hello and welcome thank you so much for joining common sense to talk about parenting in a digital
age i'm tali and this is jennifer do you want to introduce yourself hello everybody jennifer here
with common sense and we're really excited to talk to you today about how we kind of navigate
this digital world we know technology is here to stay it brings with it a myriad of opportunities
and some real challenges and what we're going to really focus on for the next 10 minutes
is how we find balance how we know if our kids are really doing okay and really how we ourselves can
be models and we're going to come back to this point but being a model doesn't mean that we
always do everything right with our technology but that we're talking to our kids about our choices
about our behaviors about the things we're struggling with and how we want to correct
or make changes so that technology is working for us instead of feeling like we're controlled by it
so with that we're going to start by talking a little bit about overall you know
how you can check if your kid is doing okay and then we're going to talk about screen time how
to set rules and these expectations and really how to keep that conversation going so jennifer
we're going to start with this little checklist um which is an overall kind of well-being checklist
so i'm going to read these statements and i'm going to ask you to reflect on whether this is
a yes or no for you you can think about for both your kids one of your kids and all of you joining
along kind of think about this as a side note this is a checklist i go back to repeatedly as a parent
when i have any concerns overall so the first one is um jennifer are you are your kids physically
healthy are they sleeping enough yeah i think so okay are they connecting socially with family and
friends in any form you know this could be in person in school virtually yes yes do they seem
engaged in school are they achieving in school do they feel excited about school for the most part
yes but full disclosure i have a first grader which is usually the case that
they're very excited for school in you know ideal uh situations but yes i think they do
um are they pursuing interests and hobbies in any form are there again going back to are
there things that excite them they want to learn more about they want to go to whether it's that
dance class you know roblox minecraft anything absolutely absolutely and when they are using
digital media are they having fun with it and are they learning yes with a work in progress right
it's a work in progress i will say so i can confidently think i said yes to most of those with
feeling good about it so what about how you kind of think about family media agreements
and figuring out that balance in your home yes so those questions are such a great um
you know platform to think about this whole idea of balance um so we have family media agreements
um what is the family media agreement you know what essentially it's the rules it's the house
rules for media use device use you know it's just what our expectations are you know when we
start to give more and more screen time more and more responsibility etc etc so with these media
agreements or these rule sheets we have different areas you can discuss with your your children so
identifying screen-free zones and those places for example in my house are the dinner table
the bedrooms the bathroom i don't know tally if you can add any to that list but you know just
places in your house that no we're not using our screen here we actually have set it up for our
daily walks to school and that's actually doubled i also have younger kids that also doubles as a
reminder like hey we don't walk and look at our device at the same time because that can actually
be pretty dangerous and uh not mentioning any names here but i know some adults who may have
tripped or fallen because they were looking at we're glad you're still here with us tally
no but in all honesty those are for obviously younger children middle high school children
older children you might be able to open up some of those zones sooner than later but
at any rate it's really just about setting the rules and talking about your screen time
and talking about you know screen time might look differently during the week than it does
on weekends and so making sure you have those expectations set um the older kids you know it's
really more than just um you know the place and the time you know we really want to make
sure that they're taking care of the devices and like the staying safe the thinking first
those are really important because in middle and high schools when they're starting to
connect socially and on social platforms and so the things that they're sharing and posting
it's really important to set those expectations so that your family feels comfortable about
you know the information you know your values uh are all represented in a way that everyone's
comfortable with staying balanced go ahead oh i was gonna say i'm thinking too you know even for
upper elementary maybe fourth or fifth graders if you have kids playing any video games with
friends whether that's roblox or fortnite and potentially as they get older and they can be
talking with people they don't know starting to talk about okay how do we what makes somebody
a friend what kind of information can we share if we haven't met someone face to face you know know
who they really are exactly that's a good point because gaming is very popular you know amongst
some of the age levels and then staying balanced you know i gotta say the balancing and the routine
and the expectation it's hard it's really hard and you're not alone you're not perfect but i
think my advice for these sorts of rules is you really got to stick with it and stay on it just
like everything else is a parent but whether you have elementary middle or high schoolers
that consistency that routine and that you know constant reminder because the more you do that
the more it's instilled with them and then that's where just natural habits start to occur
so then it's really not talking about balance anymore it's like them starting to feel like i had
enough today you know i'm done with screens today and so just wanted to let you know this we make it
sound easy and we see that but we know it's really hard so just keep going and i promise you know and
then the other side of the coin is you know as parents we're always in caregivers we're always
trying to make the rules right but we also want to make sure that the communication is open and so we
need to make sure we're listening to our kids when they talk about you know media and what they're
doing on media you know what are they doing on these social platforms they're connecting with
their friends right 99 of the time they really are just feeling those connections and having fun
and being a kid so as parents we're not going to understand why we're too old to understand why
um but i'll speak for myself but any editing we have to listen to them we have to kind of
meet them where they are um tell them about what worries them before we say no you know like i'm
worried about this because but if we can talk about it let's be in a place where we both feel
comfortable and then talking to them about their interests you know embracing their world and so
you know tick tock instagram snapchat all those things i know i know right but at the same time
if we can ask them for things or information they're getting off of those different platforms
it may turn our eye up and say oh okay she is or he is interested and so this i think is the
biggest part of the agreement or rules because this is really how you start those communications
and something that i've learned from you jennifer is you're so good with keeping these
conversations going i know you have the agreement featured prominently i think it's on your fridge
and it's it's a constant conversation of checking in it's not a a one and done okay
we did that you go back and you say all right so now you're interested in trying this new tool um
you know i'm thinking about you you brought up the example of tick-tock why might you want to
try tick-tock you know what's exciting to you about it you know and to your point here are
my concerns so you're you're continuing to talk about it yeah they have to build a case
right they're learning to build cases for all the things they want whether it's a new app a new game
a dog we're going through that right now so getting kids to think about why they want it
i think is important as well so yeah these little rule sheets guides family conversation sheets
visit them often right i mean especially maybe not so much for your middle and high schoolers
but just have the conversations often but for the little my little learners like we have to
go to it it's about the routine and it's about the consistency with them and i tell you the
minute these went up the arguing went down because then it was just like everybody agreed to this you
all said yes you were willing to do this and so it does eliminate a lot of the the arguments and the
debates i'm going to call them debates
building healthy habits and what we also wanted to highlight is we have different family activity
sheets for all different grade levels and again to jennifer's point this is just about keeping that
conversation going so whether you have the routine of checking your media agreement or you just have
the routine where you're asking questions like hey how how are we using our devices these days are we
getting enough sleep are we having enough family time together you know we just got off you know we
just watched i'm just thinking about with my kids we just watched how many hours of uh tv just now
how are our bodies feeling right now like let's just check in and then as kids are getting older
of course you're having them start to reflect on what makes them feel good because again we
want to build these healthy habits so that when we're not there and they're fully independent
they're making choices that are right for them and then and then of course in high school
you know it becomes a lot more nuanced too and thinking more deeply about what's the
difference between active use for example and passive use and how are you contributing
um both to the broader community but also to your own growth and development
any anything else to add on any of these jennifer before we go to the next one i don't think so
i mean you really covered everything the one thing i love about these conversation starters
is communication is honestly the foundation of all the conversations we're having about
media and technology or parenting in a digital age and as i continue to do these sessions it
really is all about communication but again it can be really hard you know it's easy enough
to say communicate with your child well we all know how busy we are you know sometimes finding
the time to have just a simple conversation can be really challenging for families and so
don't beat yourself up right and just try to start small in implementing just little questions
and again going back to kind of meeting them where they're at you don't have to know everything but
a couple questions a week will help show them that you're interested totally and everything
that we're showing you today you can see the link below and find you know all of our family media
agreements we're going to share with you a special text messaging program that we have particularly
for parents of um elementary school-aged kids and then we have you know a whole bunch of our family
activity sheets and general overall tip sheets if you just want to know at a high level hey what
does media balance mean in general what are some other issues i should be thinking about whether
it's privacy or cyber bullying and hate speech or news and media literacy and the tech balance
program that we just referenced um these are free weekly tips really geared to come to you at your
home on your phone um all about you know making healthy media choices um we have this available in
english and spanish and that goes for all of our resources as well anything to add here jennifer
nothing at all it's just very seasonal and timely is what i like about it kind of keeps you thinking
as a as a parent caregiver on what you could be doing with your your child on media and
with me and technology so um yeah we want to leave you with you know what three things will
you practice at home with your kids you know based on some of the information advice and tips that
we shared with you today we hope that you can take a little bit of time and just reflect on
you know something that felt a little easy something that felt like a weight has been lifted
and the one last thing i want to add is this is a work in progress and that's what makes it really
hard you know we we try to teach our kids these things and we expect instant gratification and
we expect them to get it right away and life is just so great right but this is something we just
have to continue to talk to them about model you know what we want them to see and i promise one
day we are going to look back and say wow we did it so you just got to keep going you've got this
and we and we can talk to them about you know the changes we want to make too i just had last night
during dinner i was like sorry kids i've got to take care of these emails and later i apologize
to them i was like look that was a really busy time but i could have put it down afterwards
then i was just in my phone sending texts when i should have been paying attention to you
well thank you so much for joining us and we hope to see you again soon