Okay, I have a question for you. You do. I have one.
Oh, you do? Here's mine. I'll ask mine first. Do you feel like I interrupt your screen time? You want me to be honest or say what I'm supposed to say?
Yes, be honest. 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. Do you feel like I interrupt your screen time? Yes, you interrupt my screen time sometimes.
Oh, that's so depressing. Well, I mean, what if I'm watching a game or, you know, reading a blog? Yeah, I mean, it's like, can this wait two minutes? Is that a bad thing? Okay, what was your question?
When we're on a date and I pull out my phone. Oh. There it is.
That's what I want to know. What do you feel? Oh, that's it.
Like, oh, no. I feel like all of a sudden somebody else came into the room and they're much more attractive than I am. Well, somebody's in the room with us right now and she's going to help us. Yes, I'm so glad. Arlene Pelicane is here.
She wrote the book Screen Kids, Five Skills Every Child Needs in a Tech Driven World. And we've been with her several days and it's been so helpful because Arlene, you have been helping us learn how can we manage this in our home. Welcome back to Family Life Today. So great to be with you.
Thanks for having me. And today is Questions Day. Yeah. You know, there's a whole list of questions we have that I think every parent and grandparent, by the way, you know, we're grandparents and you've got another grandparenting book on Screen Kids, you know, how to help, what to say and where to begin. And I'll just start here.
It's not a question or maybe it is. But as a grandparent, I think sometimes we're exhausted. Yeah. I didn't think I would be more tired at this age in life than I was when I was in my 30s and 40s having kids. But you are. And so you're so tired. You've got the grandkids who are precious, but you want a break.
So you just say, here, watch this. And I'm going to say this has caused conflict with us because Dave somehow has the Disney Channel on every time I walk into the room and the grandkids are just cuddled up with him. And maybe that's not as bad because you're being affectionate. It's awesome.
I think it's awesome. But that isn't all I do, but I might do it too much. So what do you say to grandparents? That's only when Anne walks in.
The first she walks in, it's like, oh, she caught me again. Yes. Two thoughts come to my mind as you share that. One would be, you know what, when you're tired, it's okay.
You should get a little bit of rest because it is true. God gives you children when you're younger for a reason. You know, my dad is a retired doctor and he would play doctor with my kids when they were little. But what he would do is have them be the doctor. He was the patient. He would lay on the couch for like 20 minutes. That's a smart man. And he'd have a doctor's kit that was just at their house. And my daughter would take the doctor's kit and do the examination and talk to him. And he got to lay there for 20 minutes.
So it was perfect. So try to invent games where you get to be stationary. You really can be creative and try that, especially with younger kids.
They can handle that kind of imagination. So work in some rest during your time. And it is okay to think, all right, I'm tired.
We're going to do one hour of the show or whatever it is that you choose. And to have a limit. And to have a limit and to kind of set that. And then what you can do is make things that are just special to your house. So maybe it's a reading corner and it's books that you have from the library. And maybe the kids don't gravitate to it at first because they're like, I want to play my game. I want to watch TV, grandma. You know, so they might not like it at first. But eventually they'll get that, okay, I get to watch TV for an hour and then I'm going to play doctor so that grandpa can play around and then we're going to have our library time.
But that's up to you. And you really can build things that they get used to that don't have to revolve around screens, that you don't have to feel like we have to be on a screen the whole time. And then know as a grandparent, you are more interesting and valuable than a screen, even though you might not feel like it. Like you might feel like all they want is my iPad or all they want is my phone. We feel like we can't compete because it's so entertaining and we can feel like we're boring.
But you're right. I think our kids just want to be with us. Our grandkids just want to be with us. Try the chocolate chip cookies. I think those coming out of the oven. That's pretty hard to beat. That is what happens every time Bryce comes over. He's two years old. First thing he wants to do, we make M&M cookies because he doesn't like the chocolate chip as much.
But he just turned two. He knows every ingredient that goes into the cookies. He really does. That's amazing. And he makes popcorn with me. That's so cute.
And my name is Pop. So it could be little things. Yeah. So we've talked about the effect of screens on our brains, our relationships, five skills. I mean, we've hit some really hot stuff that's in your book. And if you missed any of these shows, get the book. It's dynamite. It really is.
Or go back and listen to the other days. Oh, for sure. But here's the first question I want to ask you. If I'm a parent of a middle schooler or maybe any age, how do I know when they're ready for a phone or a screen? A lot of times I think we'll give someone a phone just because they're nagging about it. So that is not the right reason. Like, we just want this child to stop asking for this phone.
So I guess we'll do it. So when you give the phone, it really needs to be that you see that your child is ready. And that might be middle school. That might be high school.
You could laugh. It might be college, you know. But it's the idea of how responsible is this child. If they're not responsible with their normal chores, then it's really hard to think, oh, they're going to be responsible with this phone and they're going to do exactly what we say with this phone contract when they don't clean their room, do their homework, walk the dog. So if you see if your kid is not consistent with those kinds of things, then we're kind of kidding ourselves to think they're going to be consistent with the phone. Although, I'm guessing here, but when you talked about your oldest son, he sounds like he is ready. He's responsible. He's a very mature young man.
He doesn't have a phone. That's right. So here's phase two. So first phase is like, are they responsible?
Could they do it? Phase two is kind of that whole idea of how is this going to affect them as a person? So is it going to all of a sudden for my husband, he would say why things are going so well with my 16-year-old son. Why would we introduce the phone and say, oh, look at now you can be on social media or play video games.
He'd be like, why would we even want to introduce that? So you do have to have, I think, this caution of you never hear parents who say, I am so glad I got my child this phone because now they're playing Fortnite and they're on Instagram and they're so satisfied. They're so healthy. We see them a lot. They're happy. The light has come back into their eyes.
You know, nobody says that. They say, why did I give my phone, this phone to this child? I gave it too early. It introduced them to things that were much too old for them.
It took them to the wrong crowd. It gave them weird ideas that we never had as a family. You know, so most people say that. And so for that reason, I do give the advice to delay the phone, giving the phone as long as you can. And that's why my 16-year-old does not yet have a phone. Would you ever ask your kids, let's talk about why you want the phone. Yes.
Yeah. And actually, my daughter, who is 14, who does not have a phone, had said just the other day, Mom, if you guys let me have a phone, I think I would have a phone. OK, what would you do with your phone that you can't do now? And she really likes cardistry, which is like doing card tricks. So she said, I would follow all these cardistry things on Instagram.
I said, well, why don't you just do that on my phone? Because we were laughing because she wouldn't even talk to her friends on Instagram. She just wants to look at these card tricks. So I told her, well, do that.
And so she has. And so now when you look at my Instagram feed, it's full of cards and that's OK with me. So it was interesting to find out, well, what would you do with it? And then like, OK, well, you can do that with mine. So talk to your kids. And that is a good idea.
What would you do with it? And then maybe could you do it with the existing technology that we have? How could we work around that? They have Google voice numbers so that they have their own phone number and they can text their friends, but they do it from a laptop or a computer.
So you can have workarounds. But the questions are, you know, are they responsible? How is this going to affect their soul?
How are they going to be emotionally? Some kids can handle it. Other kids can't. And you'll know because your kid all of a sudden will be more withdrawn to their room. Maybe they're not as happy as they usually are.
And that's the problem. Sometimes in childhood, I like to call it a childhood killer because the kid who used to be out on the cul-de-sac riding bikes or skateboard or hanging out all of a sudden is like, I don't want to go out. I'm just going to stay here on my phone. Well, I was going to ask, I mean, we're reading so much about anxiety, depression, suicide. Is this contributing? Is screen time contributing to those things?
Absolutely. Because you see screen time usage go up pretty dramatically. In 2012, 41 percent of teens had a smartphone, but that rose sharply to 89 percent in 2018. And then in 2012, 34 percent of teens were using social media many times a day, but now 70 percent are using it, you know, and that was in 2018.
So I'm sure that's even higher. So the idea that half of the 18 to 24-year-olds are reporting anxiety and depression, what's happening to them? Why are they like this? And you can imagine if you're not seeing people in real life and if you're not getting ready for the real world and then you have to go out there and you have to figure all these things out, you don't know what to do. And it's really something that's affecting kids if they're on screens too much as kids, that it's going to affect them with depression and anxiety. Yeah, and I think one of the things that's very interesting, if you think about when we were kids, you go to school, maybe there's peer pressure, maybe you're getting bullied a little bit, maybe negatives happen and you come home, you're free. Exactly. You're sort of, you're away from that now. Absolutely. Unless somebody calls you on a phone that's on the wall with a cord on it.
Right. You're probably not going to be in touch, but in this world, that never stops. Yeah, I had a mother talk to me and she had a ninth grader who was getting bullied at school, so they actually changed schools in the district so she could have a new start. But the bully, because of phones, followed over to the other school and shared inappropriate videos that he had done before to the first school that was where the problem was.
And so now the second school, these people have the same thing, so this problem follows her wherever she goes. And again, it's in the pocket. It's not something you just like walk away from. It's something you have 24-7 access to, and that's very unhealthy.
And I would think, this is me talking, that there could be a positive, and I know what you're going to say, because I know my answer isn't positive, but when especially a girl, and boys, one of the biggest things they do with their phone is text. Yeah. Like almost nonstop. Yeah. You know, I see over at Rob and Michelle's house and their daughters are, brrrr, I'm like, wow. And they're talking to all their girlfriends. Yeah. And so you think, oh, that's good. Relationships are building. They're in conversation. They're not going to pick up a phone and call them. But it's a bad thing, right?
Why? So the texting, that's great that you're reaching out, but how hysterical that we are so advanced technologically, but texting is such a crude form of communication. It's just like, and then for us adults, you know, we talk into our phones, and so there are these full sentences, right? But for the kids, they're just all abbreviations. Right. So it's like such a crude form of communication, and that's the basis for a relationship. So the bad thing about that is, my goodness, that's so backward. Like the most advanced form of communication is face-to-face, talking with words, talking with sentences, seeing body language.
You know, you're saying, oh, I'm not stressed at all, but your body is telling me you have a problem. You know, so that's advanced communication, let's say. But that's not what kids are getting. They're getting texting, which is great for, hey, what time do you want to meet? Where are you right now? Yeah. What's the weather today?
Okay, that's great for texting. But are you a happy person? Is someone hurting you? What are you going to do with your life? What do you feel like is the meaning of your life? You know, what is God saying? Those are not good conversations for texting, and yet that's the basis for communication for kids.
And that's, I think, what the problem is. Sherry Turkle, she is at MIT, and she's been researching this, and she talks about in middle school that middle school teachers will say, you know, it used to be that kids would come in the cafeteria and they would talk to each other, and that was really great for them to do. But now they just talk about what's on their phones. They have their phones out, and then they're talking about what's on the phone.
Interesting. It's a new conversation, and she says the job of the new conversation is not doing what the old conversation used to do. The old conversation used to touch us emotionally, help us to relate to other people, help us to figure out our way in the world. The new conversation is just, hey, did you see that video? Can you believe she did that?
Can you believe he got that score? You know, it's a different conversation. So you're not really getting to know the person.
You're getting to know their opinions about things. Yeah. But when you say, who are you?
Right. Not just what do you like, but who are you as a person? I think about that in marriage, too. Like, I love it when Dave and I talk about how we're doing, or what are you like?
What do you like and what don't you like? Instead of, like, giving an opinion about something you're looking at. And, yeah, you know, it's a bad thing, but that's part of me is like, oh, I don't want to talk about that. It's because you're on your screen too much, Dave. No, I mean, I'd rather. That's why I think maybe first, and I don't know if it's a gender thing or not, but I'd rather text back, fine, you know, and guys probably. Then why does this have to take ten minutes just to say fine? And then she'll say, give me a number on a scale of one to ten.
And I'm like, a six is going to mean a conversation. You know what I mean? So there is some of that. It's an escape. Sure. It's I don't want to be intimate. This allows me to pretend I'm intimate. I'm just going to text you. And in some ways, that's a gift. I'm in a meeting.
I can't answer a phone, but I can say I'll see you in ten. Yeah. That's wonderful. But if it's avoiding relationship, it's a bad thing for an adult or a kid, right? Yeah. So texting as part of your communication tools, fabulous. You don't even know once in a while a get out of jail free card that you can use it to avoid a long conversation. But for kids, it's like their thing. Yeah. They've got to learn to sit with a friend and talk to each other and have awkward silences and all that.
They have to learn that. And so that's when you think, okay, texting should be part of it, but it shouldn't be the whole. I remember when our youngest son wanted to ask out, actually his wife now. And so he goes, you know, everybody just texts people now. And I say, oh, you should call her. Ask her out on a date. And so he did that. Asked her to go out.
And of course, then that means rejection from a voice, which can be even more rejection. And so he called her. He asked her to go out on a date. He said he picked her up.
He opened the door for her and he ended up marrying Jenna. But it was so funny because she thought he was the weirdest guy ever. Like, why is he calling me?
Why isn't he texting me? And then when she went home, she said, I told my parents he's the weirdest guy. He opened the doors for me. He was like asking me questions.
I've never been around a guy like this. How funny. And so I thought, oh, that's so interesting.
And I'm sure, and that was years ago. So I'm sure it's even more so now to actually ask someone face to face what they're thinking, how they're doing. Those are important life skills. Isn't it funny that that's what gives people anxiety? Because when you text, you can think about it.
Right. Like she, Jenna, could have thought, oh, should I say yes? Should I say no?
How should I say? But then he's on the phone with her and she had to say right then and there, like, yes, I'm going to go out with you or no, I'm not. And so kids aren't used to that pressure. That's true. They like the texting because it gives them a buffer. They can erase it. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like as a parent, you want to say to your son or daughter, you can't text for a date.
Not allowed. Oh, that would be killing off kids today. No, I'm just thinking, I can remember in high school walking around the house for an hour about this phone call to ask a girl out. I was scared to death, nervous.
Totally. Probably dialed it multiple times and then finally she picks up and you're just, but what training that is for real life. But if I had a phone back then, I don't think it's scary at all to go, hey, you know what I'm saying, going out? I don't know. Yeah, very low risk. But this is relationship training, marriage training, and people are getting married today and they've never done that and they wonder why it's so hard.
They've never cultivated. And their parents haven't done a good job of saying, I'm not going to let you take the easy way out. Give me your phone. Here's my phone.
Give her a call. Whatever. Well, this has been fun because we're asking Arlene some of the questions that she put in her book, Top Ten Questions and Answers About Screen Time.
Here's another one. What if my son is left out because his friends all play video games? And I mean, we're even doing that at church these days. You know, you go in, guys are playing video games. Not at our church, of course.
Those other churches. But I know that some people do that. So how does your son deal with that? Yeah, this is a huge question because I think many parents, they don't want their child to be disadvantaged.
Of course, we don't want our child to be disadvantaged. So we'll say, okay, you can do that because I want you to fit in. I want you to have friends.
I don't want you to be ostracized or alone. So that makes sense. So with Ethan, he'll say that people don't, his friends are okay with it. And he has friends who don't game a lot.
And I think that helps. So for every child that you're saying, like, you can't be on social media, you can't be on video games, et cetera, you're also trying to help them find things they can do. So it's not just like you don't do this, you don't do this, you don't. But, hey, we're going to go hang out with this person at the park. We're going to go do this sport together. We're going to learn this skill.
We're going to camp. You know, there's got to be other stuff. So for Ethan, he has other skills, other things he likes to do, whether it's piano or sports. And so he can find friendship.
And there's the key. He can find friendship with other boys his age through other activities, whether it's he plays chess with a friend that's two years older than him. He plays Ultimate Frisbee in the park with some other school friends. So there are things he can do. So I know it feels sometimes like video games is the only way to connect with boys.
You hear that all the time. Video games is the only way to connect with boys. But there's a basketball and there's a football and there's a chessboard.
You know, you can have a building project, you could learn on-the-job skills. I mean, there's a lot of things that boys could do together to connect. And then to realize that your kid that you allow to play video games, he might feel really great right now. But if a boy grows up around video games and there is a higher risk of addiction, four out of ten will deal with some kind of addiction, like something, and by addiction I mean I haven't taken a shower because I'm playing the game, I don't do my homework because I'm playing the game, I was just invited to go out to do something I usually like, but I've decided not to do it because of the game.
Those are the kinds of things I'm talking about when I say addiction. So a lot of boys, because of video games, that will happen to them. And so how is that going to affect them when they go for that first job interview, when they go to college? You know, how is that going to affect them? So they might be really having fun now, but later will they be left out when conversations are not around video games because they're real comfortable in the gaming community, but if you take them out of the gaming community, then they're really at a loss. So you also have to think, like, long-term. So short-term, you know, he might have to struggle a little bit with friendships, but long-term, how is this going to help him? Parents are listening thinking, ugh, it's so much easier just to have the quick fix, because especially if they're teenagers in middle school or high school, you're kind of preparing yourself for battle.
Like, oh, they're going to give me so much flack, but it really starts with a conversation, is what you're saying. And you can point your kids to Dr. Andrew Doane. He's an author. He's written a book called Hooked on Games, and he is a John Hopkins-trained neuroscientist, and he was addicted to games, and as an adult in medical school on a full-ride scholarship from the age of 25 to 35, he was playing 80 to 100 hours a week and was basically saying he was functioning like a dry drunk. He would just sleep for three hours a day. He was still able to keep his medical practice. He was married. He had children. He was barely holding it together, but it finally came all crashing down on him, and he had to make a change. So he's a really good example of how this can sincerely and seriously impact your life.
Wow, that is crazy. He must have been pretty brilliant to be functioning on three hours of sleep. Three hours of sleep for ten years.
Ten years. Yeah, and he said it was when physically he was starting to lose things, his hands, you know, because he'd been gaming for so long, and here he is, you know, the surgeon. He can't have that, and that's what really scared him, and he said, I have got to do something. You know they were on the verge of divorce.
There are all sorts of problems. Well, I know this. When I sit down, it's rare, but every once in a while I play a video game with my adult sons.
I mean, they're 30s and late 20s. I'm always embarrassed because I'm no good. Right, exactly. You know, we're playing Ridge Racer. You know, I love fast car games, and they kill me. You know, they're like, Dad, you're so lame, and they're zipping around, and I feel really bad. At the same time, I'm like, that's a good thing because I didn't waste my life getting good at this, and I think there have been times, you know, my oldest son had a PSP, this little gaming thing, and I would play Ridge Racer, and I'd be on a plane, and I'd be playing it, and you know, you get like, oh, I want to get to the next level.
I got to get this thing, and I'm like, I used to be sitting here thinking, how can I have a conversation with this person on the plane? Because I had a mindset that God wants to use me to lead people to his son wherever I go, whether it's on an airplane, in an airport, in an Uber car, you name it. That is my calling in life.
That's all of our calling. Go and make disciples, and what am I doing right now? I'm not even looking at this dude. In fact, I look over, and he's looking at a screen, and I thought, you know, if I put this thing away, and I say, hey, man, how you doing? I bet you a conversation could lead who knows where, and God could use me, and I just thought that is what I do not want to do in my life. I do not want to be looking down.
I want to live life looking up at God and what he's doing in my life and wants to do in me and through me and at others. Digital world is a blessing from God, but if you're not careful, it can lead you to lose what life is about, primarily loving God and loving others. In fact, parents, there's life happening right in front of you right now, and you need to be engaged. Our screens can be a great tool, as Dave Wilson just said, but our screens make lousy friends. And I think that's the heart of what Dave and Ann Wilson have been talking about with Arlene Pelicane this week. We have to make sure we are connecting with people, not with devices. We have to make sure our relationships are healthy and strong, because that's where life is. Use your screens for what they're intended to be used for.
Don't try to make them more than they ought to be. And this is especially important for our children who are growing up in a screen-saturated culture. Arlene Pelicane has addressed this subject in her book, which is called Screen Kids. It's all about five relational skills every child needs in a tech-driven world. And we'd love to send you a copy of this book. We are making Arlene's book available to Family Life Today listeners who want to help extend the reach of this ministry, help us reach more people more often with practical biblical help and hope for marriages and families. Every day there are hundreds of thousands of people who are coming to us for equipping and mentoring, for training.
It's one of the good uses for the internet and for devices, we think. You make this program possible as a radio broadcast, as a podcast. You make all that we do at Family Life happen when you donate. And so again, if you're able to help with the donation today, not only will you be extending the reach of Family Life, helping more husbands and wives and moms and dads know how to navigate the challenges of marriage and family life, but you'll also receive as a thank you gift from us, Arlene Pelicane's book, Screen Kids.
You can donate online at FamilyLifeToday.com or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate over the phone. We are grateful for your partnership. We look forward to hearing from you. You know, we talked about the fact that there are good uses for technology in our day.
David Robbins, who's the president of Family Life, is here with us. And we're doing all we can at Family Life to try to wisely use technology as a way to connect people with practical biblical help and hope. And one of the ways we've done that, David, is by developing a Family Life app to give people immediate access to help and hope, right?
Absolutely. I mean, technology and the four-inch screen in our pocket that is taken over our world in some way can be used for some really destructive things, but it can also be used for incredibly redemptive things. And how do we redeem the four-inch screen in our pocket?
One of the ways is by getting access to biblical truth. And that's why the Family Life app exists. That's why we've improved it recently again. And we're going to continue to do everything we can to make that a place where you can access things easily. You can share it with other people. You can stop and start and even put it on double time if you're in a bit of a hurry. And Bob Lapine's talking too slow. We want to do everything we can to provide the help and hope that you need as easily as possible. I can talk faster if you think I need to talk faster.
No, I'm kidding. You can find the Family Life Today app when you go to your app store. Just type in Family Life as one word. Our app will come up.
You can download it, and then you have instant access to this program and other resources that are available from us here at Family Life. Thank you, David. And we hope you have a great weekend. Hope you and your family are able to worship together with your local church this weekend. And I hope you can join us on Monday when we're going to talk about our own relationship with our screens. Wendy Speak is going to be here and tell us about a 40-day media fast that she took and how cleansing it was for her own soul. So I hope you can join us for that. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. Have a great weekend. We'll see you Monday 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
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