Approaching screen time with nuance

S1: I'm Andrew Bracken and this is Screen Time , featuring conversations about technology and kids in today's digital age. Today we hear from Doctor Michael Rich. He's a pediatrician and founder of the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston's Children's Hospital. He's also author of the book The Media Guide A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy , Smart , Kind Kids in a Screen Saturated World. A lot of the advice from experts I see often leave me feeling overwhelmed or fearful about my parenting when it comes to screens and kids. But Doctor Ritchie's practical , measured approach to managing kids and screens left me a little bit more hopeful. Here now is my conversation with Doctor Michael Rich.

S2: We all , but kids in particular , move seamlessly in between the digital and the physical space. So the old days of television , where you sat down in front of a screen and watched a 1 hour or 2 hour show and turned it off at the end , are gone. Long gone. But the whole concept of limiting screen time really originated and has persisted from there. Having worked in this area since the days of television. I will tell you that screen time limits didn't even work then when we could measure screen time , in part because we treated them as the forbidden fruit. Kids came home from school and did their full hour or two hours of quality screen time. And then at the end of that time , what happened ? Absolutely nothing. But then Mom or dad would come up the stairs and say , I've got homework to do , or you wanted to go outside and play basketball or whatever , and the kids would say , oh , can I watch the rest of this show ? Or can I level up in this game ? And it would be a conflict every single time. What we are now looking at in terms of a way of controlling that is actually to have dedicated non screen time. In other words , time when screens are not in use , when phones are not in pockets. And I think this works better to develop the kind of healthy , diverse menu of experiences you want for your child during the day. Because we can't measure screen time , but we can measure time. That we put it all down is , I think , the most effective way of taking care of them.

S1: This idea that screen time has become immeasurable. Focusing on that , is it less about the total amount of screen time and more about the ways we're using screens or what we're kind of using when we're on screens.

S2: It is how we are using screens. That affects us. The issue of screen time is not so much that screen time is inherently toxic , so much as what it displaces. What we are not doing because we're on a screen. We are not , you know , taking a walk in the woods or having a conversation with our parents or doing our homework or frankly , getting sleep and a decent meal. So I think that it's really more about how we use the screens. Um , obviously the content of those screens is very important , but also the context of our use of them when , where and how we are using them , that really makes a huge difference. And so I think that refocusing on the issue of how we use screens is more important than trying to measure how much time we're using them for.

S1: And on how we use screens. I mean , one thing that I always come back to is it's also about how us as parents use screens. Oh yeah. And on this sort of idea of like screen time use and how we screen , we have a rule in our home. This is sort of embarrassing. But , you know , we don't do double screening where you're watching one screen and you're interacting with another screen. But , you know , just last week I was watching Lawrence of Arabia , this classic film. And , you know , my children will call me out on this double screening. And , you know , in this case , you know , I was reading about the real Lawrence of Arabia on Wikipedia as I was watching the movie.

S2: First is you talked about having rules at home. One of the things that I actually encourage the kids I care for and their parents to do is switch from rules to expectations. And the reason for that is that rules are things that come down from on high. The parents saying this for the kids. Expectations are what we have of each other. And I am so proud of your kids for calling you out , because that was you not meeting their expectations or actually your family's expectations for everybody. So give them a high five for me on that one. Um , because you were missing out on one of the greatest films of all time in your attempt to multitask. One of the things that we think we can do , but actually cannot , is multitask. Finally , what I would say it is actually what the parents do that matters. And that brings forward what I call the five M's of raising children in a media saturated world. The first aim is to model the behaviour with screens that you want them to see , because they will do what they see you do. They listen to about 1% of what you say , but 100% of what you do. The second is to mentor them in the use of screens. And the reason I use the word mentor is that when you think about teaching , that's sort of a one way thing of the teacher teaching the child. Parents resist not being the expert in the room. And they , you know , they say to me , I really dread the internet talk more than I dread the sex talk , because , rightly or wrongly , they think they know something about sex , but they're convinced they don't know enough about the internet to teach their kids. But mentors learn as much from the mentee as the mentee learns from mentor. It is really a dialogue of learning that goes on. And so I encourage parents to sit down next to their kid who wants to get a smartphone or wants to get on social media , or wants , you know , to get a certain video game and do it with their child , learn together with them. That does a couple of things. Number one is that it , you know , helps the parent know what the child wants to do. It also helps the parent help the child think about what this means. You know , what could happen , what might occur unexpectedly , etc.. But also , perhaps most importantly , it opens the door to ongoing conversation about the child's digital life. The reality is that they spend much of their wakeful time using screens in one way or another. So we have to be present in their lives there.

S1: We continue our screen time conversation with Doctor Michael Rich , where the pediatrician continues to run through his five M's Approach for kids and screens.

S2: The third and the most controversial perhaps am with both parents and kids. Is a kid that parents need to be able to monitor their child's digital lives. They need to have their usernames and passwords , not because they're going to be surveilling them all the time. And that's what parents push back against. I don't have the time to go everywhere she goes online. And the kids , of course , push back against. I want my privacy. Unfortunately , to , you know , a 13 year old , privacy means so mom and dad can't see. So I encourage them to do it because if they can monitor their child's behaviors online , the child's behaviors change in response. Now , if we can adhere to those three M's , there are two M's that are the goodies that come out of it. First of all is you are helping your children master this incredibly powerful tool , incredibly powerful environment , and to use it in effective ways to learn to connect with people , to be a part of a larger digital world. And also when they master it , they recognize when it is not the best tool for the job at hand. And they put it down and they cook a meal with you. They have a conversation with you , they take a walk with you. And those are where we make memories.

S1: You mentioned monitoring , and I think you refer to it as something that might be kind of controversial. How do you break down what healthy monitoring looks like.

S2: Open conversations about it ? In other words , I do not think parents should be sneakily seeing what their kids do , but I also think that they want to keep the door open for that so that kids don't get trapped in in in a situation that they can't handle. I think that it is so important for parents to approach their kids digital lives not with blame and shame , not with judgment , but with curiosity and creativity that they are curious about what their children are doing. Not to be nosy , but out of respect and love for them. That's why I will tell parents , don't wag your finger at the top of the basement stairs and say , stop playing Grand Theft Auto. Walk down those stairs , sit next to your son and play the game with him.

S1: So you're involved in a lot of research involving kids and screens at the Digital Wellness Lab. There seem to be new studies being published kind of every day on the topic.

S2: It's sort of like we glom onto all the badness instead of realizing that , um , it is something that , first of all , is not going away. So we need to learn to live well with it. But we seem to ignore all the positives. What I really am surprised by mostly , is that for whatever reason , we seem to move very quickly to fear as opposed to implementing the things that are really helpful to us and to our children and their future.

S1: Well , and I think that can also lead that fear can also lead to a lot of , I don't know , parental guilt and anxiety , which I think is something that a lot of parents experience. I've definitely struggled with that. Obviously you treat children , but you also end up treating the parents like.

S2: What's been done is done. We need to be looking forward and how we can improve it. When I was a kid. Seatbelts weren't even in cars , right ? Should we feel guilty that , you know. Or my parents feel guilty that they drove me around in cars without seatbelts ? Or should we be glad we have them now ? Use them effectively and understand that there will be improvements in the future that will be even better than this. You know , airbags then came in , etc. but also not to waste the energy on the guilt. What's done is done. Let's look forward. Let's take care of our kids with all we have learned , some of it by what's gone wrong and how do what do we avoid ? What do we do differently ? And so I , I encourage parents to communicate with their kids , allowed their kids to communicate with them , and really listen to them. One of the things that I do that's fairly subversive with my teenage patients is I'll ask them once their parents are out of the room , what could your parents do better ? And almost always , the first thing out of their mouth is pay more attention to me. They feel like they're cut off from their parents. They feel like their parents are staring at their smartphones and are engaged in other , more important things. And the parents think the kids never say anything. Never. You know , they're just sullen and and and , you know , moody and and the kids really want to be connected with their parents , but they're also negotiating what the nature of that connection is going to be like , because they are crossing the river from childhood to adulthood , and they're seeking their own autonomy in their own terms. Um , so I think that you're absolutely right , that fear and guilt are sort of ruling the parental approach to all of this , and I want to turn that on its head and say , yes , we can do this. We just have to remember our humanity , our values as we bring them to the kids and to use research such that that we do use that kind of research to guide our choices going forward.

S1: You can find more resources on all things Kids in Tech at our website , KPBS. Meantime , what questions do you have when it comes to your kids and screens ? My email is screen Time at KPBS. I'm Andrew Bracken. Thanks for listening.