RAR #244: How to Give Your Kids What Technology Can’t, Erin Loechner

Erin Loechner (00:00): Technology is not a salvation issue. It is not an all or nothing but idol worship is. So I think if we are traveling anywhere down the path of like, "We are a low tech family no matter what," or "We are all on our devices, no matter what." My pastor says all the time that for every mile traveled there's a ditch on either side. You really can sort of fall into this worshiping of technology or worshiping the absence of technology. Sarah Mackenzie (00:34): Hello. Hello, Sarah McKenzie here. You've got episode 244 of The Read Aloud Revival podcast, the show that helps your kids fall in love with books and helps you fall in love with homeschooling. I have a treat for you today because my pal, Erin Loechner is here and we are going to talk all about her brand new book. You're going to love The Opt-Out Family and you're going to love Erin as much as I do. Around here, we're always talking about connecting with our kids. Connecting with our kids through books, and also making those meaningful, lasting, warm connections that will carry our kids through many a dark day in their future and also just make life worth living. And Erin has a unique take, I think on this that she shares in The Opt-Out Family. Erin Loechner, welcome to The Read Aloud Revival. Erin Loechner (01:27): Ah, thank you. Can you believe it's been episode 244? I was listening then and I'm like, "That's insane. That's so many podcasts." Sarah Mackenzie (01:34): It's a lot of podcasts. It's actually, we just celebrated our 10th anniversary, like our 10th year of podcasting, which is kind of amazing. So that was fun. I recorded a Top 10 in 10. If you guys haven't listened to that one, you should go find it in your app. The top 10 in the last 10 years. In the first 10 years is the way I was saying it. Ever the Optimist. Erin Loechner (01:53): I love that. Congratulations. Sarah Mackenzie (01:55): Thank you. Okay, so listeners, you should know Erin Loechner because she is the author of Chasing Slow, which is, I love this book so much. I quote it all the time. There is a quote at the end of Chasing Slow where Erin says that when we change our expectations, it's not about lowering our expectations, it's about living up to the expectations we were created for. And I feel like I recite that one all the time. She's also the founder of the International Homeschooling Co-op, Other Goose, and she's been writing online for decades now, and her work has appeared in places like The New York Times, Parenting magazine, The Huffington Post, just to name a few. And this most recent book is called The Opt-Out Family, How to Give Your Kids What Technology Can't, and I think it's an invitation for us to genuinely connect with our kids. Erin, tell me, what's an opt-out family? Erin Loechner (02:45): Oh, I love starting there. I will start by saying that it is not an all or nothing decision. The opt-out family is not just you're retired on Montana and living with goats or something. It is just very much the idea that technology is a bit of a rat race in itself, right? You're on a treadmill and you don't really know where that path ends and you're sort of at the mercy of the algorithm as soon as you adapt. And the opt-out family is just the idea of at every point, at any point we can pause and we can look up and we can look around and we can see what's happening and we can reassess is this where we want to go as a family? I always always say that, "Yes, even if technology is the future, we get to ask is technology the future we want?" And we get to decide that as parents, and that's what I hope for this book is that we will just ask the questions that need asked and there is no wrong answer as long as you're asking the question. Sarah Mackenzie (03:46): I love this so much because I feel like sometimes we get this instant reaction to when technology is pulled into question. I know I feel this way. I know a lot of listeners feel this way, where you immediately feel a little bit ashamed or nervous about like, "Well, we live in a world with technology, so how can I just say we're going to opt out of technology?" But that's not really the invitation that you're giving us invitation to something better, which is something that I really love about this book is it feels more like a, this is what's being offered to you, you can take it or leave it. There's also something over here that is more lasting, that is more meaningful. These are the connections that you really want. You can use technology to some degree to get there. I mean, we're doing it right now as we're podcasting, right? Erin Loechner (04:32): Yeah, exactly. Yes. And you're exactly right. I don't like approaching this conversation from a place of fear that never ever feels good when you're trying to make a decision. And so I was more curious, all right, phones are so addicting. We love them for some reason and it can't all be bad, otherwise we wouldn't be using them. And so there's something to this idea that our devices are so engaging and I wanted to know, can we reverse engineer that as families? Can we ask TikTok, how do you create this most inclusive party that everybody wants to be part of? Can we ask Minecraft, how do you present a challenge that isn't so hard that it's demotivating, right? Can we ask venture capitalists? How do you prioritize decision-making when you're working with startups? We can ask all those questions and we can find out their answers, we can steal their playbook and we can do it even better in our own house and I had a theory that that was true. I wanted to know that that was true and that's why I wrote this book. And it is true. (05:33): We have the upper hand as parents, so there's no fear in this conversation. It is absolutely hopeful that we can do do this better than Silicon Valley. I know we can. Sarah Mackenzie (05:43): Okay, that's what I love. One of the precedents of your book is basically harnessing those very same tools and tactics that technology is using to get our kids' attention and to get our attention and then use them in a way that helps our relationships flourish. So can you give me an example of one of those tactics? Erin Loechner (06:03): Yes. Sarah, you taught me one of them, and you do this all the time. The strewing and the books with the cover facing out was an absolute game changer in our home. And the reason is... This is how the algorithm works, right? You are presented with an image or whatever, I'm talking specifically of the Instagram one because that's what I deep dove into. You're presented with an image and you decide, through biometrics at this point, whether or not you want to see more of that image or right now at this point, the algorithm is sort of deciding that for you, but there was a time in which we could decide. And then through the process of delight, and engagement, and whether it's time on device or whether or not you are hovering over the like button a little longer than normal or anything, there are all of these cues that we recognize. Oh, this is something that this person enjoys and likes. (06:56): And hello, we as parents do that every day. We absolutely study our kids and we observe our kids for cues just like this, only we get to do them better because we know them more. And so yeah, displaying books face out and recognizing my kid's really into dogs right now. Maybe we should go read to some dogs at the library or maybe we should do this sort of thing together or what would happen if we do this together? And that's all it is. It's studying, observing your kids. It's getting to know what makes them tick better than the algorithm does. I mean there's hundreds of examples in the book, but that's one that I think of when I think of you specifically. Sarah Mackenzie (07:37): Okay, so one of the passages from your book that I love so much, and this is from chapter six. You wrote, "As much as technology would have us believe otherwise, there is no algorithm that will shield us from the full human experience. No convenience will aid in the accurate prediction and guaranteed safety of life storms proverbial or otherwise. No formula for heartbreak, no pattern to suffering. There is little science baked into the reasons why a darkened cathedral, candlelight, and booming chorus of robed sopranos singing Hallelujah can bring us all to our knees. There is no reason why the sight of a giggling diaper-clad toddler chasing backyard bubbles should conjure unspeakable joy because the real world, this messy churning glorious world, relies not only on logical pathways, but also on pathos. Experiences, emotions, doubts, fears, moods in all of their complexity. The streets we walk, the people we carry, the tears we dry, they invite us to engage every part of the brain we've been given. Memory, feeling, movement, balance, breath, heart." (08:45): The whole book is written like this, you guys. I love... I have to say, Erin, it's a little side tangent before I dive into that passage that... I love that you know so many people have been waiting for another book from you since Chasing Slow, which came out almost a decade ago. And I love that first you opted out. It's not just like, oh, she darkened her Instagram. I mean, you had a really big Instagram following and a really big online presence. And so to opt out of that was different than I think it would be for most of us just to go, "I'm not on Facebook anymore." Right? Erin Loechner (09:18): Mm-hmm. Sarah Mackenzie (09:19): First you opted out and then you came back with a book and you're like, "Yeah, here's how to be an opt-out family. Here's how to take control of what influence technology is going to have on your family life so that you don't just hand over your family connections to whatever social media platform is at the moment taking over the world." So anyway, I just love that about you so much. Erin Loechner (09:41): Thank you. `. Sarah Mackenzie (09:42): This particular passage though, it reminds me... So I'm often reminding all of us, myself included, that when Jesus fed the 5,000 on the hillside, he could have just instantly fed everybody and that would've been really impressive, but he didn't. He asked them, "Bring me what you have." And they brought him just a couple of loaves of bread and fish and then he used what they gave him to be enough. And that's what we're doing in our homes every day is we feel like every day I'm not enough for these kids. (10:19): All the things that they might need for their future, relationships are hard. Like you said in that passage, I'm going to go back to it. There is no formula for heartbreak, no pattern to suffering. There's little science baked into the reasons why things like a darkened cathedral and candlelight and a booming chorus of a choir really bring us to our knees. And yet this is the kind of stuff that I feel like we just show up and it's like grace upon grace that makes it enough for our kids. One of the things you also say in your book is our world calls for wonder. So talk to me a little bit about that. Talk to me a little bit about this longing for wonder and how the world calls us to wonder and how we get to choose wonder. Erin Loechner (11:05): I love everything you just said there and amen to that. You're right. I agree with you. I think the wonder piece, honestly, we don't really recognize what we're missing because we grew up in a time where we did, at least I did. I was an eighties kid. I mean wonder was all there was, right? The parents were sort of like, I don't really have time for you, so go figure stuff out. It's always, I wonder, I'm curious. You're really just kind of on your own. And I interviewed so many kids in teens for this book and across the board I did not ever think this through. But across the board they were telling me because they don't know everything, they feel like there's something wrong with them because they don't have an opinion about this that's already fully formed, or because they don't yet understand a concept because I mean, think about it, when you're swimming in a sea of information and that's sort of the ultimate currency, right? (12:02): So you can Google anything, you can ask Siri anything, and these kids were saying, "Well, I don't know. I still don't understand it, and I have that capacity. I have the ability to look it up, but it doesn't make sense to me and so is there something wrong with me?" And I remember thinking like, "Well, no, because then what fun comes after that if you already know the answers to everything at 16." But it was that I didn't recognize is that's sort of how technology works. Right? It removes all ambiguity and all uncertainty. Right? We don't have to go on dates and wonder if the other person likes us anymore because we get the visual swipe on the other end. Right? We don't have to sort of kill time with people in between meetings or just shoot the breeze or just sit on a... We don't have to wait for our parents to pick us up because they're coming immediately when they text. (12:56): They're saying, "I'm on my way, I'm coming," and then they come and they show up. And there are all those moments of growing up that I remember of wonder, of curiosity, of ambiguity, of uncertainty that help give your brain some time to process and our kids don't have that right now. The majority of our kids don't have that right now. And I thought, "Oh, that's missing." And we shouldn't be able to go into a darkened cathedral and be able to look at exactly what's happening and say, "I can recreate that and so can technology and I can remove this feeling if I don't want it, or I can give myself this feeling if I do want it." (13:36): The joy of life is that you can't decide those things for yourself. And exactly like you said, we are giving of ourselves, we are giving of our life experience and God will multiply that and that is the promise of the abundant life. It is not that we get to place this abundance on ourselves and call the shots all the time. It is that we are given what we are given and God works with that amongst ourselves. Sarah Mackenzie (14:04): Hearing you talk about that reminds me. I listened to a podcast and I can't remember now which one it was, but the gentleman who was talking mentioned that as soon as... Say you're at a family dinner or you're on a dinner with your husband or something and you're trying to remember, you're like, "Oh, what was that one movie that we watched?" And you start to kind of try to remember it and you kind shoot back and forth. Everyone's like, "Was it this one? Was it that one?" Well, we don't do that anymore because now what we do is like, "I don't know." And we pick up our phone and you have the information right away and it cuts off conversations before they actually even get going because we have the facts at our disposal. It's just so interesting. Hearing you say that, I'm like, "That's exactly what happens," is because we think should know everything or we should be able to get everything, and that's the most important thing rather than the actual just wondering. (14:57): That's actually where the interesting things would happen is when you're having that conversation and you're like, "Was it this one?" "No. Gosh, do you remember how great that movie was? And I remember when I was a kid." I mean, I don't know. That's where good conversations come from. Erin Loechner (15:08): Totally. And we always say like, "Oh, that's really going to bother me. I have to look it up or whatever." We have a rule in our family. We absolutely will not do that. And I even keep a crossword puzzle on my fridge and the whole goal of it is to know what I don't know. So when people come over, which is all the time, it's a revolving door, and I will always have people help me with 32D or 5A or whatever, and it is astounding, Sarah, how much people know about random things and yet how quick we are to say like, "Oh, I don't know, but I'll look that up for you." And I'm like, "No, no, no, don't. That's not the point of this." The point is I want to see if collectively my community can figure this out together without the use of Google. And shoot, we're like three years running and I'm still not done with it. (15:54): It is just... It's a killer, but it's such a great practice to just get really familiar with not knowing because that's when we find out... That's when we're surprised and we're delighted and we find out things that we never sought out in the first place. Sarah Mackenzie (16:09): Yeah. Okay. You talked for a second about boredom and I want to talk more about that because in chapter eight you talk about how boredom is a stepping stone to creativity, and if we're never bored, there's no opportunities to be creative or to play, or to wonder, like you mentioned. And I think it's Cal Newport who talks about the idea of when you're standing in line at the grocery store, all of our default is to pick up our phone and start scrolling. And if you don't do that and you just go, "I'm just going to stand here and look around me." It's like doing a mental push-up, like you're increasing your capacity for boredom, which is... So talk to me about this. What is that? What comes up for you when I mention that? Erin Loechner (16:49): Oh, gosh. Well, I don't carry around a smartphone. And so that practice... And it took years to develop that muscle, I will agree with him. And so I will say I am such a people watcher anyway that sometimes my husband's like, "Erin, stop staring, stop staring, stop staring." Because I will. I'll just stare forever. It's fascinating to me. But I always thought that I wasn't into small talk. I always assume that because when you're in the plane and you have somewhere to be and you've got stuff to do, or when you're at the dentist in the waiting room and somebody's trying to talk to you or whatever, I realize I really do like small talk. I really do. It's just that I was zoning out on my own device or in my own world or had my own agenda happening, and it felt like anyone other than that was an interruption. (17:35): And now I recognize, oh my gosh. Oh, the waitress at my favorite diner is now one of my favorite people. I just basically gave her a key to my house and said, "Come over whenever you want to." And I never, ever, ever would've known her without allowing myself boredom. I wouldn't have allowed anyone else to fill in that space when my own thoughts are boring to me or whatever. It's an interesting thing to think about. We call ourselves introverts and extroverts, and I do believe that I am an introvert, and yet I really love people and I really love their stories and hearing for them and just life got more fun when I was open to that. Sarah Mackenzie (18:14): So someone's listening and they're like, "Okay, I'm on board and I really feel like this is all resonating and it's true, but I don't know where to start. My kids are on screen." So here's what I'll say too, is I feel like for me, I'll get in a pretty good place as far as limiting screen time or technology for my kids, and my family, and my own habits, and then it creeps back up until I look up and go like, "How did we get here? How are we all on our devices all the time?" Let's talk about simple steps, like practical strategies. What can we do? Erin Loechner (18:43): One of the things that I... I think we have to go first as parents. We have to reassess what are we comfortable with, what are we not comfortable with, where's sort of our line and our boundary? One of the things that I did was I put parental controls on my phone. My kids don't have devices, but they're still so young, they're 12, eight, and four, and so they're just not going to do that right now. But I put them on my own phone and it was so much easier than going the whole... I did the flip phone thing too. I've done that also. But what I like about just putting on the parental controls is if you are traveling and you do absolutely need an Uber for whatever reason, it would be unsafe to not have one or whatever, you can always turn them back on so it's a very low stakes experiment. (19:24): But the other thing I did, Sarah, that I think everybody in the world should do is I removed my phone. I just changed my phone in wallpaper to black. There's no family photo, there's no cute beach scene wallpaper. There's no even bible verse whatever's on the screen because it sends a signal to my brain that this is just a phone. It's not my phone, it's not your phone, it's a phone. It's just here it is. Sarah Mackenzie (19:51): Oh, I like it. Yes. Erin Loechner (19:52): If you're bedazzling your phone all day, then you're taking ownership over it and it's now a thing that you have to carry and take care of. Sarah Mackenzie (19:58): It's kind of like when you have to use someone else's phone and it doesn't feel like... You're like, "Oh, it's not mine," right? Oh my gosh, I have never even thought about this how it's not my phone. It's just a phone. Erin Loechner (20:08): It changes everything. And it is like you just remove the idea that your whole life is on this thing. That really kind of began sort of the transition for me. But I think just in our own home, I love how you explain that feeling where you're just sort of like you'll get in a rhythm that you really enjoy and then all of a sudden... And this is true for everything in life. All of a sudden you're like, "Wait, how did we get here? Why is everybody here?" And I love those feelings because I do firmly believe you have to go to the extremes to find what you're comfortable with sometimes. And so for me, I recognized I am fully fine with Mr. Rogers when I knew Mr. Rogers on the TV. So I think there's this idea that a tech free or a low tech family doesn't use screens at all. We have a TV, it's not part of our daily rhythm. But same with Super Mario Brothers 3. My son has played... You know the old cartridges you have to blow on. Sarah Mackenzie (21:09): Oh, yeah. Erin Loechner (21:09): Okay, we have one. Sarah Mackenzie (21:12): So fun. Erin Loechner (21:12): I'm like, "I love doing this. This is really fun. It's very engaging. It's very delightful." And I think because those come with natural starting and stopping cues, it's sort of like I don't really have a problem with that if we're doing it when we feel like doing it, if we want to celebrate something, or have a break or whatever. So anyway, all that to say that I think that feeling that you're describing is part of the game. It's just recognizing am I okay with where we are right now? Also holding, I say this a lot, but technology is not a salvation issue. It is not an all or nothing but idol worship is. So I think if we are traveling anywhere down the path of we are a low tech family no matter what, or we are all on our devices, no matter what. My pastor says all the time that for every mile traveled there's a ditch on either side, you really can sort of fall into this worshiping of technology or worshiping the absence of technology. (22:17): And so I try to really heavily steer clear of that so I don't find myself in a super critical space, especially knowing that we can't control our kids after they're out of the house. We can show them what we love, we can show them what is good, we can show them what is true. We can hope that what they choose is nourishing. We can make ourselves into really good role models and resources and outlets for them, and yet then they walk away and it's their decision. So I don't know if that even answers your question. Sarah Mackenzie (22:43): It does. Erin Loechner (22:44): But that's sort of what I think about all of that. Sarah Mackenzie (22:47): I was thinking when you had mentioned, so your kids are 12, 10, wait, 12, 10 and 8. Erin Loechner (22:52): Twelve, eight and four. Sarah Mackenzie (22:52): Twelve, eight and four. I was like, "That's not possible, but that one's eight." Okay. Twelve, eight and four. Erin Loechner (22:56): Yes. Sarah Mackenzie (22:57): And our 12 and 10 and 10 don't have phones either. And that is weirdly unusual for their age, which is how interesting. This was not the case when my older kids were your age. But now it's like every year I feel like it becomes more typical for kids to get phones earlier and earlier. One of the things we've noticed. So our oldest kids are 22, 20 and 18, and they make jokes all the time. They're all home from college right now, and they're making jokes about how like, "Wow, mom would never have let us say that kind of thing." You now, like get away with that. You know, that sort of trope of like, "Oh, you're so relaxed of a parent now that you weren't before." And I think that's true in some things, but I think it's actually some of the parenting wisdom where you're like, "I'm not going to die on that hill." (23:36): But one of the hills I'm totally going to die on is that as relaxed as I might've gotten with my younger kids as far as chores and whether or not they get in huge trouble for sassing me or not, these children will not get phones until they're sold. That is something that from my older kids, which they were... We gave them phones when they were driving, so it's not like we gave them phones when they were younger. Our son, we gave a phone when he was 14 in order to call us at track practice. And I would change how we did that 100%. He's a great kid. So not to say anything disparaging about my son, but I think it's really tricky to hand a 14-year-old kid a device that we have a hard time disciplining ourselves to use as a tool instead of worshiping, like you said, or making it our thing, a part of our identity almost like how we use this thing and that we're using it so often. (24:29): That to hand that to a 14-year-old just feels like kind of astonishing. And of course, there's the stories of all those tech... You'll be able to speak to this better than I will, I'm sure, the big wigs at these tech companies who don't let their kids have phones at all, right? Erin Loechner (24:46): Oh, yeah. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Well, it was so funny. I interviewed the guy that was responsible for the one-to-one iPad movement, so an iPad in every backpack in the schools and everything. And I mean I did, I asked him like, "Hey, can you tell me how you as a team navigated the ethics of putting an iPad in the backpack of every child that Steve Jobs, the founder of your company, didn't even allow his own children to have?" And I was not trying to be nefarious. I truly was like, "I'm really curious how you answer." I am still waiting a response, Sarah. It was like, we can't go there today. But it's true. It really is true. And so honestly, I feel so blessed that we do have the research that we have and that we do know. I agree with you. This is a hill that we've are dying on. (25:36): We already have our loose strategy, which is that we will have a landline so any of your friends can call it. We have an open door policy. I always say I'm much better at answering the door than answering the phone. So just come on over. Yeah, it's really messy, it's really inconvenient, but I will die on this. And the other thing we're not doing is we're just not going to be giving our kid a phone at all. So there will be a flip phone or a track phone or something in the glove compartment of whatever vehicle they drive. And then at that point, whenever they have their job or whenever they have their savings and they can budget for it, they can handle the cost, both energy, and financial, and time investment when they can handle that cost, they can purchase whatever phone they want to purchase. (26:20): At that point, it's their decision, but I will not be investing in this thing for you, whether it's whatever you decide. And honestly, that's why we're starting this now. That's why I wrote the book now is I wanted to know, okay, how does that work for once they're in sports? Can I talk to coaches and figure out, can you accommodate a kid that just has an email address? Can you figure out a scheduling thing around that? With our kids theater group, I've already volunteered. Can I sort of be the email communications person so we don't have to have the band app so that we're... I don't like the idea of signing up for another app to manage more communication so that we are tied to our phone. Sarah Mackenzie (27:03): Yeah. Erin Loechner (27:03): Can we just strip it down a little bit and give everybody an email address and call it a day? So I wanted to know all those answers. Now I wanted to know, is it actually possible to raise an opt-out kid if I want to? And even in job scenarios, even with kids who... A lot of kids have to clock in and clock out on an app for their company once they start working, every single employer I spoke with and there were many said, "I would absolutely hire a child without a smartphone. And I would do the extra work that it takes to log them in and out and to make sure that they have their W-9 and everything is ironed out. I will do the extra work because I know that that child is not going to be distracted at work." Sarah Mackenzie (27:46): Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. Erin Loechner (27:46): And that is a win-win. Sarah Mackenzie (27:48): There is a scholarship, and I should have asked for more details about it so I could tell you about it, but my first and third, they attend Franciscan University in Steubenville, and there is some kind of a low tech technology scholarship. It has an actual name that I can't think of at the moment where basically if you don't have a phone, but you have a wise phone, or a flip phone, or basically not a smartphone, they'll give you more scholarship money because they know you're going to be less distracted at school. It's kind of amazing. Erin Loechner (28:18): That's amazing. And I love that. That gives me such hope that the infrastructure really is not just more QR codes and more... I mean, I think that's what we see, but it doesn't have to be that way. We do have a little bit of say in it and we can change things. The research is there and we can absolutely sort of raise heck and rally people and as a community say like, "Hey, what are our options for someone that just has an email address?" Sarah Mackenzie (28:44): So one of the things that comes up for me as you're talking, and I don't know the answer to it, I'm just thinking it through. One of the questions I have is, okay, so I'm going to back up and say when I was growing up, we didn't ever have pop in the house, but my parents did occasionally have Pepsi and I wanted it. And then when I became an adult and I could get pop for myself, I drank a lot of pop because it felt like the like, "Oh, now I can have it all I want." So I guess in the same way, I feel like this sort of... So I'm not going to give my kids phones. I'm not going to give them phones when they're young, but I also don't necessarily want to throw them in at 18 and be like, "I hope you can manage the kind of self-restraint that we've imposed on you basically all these years." (29:28): Is there a way that we can also give them the skills of monitoring? I guess the way this comes up for me is feeling like maybe there's something to be said for giving kids some in those years before they leave home in letting them practice and see the effects of... I don't know, manage the temptation or something. I'm not really sure I'm fine with it. Erin Loechner (29:52): Totally, yeah. One of my mentors. when her kids turn 17, there aren't any rules anymore. She just wants to kind of see, well, what happens. That child is still under their roof. But it's like, "I want to see how you manage adult responsibility and we're here as your mentors to guide you and you can live here, rent-free 17 to 18 and let's just see what happens." And that was my question as well. I wanted to know. You hear stories of we don't allow a bunch of junk food and then they just absolutely go nuts. I mean, I would do the same thing. Sarah Mackenzie (30:28): Yeah. Erin Loechner (30:29): And overwhelmingly, the parents that I did find who, as long as they had very open conversations about technology, which you can do without having the phone. You can say, "I've read this news article. This happened to somebody at your school. This is what happened here. This is what I noticed happening with this parent and this family that we really love. This is what happened to this daughter." You can have all of those conversations without actually having that one-to-one experience with the phone. And what I recognized sort of the parallel. I think that was the deciding factor. It was of all the parents who didn't give their children phones while they were in their house, the ones whose kids didn't go crazy were the ones who had an open conversation, an open dialogue really about everything, not just phones, everything. Sarah Mackenzie (31:22): Yeah. Erin Loechner (31:22): So I would say the communication piece is much bigger in that. Sarah Mackenzie (31:26): And your communication piece will actually be easier to navigate if you haven't had technology interrupting your communication for all of these years. Erin Loechner (31:32): That's exactly it. You're exactly right. There's an ability to go deep and have those conversations. I took my daughter to an elephant sanctuary. Oh, my gosh, it was the coolest thing ever. That's a side note. Anyway, we ate gas station food the whole way there in the whole way back. We were just having chips and, "Do you want this?" And it's just, this is a treat, we're having a blast. And we both got home and we were like, "We do not feel good. There is no part of us that can hack this. We are going to throw up." And it was funny to watch her reaction to that of that self-restraint and self-regulation is built into kids, and we think that it's not because we think we're the ones that are sort of lording the boundaries. But kids know what feels good and what doesn't feel good, and when they don't grow up with that being sort of the regular go-to, they can kind of recognize. (32:27): I mean, I see it happen with kids that don't have phones. They're like, "Why doesn't anybody talk to each other?" Or "Why aren't these kids playing anymore?" And "Oh, they're a phone person now. That's why." They know. They put it together so I'm not worried about that, but I understand the concern. I really do. Sarah Mackenzie (32:44): Nobody looks at a family at a restaurant who's sitting at dinner, everyone's on their phone and goes, "Oh, look at the beautiful family time they're having together." Everyone's like, "Oh, maybe they should put away their phones." Even as we're sitting there like, "Oh, maybe I should put away my phone." Erin Loechner (32:57): Yes. I always play that game. My husband is a lot more judgmental than I am. I think I can say that pretty... He's an awesome person, but he is such a justice person that he is like, "That is not right." And I always play that game that I'm like, "Well, what if they're looking at movie tickets to go see later?" Or "What if they're-" Sarah Mackenzie (33:13): I love it. Erin Loechner (33:14): "What if there's a family emergency." I'm always stretching to give the benefit of the doubt. And he's always like, "well, no, I think you're wrong." Sarah Mackenzie (33:22): It reminds me of my husband and I when we're driving and he'll get so irritated someone cut him off and I'm like, "he's just found out his wife was in an accident in the hospital. He's trying to get to her." And he's like, "Why do you make me feel like a horrible human being?" Erin Loechner (33:35): I love that somebody else does that. I do that all the time. I'm like, "There's got to be an emergency. Something's happening." It's a really fun game to play. It gets them all riled up. Sarah Mackenzie (33:44): Okay, so I heard Dr. Daniel Willingham talked about this in his book Raising Kids Who Read. So he tells this story of he could put out a watermelon, like a sliced up watermelon on the table after dinner and everybody would enjoy it. It would be like a dessert. Everyone would come over and like, "Ooh, this is delicious," and everyone would eat it, right, happily. But then if he put a bowl of candy or ice cream, I think it's ice cream that he says, next to it, everybody would probably go for the ice cream. And he talks about how when we have screens on the table for our kids like you can read or you can be on your video game or your device. I mean, it depends on if you have a twelve-year-old boy or a sixteen-year-old girl, which thing they're going to pick, right? They're going to always choose probably the screen even though they might not feel as good afterward as they would if they had read. (34:33): And so there needs to be times... He makes this argument in his book that there needs to be times when the only thing on the table is watermelon and when you're just putting a thing that feels good and they enjoy. So just like there should be times a day when reading is the only option. You can read or you can go to bed basically. Before bed, let's say. But then I was kind of connecting dots with this idea, and it's probably another Cal Newport thing because I think he talks about this in Digital Minimalism is we tend to go, "Well, if we're going to try and cut back on our own screen use," let's say someone's listening to this and we're like, "Okay, I'm going to use my phone less. I want to be using my phone less." We tend to go like, "Okay, they're are going to be a window of time during the day when I'm not on my phone so from 12:00 to 4:00 whatever it is, I'm not going to be on my phone at all." (35:15): But how helpful it would be to turn that on its head and go, what if you had just a sliver of time when you were going to be on your phone? Because otherwise we default to saying, "Well, we're on our phone except for during this time." What if you swap that and said, "The default is we're not on our screens except for during this time." And so for a while there I was doing something in my home where it was like, I can't remember what time it was. It was either like 2:00 to 4:00 or 3:00 to 5:00 or something. Those were the only times a day when anyone could use any screens. And then I think we moved to that because that is prime time outside play with the neighbors time. So then that was like, "No, I don't want you guys on screens then," so we changed it around again. But it was sort of like, just don't ask me for screens. And I came up with it because I was so tired of fielding the request, "Can I play Minecraft?" "No, stop asking me." (36:00): And so it was basically, do not ask if you can play Minecraft outside of this window of time, but I just wonder if we just swapped that default so what if our default was not using technology except for this small times we do? It feels like it could be a big shift. Erin Loechner (36:16): I like that. I mean, it works for adults. I keep office hours where I just... Because I don't carry a phone around, I have a laptop, and so I'll just write during the day, what do I need to do? What do I need to get done when it's office hours? Which are either during nap time or late at night. And generally, I agree with the watermelon thing because I don't know if this is exactly what he's saying, but I have noticed if we want to introduce a family movie night or whatever, it never works. If I'm like, "Let's have a family movie night. What do you guys want to watch this or this?" But it always works. If I say, "Hey, I'm watching Swiss family Robinson at seven-thirty, who wants to join me?" Sarah Mackenzie (36:55): Yes. Erin Loechner (36:55): Everybody comes. Sarah Mackenzie (36:57): Yes. Erin Loechner (36:58): It's like the idea that sometimes, especially in the end of the night, we just can't make good choices anymore. Adult, kid, otherwise, we're done, we're tired. And so just get the tables and the options off and just decide this is what we're doing. Get on the train or don't. Sarah Mackenzie (37:14): Yep, exactly. Well Erin's book, The Opt-Out family is available now anywhere books are sold. I will put in the show notes readaloudrevival.com/244 so you can get your hands on this fabulous book. Erin is one of my all time favorite writers. I love everything that you write. When I'm reading anything you write, whether it's an article or a text message to me or a book that you're writing, it feels like sitting and having coffee with a friend. And also, it feels like it opens me up to these new ideas or different ways of looking at things that I hadn't before. Encouraging me to sort of rip up the playbook that I've been using or thought I was handed to me and going like, "We can do things our own way. We can actually make a choice here." So thank you so much for that. Erin Loechner (38:00): Thank you for that encouragement. Thank you for having me. Oh, I love chatting with you. Same, same, same across the board. Thank you. Sarah Mackenzie (38:08): Now let's hear from Read Aloud Revival Kids on books they're reading and loving these days. Riley Burgess (38:20): Hi, my name is Riley Burgess and I am from Katy, Texas and I'm eight years old. The book I would recommend is The Penderwicks because I love how Batty and Hound have this special connection. Jack (38:34): Hi. My name Jack and I'm five years old and I live in Fort Myers, Florida, and my favorite books are The Gruffalo and [inaudible 00:38:43]. Chloe (38:45): Hi. My name is Chloe and I'm seven years old. I live in Fort Myers, Florida. My favorite books to read are American Girl Doll books in Sophie Mouse series. I like the Sophie Mouse series because there are lots of cute animals and they go on lots of adventures. I like the American Girl Doll books because I like to learn about the world and play with the dolls. Owen (39:05): Hi, my name's Owen. I'm 10 years old. I live in Fort Myers, Florida. My favorite books are Magic Tree House and Holes by Louis Sacher. Noel (39:16): My name is Noel and I live in Indiana and I'm six years old and I represent Frog and Toad. And Frog and Toad is very funny and they are frogs. There's one frog that's taller than the toad and they have ice cream together. Emily (39:44): Hello, my name is Emily. I'm six years old and I live in Clovis, California and my favorite book is Bread and Jam for Frances because she goes from bread and jam for forever, and then she switches to spaghetti and meatballs and it's a really funny book. Camille (40:02): My name is Camille. I'm five years old and I live in Michigan, and my favorite book is the Princess in Black, and I like it because she captures monsters. Speaker 12 (40:25): What's your name? Billy (40:25): Billy. Speaker 12 (40:25): How old are you? Billy (40:25): Four. Speaker 12 (40:25): Where do you live? Billy (40:25): Ontario. Speaker 12 (40:25): What's your favorite book? Sir Goofy and The Dragon. Sam (40:34): Hi, my name is Sam. I'm 11 years old and I live in Ohio. I like the book Big Foot and Little Foot by Ellen Potter. It's about a Sasquatch and a kid who become friends. Eden (40:46): Hello, my name is Eden and I live in Michigan. I'm eight years old and I like Ramona the Brave because sometimes she tries to act brave, but she's really funny and I just like it a lot. Bye. Sarah Mackenzie (41:03): Thank you, kids. If your kids would like to tell us about a book they love, head to readaloudrevival.com/message to leave a voicemail and we will air it on an upcoming episode of the show. That's it for episode 244. Thank you so much for joining me. Episode show notes are at readaloudrevival.com/244. That's where you'll find Erin's book and some links to her other work. Thank you so much for being here, and we'll be back in two weeks with another episode. In the meantime, you know what to do. Go make meaningful and lasting connections with your kids through books.