Screens and Family

What do you think our home would have been like had our kids had 24-7 access to the internet? The days when they were little and didn't have any of that was exhausting and awesome. I'm thinking about the hours we spent, and you spent too, outside playing with our kids and no other parents were outside.

No. I mean there would be 12 kids in our yard playing and it's something you don't see as often anymore. Yeah, I mean the neighbor kids would come to the front door and say, can Mr. Wilson come out to play?

Of course people don't know what I'm talking about. Dennis the Menace. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson. And I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. We're talking about digital world, screen time today, and we've got a pretty cool guest, don't we?

We do, and I'm really excited. We have Arlene Pelican with us today, and she wrote a book called Screen Kids, Five Skills Every Child Needs in a Tech-Driven World. Arlene, welcome back to Family Life Today. So great to be here.

Thanks for having me. Ann, she isn't just an author, she's a mom, a wife, got three kids, so you're living this stuff out. She has a great podcast.

Yeah, Happy Home Podcast. And by the way, you also have a grandparenting screen, kids, how to help, what to say, and where to begin. So this isn't just parents. This is grandparents as well.

Maybe we'll talk a little bit about both because we are parents and grandparents. But the five skills, so review what those five are, and then I want to jump into attention. Yeah. I think that's a big one. That's a big one. Review what they are first. It's like, I didn't hear what you said.

I wasn't made. Yeah, exactly. The A-plus skills in the book are affection, can your child give and receive love, appreciation, you know, are they grateful or are they entitled, anger management, you know, we all get mad, but what do we do with that, apology, can they own up for what they did and say I'm sorry in real life, and attention, can they pay attention in school to you as a parent, to a sermon, to rules, to any of those things. And, you know, these A-plus skills are so foundational for life, but right now everyone's the A-plus skill of amusement. That's what kids are really good at, and to be frank, adults as well. And we've got to get back to these character skills to help our kids. You know, when I think of those character skills as a parent and as an author of parenting, I'm like, oh, yeah, no question, those are definitely five of the skills, but I don't always connect the dots like, okay, how's screen time? Affecting.

Affect those skills. Yeah. It doesn't seem like it'd be that big a deal.

So talk about how does it help or hurt? Yeah, let's think of appreciation, so gratitude being like a foundational character trait, right? So if a child is on screens a lot, they're used to choice. It's not just like one program they could watch. They could watch 400 programs, you know, and then they don't have to wait. They get things instantly. They don't have to wait for their show to come on next week. They could watch the whole season right now if they wanted to.

That just convicted all of us that have been Netflix binging. Yes. So they have this sense of entitlement of I want it now, and so when life happens, regular life, and you have to wait for something, they're like, what am I waiting for? You mean I have to do my chores?

I don't have a choice in the matter? And so they are not grateful. They're entitled. I have a right to this. I have a right to that because my screen time tells me I am the king of the world.

You know, my screen does what I tell it to do. And so instead of perhaps a child saving money for a device and then taking good care of it, being grateful for it, maybe we buy it for them for Christmas or a birthday and, you know, they don't have to wait, and so they think it's coming to them. And so this fights against gratitude, which gratitude says, hey, I'm thankful for what I have.

I'm content with what I have. I recognize that someone had to pay a price for what I have, and I'm grateful. You know, screen time is just me, me, me, me, but gratitude is recognizing, well, you did something for me, and I'm really grateful. And so that undermines, and just think of it, it used to be very normal for a kid to say thank you, but I will take my children, who are not angels, to a restaurant. The server will serve them food, and my child will look up and say thank you, and they'll take the menu and they'll say thank you. And later the server will be like, your children are so well behaved. Just for saying thank you. And all they did was say thank you. And I'm just like, are you even kidding me? And so just the pleasantries of please and thank you, you know, kids just think it's coming to them.

Well, think about this, too, especially if you have young kids, you go to the restaurant, and do you remember having three boys at a restaurant? Oh, it's the worst. It was insanity. You know, they're like tipping their chairs. You're sweating because you're so embarrassed of all the people looking at you. Like, those are the worst parents.

That's the worst family in the world. This was even before phones. Well, that's what I'm saying, but now in order to avoid that embarrassment and that lull. You stick a screen in front of them. Exactly. Yeah.

And so they're probably not even looking up to say thank you. Of course. And so how did you do that? Because you're a really good mom. You're a very intentional mom. And I'm even listening to you thinking, oh, we didn't do that. We didn't do that.

We didn't do that. How did you get your kids to be grateful? I'll have to be like, my husband.

That's pretty much the long and short of it, my husband. When Noelle was two, she would want milk. And she'd be like, milk.

Like a dictator. Yeah. Like, milk, milk. And I looked at her. I'm thinking, who is this child who was so sweet a second ago? Oh, Noelle, I'm sorry. That's not how you ask for milk. You say, milk, please. You don't have to first go, milk, please. And it eventually became, milk, please.

But it's training early. And it's saying, no, no, no. You're not going to get that until you say please and thank you. And then just continue that. And I think, too, when you say it to them. So when they're young, you're insisting on it. If you want something, you may use the magic words of please and thank you. And so don't forget that.

It used to be something we said all the time. Go ahead and continue that. And then as they get older, let them see you when you get your cup of coffee.

Oh, thank you so much. And I like to use their name just to freak them out. You know, they've got their name.

You say, oh, thank you so much, Barbara. And they're like, oh, she used my name. Show them courtesy to other people, to them. And then I think your kids will be much more apt to do that as they grow up.

But I would insist on it and look for it and ask for it. Yeah. And in some ways, you just model a little bit of what attention looks like, even eye contact, noticing. So talk about how attention is, you know, screens can be hurtful to that. Attention is a big issue because you have so many more kids who are dealing with attention problems in school.

So how have screens affected kids' ability to pay attention? Yeah. Think about the old show Mr. Rogers, right? And when you're watching Fred Rogers, what is he doing? He's talking very slowly.

I didn't like that about him. There's just what? Come on, let's go.

Let's go, let's go. There's just, it's just one shot. You know, that's it. Simple.

Simple. But today, when kids watch things, it changes very fast. So Dr. Dimitri Christakis, who is a professor of pediatrics and a specialist, he talks about that the concern is the pacing of the program, whether it's video games, TV, it's overstimulating, and it contributes to attention problems. And what they're finding is because when kids watch that, it's like things change every few seconds, so they expect that.

So then when you're sitting in the classroom and your teacher's talking to you and things, like 10 seconds went by, and she's still talking to you, right? It's like, this is very hard to pay attention. And they're not used to it.

They're not used to it. So it's what a mind is used to. And because video games move so quickly and it's so immersive and so visually stimulating, so when a child doesn't have that visual stimulation and the rewards coming every few seconds and they're unpredictable, all these things that they're used to, even in social media, who's going to like my photo?

It's bottomless. It's, you know, and there's attention. And as you scroll through, there's videos and there's advertisements and it's all very stimulating. So then when they get to class or they read the Bible or they sit to pray, and it's not this visually stimulating thing, and they're like, how do I pay attention in this? So screen time really does impact how you and your children can pay attention and how well you do it. So you're saying that's really impacting them in school.

It is. And I think all you have to do is ask a teacher. Ask a teacher who's been teaching maybe more than 10 years and ask them what is it like today versus what it was 10 years ago.

And of course, if you get an older teacher who can know what the classroom was like 30 years ago, they will tell you for sure. And it even sounds like, I mean, I don't know if you wrote about this, but it sounds like, okay, if I'm going to go out on a date with my wife or if I'm going to take my son or daughter out, be intentional and say, we're not doing a phone between us. Yeah. Neither one of us are going to have one to look at. We're going to look at each other.

Again, your child may go, dad, no, that'd be the worst thing ever. And yet I think at the end of the day, it'd be a beautiful thing, wouldn't it? Absolutely. Because it's different. Yeah.

It's different. And, you know, and for boys, I think doing things with them side by side, you know, my son probably doesn't want to go out with me and stare at me for an hour, but he will certainly go out with me. And if we're doing something, you know, if we have an activity, whether we're rowing, whether we're playing Ultimate Frisbee, he likes to run, I don't like to run, so I would not be next to him doing that, you know, but finding activities together that you don't have your phones. And that actually still has to do with attention because now your brain is having that healthy time to rest and be rejuvenated. And that's going to help you pay attention when you have to do that. So if your kid's sitting all day, let's say they're doing online school, and then they're sitting more for more video games and more YouTube and more Netflix, then of course it's hard for them to pay attention. They've been sitting in the same position for the last 15 hours. So our kids do need to go out and get exercise as much as possible, even inside if the weather doesn't permit.

All those things are really important to help them pay attention when they need to. I can still remember, this has got to be 20 or more years ago, driving home, seeing a father and a son, walking together on a sidewalk, and they might have even been jogging, but I remember looking over thinking, oh, what a beautiful scene. I had little boys at the time, and this was like a teenage boy with his dad, and I thought, oh, someday I'll be walking with my son like that. And as I looked closer, I realized they both had headphones on. And I remember literally going, oh, that's so sad.

There's no communication going on. I mean, I get it. I like music or whatever. But I thought, oh, there's a moment that was lost because of technology. And again, we're not saying technology is bad.

It's a beautiful, it's a gift from God in many ways. But man, when it separates you from attention to one another and isolation, which it can do, that's something you've got to be intentional about and say, I'm going to have technology in my life, I'm going to manage it, I'm not going to let it manage me, and I'm not going to let it manage our family and hurt us in a tough way. Obviously, I'm preaching your book.

I mean, that's what you say the whole time. And we have three sons, and so their interests have all been very different. But I can remember one of those sons was a sports guy, and so we'd be out, he would just be shooting baskets continually, and I'm just rebounding them for him. But in that time, the conversation was great.

We're talking about the day, we're talking about what's going on. We have another son who works in IT now. So he, from the time he was born, has been fascinated with anything that has to do with screens.

And that was a little trickier. But he, too, we'd have him outside. He would love playing games. If we're all together, your kids want to be with you as a parent. They want to hang out with you. And Dave, you're just fun. No, I'm just fun.

No, like our boys wanted to hang out with you. And I was thinking, man, we could have lost so much, especially when you have someone so, like that could be their vocation in the future. And so you don't want to just squelch everything, but you're helping them to learn how to manage it for their future. A good question to ask is, is technology bringing your home together, or is it tearing it apart? And because there are ways that technology can bring your home together. How would you know if it's bringing it together?

You would know because there's no friction or tension around it. You're not going to bed thinking, oh, man, we didn't know. How do we do that?

Or she's watching this, he's watching that. You know, so you have peace. You have peace about it. And there's not a lot of arguing around it.

And the limits are there. And people, you know, are abiding by it for the most part, you know, things like that. That you know, hey, we have a healthy family groove. And that's, you know, laughing together. So if you're laughing together, are you doing something together?

Do you serve together once in a while? Things like that, you know, that let you know, okay, this technology isn't in the way. Even seems like, tell me if I'm right or wrong, that if you're bonding together around technology as a family, it's not that bad. Like you said earlier, back in the day, I can remember Sunday night sitting with my mom watching Ed Sullivan, you know, on Walt Disney.

And by the way, there were only three channels. Exactly. So what else are you going to do? Right. It was a bonding moment because then we would talk. But what we have now is five kids all looking at different things and we're not bonding at all.

But if we decide, hey, let's watch this show or let's listen to this TED Talk or this sermon. And I mean, that's a good thing. It is.

So if you're watching together, that's a technology bringing my family together moment. And that's a good thing. Yeah. Talk about because I would never thought an A-plus skill that would be hindered by screens would be anger management.

How is that affected? Yeah. So what happens in the restaurant when brother and sister start to fight? I had a restaurant owner tell me it used to be that they just have to work it out, you know, and they'd have to talk about it. And you did this and he did this. But you apologize to your sister. You apologize. He said they don't do that anymore.

They just whip out the iPads. The conversation goes away and they never talk about it. And so you see, like, instead of the anger coming out and having to deal with it, a lot of times the child is pacified. Like, OK, you're getting really mad right now. You're about to throw a fit.

So let's give you what you want, which is your video game. So they don't know what do I do with that anger. So, you know, so you think of it later in life, a husband and a wife, they get mad at each other.

They're arguing about the finances. It's getting heated. He's going to storm off. He's going to play a video game. She's going to storm off.

She's going to tweet, my husband doesn't understand me, you know, whatever they're doing at that time. But so how do you deal with that anger? So a lot of times we're having that mismatch of not having to deal with anger because we just distract with screens. So avoidance. So avoidance.

So that would be one way. And then another way would just be so many violent video games. So if people are exposed to so many violent video games, what's the effect of that? Now, it doesn't mean that if your child plays a violent video game, they're going to go out and do this.

OK, so that's not what we're trying to say. But the idea is if you are exposed to violence, you know, if you're watching a lot of violence, if you're in a first person shooter game and you're doing that, it's much more likely that behavior kind of becomes a little bit more OK in your mind and you can become more contagious. You know, it's more contagious to you to catch that anger than to someone else who's, you know, watching little butterflies or something.

You know what I'm saying? So it's also that idea if you're getting pumped full of angry things, whether it's really social media, it's very angry, very polarized, very angry. And in fact, I remember hearing Facebook saying that it wasn't the happy feeling that got engagement.

It was the angry feeling that got engagement. So they want to put stuff out there that makes you mad because when you're mad, you engage and that's what they want. And so to realize, OK, my child's on social media, they're trying to make her or him mad about something.

They're playing a video game. They're shooting people and they're doing stuff and that's making them more aggressive. And so think of it that way and OK, how can we help our child if we see that they're getting in trouble with the principal? They're talking smack to their parents. You know, how can we help them?

Maybe it is related to what they're doing on screens. Let's go into an area that I know that especially moms and I'm sure dads feel this, too, of the fear that we have is pornography. Yeah.

Because I think that we can say that living in our culture with the screens that we have now, at some point our kids will be exposed to pornography. Yes. How do we battle that?

What do we do? I think so often as parents, we feel like we have no control of this. Yeah. Help us with that.

Yeah. And that's actually a big reason why our son, who is 16, does not have a phone. And a lot of people had said, how crazy, like he bikes to school and don't you feel like that's unsafe for him to go without a phone? But we have taken the stance that we think it's more unsafe to put something in his pocket that could so easily become a hub for porn for him. Because the thing is, with pornography, it's so difficult because as a boy or a girl gravitates towards that, there's so much shame that's involved in it. And yet that desire to be curious about that person of the opposite sex is a God-given desire and curiosity that someday will be very beautiful and fulfilled in a marriage. So it's a very dangerous thing because you don't want to shame them for being interested in looking because that's natural. Right.

But you also obviously don't want to allow it to happen continually. So from a very young age, you can talk to kids about how Dr. Chapman, the co-author of Screen Kids, he likes to tell you to people, whenever you see people of any culture, they have certain body parts covered up. And that's because God gave those certain body parts. So those body parts are private and should be covered up. And you talk to little kids this way. And if you ever see something, you know, that comes onto your screen that looks like, oh, that's wrong, like it wasn't covered up.

It's not covered up. You can come and talk to me about that. And I think it's very important when your kids do talk to you that you're just quiet because instead of, you know, like, oh, my word, you know, whether it's a lecture or it's a freak out or whatever. But just quiet and listen and make sure you're a safe place to talk to. And again, that's why I say to be quiet, because it's too tempting to say the wrong thing in that moment. What do you mean by a safe place?

So that they know, because if they come to you and they say, Mom, I've been watching pornography. And if you say, how could you do that? Don't you know the Bible says to keep pure? Don't you know it says flee less?

Don't you know those things? OK, we're going to take this. We're going to take this away. We're going to do this. They're going to be like, OK, the next time I have something to say, I am not telling my mom or dad.

Right. Because they are going to freak out and make me feel really guilty and it's going to be terrible. But instead, if you can say, wow, it took a lot of courage for you to come talk to me about this. This is not a you problem, son, in the sense of, or a daughter.

A lot of people are struggling with this. And this is something we really want to help you with. So let's get help if we need to. Let's get a youth pastor involved if we need to. Let's get other people, because sometimes the parent isn't the best person to talk to. Let's get another loving, caring adult in here. And let's talk about this.

We're here for you. And I think that is so important for them to feel like they can talk to you. And it is alarming. It is so alarming. I read that pornography sites get more traffic than Amazon, Netflix, and Twitter combined.

So much traffic. And you can think of it at such young ages. And then they analyzed 304 scenes, and 90% of them were very violent and aggressive. And so it really is a war cry for parents to say, I don't want my kids to get exposed to that, because then it sets up all these false expectations of what this is supposed to be. It sets up just a system of shame for my child.

It's going to hinder their future marriage and relationship. Like, it's so harmful. And then it's like, what can the real thing, how can that compete with this thing you're watching that's just this fantasy world? And so just for kids to protect them because they can't unsee things. And so that's why, you know, you don't want to hand a smartphone to an elementary school child. And then you want to really pause before handing one to a middle schooler or a high schooler, because all of a sudden something that used to be, oh, I've got to go somewhere. I've got to get a magazine.

I've got to do all these things. All they have to do is sit in their room and have their phone. And then there's so many ways to hide it.

So it has to be in their heart that they make this decision, because they can hide it from you. And then you as a parent have to provide as safe an environment as possible. And for me, I think the answer really is teaching your kids other skills so that they don't have that smartphone in their hand when they're young. Would you encourage parents to not let their kids have their phones in their room, especially at night? I would.

Or their computers? Yeah. And just say it from a sleep perspective. Just say, hey, I remember when you were a baby and you cried all night long. It was really hard for me to go to sleep. And when your phone goes beep and you wonder, oh, what does my friend have to say? Beep.

You want to wake up and play video games? Beep. You know, no one's going beep. You were going to Bible study tomorrow.

Nobody's doing that. And so just from a sleep perspective, Tom, I don't want you to get interrupted all the time. I want you to have a good night's sleep. You may think I'm the worst parent ever. I'm really sorry if this is ruining your life, but I'm going to take your phone overnight.

And I think that's a really good step. And obviously you're saying put the home computer in the middle of the home. Right there out where everybody can see it. We didn't do that at first. This is before there was internet where there was anything dangerous on it. Our computer was in the basement.

That was just a really bad idea. Yeah. And even as you're saying, and I've shared this here on Family Life before, but yeah, we found porn on that computer. Our oldest was maybe middle school.

He was 13. And first Dan comes to me and says, is this you? Because I was checking the history. Yeah. Checking the history, which every parent should do.

Yeah. And it wasn't me. So we sat down, our oldest, and asked him and he said, yep, it's me. And just as you said, I remember always thinking, you know what, how will I respond when that day comes? It wasn't if. It was sort of like, it's probably going to come someday.

And if we discover that. And I thought I'd be mad. You know, like, dude, what are you doing? You know, we've talked about this. And I started to cry. And I said, we both did. I said, you don't realize the Pandora's box you just opened. I know. I've gone down this road and it's a battle.

And I will do everything I can to walk with you. And he was great. He was like. And we even said, like, what do you think the consequence should be?

We didn't set the consequence. We were just saying, because this could affect your future, your marriage, all the things that you had already talked about, Arlene. And it's so funny. He's like, I don't think I should be on the computer for a month. And we were thinking, a month? Oh, that's much longer than we thought.

Isn't it funny that they will often do a harsher thing than we would even do? Yeah. And we moved that computer right in the center of the family room.

Yes. Parents, have a conversation with your kids, not just about this porn thing that we've been talking about the last few minutes, but about this digital screen world they're living in. It shouldn't be, it's their world, it's your world. It should be, we need to talk.

Maybe you need to apologize. But what would it be like to open up the thing and say, how are you doing with this? And how can we help you? And maybe we need to set some new parameters and start a new way. Listening to Dave and Ann Wilson today talk with Arlene Pelican about kids and screen time, I've been thinking about how our screens are kind of like pacifiers for older people, whether it's teenagers or grownups. When your child is restless, it's easy to default to screen time, to let them spend too much time online or with their screen just because it brings some peace and quiet into the home. And we've got to be careful about this as we seek to raise the next generation to be healthy and to know how to relate to other people.

This is really what's at the heart of Arlene Pelican's book, which is called Screen Kids. It's about five relational skills every child needs in a tech-driven world. And we're making this book available this week to Family Life Today listeners, those of you who can support this ministry and help extend the reach of family life. Our goal every day is to provide you and others with solid, practical, biblical help and hope for your marriage and your family. There are hundreds of thousands of people who connect with us every day looking for this kind of help and hope. And listeners like you have made today's program possible. We want to ask you to make tomorrow's program possible, to make a donation so that family life can continue to reach more people more often and effectively develop godly marriages and families. We believe godly marriages and families can change the world one home at a time. Go to familylifetoday.com to make an online donation or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate over the phone.

When you do, ask for your copy of Arlene Pelican's book, Screen Kids. It's our thank you gift for your donation. Again, the website to donate is familylifetoday.com or donate by calling 1-800-358-6329.

That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Now tomorrow, we're going to talk, among other things, about what grandparents can do or shouldn't do as we interact with our grandkids and their devices and their screens. Arlene Pelican will be back with us to talk about that tomorrow. Hope you can be here as well. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We will see you next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.