Welcome to ABA on Tap, where our goal is to find the best recipe to brew the smoothest, coldest, and best tasting ABA around. I'm Dan Lowry with Mike Rubio, and join us on our journey as we look back into the ingredients to form the best concoction of ABA on tap. In this podcast, we will talk about the history of the ABA brew, how much to consume to achieve the optimum buzz while not getting too drunk, and the recommended pairings to bring to the table.
So without further ado, sit back, relax, and always analyze responsibly.
And welcome once again to ABA on Tap. I am Mike Rubio here along with my co-host, Daniel Lowry. How you doing, Dan?
doing well mike ready for a podcast under quarantine number three
all right i am ready as well and today we are going to jump right in to the idea of screen time something that i have really enjoyed talking about over the past six to seven weeks uh just because it highlights a little bit of a Hypocrisy. Whoops, that's kind of harsh. A little bit of an authoritarian stance. I'm always warning against authoritarian approaches to parenting and really encouraging authoritative approaches.
And screen time is an awesome topic for that right now because six weeks ago, Everybody was reading articles about limiting screen time and too much screen time is not good and make sure that you're limiting the screen time and those darn video games are ruining our kids, much like TV was for us growing up. And now we're faced with the need to make screen time the most attractive thing ever, especially during school time.
So I couldn't find ourselves in a more ironic quandary, a better Catch-22 from an ABA perspective. We'll
put that in the Atlantis Morissette 2020 ironic remake.
Yeah, and I'm not even sure if I'm using it correctly, you know, knowing that she probably didn't in that song. It doesn't matter. You're right. It makes the cut. But yeah, with that said, I'll give it over to you. And what do you think about that? Screen time redefined is today's topic, Dan. What
do you got for us? I think, number one, we're doing our podcast through screen time, which is kind of ironic. Don't you think? Yeah. I will be really short with this because I think your insight has been so valuable. I've learned a lot. I can think back to my last parent group that I had before we went out on hiatus as a Wednesday group with kids that are – four to six, I think, four to seven, somewhere in that range.
And one of the parents was like, no, I'm not letting my kid play with the iPad. And one of the other parents is like, oh, well, my kid's playing with the iPad and they're playing Mario and they're learning a lot. And this kid's actually interacting with other kids and doing it appropriately and supervised.
And by the end of that parent group, the parent who was initially like no screen time was, she wasn't all about the screen time, but she was like, okay, well, maybe I'll think about it because Like you said, we get this idea of screen time being – especially screen time with ASD, being a kid in his room, hyper-focused on one thing that's not interactive at all. And when a parent comes and tries to interact or anything like that, the kid just completely shuts down.
It's super solitary, super confined. And now screen time is not that – And we're having to try to navigate these realms. But it's not necessarily, you know, it's not good or bad. Like you said, it's not this or that. It's this and that. So that's just my little story that I thought was kind of useful. So I'll pass it to you.
I think that's a really useful vignette you bring up because – Maybe it starts to shape our discussion today with regard to how we've defined screen time. And screen time in this day and age is different from when I was growing up, from when you were growing up. Screen time, there was this phrase, the idiot box. I don't know if you grew up with that.
But I remember when I was about eight, nine years old, a lot of Newsweek, Time Magazine articles and the idiot box and don't let your kid... you know, spent too much time in front of the TV and more violent content in the TV, video games we're getting, you know, Atari 2600, first Nintendo console, things that were certainly making us gaze at a screen in a fixed manner and not at the rest of the world around us.
Well, that's only gotten more difficult because you can't really aptly share most screens that you're tapping into these days. They're meant for largely personal use. So I think that that begins to shape our discussion or our redefinition here in that what bothers me as a parent and what I think bothers most parents when I work with them professionally is this thing dominates your attention over even me by and large.
And I can't even look at what you're looking at, and if you've got AirPods or headphones, I can't even hear what you're looking at a good 90 to 98% of the time. So it's frustrating because as a parent, I want to be concerned about the content that you're getting. And at the same time, man, it is one of the most powerfully calming caregivers at my disposal. You want to go to dinner and sit quietly? Here's my phone. For us in ABA, we want to motivate the child to do some homework.
First homework and then... iPad.
iPad, man. Screen time. That's it. That's the only contingency that exists. That's in Cooper under the pre-med principle. Is that right? First homework, then iPad.
I'm going to check you on that reference there, Dan.
Yeah, I'll check it out.
The thing's like chapter four. I'm sure it is. Or, you know, what about, you know, the other condition-motivating response of when we get to the parent home and we're there with the RBT and we ring the doorbell and we hear the, okay, time for IBA. Put away your iPad. and the kid starts crying. And now, perfect time for us to arrive in many ways.
But also again, a motivating operation that we've established, a definition of screen time, likely as the most powerful and accessible and most calming caregiver, and probably the most ubiquitous reinforcer for that sense that we have access to. And now, we're seeing that it's not Well, it is that powerful, but it's frustratingly powerful when we can't make the screen show the content that we want it to show, which is school. So it's quite a problem. Go right ahead.
I think that in the previous podcast, you were talking about the escape function and how it's now redefined or non-existent. I think the screen is... and this is nothing new in quarantine is the best negative reinforcer for any parent in the world is if I can, if what is reinforcing to me is having some sanity, as we talked about in our last podcast, again, going back to staying sane with quarantine.
If my goal is to stay sane and the more I can give this kid screen, the more sane I can have, the more sane I can be, the better off I'm going to be. So that's, that's nothing new. Um, And I think one thing that's always been useful, especially with the demographic that we work with, with the screen time, is two things, is the immediacy and the consistency of responding. So anytime I press an L button, assuming I don't have a crappy work computer, an L appears immediately on the screen.
Very predictable, very immediate. So the behavior lends to an immediate consequence. So once I can start doing multiple behaviors and chaining those, I get immediate consequences for each of my behavior. It's very predictable. And now I've got a good repertoire and a good routine, as we call it, from the previous one that I can build upon. Unfortunately, social situations, also parents, aren't necessarily nearly as immediate or nearly as predictable.
So then I start to run into some ambiguity of learning, and that's why I might want to go back to my comfort zone of a screen time, and I might, as ASD individuals with ASD often do, want to watch the same video over and over again because it's very predictable, I know it's going to happen, and it's comforting. Screen time, that's what we're also trying to avoid, right, is the kid who watches the same 15-second clip over and over and over again.
How do we kind of take that and make that predictability more predictable you know, reasonable for the real world and have parents exhibit some of that consistency and that immediacy might lead to some better interactions interpersonally outside of that screen time as well.
That's a really good point in terms of the dynamics of screen time or what, you know, devices, iPad, you know, a tablet gives you in terms of immediate feedback. In terms of immediate preferred access to, right? I've never hit a touchscreen and it says, oh, no, you should hit this button instead. Oh, no, first hit this button and do it for the next five minutes, and then I'll let you.
So I think that there's a lot to be learned from that as ABA professionals, as parents, in terms of how we can utilize the screen now. Because, again, so we've got two loose definitions working in our discussion here. Again, a very, very powerful caregiver, very, very powerful reinforcer. Now we needed to be a very, very powerful educator. like parents, now we need to be a screen purveyor.
So even though it might give kids that quick preferred access most of the time, now when we're telling them to watch multiplication tables on screen, now that content isn't preferred, right? So now we see that there is a kryptonite to the tablet, to the iPad, just put the right school content on that. And the reinforcement goes away. So we start to define what is reinforcing about these devices like you were doing. And I think that's a really good place to start. Go ahead.
I never thought of it like that. That's really interesting. A screen, you know, doesn't, I mean, it can, you can program it to say, you know, first press five L's and then your character will jump. But more typically than not, it's just a blank screen with blank cause and effect relationships that kids figure out. And it's funny how quickly kids figure this out. And I think most parents say their kids are pretty savvy, if not more savvy than the parents are with doing it.
I've countless kids whose parents say they can't, you know, encrypt stuff because the kids will constantly figure out ways around it. And it's that concept that we're trying to teach kids going back to even instructional control for two year olds of maybe instead of us just saying, you need to do this and then you'll get that and you need to do that and then you'll get this.
If there's just a blank slate and they can figure it out, and maybe we're like, hey, you're going a little bit in the wrong direction, try this, but it's not nearly as much of you need to do this, and look, you'll learn. It's, hey, here's everything. Why don't you figure out things? And if your learning is getting a little bit out of where it needs to be, I'll kind of nudge it back in. But I think that's kind of what the computer and even programming allows.
It goes back to choices, right? It goes back to schedules and routines. And you just made a really good point and used very good phrasing. So if I'm telling you, you have to do math on... You have to do this math website on the screen right now versus you can pick any of your six classes, for example, or your whatever academic domains, you can pick any of those and that's your available screen content right now. Then... maybe we're utilizing this a little bit better.
But if initially as you're trying to build your routine toward a schedule, you're trying to enforce one particular activity on the screen, then we're right back to normal life, quote-unquote, when you couldn't get your kid started on their homework. If you pick a hill to die on, you're probably going to die on that hill. If you give many options, you might find a route out, and what you want to do is get your kid started on schoolwork, on homework.
It's not necessarily math that has to happen or reading that has to happen at a certain time, just to harken back to a point we made last episode.
Again, it's really teaching us about grad the gradual nature of learning and again the idea that we have to build up toward these things so even screen time even the power of the ipad is diminished once you put a teacher's face on there or our faces on there as aba professionals in many ways uh you know as we built up content and we built up familiarity uh you know i've been alluding to my ulcer which i've evaded but yeah that was really difficult Just having the screen and just putting up
certain YouTube videos, in and of itself, a lot of our RBTs, I saw them go through that learning process, and yeah, that's not going to work because now you're controlling their screen. They want to control that iPad screen. That's what made it ultimately powerful.
So again, really tough struggles and having to relearn some of these things, but a lot of good, good things to move toward the future is, in terms of the value, the reinforcement value, and the absolute value of an iPad or screen time.
Yep. Yeah, it just goes back to this or that, right? It's like, well, screen time got this rep is being bad. Like, oh, we got to eliminate screens, screens. Anything in excess is going to be bad. Food is bad, but it's necessary to live, right? Water, if you have too much, you can die from the hypohidrosis. Like, anything in... The decontextualized and excessively used is going to be bad.
So let's figure out how we can use it productively, and that's how school is kind of moving towards that model of distance learning. So how can we take it from this individual just solitarily using it for – and I think the other thing too is if an individual were to solitary use a screen – But they were using it for functional learning and then bringing something to the table from it. Parents probably wouldn't have that much of an issue.
But if the kid is doing something that parents don't understand, i.e. Minecraft, that is quote-unquote meaningless to the parent, and they're just spending time doing that or watching the same 10-second video over and over again, they're not seeing any sort of functional outcome of that behavior. So... Making it social, making it functional, and schools starting to do that with distance learning, can redefine screen time and make it not bad or good.
It can make it good and bad and functional and productive and social.
I agree, and we have to think about that idea of social. on a screen. I know that we call it social media as a platform and I'm not being critical here. I think that's the one thing that hopefully has been made clear from the beginning of our discussion today is we're redefining screen time when it was something that we were very weary of, very critical of, very keen on limiting. Now we're certainly having to redefine it.
So in that sense, in terms of being social, last episode I talked about my under threes or my two-year-olds. No, I don't want you being social with a screen. And in terms of instructional control, we're going to pass that on to your parents. Now, if you get a little older, let's look at your client base or more the average age of your clients, there is a level of appropriateness for being social on a social media platform.
If by and large you're engaging at the right cues, in fact, it creates a better cue in terms of face contact and gaze and eye contact. When it's not live, it might relieve some of that aversion that some of our patients and clients have to direct eye contact or direct eye gaze So there is certainly a way to use that appropriately. And then we get into levels of function, things that we're all still trying to define. And then we have to realize the limitation.
And I'll tell you what that means from a social perspective. Again, looking at my younger kiddos or towards the idea of observational learning on the screen. So a lot of technicians that I'm working with realize that, okay, if I can play these favorite videos or songs for a kiddo over the the screen, maybe I'll get them to orient and then that's reinforcing and or maybe I'll get them to sit.
But at the same time, I keep encouraging them that for that age group or for a certain age group or almost for any age group, that video, that song is going to mean more if you're singing along to it, if you're adding to it.
And what I've discovered, Dan, is that I go off camera on some of these Zoom meetings as I'm observing and they'll start playing, you And the kid might continue moving around and kind of looking back at the screen, but if I leave my microphone on and I start playing it with my guitar and singing along, I get a bigger reaction. So there's a live social aspect to that that we have to keep in mind.
Just because a certain modality or technology is playing the stimulus for us, That doesn't by itself make it social because we're on the feed. We have to add a voice. We have to add a face. Now a much more directly contained and focused face on the screen. Now sounds that are very distinct from the sound of the video if you're adding to it. So those are really important things.
Again, looking at some of the younger kiddos or maybe actually all learners with regard to observational learning and maybe the younger kiddos with regard to this example, but sharing a whiteboard to draw something awesome incredible technology what a great way for us to to share sketching lessons or things like that that are engaging to kids I've also been telling our technicians try to have some whiteboard or paper behind you because them seeing your hand draw and how you grip and move around
is also a big part of observational learning that we can preserve on the screen even though we're moving into this new platform so again there's there's a lot to learn and we can't you know we we talk about a direct transfer of technology of course we're going to start there but as we start there we there's a lot to learn and to preserve and to even maintain and preserve as we go back to you know again some semblance of normalcy which we keep alluding to but when we go back into habit having
physical contact, things that we're going to learn to better serve clients remotely because of their location, for example.
I think this is really helping us discover a more powerful telehealth, and it's helping us redefine a lot of things in ABA and other social constructs that we haven't thought of in the same way, and in this case, screen time, and how to balance the technology as well as the social aspects of, say, observational learning that become very important when somebody's watching you sketch. Seeing somebody put the lines on a screen in front of you is one thing.
Seeing their hand actually do it is another. They're both valuable. I'm not diminishing either one or highlighting one over the other. I think that it really highlights the power of the technology. Now we can have them watch our hand as well as watch the lines without our hand in the way form those things. I think it's a plus.
Well, thank goodness for the whiteboard function on Zoom, right? It's killer, man. That gives us a little bit. They can't see us right. They can see maybe mouse positions and stuff like that. It
has worked for me beautifully, too. Or, yeah, the cursor moving along here. You just made me think of another example. It's one thing if there's a video voice reading a story on the screen. It's a whole other thing if you're reading the words off the screen and you pause that because it's more social. And it's a whole other dimension if you make your cursor... or something else, highlight those words as you read them on the screen.
Again, levels of how to really use this technology, make the stimulus more salient, make the presentation more engaging to use the more developmental phrasing. And I think, again, it's a plus. There's things to be learned here that we're going to want to preserve as we go back to a more traditional stage in our service delivery and have physical contact. I think there's a lot to be preserved and learned from this time.
Yep. I agree. And going back to kind of like what you were saying, that idiot box analogy of what a TV was, you talk about the plasticity of a brain at a young age and the three kind of areas of symptomology, I guess, of ASD being communicative, social delays, and repetitive behaviors. If an individual is just placed in front of the TV TV whatever I've had whatever you want to
call a screen phone now right very very
small screen phone God, I know if I had a phone that had all the features that my phone had in school there would There'd be no I graduated I'd have been so distracted But the premise being that the the brain so plastic at this point if their only communication is is communicating back and forth with that device, then clearly their pro-social communication is going to get pruned off, and those parts of the brain are going to be more developed for screen time and those kind of things.
And same with socialization. If their only socialization is that with the screen, then yeah, that is going to have undesirable effects on one's neurology as they grow. But I was thinking about even adults, and we want to talk about limiting screen time. We always want to limit everyone else's except ours. But adults, for the most part, I think have been doing quite an excess of screen time during this quarantine.
Everybody's been doing Netflix and Call of Duty and Hulu and all those sorts of things.
And I was thinking of the different levels of socialization within... watching within engaging in screen time so you have probably the most desirable level of socialization is you and your wife or you and your kids or something sitting together watching a tv show interacting while you're watching the tv show discussing it and there's a one-on-one social experience or one on however many during the screen time so you have that Then you have the next level, which is like one step away from that of
I'm going to watch something. I think Tiger King would be a great example of this because it seemed like everybody watched it. I'm going to watch it, not with you. I'm going to watch it by myself, but now we have a common thing to talk about. So the screen time allowed us some level of socialization, which a lot of our kids could probably benefit from, right? They can't necessarily watch it with another kid, but they can watch it and now have a common thing.
social means or common topic to socialize though.
They're ready for the water cooler
at work. The next iteration. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. They're
ready for the water cooler at work. Very important social construct. They're ready for the water cooler, right? I say that sarcastically, but it's very important. Yeah. Shared content. I'm part of the social milieu. I can talk to you about stuff that happened in our common environment. Continue.
Yep. I didn't know if it was the water cooler or the tiger feed cooler. I didn't know. One and the
same right now. One and the same.
Yeah. Then the next level being I'm going to watch something and talk about it either on like a social media blog, a chat room, something like that. So I'm still talking about it with somebody, but there's not really the interpersonal aspect. So there's all sorts of different ways to socialize, even if you're not immediately socializing, with screen time.
And this is, again, what I think that if these things are promoted by parents – then we don't get the kid just sitting in the corner watching the YouTube video for 10 hours a day.
We have him sitting in the corner watching it and then going on a chat room that's monitored and discussing it with people and then maybe meeting with people that have similar interests or talking with people that have similar interests and then maybe eventually watching it with people that have similar interests, girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever. I think what happens though is this informative function is lost.
And I don't want to say the trust is lost, because maybe the person was never given the skills. But parents will say all the time, well, I give my kid the iPad, and one YouTube video turns into another YouTube video, turns into another YouTube video, and now they're just watching something that they shouldn't be watching.
If I let my kid go in a chat room, they're just going to give all the information and all my home information, and they're going to do all this inappropriate sexual stuff, and now they're not going to know how to do it, and I'd just rather say don't do it. giving them the informative function will help them navigate this, which eventually is going to come into their life at some point, right? At some point they might be 18 and have the ability to go on chat room.
Let's give them the informative function of what to look for. Or if we're worried about giving a kid, you know, YouTube and then finding videos they shouldn't find, let's try to teach them how to find videos they should find and when to stop before they get to that point, rather than just, Oh my God, you did it. Let me, let me stop it.
And let me kind of read direct everything right give them the ability to find and navigate these realms that you know screen time are you know i can imagine 15 years ago talking in the autism field to somebody about giving their information on a chat room or social media that this this wasn't the case but screen time has brought this up and that informative function i feel like is so lost on parents Because they want to just control it because they're worried about the consequences.
They never really get to the informative function. So I know I covered a lot there with the different levels of socialization and the informative function. But I think that's something people will need to hear about how to make things more social. And with making things more social, you open yourself up to being – abused isn't the best word, to being taken advantage of. So as things become more social, there needs to be more informative function provided to navigate those waters.
So you teach them to do it right from the beginning, the idea of sort of backward chaining, right? When parents say, well, I've got to sit with it through everything. Exactly. And then you let them do the last step and so on and so forth as we back it up. I think you make a really good point here as we come.
We're drawing near to the end of our segment, but as we do so, We started off talking about, I made the point of the power of the solitary caregiver and the phone, and not to dilute your point by any means, but to kind of give it in one sentence, you're saying quite the contrary. In fact, now the technology gives you, mom, dad, ABA provider, access to school, for example, like you've never had before. In that sense, where it's the most solitary caregiver, we want this screen to be shared.
more than ever just like the idiot box allowed us to do so yes not that I'm praising TV by any means you know in some unconditional fashion but at least it allowed you to share the content in a way that was always kind of wide open you know phones make that phones tablets laptops make that a little bit more difficult they're meant for solitary personal use so what we're saying is we're encouraging parents to become a bigger part of that screen and I'm a big proponent especially for the young
kiddos on this idea of joint attention versus you know sort of fixed eye contact and this is very easily achieved it's what people do with their phones whenever they share any content which see come here look at my phone and then we'll look back at each other and talk about it and then we'll look back at the phone and now with things like watch parties or you know whatever people are doing with streaming and you can actually share the content in a way like you were saying and even reaction
videos which I thought were pretty ridiculous until this moment have a social function now. The idea that I might not be in the same room with you, but I can watch your face react to the same content that I'm reacting to, whether it's laughing, being surprised, scared, making some sarcastic comment about it. Activate
those mirror neurons, right?
Some level of activation, yes. Imitative function, mirror neurons, however we want to pitch it. We just have to make sure that Thank you. And I can actually see my kids' friends on the screen if I wanted to and see how they're behaving. You know, not that we want to, maybe we'll go into privacy and how that's changed now in terms of HIPAA and whatnot. Maybe that's not a topic we want to get into ever. But it has changed the platform and the access, and we need to open it up.
It goes from iPhone into WePhone. That was kind of corny, but you get my point, is we have to open that screen up and make it more like the idiot box. Treat it more like the 50-inch that everybody watches at the same time. And we do have that capacity even if you are staring at the small screen. Now we can share the screen, you know, that has many more meanings now because we can share it side by side. We can share it remotely.
We can look at shared content and have a joint attentive experience, if that's even a phrase. I don't think it is, but I'll coin it now. And we can still develop a social platform on social media. Now, is it the most social way to do this that we've defined? No, but again, We're redefining screen time and what social media platforms might be able to do with regard to education, ABA, socialization, all of those things.
The WePhone. I like that. I'm going to run with that.
Just cut me a little bit. Just cut me a little chunk if it hits. Just a little chunk.
Well, Mike, what did you always say was the strongest motivator?
The parents' attention? The
parents' attention? You also would say prohibition.
Oh, once, yeah. Well, nothing makes an object more desirable than when it's prohibited. We know
that. Exactly. And that's what we run into a lot with our parents, right? Man, the more that this is prohibited, the more I want this iPad or I want this screen. And the more that it's prohibited, the more that when I get it, I'm going to use it for exactly what I want to use it for. and I'm gonna sneak it, I'm gonna hide it, I'm gonna make it not functional. And that also goes for things within the screen as well.
The more that a chat room is prohibited, as soon as my parents leave, I'm gonna go in this chat room real quick. The more that all of this is prohibited and then formative function is left, the less that people are going to be equipped to deal with it. So that prohibition oftentimes comes – it seems like a good thing because it is the easiest thing to do.
It's the blunt force way of you can't get it, and if you can't have the iPad, there's going to be no issues with you giving me the iPad back because you never had it. So it solves an issue, but that prohibition leads to a lot of issues down the road of – behavioral of trying to develop behaviors to get access to it, and then a lack of knowledge once they get access to it about how to do it appropriately.
So it's a really powerful, motivating operation, and hopefully this will help us conclude.
that you are pitching here for parents, which is now instead of prohibiting screen time, now we've got the motivating operation as professionals and as parents to say, man, you get to have your screen time along with your friends and your teacher at 9, then again at 10.30, then you have ABA screen time at 12.30, and then you have this, and then you have that, and then if you want to play a game along with me on the iPad, we can do that, or better yet, let's put the screen away and go do
something outside. So, I mean, I'm pitching this really ideally. It's like a magic wand, right? Where's Harry Potter? Of course, it's not going to be that easy. Of course, it's not going to work that fluidly. But the motivating operation that you're pitching, I think, is in fact very operable. It's very achievable because now we don't have to say no. Now we say yes, yes, yes, screen time.
But here's your YouTube channel that we already set up for you, that your teacher set up for you, that your ABA provider also pitched into So now we say, and we've said that before, so when you find yourself in battle saying no, try to find the way to say yes and when and right now again it's a very powerful motivating operation for parents screen time yes you can you've got that zoom meeting you've got that video to watch from your teacher you've got that thing from your ABA provider you've got
that thing that we looked up and then more importantly let me sit next to you let me sit next to you and share that or
let's learn together
yep and then even on you made this point on another level I couldn't sit next to you because mom or dad had a zoom meeting but I That's accessible now because it's been videoed somewhere. Or the content, I can go to that website very easily too if I'm not in fact sitting in on your classroom once in a while. Again, these are all very ideal pitches. You've got to make time. You have to start making it a routine so you can be part of your schedule.
But all things that are very positive about the technology and the access and the redefining of screen time, which we're proposing here.
Yep. I guess the last point I do want to touch base on because I do want to give parents a very structured thing to do this and make your life easier is priming. I think that's so important with this new development of screen time because prior to March 16th, screen time meant play time. And I saw this happen a lot when we first started and still happens somewhat now that a kid gets a screen in front of them and they think it's play time.
And then they get really confused and have maladaptive behaviors because screen time is education time now. It's not playtime. They can't just go to Nick Jr. and find the app or YouTube or something like that. Parents are saying no and the kid's trying to get it and now we're 30 minutes into our ABA session and it's just a parent and a kid trying to wrangle over who has access to whatever the screen is.
So priming is so important to say, like you were saying, Mike, at 10.30, you can have screen time, and this is what the screen time is going to be, and this is what you can do during that time. And then we'll have songs at 12, and then we'll do a little learning at 1, and then you can have game time. So letting them know ahead of time is so important, setting those expectations.
And with that, avoiding power struggles and finding being a little bit more technologically savvy than your kid is Finding ways to lock so that they can't go back and forth between apps and things like that. Guided access is a great one. I know they have timer apps that just turn off the iPad when the timer goes off so that a kid's not, you know, one more minute, one more minute, things like that. Priming and following through with the electronic means of guided access so an app is locked.
Because we want to avoid this, you know, trying literally power struggle. The kid doesn't want to give the iPad away or kid keeps going to every time you say, OK, go to the school lesson. They open up YouTube and then you take it back and they open up YouTube. And now it's wasted two hours trying to get this lesson open. So priming and using these apps or these features on these screen devices that allow you to limit it. Again, going back to the proactivity of it.
Like everything you said, absolutely, because it all points to this idea of gradual learning or a gradual approach to learning. learning and knowing that you're going to have to try it a couple of times. You're going to have to, you know, I was talking about the schedule and at this time you do this and at this time you do the other. And as soon as your kid goes, no, I don't want to do that.
Are you going to throw your hands up in the air or are you going to remember that this is part of the routine? So if you agree that, hey, we're going to watch this video together. No, I don't want to watch this video. Well, I said I was going to watch this video. Understand the power of your attention as a parent. If you now stop watching that video or veer off schedule because of their behavior, You're feeding right into it.
Again, I know that I'm saying this very idealistically here in my nice quarantine. But again, remind yourself to just sit there and go, well, I really wish you'd watch with me. I'm going to keep watching. And make sure that the volume's a little extra loud. And make sure that you're a little bit overly interested in the video. Oh, wow, look at this. I bet Billy would really enjoy this. I wish he'd come back and watch.
You know, I'm kind of saying this for younger kids, but I think it even works for teenagers. Ultimately, they're trying to get your attention. to veer from the scheduled item that they're not so interested in and you have to maintain your interest in that as well as continue to entice them with it because once you go and focus your attention on making them stick to the schedule they've kind of won. Now your attention is also off the prize and off the content and now redirecting their behavior.
So again, reminding ourselves that there is no escape in many ways, that that is a very powerful motivating operation to help our kids learn new behaviors, help ourselves learn new behaviors, make screens, our screen time more shared. And finally, just to kind of wrap up my point here is you make a very, really powerful point is if all you're ever doing is enforcing the screen now for work, then you might consider including yourself in some of those games first.
And then I bet when you come with the device and go, hey, here's the Zoom meeting for the math class, now you've got a whole different reinforcement history with regard to how you present this item. You're not just a work screen person. Your mom and dad also played games with me, so whatever they're presenting must have some level of interest too. Let me give it a shot. So yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.
Remind me people to share those screens with games almost to start more than anything so that uh you know it's conditioned reinforcement and your kids aren't so aware of the fact that oh here comes mom and dad with the screen it's got some level of prohibition and authoritarianism and you can only watch this and for this long in it forget it i'm going to start fighting so yep think about redefining that screen time make yourself part of the games Definitely prime.
Make things a routine so you can actually schedule. And, you know, I think, parents, this will help the redefinition of screen time as well as maintaining our sanity as parents and as professionals alike during this quarantine.
You said something interesting about the parents participating. I thought that especially for older parents, I get a lot of parents saying, I don't know how to do this schoolwork. Well, maybe you should join in the lesson with the kid, and now you're both learning. So now it's not, kid, you have to do something when I can do what I want. It's, hey, we're both going to learn collectively, and you have my attention, and we're both learning.
And, hey, if you can do it right, look, you're going to build some self-efficacy because I'm struggling too. But so often with parents, they're, you know, I'm too busy. I can't do that right now. Well, it's funny how we're always too busy when we want them to be attentive to the school, but then when the kid's too busy and doesn't want to be attending, then that's a problem, right? It's a fundamental attribution error, right?
When the parent's busy, that's fine, but when the kid's busy, that's not
fine. Well, and when we're looking at our screen by ourselves, that's also fine, but we've got to limit that screen. You mentioned that earlier.
Your Reddit is much more functional than your
kid's Reddit. Well, I've got to do this for work. It's very important. And now we're trying to say, hey, you've got to do this for school. It's very important.
Again, can we transfer that exact motivating operation can we make a kid be that into their screen like we might be over work email at times and that's kind of the point we're trying to make is how can we do that functionally and ethically and in a reasonable manner knowing that we have the motivating operation for that in this day and age in this time trying to have school and academic things happen for example you know on screen and seeing that our kids aren't necessarily attracted to the
screen but certain content over the screen so Dan we've covered a lot of As we always do, we've gone way over our timeframe as we tend to do, but that's okay. I think just kind of trying to draw it in and our episode here and redefining screen time. I think one thing we're saying is not prohibit. but open up and define when and where and be part of that. Be part of that definition of when and where. Does that sound like a good statement there? A good recap statement?
Very well said.
You're also talking about priming, right? So scheduling, priming. I'm letting you know when, where, beforehand so that it's all clear, as clear as we can be so that there's little negotiation on the back end. And that's not necessarily because negotiation is bad. It's because it tends to frustrate us and it tends to make kids... exhibit behavior that frustrates us and that makes an escape function much more likely, for example.
It means we might abandon our forts, and then suddenly the kid's doing something we don't want them to do, and every time we practice an undesired behavior, it works itself toward habit. So that would be something else to keep in mind there. Any other wrap-up points for us, Mr. Dan?
I like it, man, answering those four questions, right? What am I doing? How long? When am I done? And what do I do next? Let them know that ahead of time.
That is perfect, especially with screen time, and especially right now when we're saying, yes, yes to screen time. Have it, have it, have it. This is the content, and then now the reinforcement becomes the type of content, knowing that the more we share those games, the more likely or receptive they might be when we show up with the screen and say... At this time, only this content on the screen. So the iPad isn't all powerful.
It does have a kryptonite, and that's your teacher's face on it for some kids. That content is no longer as attractive. But again, if we can share that, now we can actually be part of our kids' lessons, be part of the lectures they're listening to, and it provides a lot of power. So screen time redefined. Who thought we would ever be saying not less screen time, more screen time, but the right stuff?
I'm still trying to find the right word. filter to make my face look more attractive on screen.
Does the screen time add 10 pounds? Not in quarantine because we're all losing weight, or are we? I don't know. All right, Mr. Dan, always a pleasure. Sure, we've covered a lot of ground. As always, you out there who are listening, we know there's, now we're in the hundreds, I think, that might be listening to us. Very, very proud of you. Thank you for your time and for your energy and listening. Please reach out on Facebook. Send us more questions, suggestions, thoughts, ideas.
It's really why we're doing this, to get feedback from you guys out there and to disseminate good and factual information and good suggestions for parents and professionals alike who are involved in ABA or behavior change. So please, we encourage you to reach out to us. And most importantly, always analyze responsibly. Stay well out there. You be well, Mr. Gary. Cheers, man.
Cheers.
Bye.