- Let's talk about Screen Time
and technology in your homeschool.
(soft music)
I'm Sonya Shafer with Simply Charlotte Mason.
Obviously, Charlotte Mason didn't say anything
about the use of computers or
other electronic screens in homeschooling.
Yet Screen Time is a real concern for many homeschoolers.
And we get questions about that topic regularly.
So I asked my friend and co-founder
of Simply Charlotte Mason to share his thoughts about it.
Doug Smith is here to see us today.
Hi, Doug.
- Hi, great
to be here. - Thanks for joining me.
- It's good to be on the side
of the screen for a little while
Now you do our- you oversee our technology
and some of the business aspects of SCM.
So you spend a lot of your time on the computer?
- Yeah, if we're gonna have
an open honest conversation
about Screen Time I need to make a confession.
- Do we need to turn off the cameras or are you okay?
- Let's do this publicly.
- Okay, here we go.
- I spend most days all day on
the screen that's my job.
- Yeah, it is it is, so what is I mean,
you're speaking from experience here.
What is your view on Screen Time?
- You know, I think a lot of times
we confuse it with television.
And when we talk about screens,
we have a variety of devices.
We have our phones, we have computers,
and we do have television
but they're not all the same.
And for me, it comes down to how we use those devices.
Are we being creators?
Or are we being consumers?
Is it a tool, or is it a toy?
- Those are good thoughts.
So let's, unlayer those a little bit more than
what are some ways that it could
be used to a disadvantage in the home?
And I think that's where most homeschoolers
are concerned about the issue. - Sure.
Unlayer that for us a little bit.
- You know, it depends a little bit
on the child's age or even for ourselves.
So for younger children it's very important
for children to have a lot
of unstructured play time to be creative.
They develop social skills that way
they develop their language that way.
There was a time I remember when
our kids were quite young, and we went camping.
And while we were at the campground, we camped next
to another family that had a boy who
was about the age of our children.
And so they naturally wanted to play together.
And our kids went and they played for a little while,
and it was only a few minutes before
our kids were back inside.
And we said, well, are you done playing already?
And they said, he doesn't know how to play.
- Ooh, how sad
- Everything that he plays every toy
that gets out, become Star Wars for him.
And the only thing that this child could do
was repeat the things from the movies
and could not play creatively.
And our children had a lot of opportunity
to read books and play creatively
and use their imaginations.
And they just weren't interested
in playing with this boy because of that.
And he didn't have that opportunity
because of the screen now that was TV.
Now, we can also have some things with
our other devices with computers or phones
or someone that can
take away I guess
our social interaction, it can put us into isolation,
And we want to avoid that as well.
- You see that all the time and I see
it kids walking down the sidewalk, just on their phones.
Not even looking at God's creation around them
not acknowledging people that they pass
or sitting in, restaurants--- - Restaurants, yeah.
And the whole family is just doing
this and nobody's talking.
- I saw a family one time walking
through the airport and one of fairly young children
had headphones on and was looking at the screen.
And as the family in this busy airport
was walking one direction the child was
off the other and they were, calling after him.
He couldn't hear them he had no awareness of that.
- That reminds me the other night when
we were out to dinner, I saw at the table across,
there was a little girl sitting there
with the headphones and the iPad.
And her mother was in the other room,
getting the drinks to bring back to the table.
And if you watched her that child never blinked.
- Yeah.
- She just was staring and then she
would get up to go find her mother
with that iPad the whole way,
just staring like she was a zombie.
It was just kind of startling.
And so that's definitely what we don't want.
- Sure and while we're on
that topic of restaurants and such,
one of this I'm gonna step on
some toes here probably
a little bit. - All right.
but one of the things that happens
that I see commonly is a child will fuss in the public
and so to keep the child quiet, a parent will
often hand them their phone to let
them play some games or something.
- I see that too yeah.
- And if you step back and think about what that's doing,
what you're telling the child is,
if you threaten to throw a fit in a public place,
I'm gonna give you entertainment,
I'm going to reward you for that behavior
that I don't want you to do,
- Rather than doing the hard work of training
that child and working with
that child interacting personally
to help them. - Yes.
Wow any other disadvantages you wanna talk about
before we move on to the happy place?
- Now let's move on to
some happy things. - Let's do
- So what are some ways that we
can use screens and computers and technology well,
in our home schools and in our homes?
- Sure you know, kids today are learning skills
that hopefully they're going to use in careers in life,
and they're going to be competing
against other people who have grown up with computers,
digital natives, if you will.
And so having foundational skills,
I mean, think about all the jobs that are out there.
What doesn't get touched by computers now?
- Not too many,
- Almost nothing. - Yeah.
Even if it's just for some record keeping
or collaboration with other people.
- Even car mechanics are having to do
a lot of computer work and stuff,
you know so even if you think about the trades,
there still are having computers involved now.
- So those basic skills, I believe are very important
to be able to use a computer to learn how
to type to be comfortable with some
of the common apps that are used in business
and in life those are very important.
- I use the computer a lot I mean for work
of course, but also in my personal life I'm using
it well of course to do a lot of shopping.
It saves me time I order
my groceries online. - Sure.
And so I can see how it would save
a homeschool mom or any mom or dad a lot
of time to have those skills in place.
And I assume it's just going
to grow exponentially in the future
all the things done online.
- Yes and then there are specific skills.
There are things that that our children can develop.
And it's great for a Charlotte Mason's
style afternoons free, where they
can dive into something that
they have a lot of interest in.
So web design, or just graphics design
is something that's very much done on the screen.
We have a child who's interested in 3D modeling.
One of our sons is a computer programmer
by trade, that's his career.
- I know one of your sons was very interested
in making videos and editing videos as he was growing up.
- Both my son and all of our children
and your children as well. - They do it together yeah.
Did projects together and they learn the basic skills.
We got them some equipment, we got them
some software, some books and then got out
of the way and let them create.
- And may I thank you for that because
now he's my son-in- law and he edits
these videos so yeah. - Exactly.
- He's going to be editing this.
And if you look at some of our products,
their fingers are all over those products.
Handicrafts Made Simple, for example,
was a project that our children
from both families came up
with on their own--- - Yeah, collaborative
Based on those skills
that they had. - Yeah that's true.
- So when you say that you give them
the tools and get out of the way,
I assume you had some guidelines in place
to make sure it didn't go off in one direction.
I think keeping the balance is a key.
So do you have any practical tips that
can help the parent navigate that
and give them the tools but still guide
the child to form good habits?
- When children are younger their time should be limited.
They should have supervised time
when they're using technology.
And not just free reign of that,
but with plenty of room to get out
and do other things be outdoors,
and to have creative play
- And to work with their hands in other ways.
- And to work with their hands.
Now there are things on the computer
we're working with their hands
develops motor skills as well,
when they're typing on the keyboard
when they're using the mouse.
Even some games are beneficial in developing
some of the motor skills and thinking skills,
if they are creative puzzle games and things like that.
They can be useful, but we don't want too much of it.
And so, as the child grows and matures,
we would want to give more time based
on how able they are to handle the technology.
They need to prove in little steps along the way,
that the technology is their servant and not their master.
- So let me throw this in at you.
What about social media?
There are ways to be creative
with our laptops and with software,
and I can see that, but are there
any ways to be creative with social media?
It seems like that's a big land mine for many kids.
- Yeah, sure and it can be a time sink in,
and all sorts of things. - Yeah.
But on the positive side, sometimes it can help us connect,
and have those real relationships with each other.
A few years ago, there was a writer
who he wrote for the online magazine.
The Verge, I can't remember the author's name.
But he did an experiment with him where he
completely disconnected for an entire year,
and then wrote about his experience.
And what it came down to his he found that he
had fewer real relationships with people
that he cared about because he was unplugged.
And a lot of the organization of
how we're going to get together was happening online,
and he was missing out on that.
- So it wasn't so much that he couldn't connect
with people through letters and phone calls.
It was that they were all on the social media.
And he was not - Yeah.
So they kept missing
each other. - Right.
- And he went into this thinking that if I don't have that,
I'm gonna eliminate some of these bad habits.
And what he found was he developed
new bad habits that weren't online.
- Oh, that makes total sense now that you
say it of course - Yeah.
So what are some other guidelines,
we can help with our kids for social media?
some of the older kids,
maybe what else can we do to help them?
- Well, of course, we can talk about
being safe online and guide them
into who they gave information to?
I think one of the things is just to train them
to come to us if they have any questions and to help them.
For older children, teens especially,
I like to have a contract with them.
And we can link to one in the show notes.
That's an example that says this
is your conduct when you use these devices.
For example, if I as a parent ever asked you
to give me your password to log into your account,
so that we can look at that together.
You need to do that are you going to lose your device
and those guidelines could be whatever
you need to make it for your family
but that's just one example.
- I have a friend who one of their guidelines
is that the computer for the kids
is always kept in a public place.
Where it's well trafficked by the rest of the family.
So they're not working or looking
at things in private that no one else can see.
I think that's wise to. - That is very wise.
- Another thing that you can do in a home
is talk about the importance of
those personal relationships with each other
and demonstrate those now that's gonna be hard
for us as parents sometimes because
we're tied to our devices as well.
- Sometimes we don't
realize how much. - Right.
- So maybe, I know some families who,
after a certain time of night,
they put their phones away and
they don't go back and get them.
I know some others who at meal time they
will have a phone basket or do a phone stack.
Now phone stack is kind of a game where
everybody takes their phones and they put them in a stack.
And if anybody has to get that phone,
the first one to do it, they get the penalty.
So maybe we agree that that's the person
who clears the table and does the dishes.
On the basket, it's just everybody puts them in
the basket for the meal time so that we
can have that importance of being face to face
with the people that we care about.
- I think those are very helpful tips
for keeping a balance between online relationships
and in person relationships that are so important,
and doing things manually if you will,
in being present where you are,
that is so important as well.
What do you think then?
Is the goal for teaching our children to use technology well
or teaching them to use technology at all?
What's the goal in this?
- We've already said it several times
it comes back to be a creator, not a consumer.
Be someone who contributes to society
who values the people around you
and the people that are important.
- Good word thanks for joining us Doug.
- Thank you.
- If you enjoyed this podcast,
be sure to subscribe through iTunes,
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or your favorite podcast apps.
So you don't miss an episode.
Another example of using technology well,
to keep you encouraged.
we will leave links to everything in the show notes,
along with that link to the contract that Doug mentioned.
Thanks for joining us.
We'll see you next time.