Tell me a parenting issue everyone struggles with, with tweens and teens, but no one talks about. Reena, I think a lot of people feel like they just don't know how to connect to their kid anymore. I'm Reena Nainan, and welcome to Ask Lisa, the Psychology of Parenting podcast. And I'm Dr. Lisa DeMoor. We bring you science-backed strategies for managing anxiety, discipline, intense emotions and more. We decode tough parenting challenges with tips that you can use right now.
So subscribe to Ask Lisa, the Psychology of Parenting podcast, and join our YouTube community today. We're here to help you untangle family life. Episode 206, how can we roll back our kids' technology use? You know, I guess the question for today's podcast, can you put the genie back in the bottle with technology? Right? That's the question. I think that is the billion-dollar question, Reena. Like, once your kids have it.
Yeah. And once you see that you don't like how they're using it, now what do you do? Okay. I can't wait to have this conversation with you. I want to read you the letter that we got that I feel like every parent across the world deals with here. Dear Dr. Lisa. I have a love-hate relationship with technology. I get it. Technology is exciting and useful and a necessity in our society. But I'm now the mother of three kids, and I hate it. It's not just smartphones or social media.
But it now is extending to YouTube, video games, and sometimes even school assignments. My partner and I desperately want to do a tech reset for all of us. I am just as guilty of wasting an hour on Instagram Reels. At the same time... I recognize how integral technology has become to our lives, and I don't want to socially isolate the kids either. Since a proverbial cat is already out of the bag, how do I get it back in?
without doing long-term damage to our relationship or harming my kids' connection to their friends. Thank you so much. Oh my gosh. That says it all. That says it all. Everything. Absolutely. You know, so... I don't, I just, we need it. But sometimes I miss the 80s of like the answering machine. I know. Call waiting. Yeah, call waiting. I know. I know, Reena. Okay. Okay, so I want to go big.
on this question. I don't want to just think like, oh, here's four new rules to try on your kids, right? Because there's something so essential in this letter, which is this parent is saying, it's my problem too. And I think that's what we're saying, right? It's our kids. It's us. It feels everywhere. It feels uncontrolled. So here's how I want us to think this through together. Okay, so...
Being a psychologist, I always come at this from the standpoint of human behavior makes sense. You know, that when we are doing things, it makes sense, even if we are doing things that are against our own interests. Like that's how I was taught to think. And so we are using technology in ways that we end up feeling very unhappy about. Our kids are using technology in ways that we don't think are necessarily always good for them. But we can't.
I think, go at what to do about it until we figure out like, but why? Why do we use it in these ways that are problematic? So I want to actually go like kind of think it through together. Why do we use technology, Rina? Why do you use technology? And go big. What are the big domains that bring you to technology? Okay, because I want to validate why I use it. Work.
I need to be on my phone for work. I need to have it. I need to read emails. I need to be on it all the time because people expect me to respond fast. Okay, so work. So email and texting on your phone and computer sometimes. For work. Okay. So that's one. That's a why. That's a why. Okay. What's another why we use technology? Connection. Okay.
To connect with people, know how everyone's doing. We live in such a fast-paced society. We don't write letters anymore. Do you have letters? I have saved letters. I have some from my middle school years when I was pen pals. girlfriends that I'm really, really close to still. But no, nobody writes letters. Nobody even sends a postcard. When was the last time you sent a postcard when you were on vacation? Never. No. You text photos of what you're doing on vacation. Absolutely.
But, okay, but again, that's connection. And that's good connection, right? Like, we like that. And that's a good use of technology is what I will say. It's connecting. We've replaced how we used to connect with this form. It works well. It's efficient. You don't have to. Well, do you also remember being in a foreign country and trying to find a stamp and figure out how much stamp was involved? Oh, my gosh.
do that anymore either, which is probably fine. Totally right. Okay. So we use it for work. We use it for connection. These are the whys. What else? We use it also, and I don't want to admit that we do for as much as we do, entertainment value. Yep. Yep. Yep. You're speaking to a woman who found herself last night sitting in the living room, scrolling through Instagram reels, got some really weird ones, kept going. I'm...
I'm right there with you, Rina. Sometimes it's the dumb, mindless thing I find myself doing. Well, you're better than me because now my bank account is half because I bought everything at Costco online for scrolling. products I see and suddenly have to buy. Oh, so you're, you're, you're using it like on your, you're like buying Costco products off of your computer. I'm buying all sorts of products that I don't need. Like whatever.
anything that I see suddenly will help me with my hair to look better or take my dark circles away. I'm always looking for something. So you start on- like a social media platform and then you're like, I must have this item. Oh yeah. Yeah, me too. Oh my gosh. All right. So, all right, but this is interesting because what we started to actually tease.
apart. And I want to think about this actually domain by domain. So have we done the domain? So we've got work, we've got connection, we've got leisure. Anything else? Those are the big ones for me, I think. Anything else you could think of? I think those are the big. I think we could also think about things like finances, maintaining household stuff. Yeah. I put that under work. That's under work. Things that I must do.
That's a good, exactly. Okay. I like that. So if we go back to what we were just saying about the leisure piece, that it starts, I will say in a way that I can feel okay about, like I was cooked yesterday. And just somehow sitting there in the living room, like scrolling through Instagram Reels was actually quite gratifying. Like I was enjoying it. Why are we so, can you explain that before we go any further? Like why do we get sucked down? It's so easy and so addictive.
I mean, the answer is really one word. It's like the algorithm is brilliant and knows what to put in front of me at 9pm when I am cooked and want something just for entertainment. It has so much data on me that it's actually, that's the why. Like it's serving up, you know, salt, sugar, fat magic into my Instagram feed right when I have a heavy craving, right? So even that, like.
But like, let's be gentle with ourselves. Like even that, like the start of that I can get into and I can enjoy and I can even, and this is my favorite version of this. find something that's actually really fun to show my kid or my husband that we like take shared pleasure in, right? Like that I think is like both entertainment and connection and technology working well. Okay. So there's ways it works well.
I would say in all of the domains that you have articulated, it veers over a line from working well and being effective to becoming a problem. And I think it's that line. that we want to try to articulate. And then here's my grand design for this episode, Rena. Help have conversations with our kids about where's the line between when it's working and when it's a problem or should be.
You know, something else should be happening instead. How do we describe that line? How do we notice that line? And how do we make decisions as individuals and as a family to try to stay on the good side of tech? That's my grand scheme. What do you think?
Big takeaway I always say about this podcast for me is having the conversations. They don't even need to be long, but your kids aren't even aware until you drop it and talk to them and then you could just walk away. You don't have to. But to me, you know what it feels like with technology?
It's like, I love potato chips. But like, I could sit and eat a whole bag of potato chips. That's exactly what it's like, Rina. That's exactly. Or it's like drinking, right? Yeah. Like, a glass of wine can be a wonderful thing. Slamming the whole bottle by yourself on a lonely night, that's a problem, right? Not too good. And not a good feeling, right? It's that feeling after you've done it. Exactly. So why do I keep doing it and knowing I'm going to feel that way?
Well, I think truly, honestly, Rena, I think the trick with tech is that it's built into the devices to get us to cross that line, right? I mean, I think that that's the thing, right? That other... You know, things that are wonderful that can turn in devices don't necessarily have the built in. The tech, no question, has the built in of like stay, stay, stay, stay, cross the line from healthy use to not so healthy use. Let's call it that. Healthy use, unhealthy use.
And what I like, Reena, I like finding analogies to other parts of life. Like some potato chips, wonderful. You know, three bags later, you have regrets, right? Oh, gosh. We have our ways of talking and thinking about that that feel familiar, comfortable, natural. And I think, you know, as we start to work our way through this way of thinking and then work our way towards thinking about how we talk with kids.
Anytime you can make an analogy between how we use tech and how we deal with other tempting things in our lives. I think it's good for adults because then it makes us think like, oh, this isn't so foreign and strange. Like it's like other things I know well. And I also think it helps us be more empathic with kids. I think sometimes like when kids are looking at like stuff on YouTube, you're like, what is...
what is up with that kid? That is so weird. But if you're like, oh, but me and potato chips? Okay. Then I'm like, okay, kid, I get it. We'll figure it out. Some YouTube, but not tons of YouTube. But I think... This is sort of like, I'm into broad framing. How do we walk up to this in a way that we can feel like we've got something bigger than just, I'm going to put a time limit.
And we have something bigger than saying to our kid, here's the new rule. So how do we do this? I want to ask you, Lisa, I want to pause, take a quick break. But on the other side of this, how do we begin having these conversations and how do we get it? to sink it, not just to our kids, but for ourselves as well. We'll be right back. You're listening to Ask Lisa, The Psychology of Parenting. This message is sponsored by Greenlight.
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Welcome back to Ask Lisa, The Psychology of Parenting. We are talking about how to walk away from technology and learn to live with it so that you are not using it obsessively all the time. It is a hard addiction to break, Lisa. Yep, us and our kids. right? On it far more than we mean to be. Okay. So Rina, you said something before the break that I want to come back to about conversations. And one of the things that you and I have often touched on is
There are topics in child development where you don't have the talk, right? Sex, you know, you have the conversation with your fifth grader about holding hands or...
You know, if they've seen porn, hopefully they haven't, but statistically it's not unlikely. You have that conversation and then you're having a different conversation with your 13-year-old, 14-year-old, 15-year-old. It's an overtime conversation. You're dipping in and out of it all the time. Same with drugs, same with drinking, same.
with all sorts of things. It's the same with tech, right? I think this is something that is just a constant in our lives. How we interact with it, how our kids are interacting with it is shifting.
how 12 year olds use tech and how 17 year olds use tech is going to be different. So I think the first thing we do is we start to talk about it and think about it more like those other, and I'll call them like risk factors, that we visit regularly and check in on regularly to see where we're at and to see what rules make sense.
So when you're having this conversation, how do you begin, Lisa? That's what I'm trying to figure out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, maybe talking about it, right? I think so. Okay, but what if... What if you sat with your kid and did kind of what you and I just did, where you say to them, talk to me about the whys behind your tech use. When are you using it for school? Because this letter, very, very...
It fairly says, like, I even have some anxieties about my kids using it for school. Okay, well, but they got to use it for school, right? When are you using it for school? When are you using it for connection? When are you using it for fun? And like, really?
hearing a kid out on that. And I think you have to be very upfront about where this is all headed, right? You can't just be like, what is behind this? How fast do I have to get out of this conversation to keep my phone is what they're going to really be thinking. So I think you probably should frame it with...
Like, okay, I am trying to think big about my relationship with technology. And I am starting to think in domains about when I use it, why I use it, and when it goes from being working well for me to not working well for me. I'm thinking work. connection, leisure. I think maybe you have the same domains, but here's the goal of this conversation. I want us to start thinking together. I want us to start thinking as a family about how we interact with tech in a way that we're getting.
almost all upside and very little downside. But to do that, we all have to sit back and actually think about what's the upside, what's the downside, domain, domain, domain. Okay. That's how I, you know, like your kid's probably like... Oh, boy. Yeah, they don't want to enter that conversation. But sometimes I find I'm surprised pleasantly that they're open to it. Well, Reena, on that point.
One thing I have been doing increasingly is asking teenagers who has put screen time controls on their phones themselves for themselves. I am really impressed how often I am having. Teenagers, they tend to be older. They tend to be sophomore, junior, seniors in high school who have on their own accord put screen time controls.
And so like that's a kid who's figured it out, which is this is fun for me up to a limit. And then I start to feel, you know, this is 10 potato chips or a half a bag of potato chips worth of, you know, enjoyment for me. But after this period of time, I am now into a volume of potato chips slash Instagram that I'm going to feel bad about. So I stop myself. So some kids have already started to think.
very, very carefully in this way. So I agree with you. Don't assume your kid is going to come to this hostile to the entire idea. So you enter the conversation. You have them look at what's working, what isn't for tech, what makes them feel good, what doesn't. And how do you enter that conversation about setting boundaries? Because I think most kids do not want restrictions on their phone or they're Xboxing or they're YouTubing.
100%. Okay, so really thinking this through. So first, I think you say to them, here's the conversation I want to have and why. So that big long spiel I just did. And I think to your point, you probably have to be like, when are you open to talking with this?
talking about this with me. You can't be like, stop what you're doing. I'm about to drop some major knowledge on you about technology. That will not go well. I think saying, this is something we want to visit as a family. This is something I want to visit with you.
I want to share my thinking on how I've tried to sort this out myself. Can we have a conversation Sunday night? Maybe we do it over dinner as a family, right? But that idea of like, this is not like the one and done. Like, we're going to just be getting into this. I then truly, Reena, on the boundary question, I actually think it's probably better to do some personal work on this before taking it to your kid. Really?
Yeah. So here's what I have done lately. And it felt so brave or radical to do it, but you're going to be so disappointed in me when you hear what it was I did. I want to hear this now. Okay. So I've been thinking about this and I was like, okay, for me, email is work, right? It's not where I'm having leisure and it's not where I'm making meaningful connections. It's where I do work. I actually, most of my work is best done on a computer.
It usually involves other documents. It usually involves things. And so I started to think, I'm like, why do I have email on my phone? It's actually not well suited. The phone is not well suited to the fact that email for me is work. Why is email on my phone? Interesting. So I wasn't ready to get rid of it on my phone because I do occasionally, especially when traveling. I will need it.
But I did, this was my radical move that I hope you'll be a little proud, even though it's like really kind of sad. I just took it out of the dock at the bottom of my phone and I moved it into one of the folders that I have for work on the little icon-y things on my phone. And that made a difference? Okay. Well, here, this was an interesting experiment. So the first thing that happened, and this was just like wild and kind of horrifying to watch.
I would pick up my phone and I would tap where it used to be. Interesting. It was incredible to just actually come up against how Pavlovian that response was in me. Like if I see my phone, I pick up my phone. and I tap where the Gmail icon used to be. I'm like, oh my gosh. Okay, now I have resisted trying to find it again in the folder I put it in. It's not that hard to find. And so, Rena, it is actually working.
Wow. For now. Right? So that when I am checking my email, I am at a desk. I am at my computer. I mean to be doing work. So this is my effort. That's huge. Well, it's kind of like. Yeah. But you know what I'm realizing? What? You have it. This is a difference between you and me. You're so organized that you have it down on the dock. I still have been swiping for years and never put it down on the dock. And I'm still using all the emails. All my time on emails. This might not work.
I think for you, you're on the fly a lot more. I think everybody has to do their own investigation, but I think you're having a really different conversation with your kid. When you say, okay, let's just start with the domain of work. I realized that for me, compulsively checking Gmail on my phone was work that wasn't working well for me. If I'm going to work on technology, I actually need to be.
at my desk, at a computer, doing it on my phone is not something I need to make a baseline activity. And so then you could say, so let's just start for you with school. When is your computer working well for you? When is technology working well for you? When is it getting in the way for you of doing school? And so then I think you could have a good conversation, I imagine, where the kid says, oh, I actually need to be on my computer for da-da-da-da-da-da.
And it's not working as well for me when I am also simultaneously checking text messages the entire time I'm doing my schoolwork, right? And so then you say, okay, well, why don't we just start there? Because that's where the line is getting crossed. What could we do?
to enforce that line. What do you think? Does that sound realistic at all? It does sound realistic. I love this idea of having the conversation of you telling us how to navigate this by everyone looking at ways it works and doesn't work. And then having them come up with guidelines on their own instead of dictating it from the mountaintop with stone tablets, this is what it's going to be. A hundred percent, right? You know, in classrooms often, especially with younger kids.
they will make like classroom agreements, like the rules for behavior. And the teacher will have the students think it through. Like, how do we want to be together? How do we want to act? Right. And it's exactly what you're talking about. Right. Yeah. Rather than being like, these are the rules for my classroom. It's how do we want to live? in this classroom together. And so we can take advantage of the fact that we are as adults as totally twisted around about technology as our kids are.
And I think you could probably just do one domain at a time. Okay, next, let's talk about connection. When is tech making your life better, connecting you to people in ways that are better? When is it... undermining either becoming a bad way to connect or getting in the way of a better way to connect, right? And just like legit asking your kid, when does that line get crossed and what could happen to enforce that line? So you just stay on the good side of it.
You know, I told you in our New Year's episode that I have stopped charging my phone in my room, but I lapse. because I still have a charger in there and there are some nights where I can't fall asleep and I do it. And, you know, it's awful because it keeps you up even. We know this. There's research to prove it.
But I think sometimes taking baby steps in realizing like this doesn't – and talking to them so they're aware because I don't think they ever think about that. It's arbitrary rule we have now at our house. Eight o'clock goes in the charger. We're done for the day. Weekends were a little bit more flexible. But I think we did a let's try it out and see how you feel. And do we stick to it every night? No, but I'm happy with 80-20. If 80% of the time we're doing this, then we're good.
Well, that's right. I mean, in terms of quality of life and how things are, you don't have to make dramatic shifts all the time. It doesn't have to be an entire shift. But what you just said, Rina, about let's try it out and see how we feel. Yeah.
I think that also applies here, which is you could go domain by domain. Again, I would stretch this over several conversations. I would have everybody do their own work first and come to the table with like, here's what I'm trying to stay on the good side of technology in this domain. But I think that then you try something. You say like, here's what I'm going to try to do to enforce the line of it going only on the good side of work or the good side of connection or the good side of leisure.
Why don't we come back next week and see how we're doing with it, right? So you're co-constructing this with your family. You're not saying this is how it's going to be and no one wants to be a part of it. Absolutely. The coolest thing, Reena, is kids are smart. They have their own awareness of what they like and what they don't like about tech.
And I think there really are ways to enter into this conversation that will allow them to feel comfortable putting on the table what they don't like about tech. And it's interesting to hear you say that they even often talk about it when you're with them, like they want to share that. I know you didn't want to give us rules, but are there some parameters or something when it comes to tech hygiene, what it does to our brain?
Maybe you can just make us aware of that we could use when we have these conversations. I do. I mean, I think it's like, you know, one of those things, like there's a little of like, let's co-construct this, but then there's also a little of like, I actually am the adult in the room and we're going to have some parameters here. Because you might be like, you know what I think we should do? We should have no rules, right?
So I do, you know, Rina, I don't think tech belongs in bedrooms. You've always said this. I think it's a great rule. I think it's a great rule. And it's interesting, Rina, because I often, you know, I'll get questions from parents and...
And they're often like, I don't see my kid at all. They're always in their room. And my first question is, well, do they have tech in their room? Because truly they have no reason to leave their room if they have tech in their room. So there's a million reasons for this rule. But if you can get it out. If you can't do it during the day, at least at night, like that alone, Reena.
Talk about keeping on the healthy side of tech, right? That is a giant on the healthy side of tech rule. As soon as you're using it in the middle of the night when you're supposed to be sleeping, I don't care what you're doing. You're on the wrong side of it. Totally. I think that rule is good. I'm a big fan of uncoupling, giving kids phones and giving them browsers. You can easily set up with the help of the person at the store.
a smartphone that doesn't have a browser and can't have one added without your permission, I think sometimes we forget to take that off. I think it's a great idea to take that off. It just limits all sorts of things that kids don't need to be seeing.
And it means if they're using a browser, hopefully they're using it on the home computer, which might have some nice filters to keep things like pornography, et cetera, from coming through. And I'm a big fan of uncoupling giving kids phones and giving kids social media. Those are two different things.
And I think the longer you can delay social media, the better. But it comes up in this letter. At some point, kids need to be connected to their friends. And at some point, social media is going to be where that is happening. But if you start without social media and start with texting, texting is good. I like to call it JV social media.
It lets kids start to connect. It lets you see how well they handle it. It lets you see who your kid is when it comes to tech. If your kid is really naughty on texting, do not give that kid social media. I think you can go slow. Those are some big basics that I would recommend. There was a JV and varsity of social media. This is new to me. Yeah, just because I made it up. We love it when you make things up. It makes sense to us. So just to walk back a little bit here.
Having that conversation, entering it, doesn't have to be a long one. Telling them. how you're maybe even struggling with it and how do we rethink this? What's working for you? Engaging them in how to co-construct rollback or what the parameters might be and then helping them understand the tech hygiene of what it's doing.
I think that's right. And as you describe it, let me say something that like any kid worth their salt is going to roll their eyes. Like they're going to sprain their eyeballs on this one. It may even be worth saying to your kid. we're going to start doing a weekly tech check as a family. And I'm going to name it tech check just to be annoying. And
We are going to take one evening a week over dinner just to sort of think this through. We'll start maybe with a broader conversation, and then it's just going to be something that we're talking about all the time. What's working? What's not? What new parameters do we need to try to put in place? You won't get a total win here, but it's what you said, Rina. Improvement is improvement.
can make a meaningful difference in quality of life for everybody. Absolutely. Improvement and awareness. I think we go through without thinking or talking. And you raised today that it's really important to have that conversation and see where they're at. I think that's right. I think that's right. And I've been doing this so long that there was an early period where the kids were deep into tech and the adults weren't. That was harder.
This is easier now that we are as deep in as our kids are. So what do you have for us, Lisa, for parenting to go? I think sort of underlying all of this is a really critical role in... really caring for anybody, but especially our own kids, which is, it is very hard for them to take in our opinion if they don't feel that we've really tried to understand where they're coming from.
This is true on tech, right? So I'm recommending like long conversations about what do you like? What do you don't like? Help me understand how you're using it. I think it's also true on the kid who wants to go to the party that you don't want them to go to. Until you really understand why they want to go to that party, they are not that interested in hearing why you don't want them to go to that party. But...
If you will do the work, if you will be there to understand, if you will ask a lot of questions, if you will withhold judgment, your chances of them listening to what you have to say go way up. So many gems in this podcast. So many things. The party thing I'm going to remember in a couple years too, but what a great way to help us understand it with technology. Thank you, Lisa. You're welcome.
And next week, we're going to talk about what's the best way for my teen to handle a mean friend. I'll see you next week. I'll see you next week. Thanks for joining us. Be sure to subscribe to the Ask Lisa podcast so you get the episodes just as soon as they drop. And send us your questions to asklisa at drlisademore.com. And now a word from our lawyers.
The advice provided on this podcast does not constitute or serve as a substitute for professional psychological treatment therapy or other types of professional advice or intervention. If you have concerns about your child's wellbeing. consult a physician or mental health professional. If you're looking for additional resources, check out Lisa's website at drlisademore.com.