research say about how much screen time is considered healthy—or at least not harmful—for our tweens and teens?
• 13:38 What types of online content are most worrisome for the tweens and teens in our homes?
• 16:08 What mental health effects are we seeing most often in tweens and teens related to tech use?
• 24:37 Why might kids with a history of trauma and loss, prenatal exposure to alcohol or drugs, or neurodiversity be more vulnerable to tech-related mental health challenges?
• 27:26 How do issues like attachment, identity, and resilience intersect with device use?
• 30:59 What can adoptive and foster parents, as well as caregivers such as grandparents raising their grandchildren, do proactively to reduce some of these risks before problems arise?
• 33:23 What role do boundaries, monitoring, and co-viewing/co-playing have in prevention?
• 38:53 How can they help their child develop self-protective, self-regulation skills, such as learning to prioritize their own mental health and manage their device use?
• 45:42 If a tween or teen has already had a harmful tech-related experience, what steps should parents/caregivers take immediately?
• 51:11 What does a healthy “tech culture” in a home look like for tweens and teens?
• 55:14 One piece of equipping and empowering advice for leading with purpose and mission around the issues of technology, devices, and tweens’ and teens’ mental health

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.

Hello and welcome to Creating a Family. Talk about adoption, foster care, and kinship
care. I'm Tracy Whitney, your host for today's episode and the content manager of
CreatingaFamily .org. We are talking today about tweens, teens, and how to manage the
impacts of technology on their mental health. I'm joined by Brittany Anderson. She is
an author, certified play and narrative intelligence practitioner, and the founder of
Rinala, which helps families become creative, vision -driven leaders beginning at home.
Welcome, Brittany. - Thank you. I'm so glad to be here, Tracy. Good to be with you.
- I'm glad to have you. We just were talking before we went on recording about the
perils of raising tweens and teens in this media and social media and technology
-saturated culture that we live in. So let's set the stage for our listeners to
understand the concerns that most parents and caregivers have about their tweens and
teens and their use of technology. When parents or caregivers come to you about
their tweens or teens, what are the most common concerns that you hear from them?
- Yeah, I mean, we hear a lot of different things. I think a lot of it is also
just questions about how we model technology in our home and how we actually get
our kids to even talk to us, which is very interesting to us because your kids
don't talk to you. But I think that that is a very common problem among parents
and caregivers. It's hard to get their kids to open up and talk And so,
you know, we model healthy screen use in our home, but we also model healthy
relationships. And so our kids are 15, almost 15, almost 13, they actively
communicate with us. We have regular rhythms of connection. And even our 15 year old
daughter not only talks to us, she still grabs and holds our hands in public, which
we love, it's amazing. So, but, you know, a lot of parents are saying, you know,
it's hard to get my kids to even talk to me, to open up to me. It's hard to
pull them off screens if we need to have dinner or we need to get somewhere, even
get to school. It's hard to get them to do other things like help around the house
or help with chores, hard to get them to make their beds, right? I mean, I don't
think that that's necessarily a challenge with just screens. It's always been a
challenge of parenting. But yeah, and then their ability to form relationships too,
because they're not, they are so attached to the screens that their real life
relationships are more difficult to develop at school or on the sports field or in
different activities, they might be a little bit more socially withdrawn as well. So
we hear tons of concerns. I mean, we can barely scratch the surface of those today,
but a lot of parents are struggling with these things, there's no doubt about that.
Are you hearing a difference in the age levels, say concerns that parents have for
their 11, 12, 13 year olds versus their older kids that are maybe 16,
17, heading off to adulthood into 18? Yeah, I mean, I don't think the levels of
the concern are different, but I think the concerns themselves are different. I think
parents are concerned, the levels are high, medium or high, depending on their
circumstances. But I think the concerns are different. And so many of the younger
kids, they may not be on social media yet, probably aren't if they're 10, 11,
12, I don't even think that the platforms allow them to be on social media at
those ages anyway. And so the concern is more about the content I think that
they're falling into or stumbling upon. It's also the concern that they're not
spending enough time in really imaginative play or that the content or devices are
replacing their building deeper friendships, being bored, those kind of things.
I think for older kids, for the older teens, the concerns are more, you know, a
little feel a little bit more serious in terms in terms of bullying online or the
way that their self -image is being developed if they're watching the filtered
influencer style content constantly, as well as other types of content they're
consuming. There's so much horrible things out there that we can't even imagine that
they might just come across or stumble upon. And I think also,
I don't hear as much concern from parents about their older teens' relationships to
play and things like that. But it is still something that parents should be
concerned about because kids, even older teens, still need to be playing, still need
to be exploring, still need to be creating. It's so healthy for them. It's healthy
for you as an adult too, as a reminder. Because even in the teen years,
they need to be playing, being bored, being creative. It's so important in those
years as well. We emphasize a lot of importance of the play -based childhood in our
work at Rinaldo because research shows that how children play, particularly between
the ages of 10 to 14, is a portal into how they're going to show up in
relationship as adults. And so this also tends to be the ages who were putting
screens in their hands and so play is so super important in those that age range
of 10 to 14 it's also important before that it's important after that and it's
important into adulthood and so I hope parents will you know if even if they think
that these other concerns about bullying and and and those things are valid concerns
but also being concerned about their their kids lack of play even in those older
teen years, they need to be continuing to play whatever that looks like for them so
that they can have those healthy relationship as adults. Yeah, and kind of one of
the frontline tools for managing that is managing the screen time that our kids,
how long are they on screens every day? And in today's culture, we can't manage how
much time they're on screens at school. for a variety of reasons. School is going
to a screen -based learning model in many, many school districts across the country.
But I'm curious, if parents are looking for kind of a guideline or like a starting
off point or a jumping point, what's considered best practices right now for how
much screen time is considered healthy or at least not harmful for tweens and teens
specifically? Yeah, I mean there's so much conflicting advice out there,
right? It's so hard to know what to do. I know I get frustrated about that as a
parent, and I imagine all of your listeners do as well. I know there was research
released by the CDC this past July, so it's pretty current that found that four or
more hours of daily screen time. And when I say for more hours, I mean, personal
time, that's like scrolling social media, playing games, those kind of things. It's
not education related time, because I know you mentioned school. They're on education
related devices for most of the day now. But this is more personal time. Four or
more hours of that resulted in adverse health outcomes, particularly with their
physical activity, their sleep, weight, mental health, and then the levels of support
that they felt they perceived in their family and their relationships as well. And
that study looked at children who are ages 12 to 17. And so clearly, to me,
four hours seems like too much for my kids. Like, whoa, that's a lot,
especially after they're at school all day. I want to spend time with them. And so
four hours seems too much for me. And certainly, I think it's definitely context
dependent and it's dependent on the child too. So I don't think there's blanket
advice about what's good, what's not good, what's too much, what's too little,
all of those things. It's really context dependent, it's child dependent, it's family
dependent. And so you really have to make that decision for yourself. How much do I
want my children on these devices and what is that replacing in terms of their
ability to play, their ability to connect with your family, their ability to connect
with friends? Parents have to make that decision and notice when is too much,
too much. And I think it is quality over quantity as well. Our kids, our son loves
to play Minecraft, but he never plays it alone. He's always playing it with friends.
He has some best friends in Tennessee. He has friends in Kentucky. And so he's
always, you know, talking to them and they're playing in their realm. I think it's
called together. And so, you know, he's never doing that alone. So I'm okay with
him playing that for a couple hours every day, because it's time that he's
connecting with friends he wouldn't otherwise be able to connect with. In fact, even
this morning, he came down. I heard him upstairs playing with a friend in Nashville.
He hasn't played with him in a while. And I heard him say, "Oh, I have to go
down and make my lunch for school." And he came down and started putting his salad
together. And I said, "You know what? Go back up and play with Jude because you
haven't talked to him in a while." And so I said, "I'll make your lunch for you."
And so sometimes it's pushing them back and saying, "This is as healthy use of your
time right now because you're connecting with a friend. And so it's all context
dependent and child dependent, I think, for sure. Yeah. Wow. And you said four hours
is when it starts to get adverse effects. I was shocked. That seems so much time.
I agree. Although I'll be the first to admit when you're engaged in something with
that level of intensive purpose and focus, four hours can fly.
I mean, I get that on a kid's behalf. For sure. But what I hear you saying kind
of as a summary of that is that the amount of time is probably not as important
as the way that time is spent. So if it's in a valuable pursuit, like connecting
with friends or learning a new skill on YouTube or something like that, that's more
beneficial than it is harmful as long as it's not out of balance with all the
other things that are important to a healthy, thriving childhood. - For sure. - I am
curious about the research. Did they mention, or was there anything that indicated
what time of day might be most harmful for teenagers or tweens?
- Yeah, I don't think that research touched on that. I'm not sure. I'd have to go
back and look at it.
you know, late at night is definitely more problematic. And just a reminder for
listeners, that's as true for adults as it is for kids, you know? And teens need,
particularly teens need between eight to 10 quality hours of sleep per night. And,
you know, take tech out of the equation. I don't think most teens are even getting
close to that amount of sleep. I know my daughter gets up at 5 .30 every morning.
She had softball practice, we didn't get home till 10 last night. So, you know,
take the screens out of the equation, they're already not getting enough sleep. And
then when you add screens in, it's even more problematic. And so they're having a
harder time falling asleep. They're struggling to turn their brain off. They might
have notifications overnight that can disrupt their sleep. Most of that's common
sense. We kind of know we probably shouldn't be looking at this bright light right
before we need to go to bed, right? But so many...
going phone free and so I because I think, you know time those times of day or
other times that that the screens aren't Healthy or helpful, you know our our high
school is it might art art or just started high school and They are phone free but
not at lunchtime Which for me is a little bit frustrating and and I'm gonna be
vocal about that But because kids are the lunchroom is quiet, you know the kids are
on their phones instead of talking to each other, and I don't think that that's
healthy either. And so, I think there's good times, there's not good times,
clearly the right before bed is not good. And then other times of day,
it's definitely context specific. - Yeah, and I would put a plug in for the
understanding that when our kids are at the end of the day and they're tired, it's
not It's the priority of helping them get good sleep. It's the priority of helping
them understand when you are tired, you don't make wise choices. - Yeah, it's so
good. - And help them understand. And again, I'm guessing most of the parents and
caregivers who tuned in today did not expect to have their habits examined as well,
but it's a very good reminder that if we don't want our kids scrolling late at
night, we shouldn't be scrolling late at night because tweens and teens often stay
up as late as we do in my house. Sometimes my teen stays up later than I do. And
if I'm sitting there scrolling and that's all she sees is the top of my head,
me scrolling, I'm not modeling a great habit for her. What kinds of online content
are you seeing to be most worrisome for the tweens and teens in our homes.
Maybe some examples of maybe the more subtle content that is maybe more worrisome
than we're even aware. Yeah, it was interesting. I saw a post on Instagram, I
think, the other day that said, "What age should I get my kid of my son a phone?"
And it said, "Well, at what age do you want him to see pornography?" And so I was
like, "Wow, that's powerful." And so obviously that's a huge concern.
We don't know if that's being shown to our children. I think that's obviously a
serious concern and very harmful. I think some of the more subtle things can be
things that, like I said earlier, the influencer style content that can cause kids
to struggle with body image, with self -worth. I have a lot of concerns with the AI
generated content that kids might see online and that it may be authentic,
it may not, it may be teaching them things that aren't true. There's also content
that's pushing suicide, self -harm, violence, all of these things that are just awful
to even comprehend how are people living with themselves pushing this kind of thing
on our kids. And so I don't think any of that is necessarily unknown to this
audience. I mean, I think all of us have these concerns. We're seeing them and we
worry about our kids seeing them. And, you know, it's hard to get into the dangers
of each specific platform. So parents really need to be proactive about,
you know, what platforms is my child on? You know, what are the dangers of those
specific platforms? What do I need to be watching out for? What do I need to be
monitoring? And how do I need to be having conversations and engaging my kids in
what's acceptable and what's not acceptable online. - Yeah, that's a great point. The
hyper vigilance required to parent children in this culture is exhausting for parents.
It's a hard, hard consuming task. But we wanna make sure parents feel equipped and
feel empowered to take this role in their children's lives. And specifically around
the issues of mental health, we know that risk for suicide, risk for risk taking
behavior and things like that can be influenced by what they're taking in on
screens. So what are some of the maybe specific mental health impacts that we should
be looking for when we have children who are on tech so frequently and so long,
up to four hours a day or more for some kids. What are the mental health effects
that you're seeing? Yeah, obviously, there's clearly anxiety, depression,
suicidal thoughts, self -harm. There's also, you know, going back to the sleep
conversation, there's disrupted sleep patterns that can their their mental health and
their ability to focus as well. Then there's, you know, addictive types of behaviors
where it might be hard to pull children off of the devices and into the real
world. I also think, you know, that at Rinaldo, we believe that relational health is
the foundation for better physical, mental and emotional health. And so when you
think about the relationship implications of having a kid attached to a screen for
hours and not to physical people, kids that aren't connecting with friends at the
level that they once did, that's a concern also for their physical health, for their
mental health and their emotional health as well. And I worry about what that means
for the future because as we shared earlier, if they're not playing, they're not
learning how to be in relationship with others. And so what does that mean for
their future and is growing into an adult and not knowing how to relate to others
and be in relationship and have healthy, you know, mental, physical, emotional health?
Because these are the kids who are going to be taking care of us. They're going to
be running our government, running our organizations, taking care of the planet. We
need them healthy, relationally, mentally, physically and emotionally. And so all of
these things are super important conversations to be having now and thinking about
the future. Yeah, that's such a great point. Parenting isn't about raising the kid
in front of you. It's about raising the kid in front of you to become a great
adult. Yes. And that's the goal is we're preparing future adults.
So yeah, I appreciate that point. I wonder, are the impacts between,
say, social media, gaming and media streaming, are those impacts different?
Yeah, I mean, all of them can have a lot of the negative impacts that we've
already talked about. They can also have positive impacts. We talked a little bit
about some of the gaming and how kids can do it together and it's positive. So,
there's a lot of studies out that show that screen time itself is not necessarily
bad and going back to that quality conversation, especially if they're enjoying the
screen time with other people, that can be a healthy activity in moderation.
I think, certainly, screen time gets a bad rap and when we're looking at whether
there's differences in social media, gaming, video streaming. You streaming. I think
social media can have some positive impacts because they're connecting with others.
But I personally think it can be more negative than it is positive,
especially if they're kind of doom -scrolling or those kind of things. But again, I
think screen time often gets a bad rap and rightfully so. But there are other
things that can be seemingly harmless that can be just as impactful on our kids'
ability to grow in relationships, to be creative, to be innovative, and to be bored.
Parents are overloading often, responding to the screen time by overloading their
kids' schedules with other activities and extracurriculars that content is still being
fed to them, whether it's getting it on a screen or getting it in a class or in
another format and it's still preventing them from being bored, from being innovative,
from being creative, from just creating something out of nothing. And, you know, for
us, you know, our daughter is almost 15. She loves to read. I mean, she reads two,
maybe more 500 plus page books a week. I mean, that's, she's, it's crazy. And most
people will say, wow, that's incredible. But at the same time, it's a bit of an
addiction for her. So we have to be mindful of how much she's reading and how many
hours she's spending reading and pull her out and remind her, okay, go draw for a
bit 'cause you love to draw or go have some time with friends, go have time with
us, let's play a game, those kind of things. And So yeah, I mean, all of these
different modalities can be positive, but they can also be harmful. So it's all
about noticing and having a healthy relationship to whatever our kids are finding
themselves getting lost in. Yeah, that's such a great point. And we do know that
the risk for addictive behaviors around screen time and social media are higher than
the risk for addiction to a book. I think my parents would agree that I was
probably addicted to books when I was a child.
So the risk for addictive behaviors or responses to social media or online time are
higher, but you're right that seeking that balance, seeking ways to support our
children to be more balanced in their approach to all the things that they enjoy is
a good recipe for supporting and scaffolding good mental health. Do you feel like
there's maybe a difference between the impacts for boys versus impacts for girls at
positive or negative? But is there a difference down the gender lines? - Yeah,
the research I'm familiar with shows that there is a more adverse effect on girls
generally, clearly for the obvious things like poor body image, poor self -image,
comparison, and then the mental health effects of depression, anxiety and those kind
of things. But certainly boys can experience it too. And so I don't want to
minimize the fact that just because the research shows, skews one way that boys
don't experience it, again, it's very context specific and every child is different.
Every family is different. And so it's really about paying attention to both genders,
both girls and boys, and noticing what seems like a healthy use for them and
noticing where it may actually be impacting negatively their mental health,
their emotional health, or relational health. And so it's really up to parents and
caregivers to be mindful of both girls and boys and what level seems healthy for
each of them at every age and stage too.
- I'm sorry to interrupt this conversation. I'm learning a ton and appreciating so
much of what Brittany is sharing. And I'm wondering if you are looking for a
community of other parents and caregivers who get the same struggles and issues that
you're facing while you're raising your family. I'd like to recommend our Facebook
group to you. You can find us at facebook .com /groups /creatingafamily and in that
group you'll experience a safe place to land and connect with other parents and
caregivers who are trying to manage tech use and trying to manage identity
development, and exposure to culture, and exposure to birth family,
extended family, all those things that parents and caregivers have to juggle with
their kids. So if you're interested in learning and connecting with other families,
come on over to the Facebook group. Again, it's facebook .com /groups /creatingafamily.
And speaking of learning together, If you have a friend who could use the practical
advice that Brittany is sharing with us today, please recommend the podcast and let
them know that we would love for them to take a listen and learn right alongside
of us. Sharing the podcast helps us get this kind of information and other great
equipping information into the hands and the ears of new listeners, so we appreciate
your help that way. So let's drill down a little bit onto the issues surrounding
the specific audiences that creating a family supports. That would be the adoptive
and foster parents, relative or kinship caregivers who are raising tweens and teens.
Why would a child with a history of impact from adoption or foster care or relative
caregiving, why would they be maybe more at risk or more vulnerable to some of
those tech -related mental health challenges that we've been discussing thus far? Sure.
Yeah. And I want to share up front that there's so much that I don't know.
I don't want to claim to be the expert on all of those things. And so my
knowledge shows that kids with trauma and loss, prenatal exposure to alcohol or drugs
or those who have neurodiverse needs, they do tend to be more vulnerable to the
risks of online media. And so all of the issues that we've previously discussed up
to this point can certainly become even more heightened for these children.
And so they might be searching more deeply than another child. They might be
searching more deeply for connection and belonging, and that makes them a bit more
susceptible to the dangers of technology. And so, I'm thinking about the algorithms.
They can exploit some of those things like impulse control and emotional regulation.
They can make it easier for it to have the compulsive use or screen compulsive use
or screen addiction, they can also things like online triggers like cyberbullying or
suicidal content or self -harm content or violent content, those kind of things can
can actually hit harder because they're they're hyperaroused in those kind of things.
For neurodiverse kids, I know that the kind of those dopamine rewards can feel
soothing in the moment, but also lead to, you to dependency or kind of heightened
withdrawal as well. - Yeah, and I think too, sometimes when our kids are feeling
internal discomfort from a loss or from trauma or from that prenatal exposure impact
of brain development and delayed development and things like that, sometimes they're
seeking a self -medicating type of environment and it goes back to that dopamine hit.
This feels good, this feels safe, this feels comfortable. I don't have to interact
with somebody that's not predictable, this is predictable. And so I'm going to keep
turning to this. And yeah, being very aware of that risk for our specific
demographic of kids is a good way to put it. How do issues like a child's
developing identity or their attachment or history of attachment or their ability to
be resilient. How do those things interact with or intersect with the way they use
their devices or the time that they spend on their devices or the kind of content
that they're seeking on their devices? Yeah, and I love that you asked this question
because, you know, all kids and I think even adults crave connection.
They crave belonging. They crave a sense of identity and purpose. And all of us can
find it in many ways, really anywhere, but it's a lot easier to find it online
because it's at our fingertips, right? We can find it in social or online media.
We can find it in what we do, what we achieve, and what we have, the things that
we think make us valuable. And we seek out validation that isn't just online,
but online is certainly exacerbating the problem and distracting, I think kids and
parents from healthy identity formation. And so parents and caregivers have to make a
decision. Do you want your child's identity to be developed by online media,
by external things like something they do or their work or their achievement or by
what they have or what they lack. Or do you want it shaped by who they truly are?
And I think it's up to parents, up to caregivers to do that work because healthy
identity formation begins in the family. And so at Rinaldo, we have something called
the Be Do Have Blueprint that really outlines nine key areas that help families
connect, align, and solve problems. And in that B sphere, which is the foundation,
is understanding your identity, your strengths, your needs. And we really help each
member of the family understand each other on this individual level so that they can
build those stronger support systems, have a strong identity. And that makes them
more resilient to those online messages that might tell them false narratives about
who they are because they have that anchor of knowing inside the family, inside
their relationships who they are, and that makes them more resilient to those
messages. - Yeah, I think it comes down to, do you want to be the ones helping
your child form that identity or do you want to let culture help your child form
their identity? And not to say either one is absolutely right or absolutely wrong,
not to say that one or the other is perfect in the way that it's achieved, but
when we're as parents and caregivers taking the lead, taking the reins of that and
intentionally finding ways to be the ones that are helping our kids form that
identity and understand who they are and who they come from and the context of that
I love the word that you used anchor, our homes should be their anchor. And I love
that you phrased it in that way. But that question, it goes through my mind a lot.
Do I want to be the one forming who my kid is? Or do I want to let culture do
it? And I err on the side of I'd rather be the one doing it. but it's a valid
question for parents and caregivers to ask themselves. - Absolutely, could not agree
more.
Yes. - So what are some kind of proactive steps that adoptive and foster parents or
kinship caregivers, grandparents raising grandkids can take to proactively reduce some
of the risks before the problems become become a crisis. Before you have to save
your kid, I need you to just get off your phone for a week and detox. What are
some of those proactive things that we can do to reduce those risks and and issues
for our kids? Yeah, I mean, I first want to acknowledge that I, I imagine it's
often this is a huge challenge because often a lot of these caregivers are
inheriting issues that they weren't responsible for being proactive about in the first
place. And so, you know, and then given the heightened challenges that often a lot
of these kids are at higher risk because of their histories, like that's just
acknowledging all of that. It's also hard to give, you know, blanket advice because
every child and caregiver is different. But I think one thing I would say that I
think can apply powerfully to anyone listening and any child is understanding what
they love to do that is screen free. What lights them up? Have conversations about
it if they will open up to you because I know these kids have probably heard no
either directly or indirectly their entire lives. And so saying yes to something that
they love, even their outlandish requests, maybe they want to cook something and make
a mess, like say yes to that activity, do those activities with them. The practice
of saying yes to them is powerful and it helps them learn healthy behaviors,
mindsets, and it models healthy relationships. That way it becomes less about saying
no to the devices and more about saying yes to the other things that light them up
to connection to play. That's so important. Yeah, that's fantastic.
Starting that foundational, I'm going to help you find what lights you up and then
I'm going to provide as many opportunities as I can to see you keep lighting up.
But the reality is that we still have to have some boundaries and some monitoring.
What are some ways that we can implement boundaries, monitoring, even that co -viewing
or co -playing as preventative methods? Yeah,
I mean, the co -viewing, co -playing is super important. Get involved with the things
that they're enjoying online because, you know, they're having some fun on there too,
and it's good, and it's good to take interest and play alongside of them, because
they usually will invite you in, I find. Especially if they get to teach you about
it. Yes. So if you ask them, "Hey, that game looks pretty fun. How do you play?"
Yeah, I actually had that experience the other day with one of my kids, like, "I've
never played this game before. I don't actually like online games, but she loves it.
Teach me what you've learned about this game." Yes, - Yeah, yeah, and that's
beautiful. Our son will go on for hours about Minecraft and I am more educated on
it than I probably should be as a 40 plus year old woman. But yeah, I absolutely
ask them questions, talk to them, play with them. I think those are all really
healthy things to do and helps them create a healthy relationship with it. I also,
I think, and I believe in creating generally vision over boundaries and again it
goes back to that yes and no mindset. When you create a vision together and that's
parents with or caregivers with your kids those boundaries naturally happen so it's
it's kind of thinking more about what is the family we're creating what is the
vision that we're creating how are we different from other families how do we
approach how do we want to approach tech tech and relationships and impact and all
of those things different or what do we value as a family and how does the tech
fit into that? And so, you know, that's something we help families do because, you
know, we really believe in vision and that boundaries are naturally the outpouring of
vision. They make those boundaries more clear. And so that said, you know, monitoring
is still important and not enough parents are doing it. You know, there's Jonathan
Hates book that The Anxious Generation that talks about that and how we're super
proactive in keeping our kids safe in the real world and reactive or kind of
relaxed and yeah, keeping them safe online.
And there's certainly apps that can help keep them safe, but it's not foolproof.
And so, you know, we need to be continually having conversations with our kids as
parents as caregivers to make sure that they are, you know, setting appropriate goals
for themselves in their personal lives so that they can kind of develop that healthy
relationship technology naturally. You know, our son, you know, he's trying to get
better at basketball. And so, you know, he got up early this morning, he did a
workout, he'll come home, he's gonna play basketball probably for an hour, practicing
out back. And so when he has those goals, it makes it easier for him to set those
boundaries versus us having to set them for him. So help your kids set those goals
and help them step into vision versus just being more known for what you're for
than what you're against. What are we creating versus what are we restricting? - And
this is especially important if you are welcoming a foster child or a relative child
into your home that may have had differing expectations or differing goals or
differing boundaries before they came to your home. It's really important that you
tread lightly at first. It's important that you give them a voice and a choice.
You said something at the beginning of this segment where you're collaborating
together on boundaries and monitoring and things like that. And when you're welcoming
an older child that's had a whole lot of life experience before coming to your
home, whether it's by adoption or foster care or raising a relative's child, treading
lightly And making it a collaborative effort will, first of all, help that child
feel seen and heard and respected for the body of life that they bring to the
table, but it also will almost guarantee better buy -in even when you have to set a
boundary that they don't love. And if they feel invested in the process,
if they feel that they own part of the process, you're communicating that you value
them and helping them take that sense of value to another place where maybe they
won't feel valued and they can recognize that. I'm not valued here. My voice doesn't
matter here. And so I don't need to keep spending my time here. And there are
places in the tech world where they will get that message that they're not valued
and that they're not treasured and precious. And if they can develop that
understanding of how that feels, because they've had the understanding of being valued
in your home, you will get much better agreement and buy -in to whatever boundaries
you do have to put in place. Absolutely. Yeah. 100 % agree. Yeah. That collaboration
is so important, absolutely. - And that kind of goes to our next question about self
-protection and self -regulation. When we are raising tweens and teens who need the
life skill of prioritizing their own mental health and prioritizing their own value,
what are some of the specific things that we can do to kind of help them develop
that or develop that awareness? How do we talk to them about those things that we
were just talking about, their value, their preciousness? Yeah, I mean, it goes a
lot back to that identity conversations we were having earlier. I think that helps
them become resilient in knowing who they are before they go out in social or tells
them, you know, a couple of the questions that, you know, when we work with
families on identity, we talk to them about what do you think the moment you took
your first breath before you did, before you had anything, what do you think was
created for the world? And sometimes different words, different themes will emerge and
that becomes, again, that anchor that really helps the child just see themselves
through a very positive light about what's right about them, that they were born for
a purpose and seeing themselves positively and they can carry that into the world.
And for our family, each of us has a word that having gone through that exercise
together is an anchor for us, mine is gift, my husband's is joy, our daughter's is
imagination and our son's is friend. And so that's something that, you know, we
constantly have conversations about as a family is how are we living out that
identity? How are we not living out that identity? And how are we going to shift?
And how can we shift in areas that we might not be showing up in that way?
Because when we show up that way, it's a completely different interaction with
others, with, with media, with the messages that were being fed. And so,
yeah, really having that anchor of identity, it helps make that resilience possible,
understanding your strengths, understanding what is unique about your kids' strengths.
We do a lot of work with CliftonStrengths. That's an assessment that gives you a
spectrum of 34 strengths. A lot of people don't know that there's actually an
assessment for kids as well. And so we do a lot of strengths work with families,
helping them understand one another's strengths and anchor into those strengths as
well. Because your strengths are actually the likelihood you share your top five in
the same order as someone else's one in 33 million. So you are different, your kids
are different, your spouse, your partner is different, and understanding that about
each other is powerful, and then understanding that about yourself when you are
responding to all of the messages that are being thrown at us every day,
understanding this is who I am, this is my identity, my strengths, my needs, and
understanding that can be very powerful and being resilient in the online world and
the real world as well. - Yeah, so when we're teaching our kids and calling out
their strengths and naming them and using them in regular everyday conversation and
building up all the other parts of their life, academically, socially, family
relationships. And we're calling out all of those strengths. We're building their
ability to identify when they've been harmed online, or when they've participated in
something online that is maybe harmful to others. And that digital resilience or that
ability to recover from something that happened online that was harmful is just as
vital as the resilience that our kids need when they get a bad grade at school and
they need to recover from that or when they've had a fallout with a friend and
they need to recover from that. - Absolutely. - So when we're trying to navigate
that, the building their identity and calling out their strengths in all the other
areas of their life so that they're also able to do it online, how do we balance
needing to supervise what they're doing online? Because let's face it,
kids, especially vulnerable kids, will be seeking out and participating in unhealthy
things online. That's just the nature of the learning curve of a kid. So how do we
balance supervision and giving them the autonomy and trust that they need to learn
how to be resilient online and in real life. - Yeah, I mean,
those regular conversations, the regular touch points about what's acceptable, what's
not acceptable online are so important. If it's not a one and done, be constantly
having them. I think even daily, at least in the minimum weekly, having some type
of you know, keeping it even up with the news media and seeing what some trends
are and just opening up conversations about, well, you know, this article said this
about this platform and I know you're on that, I just wanna have a conversation
about that. You know, I'm amazed at the level at which our kids come to us with
even the most mundane little things, you know, because we've taught them to be hyper
-vigilant online, you know, but at the same time, in real life, we give them a lot
of...
not at all, but giving them some level of autonomy in their real life experiences.
So our kids are biking to school. They're playing in the neighborhood with kids. We
trust that our son loves to cook. We trust him to cook on the gas stove. They're
building independence in their real lives. And so our ability to trust them in the
real world situations makes them trust us when it comes to online behaviors,
that they feel comfortable coming to us to share what's going on, what doesn't feel
right. And so I would recommend the same for your listeners. Be intentional as you
can about ways that you can build their independence in real -world scenarios so that
that will spill over into the way that they conduct themselves online and know
what's right, what isn't, and be open and honest with you when things don't feel
right. - And this is why it's so important that we know our kids, that we know
their age and stage, that we know their abilities, that we know their interests. So
even if their abilities don't match their interests, we can help them get there. But
the reality is that sometimes our kids do get harmed online, whether it's exposure
to something that is well beyond their depth of understanding or something outright
immoral or improper or too graphic, whatever. What steps do we take as parents to
help, and again, focusing on tweens and teens and mental health, what steps can we
parents and caregivers take to get the conversation going about the harm that they
experienced and when should that conversation turn to the hands of a professional?
- Yeah, I mean, obviously it depends largely on the context and I think if it's an
emergency, clearly it's an emergency. But there may be some times where it's a
conversation that needs to be had to start. And I think it's important for parents
to remember that your emotions are probably going to feel out of control when you
first hear of something happening. And so it's important for you to self -regulate,
to pause, regulate your emotions because you are going to have them. This is your
child that you love. And so then opening up a conversation with them without shaming
them. Ask them questions about what happened, how they're feeling, you know, assessing
the risks together, like what risks did this cause? You know, obviously the situation
may need to be escalated. If it's law enforcement, maybe if it's a cyber bullying,
it needs to be taken up with another parent or a school administrator, those kind
of things. But yeah, and I realized that those are harmful situations,
but they also open up conversation that may, that may open up healthier behaviors
going forward too. And so not seeing them, depending on what it is,
obviously again, this is context specific, but it may open up a conversation that
needed to be had that can really change things moving forward. And parents and
caregivers need to set that vision around acceptable use of tech, move the harmful
tech, block certain individuals, whatever that is. And there's a lot of resources
online that can help with specific situations, because we can barely scratch the
surface of them on this podcast. But I think Common Sense Media has some good
resources. American Academy of Pediatrics-- and I think it's the Center for Humane
Technology-- has some good resources as well that are more specific to context. But
I think the final reminder is really just to remind kids that again, going back to
that identity, going back to their strengths, that a harmful experience doesn't define
them. Right. That's so good. And I think too, it's important that we recognize that,
well, a couple of things. First, that we recognize that the interaction may not have
been intentional. It could have been completely accidental and so until we know
differently, we should assume the best about our kids. The second thing that's really
important you alluded to it at the beginning was taking a beat. Just pause,
breathe, get your own emotions and fears and worries under control.
Try not to react bigger than they're reacting. But also be care of and educate
yourself about the symptoms of that kind of harm or symptoms of mental health
struggles. So symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety that could include self
-isolation, changes in eating or sleeping patterns, changes in grades, changes in
friend circles. Any of those significant shifts that you're noticing in your child,
tween or teen, pay attention to those and start the conversations and recognize that
sometimes bringing in a mental health professional sooner than later may get a lot
of pushback from your teenager, but it in the long one may be the very best thing
that you can do and seeking help sooner than later for kids that are at risk or
vulnerable, you can't go wrong with seeking the help sooner than later.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
One more interruption if you don't mind. I wanted to remind you about our library
of free courses. Thanks to our partners at Jockey Being Family Foundation,
we can offer you 15 free courses where you get to learn alongside of experts that
are sharing fantastic information about how to talk to our kids or how to avoid
being triggered by our kids or how to navigate school issues with children who come
from families impacted by adoption, foster care, kinship care, relative caregiving.
There's 15 courses you can take one or all 15 and if you go to bit .ly /jbfsupport
that's b -i -t dot l -y
You'll be able to see the full array of 15 courses, and if you keep your eye out,
you'll see that we rotate in new courses occasionally and freshen up the library,
so we hope that you'll take advantage of those. Thanks so much. So let's talk,
let's kind of focus a little bit more positively on the issues of tech and teens
and tweens and mental health. And let's talk about what a healthy tech culture might
look like in a home that's got multiple tweens and teens. - Yeah, absolutely. You
know, I referenced Jonathan Haidt earlier and, you know, he recommends no phones till
high school. I know for some listeners that you've already, your kids are not in
high school yet, but they already have a phone. I understand that 'cause I know
that book that he released only came out, I think it was like last year, maybe the
year before. And so a lot of this is kind of new developments. Some of us have
already gotten our kids phones. I know that's the case for us, our kids, because
they have so much independence, our son has a phone, he's almost 13 and our
daughter has when she's 15. But we don't allow social media for either of them
because we want them to make that decision themselves. When they're adults, I don't
feel like they are equipped to make that decision about what they post online and
how that's going to impact them later in life. And so if they want to be on
social media when they're adults, they can make that decision. And so not every
parent is going to -- they might not see it that way. They might see it
differently. And so I think if, you know, monitoring their phone diligently and in
their tech use diligently is very important in having those conversations regularly.
And I wanna go back to what we shared at the beginning when we were talking about
sleep is as parents, we are modeling for our kids what a healthy tech culture looks
like. And so if we're scrolling for hours a day,
if we are on them at the dinner table or in other times when we could be
connecting with them, then we're not modeling good behaviors for them. And so if you
want to create a healthy tech culture in your home, you have to model that yourself
first. And so again, if you're on your screen before bed, they expected to not do
that, you know, the change you wish to see in your family, the culture that you
wish to shift and change, it always begins with you as the parent or the caregiver.
You can't see change if you do not fully embody that change first. And so, if
you're looking to create that tech culture, I would start with yourself. Make a list
of, okay, what are all the things that I want to change in my family? And before
you make the request or have the conversation, take a week and just make those
changes yourself first and then have the conversation. So if you don't want phones
at the dinner table, then start putting your phone away at the dinner table. Try it
for a week and then talk about it. If you don't want them before bed, try that
for a week for yourself first and then make that request of your family. And so
again, we have to model that for them or they're not going to take it seriously.
And I know there's arguments to be made, "Well, we're mature than they are and can
handle things." But a lot of these behaviors aren't necessarily good for us as
adults either. And so, modeling that for them is as good for us as it is for
them. It's good for creating that healthy family culture that is going to secure a
better for for your family and for your kids. So true. And I'm laughing because I'm
pretty sure that the parents and caregivers who tuned in today really did not
necessarily expect to be reminded that more is caught than taught.
And so it's it's good reminders. It's good refreshing information for myself and for
all of us who are listening to if you want to create and help form a healthy,
well -balanced, productive adult, then you need to be a healthy,
well -balanced, productive adult. And that's a tough one to swallow. But let's wrap
up on a positive note of one very equipping or empowering piece of advice that you
would offer our listeners, how to lead their homes around the idea of technology and
screens and tweens and teens, how to lead with purpose and attend to those issues
of mental health. Yeah, sure. So I want to remind parents and caregivers,
you are the most powerful people in the world. So our,
our Renala is named after the magnificent Baobab trees in Africa because we ask
families, what if your family tree became less about the past and more about the
future? And I know we've talked a lot about, you know, creating that future for our
kids and, you know, as a parent, you have the power to change that future for your
family. As a caregiver, you have the power to change that future for these kids.
And so what do you want that future family tree to look like? I don't think we
think about our family trees in that way a lot, right? We think about them in the
context of the past, but there's going to be a family tree in the future. So how
do you want to shape that? You have so much power. You have a superpower to shape
these kids. And as you think about that future, How does tech use in your family
fit or not fit into that vision? Because even the simplest decisions that you think
are harmless today, they have implications for that future. Our kids have only 6 ,500
or so days in our home.
And I know for the audience listening today, there's varying degrees of how many
days they're with you. And Most of us have probably burned through some, many, maybe
all of those days at this point. And so just be mindful of what is the future
that I'm creating and the little seemingly senseless decisions that don't feel like
they're insignificant is the word I'm looking for. Insignificant decisions that don't
feel like they have impact in that future they do. The choices you're making today.
One thing I would love your audience with is, you know, we do one thing as a
family each year, it's called Yes Week. And it's going back to the yeses that I've
kind of alluded to throughout our conversation. And it's one week each year where we
commit to screen -free play. And we say yes to all of the things that are playful
for us. And so just a reminder, this is not about saying yes to your kids, because
I know there's that movie Yes Day, that it's like saying yes to all of these
outlandish things. This is about saying yes as a family. So it's about them saying
yes to you too and figuring out what is playful for each of you and spending the
week saying yes to that. And so for us, it also happens to be the week we work
on our vision, our purpose, our values as a family as well. And it doesn't have to
be a full week. I know a week can be a little overwhelming. We celebrate it the
first week, our kids are out of school each summer. But it doesn't have to be at
the beginning of summer, it can be now, it can be a day, it can be a weekend.
But just practice what it looks like to say yes to things that are off screens and
just see how that feels. I think you find your kids get really excited about that
possibility because you're setting an intention of a whole day or a whole weekend or
even a whole week of saying yes to things that are non -tech specific and connecting
as a family and see what happens as a result of that. After you come out of that
deep refit, talk about, okay, what do we want to carry forward into our daily lives
now that we've done this process together? Yeah, I love that. That's a great idea
for kind of instilling the vision -setting skills that they need as adults, especially
with our tweens and teens, we want them to go into adulthood with as many tools to
thrive as possible and saying yes to off -screen things as a family can,
whether it's a day or three days or a week, can be such a great skill -building
opportunity. So you wanna plug your book real quick? You've got a book coming out.
- Yeah, we'd love to. - Yeah, go ahead. - We want to chat about that. Yeah, we have
a book coming out October 14th, it's available for pre -order right now. It's called
Living Room Leadership. And so if you're interested in learning, not just about the,
more about the positive impact you can have in your family about how to connect,
how to build a culture of vision, growth and connection, how to become great leaders
by leading through the lens of your family and how to create them as well and
raise the great leaders. So that's called Living Room Leadership. Again, it's
available at livingroomleadershipbook .com. I realize that's a really long URL, but
yes, livingroomleadershipbook .com. And I'm most active on LinkedIn as well.
I post a lot of content on there. So that's @RenalaFamilies as well as Instagram
and these as well. - Great, thank you. I'm looking forward to it. Good luck with
your book launch. - Thank you. Yes, I wrote it with my husband, so I wanna give
him credit too. - Awesome. - So we co -wrote it together. - 'Cause we do this work
together and love it, so yeah. - That's great. Well, thank you, Brittany,
for this conversation. I can't believe our time flew so quickly. It was so
fascinating to talk with you. I'm really thankful for the work that you're doing to
support families to build vision and purpose in their homes and for the insight that
you lent today to conversations about mental health and tweens and teens and the
saturation of tech that we live in every day. So thank you so much.