Mary Mulliken is a healthy screen habits coach who encourages families to parent their children to be creators and not consumers of their environment. She is writing a book, Supercharged: 50 Reasons to Raise Kids Screen-Free from Birth to Age Seven. In today’s episode, Melanie and Mary talk about the benefits of raising your children screen-free during their early childhood years. From stimulating creativity in ideas as well as actions, Mary shared some of her family’s traditions and rituals wit...
May 11, 2021•1 hr
In today's episode, Melanie speaks with Opal Singleton. She is the President and CEO of Million Kids and serves as the Training and Outreach Coordinator for the Riverside County Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force and is contracted for human trafficking training services through the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. Opal has authored two books, Seduced: The Grooming of America's Teenagers , and Societal Shift: A World Without Borders...A Home Without Walls . She has educated tens of thousands...
May 07, 2021•49 min
In this episode Melanie speaks with Tom Kersting, our featured author of our book of the month, Disconnected: How to Reconnect our Digitally Distracted Kids . Tom began his career as a School Counselor and Therapist almost twenty-five years ago. He is a nationally known speaker, author, TV personality, and he has a private practice located in Ridgewood, New Jersey. Melanie and Tom explore the first part of his book where he discusses "Acquired ADHD" and other warning signs resulting from overexp...
May 04, 2021•51 min
Dr. Victoria Dunckley, author of our April Book of the Month (BOTM) pick "Reset Your Child's Brain" joins the entire ScreenStrong Team and members from our community to answer YOUR questions about screens and teens, tips for getting through the screen reset, how to troubleshoot difficult transitions, and so much more! Support the show Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review if you enjoy the episode. Your feedback helps us bring you more of the content you love. Stay Strong! Get your ...
Apr 30, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Melissa is an occupational therapist who specializes in sensory integration and processing. Her focus has moved from helping children with developmental delays to helping children and young people with screen and media addictions. This career trajectory made it clear to Melissa that the two problems were increasingly connected. Dependence on screens presents new challenges to sensory integration because children are no longer experiencing the world through physical experience the way they did a ...
Apr 27, 2021•57 min
In this second episode featuring Dr. Victoria Dunckley, Melanie and Victoria discuss the goals and outcomes highlighted in the second half of the integrative psychiatrist’s book, Reset Your Child’s Brain: A Four Week Plan to End Meltdowns, Raise Grades and Boost Social Skills by Reversing the Effects of Electronic Screen Time. Victoria provides practical advice to parents on how to prepare for the reset, including how to engage a reluctant spouse, tips for the single parent, and what to expect f...
Apr 20, 2021•58 min
Anne Marie McDonald is Vice President of PR & Strategy for Gabb Wireless, the company that provides talk and text phones without access to internet or social media to help kids and teens stay safely connected without temptation or distraction. In this episode, Melanie talks to the working mother of four about the dangers of typical smartphones for children and teenagers, and how Anne Marie became passionate about helping kids thrive without them, both within and beyond her own family. Anne M...
Apr 16, 2021•54 min
Smith Alley, a brave and inspiring 17-year-old, shares his story of a five year battle with pornography addiction as well as his struggles with social media. Determined to be more than a “success story,” he founded his company, Protecht Strong , to help families safely set up technology limits in their home. Melanie and Smith discuss what it means to prepare our children for the real world and that preparing doesn’t have to mean giving them a phone. Smith challenges parents to ask themselves, “A...
Apr 13, 2021•45 min
Not only is Tessa Stuckey a licensed professional therapist and author of For the Sake of Our Youth: A Therapist’s Perspective on Raising Your Family in Today’s Culture , she’s also raising four boys of her own. Tessa became a therapist with the goal of helping support children through the emotionally confusing teenage years, but what she found was worse than the dating drama and adolescent angst she expected: instead, she found prevalent suicidal ideation and other surprisingly dark problems, d...
Apr 09, 2021•1 hr 1 min
In today’s episode, Melanie talks with Tracy Markle, MA, LPC, who is the Founder/Owner of Collegiate Coaching Services & Founder/Co-Director at Digital Media Treatment and Education Center in Colorado. Melanie and Tracy begin their discussion identifying protective factors as well as risk factors to consider when establishing limits of media use within your family. Tracy explains the Self-Determination Theory of Motivation, and how she uses this theory in her work with her clients. She also ...
Apr 06, 2021•58 min
In this first of two episodes featuring Dr. Victoria Dunckley, Melanie and Victoria discuss the premise of the integrative psychiatrist’s book Reset Your Child’s Brain: A Four Week Plan to End Meltdowns, Raise Grades and Boost Social Skills by Reversing the Effects of Electronic Screen Time . Victoria explains how she came to be passionate about screen time through her early work with troubled children and adolescents, and then digs into the first part of her book, which covers what she calls “e...
Apr 02, 2021•1 hr 8 min
Olivia Bruner, author of our March Book of the Month (BOTM) pick "Playstation Nation" joins the entire ScreenStrong Team and members from our community to answer YOUR questions about video games and kids, how the industry has changed, connecting with your older teen, and so much more! Support the show Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review if you enjoy the episode. Your feedback helps us bring you more of the content you love. Stay Strong! Get your copy of the BRAND NEW KBS Home Edi...
Mar 26, 2021•50 min
The show today is taken from an interview with Adam Brooker about growing up as a gamer. He is very candid with his description of how gamers think, how they trade the real world for the virtual gaming world and their need to dominate. He touches on the dangerous habit of pornography and explains how smartphones and social media are very similar to the gaming trap. Listen to discover if your child has a potential problem, to hear his advice on removing the devices, and for encouragement to be a ...
Mar 23, 2021•45 min
Today Melanie continues her conversation with Olivia Bruner, author of our featured book of the month, Playstation Nation: Protect Your Child From Video Game Addiction . Olivia shares the rest of her family’s story and the steps she and her husband took to replace video games with parental connection and “real life.” Melanie and Olivia discuss the five most common mistakes parents make in attempting to set screen limits. They emphasize “rebuilding the muscles “ of your child’s connection to real...
Mar 19, 2021•56 min
Today Melanie is joined by Adrienne, ScreenStrong Ambassador and mom of two teenagers. Adrienne shares her son’s struggle with ADHD, school anxiety, and the difficult decisions their family was forced to make because of his screen addiction. She emphasizes the importance of having like-minded community support because “no one can understand unless they are standing right there with you.” Adrienne also goes into how life changing the ScreenStrong Challenge was for her family and the long term ben...
Mar 16, 2021•1 hr 18 min
In this episode, Melanie talks with Dr. Sarah Domoff, a Clinical Child Psychologist and the principal investigator for the Family Health Lab at Central Michigan University, Department of Psychology. Melanie and Sarah talk about her research studies that she has published and what she discovered in her work that is forming her interventions with the parents she works with. Sarah shares her theory of what she and her collaborators believe on how problematic media use develops in childhood. Her res...
Mar 12, 2021•50 min
Andrew and Evan Hempe, now 17 years old, grew up in a video game-free home after their older brother’s life derailed due to a gaming addiction. Today, Andrew and Evan are answering parents’ common questions about the ScreenStrong lifestyle from the perspective of high school teens. They discuss what it was like living with a former gamer sibling, how they managed to live through middle school without video games and smartphones, and how they make friends without social media. Support the show Do...
Mar 09, 2021•37 min
In today’s episode, Melanie talks with Meghan Owenz, Ph.D., who is a psychologist, author, psychology professor, and mom of two young children. They discuss and break down Meghan’s child development-based S.P.O.I.L. system for prioritizing activities for your child’s day. Meghan emphasizes maintaining positive parental structure and rules that will ultimately help your child develop good habits and a screen-free lifestyle that is full of doing what they love. Melanie and Meghan connect on their ...
Mar 05, 2021•50 min
In today's episode, Melanie talks with Olivia Bruner, one of the authors of our featured book of the month, Playstation Nation: Protect Your Child From Video Game Addiction. Olivia shares her family's journey with video game use and addiction, which ultimately led to the creation of their book Playstation Nation, to help other families identify and address video game addiction. Melanie and Olivia discuss the 8 Warning Signs or Questions to help determine if your child has a problem with game add...
Mar 02, 2021•1 hr 7 min
Dr. Leonard Sax, author of our February Book of the Month (BOTM) pick "The Collapse of Parenting," joins the entire ScreenStrong Team and members from our community to answer YOUR questions about screens and kids, the American pharmaceutical companies, and so much more! Support the show Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review if you enjoy the episode. Your feedback helps us bring you more of the content you love. Stay Strong! Get your copy of the BRAND NEW KBS Home Edition! Start you...
Feb 26, 2021•50 min
In today's episode, Melanie is joined by Toni Ludlow, a mother of two young children, who shares her family's story of her daughter's traumatic experience with an online predator. Toni shares how her mother's intuition uncovered a manipulative bind her 10-year-old daughter fell into when she entered a chat room on a seemingly innocent online game. Toni points to the signs that her daughter displayed that told her something was off. She empowers parents to keep a keen eye on their children’s digi...
Feb 23, 2021•43 min
In today’s episode, Melanie continues her in-depth conversation with Dr. Leonard Sax, author of The Collapse of Parenting . Together they explore solutions while challenging several myths and misconceptions that many American parents have in raising children today. Dr. Sax pinpoints the “collapse of parenting” as occurring when we, as parents, allow our children to make decisions in every domain. Dr. Sax challenges parents to be courageous, to educate desire, to do the right thing at the right t...
Feb 19, 2021•1 hr 10 min
In today’s episode, Melanie has a conversation with filmmaker, author, and mother, Tiffany Shlain, who created a transformative weekly practice that she calls “Tech Shabbat'' for her family. She shares how taking one day completely off screens every week can inspire creativity, connectedness, and introspection. Tiffany and Melanie have a candid discussion about raising kids more offline than online and why we should pay attention to who is shaping your child. They talk about the benefits of goin...
Feb 16, 2021•46 min
In this episode, Ashlee Ayre, an insightful and courageous young woman, shares her story of her 6-year addiction to pornography that started at age 11 when her parents gave her a smart phone. Melanie and Ashlee talk about the insidious nature of social media and the hidden dangers in Apps like Pinterest , Instagram , Snapchat , and other social media sites. They discuss how explicit content is easily accessible to children by a click or a swipe. Ashlee talks about her relationship with her mom a...
Feb 12, 2021•46 min
Dr. Douglas Gentile is an award-winning research scientist, educator, author, and is professor of developmental psychology at Iowa State University. In this episode, he and Melanie discuss the science that supports the addictive quality of video games and the resistance of parents to believe the evidence supporting the conclusion to the question, "Are video games addictive?" He hints as to what is coming in the near future in regards to the diagnosis of issues related to screen use and the creat...
Feb 09, 2021•56 min
Dr. Leonard Sax is an American Psychologist and Family Physician with over 30 years experience. He is the internationally acclaimed author of our featured book, The Collapse of Parenting , which identifies a cultural shift in the parenting role in relation to the way parents are raising their children. In this conversation, Melanie and Dr. Sax focus on Chapters 1 thru 5, identifying multiple factors that have lead to a loss of parental authority. He pinpoints the toxic cultural shift over the la...
Feb 05, 2021•1 hr 1 min
George Lynn and Cynthia Johnson, co-authors of our January Book of the Month (BOTM) pick "Breaking the Trance," join the entire ScreenStrong Team and members from our community to answer YOUR screen questions. Support the show Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review if you enjoy the episode. Your feedback helps us bring you more of the content you love. Stay Strong! Get your copy of the BRAND NEW KBS Home Edition! Start your ScreenStrong Journey today! Become a Connect Member to get ...
Jan 30, 2021•1 hr
In an online seminar, Melanie discusses how to reduce problematic screen use when learning from home. Support the show Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review if you enjoy the episode. Your feedback helps us bring you more of the content you love. Stay Strong! Get your copy of the BRAND NEW KBS Home Edition! Start your ScreenStrong Journey today! Become a Connect Member to get access to our exclusive online forum, the 30-Day ScreenStrong Challenge, LIVE webinars with medical experts,...
Jan 29, 2021•59 min
Patricia Gefert is a recently retired Early Childhood Educator of 35 years, a mother and grandmother, and a ScreenStrong Ambassador. In this podcast, Patricia shares her experiences with children from Kindergarten to Early Elementary. She notes the drastic changes she has witnessed in children's learning over the past 10-15 years, particularly how screens have affected their academic and social development. Patricia provides specific ideas and strategies for helping children grow in healthier wa...
Jan 26, 2021•57 min
Jessica Ludlow joins Melanie Hempe to share the most recent events in her journey to becoming a ScreenStrong Family. Support the show Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review if you enjoy the episode. Your feedback helps us bring you more of the content you love. Stay Strong! Get your copy of the BRAND NEW KBS Home Edition! Start your ScreenStrong Journey today! Become a Connect Member to get access to our exclusive online forum, the 30-Day ScreenStrong Challenge, LIVE webinars with m...
Jan 19, 2021•1 hr 1 min
