Speaker 1Hello and welcome to the How Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. This is episode 8 and today we are going to talk about a topic most parents struggle to know how to best manage. And it's the one which often causes the most friction at home and that's how to manage tech and electronic devices. This is such a huge topic so I'm going to try to cover as much as I can so I can give you all, whether you have a 2 year old or the way up to a 22 year old, some useful practical advice to start using today. Please, please share this podcast episode with as many friends as you can with children. So many of the issues we have. around managing tech could be completely eliminated if we set things up correctly from the start. But please don't worry if you're already in the thick of things because I totally have your back and I will help you find practical ways to reel things back in. To keep things nice and simple, this episode is for you if you haven't yet parted with an electronic device and you want to know how to best set the right ground rules. Or you're looking for your child who already has a tablet, mobile phone, gaming console and you are pulling your hair out trying to manage their time on it. Or you feel you have lost complete control over the use of devices. They're in bedrooms at night, they're on them all the time, you are constantly arguing over them and you just can't see a way around. So let's start with some basic things as parents we need to get our heads around. We have to accept that tech is a problem. We have to accept that technology is a problem. We have to accept of our children's lives. So it's a case of how can we best manage it. As a 52-year-old mum who was allowed to use the phone every now and again by my mother, who had a very strict timing and would actually pull the plug out when my time is over, this has been a massive lesson for me because I've never really been surrounded by that tech until I've become a parent. So that's the first thing. The other thing is that children use tech differently. Now that may well be a gendered split in your home and it might be that your daughter or your son uses it differently, but it can also be individual in terms of differences. Some will use it for gaming a lot, some will use it to communicate with friends a lot, some of children will look at it to be watching videos. So children do use tech differently and let's be informed and not naive about what our children will see online. Forearmed is forewarned. 90% of children over 8 years old will see pornography online. It's not about them actively seeking it out, it pops up. So let's talk about it openly rather than simply hoping our children are part of the 10%. And children are more likely to do what they see than what we say. So part of managing tech use is also looking at what we do. And I have to be honest with you, I don't know if you've heard of it, but I don't know if you've heard of it, but I don't know if you've heard of it, but I don't know if you've heard of it, but I don't know if you've noticed, I am incredibly guilty of this. And with two young adults now, they totally call me out on it. So I have to completely practice what I preach. So let's start with setting some basic ground rules. At the basic level, having an electronic device of any sort is a privilege, not a right. I know that we often give our children electronic devices without really thinking of this particular part of it. But it is important that we think about it. And I think we keep that in terms of our mindset, so that when we communicate with our children about ground rules, that's always front and foremost, because with privilege comes responsibility. And this is key to our children managing tech. Now, I don't want you to get all preachy about it. Just simply recognise when you hand over that device, it is your job to set the ground rules and to help your child understand the consequences if they don't behave responsibly. Remember, we are trying to teach our children how to self-regulate for themselves. We're preparing them to become young adults who can manage this themselves. So rather than needing us to constantly monitor, track and manage their time. So the more time and effort we invest in these early years of tech use, the greater the reward and the less stress we will ultimately experience trying to manage it all. One of the other ground rules that I think is really, really key is do not have tech in bedrooms. And that includes you. It's not good sleep and bedroom hygiene to have technology in bedrooms. And we will be looking later on in the podcast. If that is already the case in your home with your children, I'll talk you through how to best manage that and start transitioning it away. Another ground rule is that tech use in communal areas allows you to manage your children's time allows you to monitor your child's reaction and should not be seen as an opportunity to spy on them. Let me explain this particularly. Our children are going to be bombarded with intrusive images, videos and other materials that they may not actively seek out. If our children are using their tech in communal areas downstairs, then we are able to see across the room if they're suddenly looking shock or horrid or whether they've got upset because they've had a message from someone that's upset them. When our children are stuck in their bedrooms for hours and hours on their tech, we don't get any of that access to their reactions so that we can be there to support them. So that's one of the real reasons, the big reasons why I think tech should be used in communal areas. And we shouldn't be using as an opportunity to come up behind them and look at what they're viewing. It's really a case of just making sure they're in a safe space that should anything come up that makes them particularly vulnerable or upset, that we're there to be able to scoop things up, answer any questions and be their support. So the next ground rule is about setting up your own agreed family check-in with tech. In my home, it was what we called a random audit. And it was there pretty much to check in on those early years of social media use, really to ensure good habits in terms of social media use. And it was really there pretty much to check in on those early years of friends that they accepted and who they allowed to follow them on different social media platforms. So it wasn't a case of big brother checking up. It was simply a case of these are really early stages of you understanding social media use. And as such, I'd like the opportunity periodically to just check in with you on how that's being used. And I did that with both of my parents. And I did not do it that way. But as a parent who was helping teach your child around the use of technology, it's so important that we help them, not only in terms of what we say to them, but we help them by reflecting and looking through social media, things that they've looked at so that they understand some of the key aspects of where the dangers may lie. This podcast episode isn't going to address specific issues about how we keep our children safe online. That's not going to be a separate podcast episode. But I do think as parents, we need to be regularly monitoring or auditing our children's mobile phone use and tech use in a consensual, non-big brother way. So next ground rule is set up your own family rules around tech use, which works for your family. Please don't get sucked into what others are doing. Do what's best for your children and your family. So if, for example, tech is a monumental battle in the school week that causes so much stress to everybody, you might choose to limit their tech use to just weekends. Or equally, you might find it works better for your children to have little and often. So you get to choose for your family. And the next ground rule is don't make tech the enemy by leveraging its use or lack of use when your child is not using it. So if you're a parent, you might choose to limit their tech use Make some poor choices with their behaviour. The consequences of poor choices need to be appropriate for the misdemeanour. So don't take their tech time away, for example, for not coming to the dinner table when you've asked them. Now, there'll be more on consequences in another episode. But I see this time and time again. We know that tech matters to our children. We know that that's a really important driver. So we find ourselves constantly using it as a means to help our children. So we find ourselves constantly using it as a means to help our of managing behaviour. But when we use it, when it's not related to the misdemeanour, what we do is we make tech this enemy that we don't like our children to use, but we simply kind of use it as a way of leveraging their behaviour. And to be honest with you, once our children have lost their tech time, we've got very little left in our armoury when it comes to consequences. But I will be covering that in a completely separate episode. So keep a lookout for that one. And finally, in terms of the ground rules, the basic ground rules we want to put in place is reward good choices when it comes to tech. I'm a huge, huge fan of what I call random reward. rewards. So giving our child a reward in the moment where they demonstrate behaviour we want to see more of. So when we start looking next at managing tech use, if your child comes off their tech, as soon as they're asked to at the time that's allotted, when their time is expired, reward that. Tell them how incredibly impressed you are that they came off their tech exactly at the moment that they were meant to. And as a result, next time they're on their tech, you're going to give them an extra five, 10, 15 minutes, half an hour. Because what that does is in that moment by praising them, you are being super explicit about the behaviour that you loved seeing. So you're much more likely to get more of that. And children just bristle. It's like they grow 10 feet taller with this idea of, oh, I've done something really, really great. How else can I be a wonderful, cooperative child? So I really am a massive, massive fan about that. And again, we'll talk more about that when we do the episode on consequences. So those are really at the basic level, the ground rules. So now let's move to how do we manage tech use in the moment? And I have six steps, six really simple steps that I can absolutely 100% guarantee. If you follow these, you will have smoother and less fractious time when it comes to managing your children on tech. So the first thing you need to do is you need to agree how long your child will go on their device for. Now, I'm not going to tell you how much time children should be on devices. I genuinely think if it's managed well, and it's managed appropriately, and we talk about this idea of privilege and consequences, that you get to choose what's right for your family with no judgment. So agree how long your child is going to be on the device for.
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Speaker 1And we must, particularly when we're starting using this, we've got to be vigilant. We don't get distracted ourselves with life and find that the 30 minutes we agreed suddenly becomes two hours because we've decided suddenly that we need to spring clean our fridge freezer and we've completely lost track of time. Or maybe you've done something else. But we've all been there. We've said the children can be on for a certain amount of time. We've got distracted with something else. And it's like four times as much. Five times as much. And that's where the challenge is. If we're going to make a commitment to manage tech, we need to make a commitment to be on it too. So the first thing is agree how long your child goes on the tech. The next thing is agree with your child how they will manage their time limit. Do they need a countdown? An alarm? Yep. So we want them, ultimately we're moving towards helping our children self-regulate. Now we might need to help them with that self-regulation, at first. But it's their role to problem solve. For me, what do I need to do to make sure that when my 30 minutes is up, I come off when I'm meant to. So it's their responsibility, not ours, but we might need to help them when they start, first start with this. So the first is agree how long your child is going to go on for. The second is agree how your child will manage their time. The third is to agree what they will do when they come off. Transitions off technology are generally what cause the issues with tech, not the tech use itself. So we really need to spend some time with our child and talk to them about, okay, so when you come off your tech, what will you do? What will be the next thing that you will do? And agree that in advance, rather than trying to fumble around when they're coming off. So we agree how long they go on. We agree how they're going to manage their time limit. We're going to agree what they do when they come off. And then the fourth thing, and so important, but so often we forget this, is we agree with our children in advance what the consequence would be should they not come off their technology time as agreed. And as a strong believer that consequences should be fitting of the misdemeanor, and we've talked about this idea that there's a privilege, and tech use is a privilege, and with that comes responsibility, then a natural consequence may be if our children don't come off the tech as agreed, that what might happen is next time their tech time may well be reduced, for example. So it's trying to keep that appropriate within the consequence. We agree how they're going to manage their time. We agree what they're going to do when they come off. We're going to agree the consequences should they not come off their tech as agreed. Fifth, we need to get our children to repeat back all of the things that we've agreed. When it comes to managing tech, or generally, to be honest with you, when it comes to managing behaviour, what we find as parents is that we often get sucked into this sort of preachy lecture mode, that we do all of the talking, our children pretend to listen, nod, and then they completely disregard what we're going to say. When we're trying to come up, in essence, with a bit of a contract negotiation here when it comes to managing the tech with our we have not been given that tech yet. So we are having a discussion about it. And we need to try and minimise the amount of talking we do. And then at the end, just checking for clarity. Look, I just want to understand that, you know, I want to check that you've understood what's happening with the tech and how long you're on for. Repeat back to me. So David, Sophie, Henry, how long have we agreed you can be on your device for? What have we agreed is going to happen in terms of you managing that time? What have you decided that you're going to do? As soon as you come off your tech, what's going to be the consequence if you don't come off as we've agreed? Fabulous. So the idea is that you're trying to get them to repeat back. Children are much more likely to do what they say than what we tell them. So if we can get them to repeat back, we're much more likely to get their buy in and they're much more likely to do it. And then the sixth step might surprise you. It's about making sure our children have a snack before they go on their device. Angry children transitioning off tech amplifies the friction and the challenge and you will be surprised. So do make sure that your child has something to eat before they go on their tech and the transition should be much smoother. So that those are my six steps to managing tech and keeping things lovely and calm. So we know what the ground rules are. We know how to manage tech in the moment. What happens when we feel like we're not doing it right? What happens when we feel that we have lost total control of tech and we want to start reeling it back in? So let's touch on that now. And this often happens with older children or when we haven't really been consistent in our application of rules around tech use. So firstly, we just need to recognise that we aren't going to change things overnight. This is going to have to be a step by step, slowly, slowly problem solving situation. So start by acknowledging the problem, with your children. So I'm a big fan, and I've talked about this before, about these Sunday family meetings, just an opportunity as a family to check in. And I think this is a really great opportunity to begin to have that discussion. So first of all, recognise that there's an issue and acknowledge the problem. So, you know, you want to communicate this to your children. And these are the couple of ways that you can do it, depending on the challenges that you've got for your children and how your children use their tech. So you might say something like, I can't speak English. I can't speak English. So I get that being on your phone or your tablet is a way that you kind of keep in touch with your friends. You don't want to be left out. And it feels like everyone else seems to be allowed to have more access than you are. They're on their phones longer. They're able to do more. And you feel that we're being super, super strict. Or I get that gaming with your friends is important. And it needs to happen at a certain time, because you need to make sure that everyone's free. However, we worry you're on your tech so much, we don't get a chance to speak English. So spend time with you. Or you're in your room the whole time. And you never want to do things together as a family. Substitute whatever it is here that is relevant for your family and recognize and acknowledge that it causes battles and arguments within your family that you just don't want to do anymore. You recognize because what you're doing here is you're meeting your child where they're at. I get that this is really important to you. I get that it's important to stay connected with your friends and that this is how you're all communicating and you feel different and you feel that we're being super strict, super mean, not allowing you to do things. I get that this is how you want to stay connected with your friends because you game together at the same time. And it's really tricky when when you feel like we're constantly saying that you're not allowed to do it. However, we worry that you're just that we don't get that time together and that we're constantly battling. So how can we find some middle ground where you feel that You get to keep in touch with your friends. and we feel that we get to have some time together. How do you think we can do this? And pose the question and be open to genuinely listening to your child's suggestion. What do they think that you could do? And I think this is where we just need to see how things go. There is no hard, fast, set rule. It is simply a case of, as a family, where do we feel we can best begin to have that middle ground? Now remember, if you've got a child who has their phone or their tech in their bedroom 100% and you feel you've lost control, you are not going to go from that to doing all of the ground rules that I've suggested that you do. It's really about what steps can we begin to take and be honest with your children. Say, I worry because I don't feel that we're spending time together. I worry that we seem to be constantly arguing about this and this is not how I want things to be. And then try and agree those common grounds. And it's simply about agreeing what you're going to try, particularly, you know, this episode's coming out in the school summer holidays where tech use can potentially become much, much more amplified. And as a parent, we can pull our hair out, particularly when we're having glorious sunny days and our children seem to be sat inside, cooped up in their bedrooms or cooped up downstairs, staring at screens. So it's having a reasonable discussion about what can we do to make sure that we're having a good time. And I think it's really about what can we do together as a family? What are we all prepared to commit to try for these next seven days and then get together again for the next family meeting and chat about what worked, what didn't work? What might we want to do as the next steps? So I really hope that you found this sort of overview useful and you can come away with some top tips and strategies. The managing tech use sort of six points of advice will be available for you to download. In the free podcast library. So go to www.drmaryhand.com forward slash library. Give us your email address and you will have instant access to all of the free resources that go with each and every episode of my podcast. And as ever, if you enjoy this episode, I'd love it if you could follow and review this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love. So until next time.
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