Screen Kids | Arlene Pellicane

Well, now half of them own their own tablet or smartphone, half of two to four-year-olds and over two-thirds of five to eight-year-olds.

So once you have that own personal device, there's a huge shift in what happens to their attention and their time. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, setting boundaries and helping your children recover from their dependence on screens. Author and speaker Arlene Pelleking will join us. Arlene has been with us many times, but this is one of the most important questions that parents are asking today.

What's happening to my child, my teenager, who spends so much time staring at a device? She and Dr. Chapman have teamed for our featured resource. It's titled Screen Kids.

You can find out more about it at buildingrelationships.us. Dr. Chapman, this is one of the things that you didn't have to deal with when you were growing up or even as your kids were growing up, right? Oh, you're right, Chris. All we had to deal with was radio and television. It wasn't that hard. We gave them four or five options of what they could see on TV and how much they could see that week. So they had a little choice in there.

It wasn't that hard. Today, whoa, it is totally different. I'm glad we're discussing this today. And I know a lot of parents are going to identify with it. It's a complex issue, just like our world has gotten complex.

But in other ways, it's a little simpler than we're making it. And I think Arlene is going to talk about that today. Arlene Palacane is a friend of this program, and she's a speaker, the author of a number of books. We've talked about 31 Days to Happy Husband, Growing Up Social, Calm, Cool, and Connected, Parents Rising. Because of all the questions swirling in the culture about this topic, we're featuring the book Screen Kids, Five Skills Every Child Needs in a Tech-Driven World, written by Arlene and our own Dr. Gary Chapman.

Just go to buildingrelationships.us to find out more. Well, Arlene, welcome back to Building Relationships. It's so wonderful to be back. Thanks so much for having me.

Now, we wrote the Screen Kids and the Grandparenting Screen Kids as well to respond to the negative impact of too much screen time in family life. So is the problem getting worse? Is it the same?

Is it better? Where are we now? Yeah, I know. We have to start with the bad news, I suppose. So I have to say, you know, I think it's getting worse. And the reason it's getting worse is we are seeing more and more people having detrimental effects of screen time, and it's happening younger and younger. So in one way, it's the same, because even before the pandemic, so between 2004 and 2014, so it's way before the pandemic, we're seeing depression grow in teens by 37%. So this huge jump happens before the pandemic, and that's connected to, oh, instead of talking to people, we're now on our phones on social media. Instead of getting a validation from our families and our church and people we know in real life, we're looking at the whole world and comparing ourselves against them. And we're realizing we don't measure up and we are depressed and sad about that. So in some ways, it's the same problem.

But I think COVID put it on steroids, because then we really were just with these screens for that huge swath of time. And a lot of people have not bounced back to build those new, healthier habits once again. You know, they did a Wall Street Journal article with a survey of 33,000 college students, and they found that two out of three of them were struggling with loneliness. And you know, you think of that, I like to say this to moms, like, can you imagine being in a place where there was 1000 other moms, just like you with the exact same ages of kids, and you were all together, like, wouldn't you find friends there, right?

Because this is college, and it's people of the same age with same interests, same life stage, and there they all are. And they're struggling with loneliness. You know, the teenage girls, 60% of them, the research is saying, have extreme sadness, and one out of four is thinking about suicide. So we are in a bad place that is getting worse, because we're becoming more dependent on screens, not less. And then lastly, you know, it's younger. So think of your two-year-old, three-year-old, four-year-old child or grandchild, you know, in the past, they're looking at board books, they're playing, they're, you know, doing blocks, they're imitating you, they're pretending to be you, you know, all these things. Well, now half of them own their own tablet or smartphone, half of two to four-year-olds have their own, and over two-thirds of five to eight-year-olds have their own. So once you have that own personal device, there's a huge shift in what happens to their attention and their time. Yep, that's for sure. You know, I see it in the in the airports.

Little kids, where there's used to be running around and looking and pulling on somebody, you know, now they're into the screen. Yeah. Now you have, you have two terms that I, that I really like in trying to describe the kinds of things that we're dealing with. And that is you talk about digital vegetables and digital candy.

Explain that concept in those terms. Sounds delicious, right? It's the same like in the physical world, right? You know, there's food that's good for you and there's food that's not good for you, but it tends to be the brownies, the ice cream, the chips, all that that isn't so good for us. That's the stuff that looks good and it's the same way digitally. And so there are digital vegetables.

These are things like learning a skill, like learning how to play the guitar by watching YouTube or learning a language or listening to a sermon or Skyping grandma and talking to her, you know, face to face over your phones. Like that's a great thing. Those are digital vegetables. They're good for you. They're healthy. They're non-addictive and you never get in trouble for them. You know, you're not saying to your child, it's 3am in the morning and you're doing your calculus on your phone.

How could you be doing that? So you know it's not a vegetable. It's good for you. The candy on the other hand, that's the stuff you do get in trouble for. How many YouTube videos are you going to watch? Now YouTube is interesting because it houses vegetables and candy, right? It has both.

You can use it either way. So it really is the content of what is what you're trying to really look at here. But it's so easy. You could start eating a vegetable on YouTube like I'm going to learn brush up on my Spanish. You know, but before you know it, you're like somewhere completely different because they're offering you candy all the time of other things to watch. So candy is like social media, video gaming, all the stuff that's super fun to do brings a lot of amusement and it's really hard to put it down. Just like if you have a bag of Oreos and you eat one, it's hard to just eat one.

It's the same thing digitally. And I love to encourage parents and grandparents. Can you imagine if you had a giant bag of M&Ms? I love that family size bag of M&Ms. And I carried it around with me all day long. And I said to myself, I am just going to eat 10 because I have self-control and I'm filled with the Holy Spirit. I can do this.

You know, I'm not going to do it because it's impossible. So it's the same way when we put a device that holds so much candy in reach of a child, whether it's just, you know, on the table or it's in their pocket or wherever and it's just in reach, then they're going to reach for that all day long. And we need to understand that in small, you know, a little bit of candy is okay. You know, you've had your dinner, you've run around all day, you're having a piece of cake. Enjoy your piece of cake.

This is lovely. And it's the same way with digital stuff. Like if you want a little amusement after you've done all the other stuff, fantastic, but you can't have it breakfast, lunch and dinner just in the same way you cannot have cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You cannot be using screens for eight hours a day for amusement, which is what most kids are doing.

Yeah. So what can parents or grandparents do if their children are getting way too much screen time? Too much digital candy. What can parents do? I just want to encourage you as a parent, as a grandparent, that you can do something. Like imagine if a lot of these problems that we're seeing are related to technology. Then imagine if you can make changes in the technology. Like this is very hopeful. It's not like having a prognosis that you can't do anything about. Like you can do something about this. So I think having that courage and realizing I can help my child change before they have to, or I can do it because they have to.

You know, like I can let this get so bad that I have to step in. Like we're at calamity for, you know, like we have to do something to this child. They cannot get out of the house.

You know, I've heard of kids who don't leave the house anymore. You know, when the parents say, we're going to go out to dinner with grandma, let's go. No, I don't feel good. I have a stomach ache.

And they always have a stomach ache because they don't want to go outside. So what we can do, I think is first have that attitude shift of, wait a minute. If my child was eating poison, I would do something about it.

I would say like, okay, as long as you're under my roof, you can't eat that anymore. You know, we do, would do this with drugs. We would do this with alcohol. So treating it that same way of saying, wait a minute, if this is making you sick, I am going to do something about it.

So it might look like a two week detox where you say, we're going to take a break from this video game or from social media for two weeks. And I'm going to do it too with you. And we're going to do these activities instead. Okay. Does this require effort for the parent?

Yes, it does. But guess what? You're going to find your child so much healthier. And if you can get them back to being healthy, then imagine, then your life becomes easy.

So I kind of like to say, if you'll do the hard now, your life can be easier later. So if you see you're having, your child is getting just a little, they used to just ask for the video game on Saturday. Now they're asking it for Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday. It's getting to be kind of this fight. You know what?

We're going to say, you know, we're going to shut this down and, and we're going to put pause on this video game for a month because it seems like you're kind of too into it. So don't let things slide as you start seeing those red flags, do something about them and you can do something about them. This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . For more ways to strengthen relationships, go to buildingrelationships.us.

You'll see today's featured resource there. It's the book by Dr. Chapman and Arlene Pelicane, Screen Kids. Just go to buildingrelationships.us Arlene, what are the age based recommendations for screen time, the amount of screen time? They say that for children younger than 18 months, avoid screens altogether.

This kind of seems like a no brainer, right? If you have a baby, do not give them a tablet. Now they will say for babies, you know, like a one year old, et cetera. If they see grandma on the phone and grandma's talking to them, that is totally okay. So they give a thumbs up to FaceTiming with a real human being because it's not passive.

The baby coos and the adult coos back like they like that. So that is actually at any time okay. So if you have a regular rhythm of talking to your kids and grandkids on the phone, that's a very, very good thing. But you don't want them in front of TV otherwise.

And I would say up to two years to not have any screens other than that FaceTiming feature up to two years. And then after two years, two to five, they'll say American Academy of Pediatrics, one hour or less of quality programming and then preferably co-viewed with your child. I always giggle at this because no mom or dad who finally gets that one hour of screen time is going to be like, now I'm going to sit next to you and we're going to talk about what we're watching. They're like, I got to cook and I got to do my errands.

I got to get caught up on work. But ideally, you know, of course these are guidelines. These are things we want to strive towards. That TV time, video time is going to be best used with a young child between two to five. If you can explain this is what's happening, you know, and then let's practice the sharing like we just saw on TV. Let's practice this in real life.

That's how it's going to be leveraged the best. Cause we always talk about, oh, screens can be so useful for the development of your child. They're going to develop emotional empathy. They're going to learn grammar, you know, and spelling and how to put words together.

And those things can happen. But particularly when coupled with an adult with them, a parent with them that's talking to them about what they're seeing. And then after five years old, they say, use your own discretion.

And they used to say two hours or less, but I think they may be embarrassed or something to think that people can't do this because they're watching seven to nine hours of digital candy. But they are doing a study of 10,000 kids over 10 years. And they have found three guidelines to really predict the health of a child.

And if you're a grandparent listening, you're going to be like, you needed to study to figure this out. So the three things are eight hours or more of sleep a night, one hour of physical activity and two hours or less of digital vegetables of that amusing screen time. It's not including school. So if you can get your child or grandchild on this program of sleeping at night, exercising, I mean, this is what kids do, right? They run around naturally for hours. And we're the ones that have given them the screens that have kind of made them sedentary and so unhealthy.

So if they get that one hour of exercise time and two hours or less of screen time, that's amusing. That's a wonderful goal to strive for. Yeah, I fully agree with that.

And I hope our listeners are hearing it and just starting where they are, begin to think in terms of what can we do? Now here, here's a question. It's probably the number one question that I hear from parents and that is, when is a good time to give a child a smartphone? Like there is no good time to give a child a smartphone.

I mean, let's think this through. When they're two, is that a good time? When they're eight, is that a good time? When they're 13, when their hormones are raging and they're trying to figure out their identity of who they are, is that a good time? So this is a very complicated question and people want an answer like at the 13th and a half birthday, please give them a smartphone.

So sorry, I'm not going to do that for you, but I will say this. It's going to be different for every child. You might have a younger child who's able to handle it and an older child who really could not. So you have to see the tendencies of your child. So don't make it this fair thing where everyone turns 15, everyone's getting a phone.

Don't do that. Make it an individualized plan and think of it like driving. Like when you give keys to a kid to a car, you don't just say, here's some keys, here's the car, go at it. There's training involved. There's practice involved. There's, Oh wow, look, you have your permit and you ran into another car, you know, and it's because you were irresponsible, not because you were learning because you were irresponsible.

This is probably not the time for you to be driving right now until we can get this piece in order. So if your child is not following the rules and is not responsible with things like chores, homework, respect to you, respect for siblings, going to church with a good attitude, you know, things like that, then for us to think that, Oh, we'll give them this device, this video game, whatever, and they're going to be so responsible. Like where is the evidence for that?

Right? So there's no evidence for that. So you're also looking at, is my child, what's their character like? What's the responsibility like? Do they understand this? Because when you give them that smartphone, you're giving them the supercomputer that can give them pornography, that can give, waste their time, that can give them a worldview that is not Christian at all.

You know, so at best it's just going to waste their time, but at worst it's going to rot their soul and their heart. So what we have to think about, well, when are we giving the super weapon to our child? So I really recommend giving a dumb phone first. So that would be, you know, I love the Gab phone, g-a-b-b.com. And what it looks like, cause it looks like a regular phone. So you don't want the poor kid, you know, pulls out the phone. It's like purple.

It's got like parts on it or something. And they're like, ah, this is the phone my parents gave me. So it looks like a normal phone, but it just calls, texts, GPS, music, pictures, and that's kind of what the kid needs it for. So they don't need a smartphone that goes on the internet, that has social media, that has gaming. So I really encourage you when you're thinking, is this the time for, to give my child a smartphone? So you know what, let me delay one more year and let's get that dumb phone instead. I think for sure not in elementary school at all, you do not need a fourth, fifth or sixth grader trying to put on makeup for girls or for boys nowadays, you know, you just don't need that kind of influence in their hands in elementary school at all.

If you need to contact them, then you get that dumb phone and you can contact them. And then I really caution with, I applaud like, movements like Wait for Eighth, which is saying, wait for eighth grade. I applaud that movement. And that movement is saying, wait at least until eighth grade or more. It's not saying you have to do it at eighth grade. So wait at least until eighth grade. And I would say, so Bill Gates did not give his kids a smartphone until they were in high school and he kind of knows something about this.

So I think you should push it out as much as possible. So, you know, our claim to fame and strangeness is we didn't give our kids a smartphone until the summer before college. And my husband, James, as he says, you know what, it's working out so well with them not having them.

Why would we want to rock the boat? And my senior, my senior girl is actually at the stage where we'd said, you know, you want to have this discussion? Like, do you want to have a smartphone your senior year? And she is like, no, I don't want to have a smartphone because she likes the discipline that's in her life. She likes the extra time that's in her life. She hates the idea of being monitored and tracked and Google knowing all these things about her, you know, the privacy issues. So she, she's in the matrix. Like she understands like, no, I don't really need that now.

So push that back. Cause there's never a parent that says, Oh, I didn't know the smartphone was so amazing. I should have given this to my child earlier.

There is no parent ever who has said that. I wonder Arlene, does your daughter also see friends and people who are caught in that digital world who can't get out of it? And that that's one of the reasons too, that she doesn't want it.

One hundred percent. So what she sees, and these are good girls, right? These are girls who have loving parents. These are girls who, you know, try to do their best in school and they're in sports. So these are good girls, but she says they're hopeless. They don't see like purpose and it's because all their spare time is on the phone and the phone just shows them all these superficial things that really don't mean much.

Right? So she really sees that why is my generation so aimless, so hopeless, and why do you as our parents allow us to become this way? So she has seen that's very negative.

Like it's a, they have a very negative outlook, pessimistic outlook on life. And this is a lot of why she doesn't want that in her life. Yeah.

Smart gal. So is there a way that parents can know if their child is involved in too much screen time? What are the things you look for? Yeah, that's, there's that gut feeling, right? That, ah, something's not quite right.

And then there are a lot of really obvious things. You know, your child changes behavior. So they used to be kind of even happy-go-lucky, but now you're like, wow, they're so annoyed or they're so withdrawn. Or you see the grades fall. You know, they used to be a B student, but now why are they bringing home all these C's and D's? They used to love a sport. They loved going to soccer, but now they're like, ah, maybe I won't try out this year.

Or, ah, I used to love like biking with my friends, but I I'd rather just like stay in and play my video game. So you see these changes of behavior of things they used to like doing, they don't do anymore. They are, you know, things like hygiene, things like that kind of slip away.

They are, it's harder to pull them away from the device. So when it's time to go to dinner, it's like a fight or it's time to go to church. It's a fight. It's time to wake up. It's a fight that you see like what is happening, what's going on.

So if you see these kinds of signs emotionally, they're all over the place, then you can know, wait a minute, let's backtrack what has happened in their life since this change. And most likely it's going to be an increase of social media or a video gaming or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And what about brain development? How does, how is that impacted by the use of screens?

Yes. I'm so glad you asked that because it's very hard to talk about screen time without talking about the brain because the brain is learning. The brain is learning, oh, these are the cells that we use and these are the cells that we don't use. The brain wants to be very efficient. So at 13, when your child is getting this huge brain growth spurt, you know, they get one spurt from birth to age three and they get another spurt hilariously during puberty. So when this brain spurt happens, if they say, oh look, this kid is playing video games all the time. Let's really strengthen that.

Okay. All these ones about eye contact and serving others and being grateful and learning to ride a bike, like he hasn't used that for a long time. So let's get rid of those brain cells. So there is really an architecture that's happening that the brain that your teenager has is the brain that they have for the rest of their life. And you really want a brain that has pathways, the connections to people and to skills and to God's word and all relationships because it is relationships, Building Relationships. That's what brings fulfillment in life.

That's what's going to last in this life. So they have in the brain, there's the prefrontal cortex and that's the executive decision making center that says, you know what, you're really mad right now. You should calm down or you've been playing this video game for five hours.

You should probably get up and go to the bathroom. So when a child is playing a video game, let's say, and they're running, they're running for their life and they're shooting something and they got to do this. The body thinks, wow, the stress hormone goes up. We got to keep this kid alive and all the blood drains out of the brain and that prefrontal cortex and it goes into their major organs to protect them. And so what you end up having is this very flabby, weak prefrontal cortex because it doesn't get much exercise.

It doesn't get much use. And so if that happens once in a while, no big deal. But if your child is gaming or using social media and just waiting for that like, you know, waiting for that dopamine rush of who's going to like this, who's going to like this, whoa, look, I have this like. If that's what their brain is accustomed to, then that prefrontal cortex is very weak. That decision-making center, that self-control center is super weak and it is affecting your child's brain growing up. They, you know, they used to say, 25 years old, that's, you know, you're still young, your brain's still developing. You're not 25 yet.

Well, now they say 30. Oh, you're not 30 because they need more time because they're not getting enough practice using their brain. So it's very important that your child is reading, that your child has quiet time, that your child is sleeping so that the brain can catalog memories, that the brain, you know, it's, I, I heard this guy talking about sleep, that when you're sleeping, your brain is actually figuring out what happened during the day and kind of categorizing it the right places and, and regulating your emotions.

And I just think of that's how God, when we sleep, how he heals us and he helps us and what are screens doing? They're interrupting that sleep all night long and it's wreaking havoc on the system of the brain. And that's why our kids are so edgy and so easily defeated. I think many parents have never even thought about how this affects the brain. So what you're saying is really extremely important.

And I hope that those who are listening to us today will realize it does have a tremendous impact upon brain development. So parents are thinking, you know, okay, I think I need to make some decisions, but I don't want to, you know, get into a fight with my kids. How can, how can we come alongside our kids instead of like coming down real hard on them and saying, I read this book or I heard this radio and we're going to, how does a parent come into this to begin to make changes?

Yeah. I think this parent, grandparent can start with prayer. Lord, open the door, open the door to my child's heart, to their mind, to receive this.

Because at the core is their relationship with you that's at stake and the place you have in their life. So Lord, help me. And then, you know, I learned this from you, Dr. Chapman, is in Screen Kids we talk about the language of apology, of coming to your child, not like I've got the plan, but I'm sorry. Like, like I've, I like to say to my children a lot of times, I've never had a college student and I didn't know what to do and I'm sorry. You know, so you say to your 16 year old, your 14 year old, I've never had a 16 year old, or maybe it's their third child and they're like, yeah, you have, but you can say, I've never had a 16 year old like you, you know, and I've made some mistakes and I've allowed some things, frankly, because I'm lazy.

I mean, we are, all of us, you know, because I've been lazy. I didn't want to fight with you. I didn't, I didn't want that. So I just let things slide and that was wrong and I'm sorry.

And you might not see this, but this has been really harmful for you. This video game, this social media, this device, whatever it is, I can see it's not making you happy in your life and I'm sorry. So I am going to, you know, and things like take the phone out of the bedroom at night so you can get a good night's sleep.

We're going to put this phone on hold for a month and I'm going to give you a dumb phone instead and we're just going to talk in a month to see if you see a positive effect in your life. So keep your voice real calm. You're sympathetic. You're on the same side. You might be sitting on a couch together side by side.

You might be taking a walk together. You might be driving in a car alongside of each other, but something where they know my parent is on my side. My parent cares about me. My parent admits they've made a mistake and they're trying to remedy it. Now, even if you do all these things, right, your kid might completely blow up and be like, you are the meanest mom or dad ever. There's no one on the planet who is as strict as you.

You hate me. You must want me to not have any friends and I can't believe you're doing this to me. And in that moment, you just have to realize they're looking short term in this exact moment and you're looking one year out, three years out, five years out, eight years out. What kind of adult is this person going to be? And once they leave your home, you don't have any say in that. But when they are in your home, you have a lot of say. So just stay the course and just take the heat and keep your boundaries.

Hold your ground, hold your ground. And most likely in just a few days your kid will say, might say, I actually kind of like this a little bit better. They might admit it, but for sure in time they will thank you.

For sure in time they will thank you. Thanks for joining us today for Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Find us online at buildingrelationships.us. We have some great resources. You can sign up for our weekly newsletter, take an assessment of your love language or see our featured resources for today's broadcast with Arlene Pelicane. She and Dr. Chapman have written Screen Kids, five skills every child needs in a tech driven world.

Go to buildingrelationships.us to find out more. Arlene, I understand there is a conference coming up in March of 2024. It's a few months away and it's going to be in San Diego, which is great to be anytime of the year, but there's somebody special who's going to be speaking.

Is that right? One of my favorite speakers of all time, Dr. Gary Chapman is going to be there. It's going to be so exciting. It is a good day when I get to share the stage with Dr. Gary Chapman. So it'll be Dr. Chapman and myself, Bill and Pam Farrell talking on marriage, Sally Burke, the president of Moms in Prayer, talking about prayer. And it is a day for parents and grandparents to gather and say, Lord, we care about our kids. We want to learn how to parent and grandparent better and we're going to have extended worship and alter time to really seek God and ask God for help in our family. So I really hope you'll be a part.

Parents rising in sunny San Diego. Also is this, will it be online as well or just on site? This will be only a live event. Yes. I think afterwards, some of those main sessions may be available, but it is only a live event. Yeah. So get to San Diego in March of 2024.

We have a link there at buildingrelationships.us where you can find out more about that. But I think what you're doing is you're modeling. No, I don't want this on your computer or on your phone. I want you to be able to look face to face, right? There is something really special, right? When you are there in person with people and you're hugging people and you're seeing the person in real life, it is something very special. I do love the live event. When I'm speaking, I love to speak to live people.

That's such a terrible alternative when they're not live. You know, I mean, I do a lot of zoom and during pandemic, all of us did a lot of zoom, but I always prefer in-person events. So I'm excited about it.

I hope our folks who are listening will put that date on their calendar and plan to be there. Arlene, let me ask you this question. What advice do you give to parents of older children when their parents come in with these ideas of kind of some limitations on screen time and they just super, super resistant? Yeah. And I think you can say, you know what, honey, child of mine, you're going to be out on your own soon. And when you're out on your own, you can do all these things.

You can make all these decisions and that's going to be your life and your decisions and you'll have the consequences or benefits of your decisions. But right now I'm paying the bills. Last time I checked, we pay the mortgage, we pay for your food, we pay for your school.

We probably pay for your phone. So since we have all those things, you know, we would not be responsible if we didn't do what we thought was right. So we want to do right to you. And this is what we believe is the right thing. And we understand that you don't agree, but that's our job is to do what's right. And we love you and we love you and that's why we want to do what's right for you.

I like that. It's accepting the responsibility that you and God's plan as a parent are the authority and, but you need to be empathetic just as you were and what you just said, empathetic with the child, understand how they may have feelings differently. I remember I said to my son along the way a few times, I said, you know, Derek, just remember now I'm the father and you're the son.

Okay. And, and I have the final word and I'm going to always do what I believe is best for you because I love you. So, and I think, you know, if a child, if you, if you lovingly acknowledge your authority, they won't necessarily like everything that you do, but they will come to respect you.

So good word. What if your child says that there'll be left out if I don't, you know, use social media or play certain games or, you know, have a smartphone like my friends do, I'll be left out. This is such a good one, right? Cause this is why we, especially as moms, we capitulate. We're like, oh, we don't want our baby to be left out of any group chat.

Let's get the phone right now. You know? So I think what we have to look at is, okay, we get the device so they won't be left out, but then what happens? Are they really not left out? Actually, it gives a microscope now on all the things that they are being left out of, right? You, they're seeing now, oh look, this person is at such and such a place and I wasn't invited or this person just scored a touchdown.

I've never scored a touchdown and now they are feeling even more left out. So I want you to consider that question and realize that the phone does not solve that problem of being left out. In fact, it magnifies the problem for many kids.

And if your child has competence in an area, so they feel they have a skill, you know, it could be drawing or riding a bike or fixing cars, whatever, right? And they have a community of people. They have real people, hopefully at church, hopefully a few at school, maybe some family friends that you've been friends forever. If they have those things, they have skills that they feel proud of, they have people in their life who care about them, then they can combat that feeling of I'm left out because I don't have a phone or I don't have social media or I don't video games because they have something else that gives them belonging. Another thing to talk to your child about is, hey, guess what, sweetheart?

You know, sweetheart for your girl and big guy for your guy, you know, you get to be left out of a lot of future problems. For girls, you get to be left out of a lot of anxiety and depression that girls are feeling from being on 24 seven. You know, remember when we went to school, you're trying to be cool, right? You're trying to have people like you. You're trying to be kind of like the popular kids as much as possible. So when you're in the hallway, you're trying to be this person. And then when you go home, you just kind of let your hair down. And it's just like, whatever, good.

Now I get to relax. Now, kids now are always on. They're always in the hallway because they're always on social media trying to portray themselves and it is exhausting. And so for kids, you can let them know, hey, I'm leaving you out of a lot of stress of having to keep up having to respond instantly of having to stay awake at night to wonder like, I don't want to like miss a conversation and then come to school and not know about something. You get to miss out on all of those things. And for boys, I mean, if they miss out on pornography, addiction to violent video games, that's really going to help them a huge amount in their life. So you kind of have to think too of what are they being left out of.

And maybe this is a quite a positive thing that they are being left out. So Arlene, what about your own high school girls? What do they think about not having social media?

Yeah, I have a senior and a freshman and they both go to public school in San Diego. So we are not living under a rock and they do not have social media. And you know what?

People wonder like how, you know, are they fighting you? You know, do you guys have talks about this all the time? But I think because if you can reach your children when they're young and you can help them have interests and do other things, then they'll see that, oh, I don't want to spend so much time just sitting on the phone. So it's kind of something inside of them. I think that they do like it. They for sure like it. So it's not like, oh, I have no interest.

No, they have interest. So how we've managed it is they use my phone for social media. So basically I look like I'm a tennis fan and you know, like it's all on my name that this is how it looks, but they use my phone, they scroll through it and that allows them to see what they want to see, but it's not in their pocket all the time.

And that's kind of been a good hybrid for us. And my younger daughter had said, and we were listening to a podcast or something, and that's another thing is just have your kids learn alongside of you. So when I learn something about social media, I'll share it at the dinner table or if I'm in the car, we'll listen to a podcast together about someone else that's not me, you know, talking about the detrimental effects of social media, et cetera.

And you know, one of my children said, you know what, when I have social media someday, I'm going to use it on my computer because that way I can use it and see it, but then I wouldn't be tempted all day long to use it if it was in my pocket. You know, and that's something they're coming to the realization themselves. And I think that's, as parents, that's what we want for our kids to kind of grasp it, to realize, okay, this is an okay thing, but we understand that they are trying to hijack my attention. Like they're very powerful technology companies. The US Surgeon General, Vivek Murphy, has talked about this mental health crisis and he said, you're pitting a child against the world's greatest product designers and it's not a fair fight.

So I think when kids, you know, my kids have seen the documentary Social Dilemma, which talks about like all these tech insiders saying how they've created all these things to be as sticky and addictive as possible. You know, that there's a reason that it has a notification that just says, someone's tagged you in a picture. Well then you want to look at it, right? Like, oh, who's tagged me in a picture? Now you're opening your phone. Well, they could have designed it so that the picture just pops up, you know, instead of that, you've been tagged in a picture.

You know, they could have designed it. So you just peek at it and say, oh, look at, I'm in this picture, but no, they want you in the app. They want you there. So under, I think when your child, my kids, since they kind of understand, oh my goodness, they're trying to manipulate me for my attention.

They're trying to feed me things. I don't want that in my life. I want to be in charge of what they're feeding me and not vice versa. So there becomes then an independence and I think that's really what we want to put in our young people. Yeah. Those are mature children and they're never going to learn that on their own in our culture. It's going to have to come from parents if they, if they learn that.

Yeah. What would you say to the parent who kind of has already let the cat out of the bag? I mean, they've just let the child do what they wanted to do.

How do you, how do you dial back some of the technology that's already been given? They've already been using it. And this is such a common question because most people will listen to this interview and be like, oh dear, like, okay, we've done this, we've done this. And this, let's just do from this day forward.

You know, God's mercies are new every morning. And so this comes with a thought of, okay, what would it look like if it was better? What would that look like? Would it be that they're not playing the super violent video game? Would it be that they're going to bed, not with their phone, but you know, with scripture that I pray over them and we take the phone out of the room. So it, I think it begins with that apology, like we talked about earlier that, hey, I've given you this device. I've allowed you to play this really violent video game. I know I've been letting you watch a show on Netflix, but I don't think this is really the greatest show on earth, you know? So it's an acknowledgement that I've, I've let you do these things and I'm really sorry.

And I see now that it's not the best for you and I'm, let's, we're going to take this back. Now, of course, it's so much easier to never give it in the first place than to take something back, right? So if you delay giving the device, then they just don't have it versus, wait a minute, I've had this phone for a year. There's a major ownership there. They feel like you can't do me wrong by taking that away. I've owned that for a year, but in reality, are they paying for it?

No, you're paying for it, you know? So you can obviously point that out in a loving manner, but that, that it's, it's always going to be harder to take it away than to say no in the first place. So if you get into a juncture that you can say no, I just encourage you, remember this moment, may it come to you and say, you're going to say, no, let me wait. You know, just say, no, let me wait. So don't give in in that moment. No, let me wait.

But if it's already been out, then it has to be, you know what, honey, I know you're super used to doing this, super used to, but, but talk to them about it. You know, do you, if you didn't spend so much time playing video games, what are some of the other interests you would like to pursue? Or are there things, you know, do you want to pursue biking? Do you want to learn how to play pool? Do you want to play tennis?

Do you want to ride horses? Whatever. Like, like help your child see that there are other options. Maybe that is a helpful way to, like, we're going to dial back this technology piece, but I really want to help you, you know, with your interests. What are, let's make a list. What are 10 things if you got to be able to do them instantly? What are 10 things you'd want to be able to do?

And then look at it. Okay. What are, what are things that we could learn to do out from this list that are actual real things that you could learn to do?

And I think that will help take the sting out of, Hey, we're going to take away this technology piece. This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman and Arlene Pelicane is our guest. If you go to buildingrelationships.us, you'll see the book they wrote together, Screen Kids, five skills every child needs in a tech driven world.

Find out more at buildingrelationships.us. Arlene, are there good aspects? What are the beneficial aspects of a child's development in terms of technology?

Yeah. People are wondering, is there anything good about this? You know, we touched on one earlier is FaceTiming people. I mean, imagine if your, your dad is deployed in another country and you get to talk to him on the phone and see his face, like that's amazing. So I think that's kind of what we, what drew us to this technology that, wow, we can talk to each other.

So I think going back to the voice, like having phone calls with each other, FaceTiming each other, those are very positive uses. If you use technology on purpose, like you're going to do it for, you know, you're going to learn an art course or you're going to communicate to a missionary or you're, you know, you really have a purpose and it's helping you with your goal. I think it's extremely helpful. I mean, crazy helpful.

You know, we laugh at GPS, you know, what in the world did we do before GPS? I mean, it gets us to our destination. So there are things that you can use on purpose. And I think that's the key that you, before you turn on the device, you know exactly what you're there to use it for. You use it for that. And I think it can be extremely helpful.

Yeah. Oh, and another whole subject, of course, that we deal with in the book is a matter of developing social skills for children. In a screen-driven age, it's more and more difficult to develop social skills, which they're going to need the rest of their lives. So how do we, give us an overview of five skills that we deal with in the book that children need to learn in an age in which, you know, technology is so impactful? Yeah, we know about the A pluses in schools that we're all like, yay, get those A pluses, but really it's the relational one. So the A plus skill of affection that they know how to give and receive love.

The A plus skill of appreciation that a child says, thank you, instead of this is the old iPhone, I want the new one. The A plus skill of anger management. They're going to get angry. We all do, but how do we deal with this anger? How do we decide if this anger is right?

Good anger or bad anger. The skill of apology. Can your child say, I'm sorry, like take the blame. I'm sorry. I hurt your feelings.

I apologize. Or is your child just going to not respond? You know, just lose that friendship.

Never text that person back, you know, and just forget about it. And then lastly, attention. Can your child take their wandering attention and focus? Can your child sit in the classroom and give a teacher attention, a pastor attention during a sermon, a parent attention while they're giving them directions, you know? And I think attention is a huge one because kids are so used to, you know, think of Mr. Rogers.

It was very slow paced. This one person just talking and we all found that very mesmerizing, you know? And even now as adults, if we watch Mr. Rogers, we think, wow, this is really slow. What's happening? So for kids, they're just used to every three seconds, something changes, something, you know, explodes.

Something's very exciting. So it's very hard to keep their attention. So in relationships for listening, you've got to be able to pay attention.

So affection, appreciation, anger management, apology and attention. Boy, if a child can grow up to adulthood with those five social skills, we set them up for success in life in terms of relating to other people. And when we don't, we really set them up to have struggles in relating to people and it'll affect them in their job. It'll affect them in school, obviously. In fact, I've had public school teachers, Arlene, say to me, I have to spend half my time just trying to get the attention of the students. And I know that there are some school teachers that have collected the phones before the class starts.

You have to have permission from the principal and then some parents are going to jump in and say, you shouldn't be doing that. But when kids have got that phone there and they're pulling it out, teachers can't always see what they're doing, but they're looking at something other than the teacher involved in something else. Well, yeah, and I don't think most parents, when you name those five skills, can see the value of those things. And so where are they going to learn if they spend, you know, the bulk of their time on the screens? Well, what are some ways that parents can be an example to their children regarding, you know, screen time? Should families participate in a, in a, in a digital Sabbath? You have a day every week when none of us use technology.

I don't know. Being the example that, that is so key. And I kind of think that's why kids are struggling so much is because we as adults are struggling so much that we also in our marriages, it's easier to look at the phone. It doesn't demand anything of us.

It gives us amusement and pleasure and demand zero from us, but we will get our spouse and we're like, oh, I need to meet your needs and you need to meet my needs and we need to serve one another. So I think a lot of it stems from us. You know, I like to ask the question, if my child used technology exactly like I do, would I be pleased with that? You know, so just kind of doing that check on ourselves. And I think some things that help are if you're working, a lot of us work from home and we might have children around, then you let your child know I'm doing a digital vegetable. I am really working. And you know, when I break for lunch, we'll do something together. You know, it's the idea of when you're working really work. So that way when your child looks, wait, you're looking at shoes.

I thought you were working, you know, and you're like, oh yeah, slipping into the candy mode here. So I think labeling what we're doing, cause they just see us on a phone or on a device and they just think we're just ignoring them. But if we can label, oh, let me talk to, let me tell grandma that we're going to meet her at five and you send that text and then you put it down. I think it helps us to be more responsible with how we're using the technology and it's kind of showing our children. Yes, we do have to use this, but when we're done with it, we kind of treat it like a hot potato and we try to put it down versus holding it all the time.

Now I'm the one who talks about this, right? And I find myself holding it all the time. Like I'll go to my girls tennis games and I will have it in my hand cause I'm going to shoot a video, but then I'll start looking at things. I'm like, wait, what am I doing?

What are you doing? We can put it in my hot pocket. Like, you know, so we all struggle with this. So I think the idea of a digital Sabbath is a swath of time that you're like, we are going to take a break from technology. So it could be a whole weekend. It could be a day like Sunday. It could be a weeknight like Thursday night. We don't use any electronics and we just have a game night and that's our rhythm. So I think having a rhythm where things are off, let's say you're just finding it's too much. You have too much technology in your life.

Building a swath of time that is tech free is a great way to start. Good way to take a breath. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Now you mentioned earlier that your son Ethan is now in college and that he did not get a smartphone until the summer before college. Yes.

How is that going? You know what? It's so funny. The biggest funny thing about that is since he wasn't used to having it, he was very irresponsible with it. So for instance, we were hike, literally hiking in Yosemite and it is in his pocket and he like dropped it in the water. So that's how we lost the first one.

The second one was in his pocket and he went into a spa and that's how we almost lost that one, but we were able to pull it out fast enough so he just doesn't know it's there. So that was very funny. But you know what? A lot of parents will say, well, we have to, and there's value here. We have to let them practice it or else when they go out, they'll go crazy with it.

That's, we hear that a lot. But if your child has been raised in your home for 18 years, right, and they have those values inside of them, I would argue that when they have the phone now, they have a much better chance of winning against the temptations of that phone because they've allowed their character to develop versus, oh, now I have this phone. Now I can go crazy on it and like play video games for 10 hours a day, you know.

So we've found that it's been really a great and easy transition for Ethan. You know, he uses, he's very funny. He didn't get the latest smartphone. He, you know, it's also because he was on a budget, you know, but he got an old phone, like his first phone was, you know, a couple versions back. And he got an old phone and he's like, I don't need my phone to be super fancy because then it's tempting.

I just need it to do these basic things that I needed to do for college. So he, it's been the opposite that, you know, if you call him, he's not going to pick it up because he's not fixated on it. So it's more like that. But he just uses it for what he needs and he's been responsible with it. He has not started gaming. He is very involved in different things. So, you know, he plays Ultimate Frisbee. He's involved in crew.

He's a mechanical engineering major. He's got plenty to do. And I think what you'll find for kids is if you can send them out with that knowledge of there's a lot of exciting things in life that have nothing to do with the screen and they can engage in that, then the screen is not so tempting to them. Yeah. Let's say a word to grandparents. How can they get involved in screen time with their grandkids?

Yes. So that whole idea of FaceTiming kids is so great. And so if you have, even if your child is in the neighborhood, that's not a bad thing. And if they're out of town, if you have like every Thursday night, you know, we, before dinner to help mom and dad, I call and we, I read a story to my grandkids.

Like how wonderful. That's a wonderful use of technology and a great memory to make with your child. So have that regular time of using screens on purpose. And then when they come to visit you in real life, then make screens absolutely invisible, you know, so when they're with you with grandma and grandpa, that's the screen free zone of, Hey, these are books.

Isn't this neat? You know, like, let's go fishing. Let's take a walk. Come help grandma with her errands. You pick this out.

Let's bake cookies when we get home. You know, it's that these are screen free things. And I know for you grandparents who are listening that like, Oh, that sounds very idyllic. My grandchildren are with me Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and that does not look like that. I'm exhausted, you know, and that's why we wrote that book, Grandparenting Screen Kids for some tips. But a lot of that is just having different rules at your house that your grandkids get used to. Hey, at Nana and Papa's house, we only use the screens between two and three and the rest of the time, you know, the screens take a nap and you read books instead or you color or you do something at first. They might sit there on the couch board, you know, and that's fine. And eventually they'll come around like, I guess this is how it works at grandma's house and they'll start doing whatever activities you put in front of them. So just be, have those different rules at your house and let it be different at your house because it is a good break from technology. Well being a grandparent, I'm glad you shared a few words for grandparents because we want to make technology work for us and our relationship with them and not have to feel that we always have to do, you know, everything they want us to do screen wise and not have to be on screens all the time that we're with them.

And you know what, Gary, a word to the grandparents. You are so important because you are kind of the ones that remember of what life was like before this technology. And you can show your grandkids, hey, there are lots of character skills.

There are lots of other, there's music and there's art and there's reading and there's building and there's hard work and there's farming. Like you can teach us things that, that, you know, we're not learning about right now. So actually sometimes grandparents feel like they're put to the side, but please know you're so important.

A good word. Well, Arlene, thank you for being with us today. This has been a fascinating conversation and I do hope that parents and grandparents who are listening will get the book, one for the grandparents, one for the parents.

And they'll find obviously even more things and we've been able to talk with today. So thanks again for being with us. Thank you so much, Gary. Thank you, Chris. Featured resource is Arlene and Gary's book Screen Kids, five skills every child needs in a tech driven world.

You can find it at buildingrelationships.us. And next week, I'll tackle some of your questions about relationship struggles. You'll miss our October edition of Dear Gary. Well, a big thank you to our production team, Steve Wick and Janice Bakke. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in Chicago in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.