A

Foreign. Welcome back to the East Mariches Podcast with Kags and Kyle, where we discuss kids, technology and growing up in today's world. I'm Michelle Cagliano, AKA Kag.

B

And I'm Kyle Gordon, AKA Kyle. And welcome back to our fourth episode where we will be diving back into the New York Times bestseller, the Anxious how the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Health Illness. Now, Michelle, today I have a question for you because you beat me to it the last two times and you didn't tell me the question beforehand and I didn't tell you, but it is in our notes, so I don't know if we looked. All right, so what was your favorite thing to do in school outside of school? Meaning like, so like in school, in. In you're in school, but like lunch recess, study hall, you have down time, you're with your friends. What was like the go to thing?

A

So in school? Well, I was a cheerleader, so I did participate in like a extracurricular activity. I was in high school and middle school, but my friends and I would write notes back and forth to each other all the time. We had like a book, like a composition notebook, and we would just write instead. Listening to a teacher, unfortunately. Sometimes we would write pages of notes to each other and then pass them to each other and they would right back in their next class. And we groups of us had books that we would write to each other. I saved them. So funny to look back.

B

So it wasn't passing notes, it was passing a notebook.

A

Yeah. So we could save them and read them.

B

Interesting.

A

Yeah, yeah. What about you?

B

I mean, at the lunch table, like the paper football was a big one. Or we do it with like a, like a quarter. You get like three flicks to get it to the edge of the table to hang off. We like that. Actually, what you said just reminded me of something that we used to do this in study hall where one person would write a phrase and it would just be like a ridiculous thing and then the next person would get the paper set of phrases up and then you had to draw a picture of what that phrase was. And then you would fold the paper over the phrase and pass it to the next person so they could only see the picture.

A

Okay.

B

And then they would write what they think the picture was. And then you fold over the picture and see the phrase and back and forth and back.

A

Oh, that's cool.

B

And just. Yeah. Ridiculous. Silly.

A

Yeah.

B

Things that was just like, we're in study hall. Of course we're not Gonna do our homework in study hall.

A

Nope. But I don't remember having a study hall. My schedule is just full.

B

Yeah.

A

Yeah. But then you think about, like, kids today. What are they doing at the lunch table?

B

Yeah. I mean, thankfully in our school, they are talking.

A

Yeah.

B

We have no. No phones in school. Actually, one of the things that I think is funny is kids have told me that when their parents set limits on their phones for, like, this was reminding me the notebook. Like, they. They can't have Snapchat. They don't have messages. What they do is they have a shared note with their friends in the Notes app.

A

That's great.

B

And they write messages in the notes app that automatically shares with their friends, which is, like, kind of sneaky way around it, but, like, it kind of is like passing notes or a vision book.

A

Not writing.

B

But no.

A

No. All right. So I do like that there's no poems in school.

B

Oh, yeah. That. That is.

A

So they'd all just be with their head down.

B

Yeah. It's nice to hear a loud lunchroom.

A

Yeah.

B

Yeah. For us who are not lunch monitors.

A

I actually, I was a lunch monitor once. I was. That's where I started a very long time ago. So moving on. So collective action problems. I mean, last episode we discussed the four foundational harms and why they're so harmful for children and teens. So basically this. All the technology in the screen time has become a collective action problem. Right. It's been bigger than just our school, bigger than just our county. It's nationwide. Right. Global, really. Yes. And how can we combat that as a group? Right. So a collective action problem is a scenario where individuals would benefit from working together but fail to do so because their personal interests conflict with the group's interests. Right. So we have some parents who think, you know, it's too late. We can't. There's nothing we can do. This is how it is.

B

The ship has sailed. Yeah. It's already. My kid already has a phone. What am I going to do? Take away. Yeah.

A

Then we have some parents who are like, no, I need to be. Get in touch with my child and to track them, I need to, you know, surveil them and those helicopter parents that it's difficult for them to pull back and lose a little bit of control.

B

Yeah.

A

Right.

B

Yeah. And that, like, kind of goes into one of the. The quotes that I. That I had read from the book, which I think I feel like in talking to parents, you hear this, like, all the time. And this comes from a. A teenager. Her name was Alexis Spence, and this is from the anxious generation. And the quote from her is what made it so addictive talking about social media and smartphone was that I just wanted to fit in with my peers. I didn't want to miss anything because if I missed anything, then I was out of the loop. And if I was out of the loop, then kids would laugh at me or make fun of me for not understanding what was going on. And I didn't want to be left out. So it's that idea that individually, a parent might be like, I know the best thing for my kid is not. Or the best thing for all kids is that nobody has a smartphone. Right. But I don't want my kid to be the one kid who's left out. I don't want my kid to be the one kid of the friend group who doesn't have it and then she's not in the friend group anymore or he's not in the friend group anymore. So it's like, we all know that we would all benefit from taking these action steps, but we don't want to be the only one to do it.

A

And then there's that fomo.

B

Yeah, exactly. It's, it's, it's that exact fomo. As for the kids themselves, but then even for the parent, like, on behalf of your kids, not wanting them to.

A

I mean, I'm in that boat right now with my son. It's, you know, it. I wish I never gave it to him, but then I would, he would be the only one.

B

Yeah. So I, you know, stole my question, but like. Yeah, so you've had, like we've talked about, you have adult children. You have a middle schooler right now who's like in the thick of it. So, like, can you. I. Well, I guess you, you already can. But even speak a little bit to. Yeah. What is it like in that situation where it's like, I know this is not the best thing for my kid, but are they going to be the. Yeah, like, are they going to be the only one? Are they going to be the pariah? Are they going to be the kid that's left out?

A

Well, it's so funny because I learned recently that all three of my kids are Gen Z. So my oldest daughter is at the very beginning, 90.

B

Okay.

A

And my son is 2012, so the very end of Gen Z. And they have all completely different relationships with technology. So my, my daughters who got it when it, you know, when it first came out, I mean, they didn't have iPhones, but they had devices, you know, and it progressed to that. I definitely see the, the increase in anxiety, you know, depression and all of that. Not even knowing and realizing what was causing it. And now they are grown adults and thinking about starting their own families and they're like, there's no way I'm giving my kid a smartphone. No way. They're not having any devices and they see it because of their experiences.

B

Yeah.

A

And just how they see, you know, little kids growing up today, like, they're always like, everywhere we look, they're always on the device. It's like a babysitter and my son who has a smartphone, you know, we, we talk about limits. I try and, and you know, limit him. And for us, it's more of a conversation about healthy habits. And you know, he's aware and he's a smart boy, so he, he gets it, you know, so he tries to, he knows like if he's doom scrolling, he's like, oh, you know, he'll just put his phone down. Like, I can't.

B

Like he can feel it.

A

He can feel it, you know, and like when he has a hockey game, he knows like two hours before the game he should get off and, you know, really focus on what he has to do. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough.

B

Oh yeah.

A

Because I, I do wish I never gave in, but it's hard to be the only one.

B

Yeah. Yeah. And that's, it's a tough spot to be in.

A

Yeah.

B

But it's also like that's where everybody is and that's why this is a big, big thing here. Yeah. I think it's kind of interesting. One more thing about that is one of, one of our co workers, Amy Sanovich. She teaches, she's a phys ed and health teacher. And she earlier this year did a little bit of a lesson on the book with her kids and she did a survey that she was telling me about where I may have brought this up in another episode, but in her seventh grade classes, she did a Google form to survey all the kids and had a number of different questions. And one of the questions was along the lines of, you know, she had questions like, would you, you know, would you be willing to give up your, your smartphone or social media if you have it? You know, pretty low percentage of kids said, yes, I would want to. And then she said one of the questions was, if all of your friends gave up social media and their smartphone, would you be willing to do the same? And it was like 80 of the kids said yes. You know, and it really speaks to it. It's yes, it's the technology. The technology is addicting, but it goes back to this thing of like, it's the what? Like people want community, they want friends. So if the friend, if the center of the friendship is here, I want to be here, you know, so that, and that kind of speaks to, you know, hopefully to us as parents to be like, well, yes, individually, it's hard to be the only one. But that's why these, these four new norms which we're going to talk about are meant to address the collective action problem of that. Yeah. So the last part of, of the Anxious Generation, the author talks about these four new norms, right? The solutions to this problem. How do we get, how do we overcome the great rewiring? How do we have kids, have a, a good, fun, real world, face to face interaction Childhood.

A

Yeah.

B

So the first one he suggests is no smartphones before high school. Right. Smartphones, as we've talked about, are designed to be highly addictive. They are designed to hijack our brain. They understand the psychology of how our brains work and they design the phone, they design the apps to be as engaging as possible, especially to a developing brain that does not have the executive functioning to like really make those decisions. Right now that doesn't mean no phone at all. Right. We talked about like having a flip phone or having a dumb phone. Like having something to communicate is okay, but before high school, you know, he recommends no smartphones. You know, a laptop is okay, your kids are going to need maybe for schoolwork, but that is different than a touchscreen that is super responsive to everything that you do and especially smartphone in your, in your pocket all the time.

A

Yeah. The second thing he talks about is no social media before age 16. Now we, you know, reading all of these charts and all the data, it is wildly inappropriate for kids and preteens to have access to strangers. Right? So like we protect them over, protect them in the real world and under, protect them online. So it's that idea that you don't know who they're communicating with necessarily. Anybody can, you know, slide into their DMs and, and you don't know who they are. And even games like Roblox, you know, you just don't know who you're talking to. You know, is the trade off worth it? You know, is it worth your child's childhood to be unhealthy, stuck on a screen all day, you know, even going

B

back to that, like they're saying, oh, I'm missing out, right? Like I'm, I'm the only One, I'm missing out on this. I'm missing out on this. But if they do have it, what are the. What, what are they missing out? What are the good things they're missing out on in the. Exactly. In the real world or in having

A

real relationships, what skills are they Sacrificing?

B

Yeah. The next one is phone free schools, which thankfully our school, I mean, our schools have been for a long time. But in New York State this past year, a law has been passed, but it got. Goes back to if kid, if any kids are allowed to have a phone, all kids are going to have that temptation to check. If nobody has their phone all day, why do you need to go to your locker to check your phone? Why do you need to, you know, if, if you know that none of your friends have it out, there's less of that temptation to be checking, to sneak it in your pocket to go, you know, to check it. If it's in your locker, whatever the case may be, if nobody has their phone, there's no reason to check it. And I think that, yes, it's great that this law has been passed in New York State, but it also goes to the schools and even the teachers to like, make sure that you're enforcing it. You know, it's not just this is a, you know, thing, it's, it's saying it's. It's not just this is a state law. It's like this is the best thing for the kids, their minds, not just academically in school, but like psychologically, developmentally. Yeah, yeah.

A

And I know that some schools are not really enforcing it as much as others.

B

Yeah, absolutely.

A

Yeah. And lastly, more independence, free play and responsibility in the real world. You know, give kids a chance to explore and have problems and take risks. And even if, you know, they get hurt or even if, you know, they've run into some issues, they get to problem solve and work through that. And that's healthy brain development.

B

Yeah. And if you have kids who have been on that level of addiction to a device, like with an. A. Somebody who's been addicted to a substance, it's like when you get off of that, you can't just get off of that. You have to replace it with something beneficial. Right. Like replace it with habits that are engaging, that are fun, that are like meaningful experiences, like you said, in the real world.

A

Yeah.

B

Which really leads us to kind of, you know, along those, those last chapters of the book, he gives recommendations for different ages. So this is like you're a parent of kids of a certain Age, like what can I do if I have a toddler? What can I do if I have an elementary school kid, a high school kid? What are some suggestions? So we have some here. So starting and I'm in the stage, this birth to age five, I have a 15 month old. I shouldn't really know exactly. Just over one, between one and one and a half.

A

He's in that age.

B

He's in the. Yes. Birth to age 5. So in this stage the focus should be attachment play and minimizing screen exposure. Right. So you want to avoid or strictly limit screen time, especially on something that they can control, which it is so scary to like have my child pick up the phone and it looks like he already kind of like knows what to do because he can see a mic. Yeah, that's, that's scary.

A

Yeah.

B

But prioritize human interaction. Another one is encourage unstructured physical play. Right. Like they're building physical, gross and fine motor skills. Like let them be playing physically as, as often as possible inside or outside. Develop their attention span naturally. Which means like you read to them, have conversation with them and just play like kids. Kids at this age, they're meant to play. Learn the world through play.

A

Yeah.

B

And then lastly, building secure attachment response. Be like responsive face to face. You know, the amount of times that like my son is just playing and does something and looks to see, you know, to see if I'm looking at him, to see if I'm responding to his, you know, what he's doing or what he's seeing or if there's a page of a book that he loves that I always make a sound in that every time he opens that page he looks, he's like, are you going to make the sound?

A

Oh yeah, that's what they need. You know, secondly, so middle childhood and that's where my son happens to be. So ages 6 to 13. Right. So in this age group you want to foster and build independence and social development. So of course delay smartphones as long as possible. No social media before age, you know, 13, really. 16. But you know, have like a burner phone, like a flip phone that they can call you and you don't have to worry about this. The, the apps and the addiction and the notifications and you know, set up a smartphone. Encourage free range independence. So let them walk to their friend's house, let them ride their bike down the block, let them, you know, give them a little bit more independence without adults having play dates, group activities, sports clubs, you know, maybe more unstructured groups and Clubs.

B

Yeah, Sports.

A

Like, I know the focus a lot is, like, the teams, you know, the travel team, but that. Then again, that's also very organized and micromanaged.

B

Yeah. Especially the schedule. Yeah. Still, again, you have, like, this. This, like, hierarchy of, like, good, better, best. Right. So that definitely is in that. It's in that better category. But you want.

A

Or.

B

Or even a balance. If your kids on a travel team, make sure it's not every single weekend. Don't have them be on three travel teams. Have them be, you know, like, have a little. Have a little space just to play.

A

Just.

B

Yeah, exactly.

A

Be with friends and, you know, limit gaming and online activity. Keep your devices in shared family spaces. Maybe not have the phones in their bed, you know, in their bedroom when they go to sleep. No computers in there. Have it in a common room.

B

Yeah. And even, like you said with your son of, like, you have given them a smartphone, it's like, all right, that's happened. But now you're like, all right, I'm not gonna just be like, well, he's got a phone, so whatever. Like, you have boundaries. You talk about it with him. Like, there is structure there. Same thing. It's that, like, good, better, best. You may be. Oh, I wish I never did, but I did. So I'm gonna do what I can to make it the best scenario possible.

A

Like, the phone is off from this time to this tire, and you don't have access to any of, you know.

B

Yeah.

A

Yeah.

B

And then lastly, for teenagers, for adolescents, the focus is gradual independence. So building independence, going towards moving towards adulthood and structured tech, you. So this is the age where you most introduce, you know, a smartphone responsibly with limits, like we were talking about, and making sure that if you are, like, if you do wait, or even again, even if your kid is, you know, 14, 15, 16, and they had a phone when they were 12. Like, if you don't have limits, put limits on it. If you don't have boundaries in the home about, like, you said, times or hours of the day, like, you can implement that. You know, we talked about a sturdy pilot changes course. When you get information that changes, what you know is best, like, make decisions

A

based on that and just, you know, like, getting your child at that age, I feel like it's good to have that healthy conversation.

B

Yeah.

A

Like, talk to them about the data and what. What's going on, how they feel when they're on the apps for a long time. And I wouldn't let them kind of come to that conclusion instead of, like, just Being like, no, you, you can't do that. Yeah, we're going to limit this.

B

Yeah. They are at an age where they can, like, they can reason and they can argue with you. And like, have, again, not maybe not arguments, but like, have a healthy debate of, like, yeah, tell me how you feel when you've been scrolling for eight hours. Tell me how you feel when four hours of sleep as opposed to eight because you were out.

A

And let's work on this together.

B

Yeah, yeah. Which actually goes, you know, create tech boundaries, limit delay or limit social media use. Age appropriate boundaries. You know, we have age appro. We have laws for age appropriate things for, like, for all time. We've had that for, for drugs, for alcohol, for gambling. Like, because those are harmful to young people. Like, we know that this is harmful to young people too. So, like, it is okay to set limits for your kids. Encourage real world responsibility. Like we talked about, if you take away something that they like to do, we got to replace it with something that's going to be not only beneficial, but worth it for them. You know, this is an age where they can get a job, they can volunteer, they're learning to drive, they're like, maybe learning to manage their own schedule, you know, help them solve problems. But like, kind of like you said, like independently, you know, when, if they're 16 years old and they have a job, like, yes, you want to make sure that they're showing up and they're doing that. But at the same time, they have to be able to, like, make some mistakes and learn from their mistakes. And again, there's a balance there. Like, you don't. You want to structure it. Right, Right. But you don't have to, you know, necessarily micromanage your kid's life. And then lastly, this is probably the hardest model. Healthy tech habits and behavior. And this goes back to even before they're at this age of adolescence. If they, like, they're gonna, they're gonna do what they see. And if they see us as parents, it's after dinner and we're laying on the couch with a TV on and doing work on our laptop and scrolling on our phones. They think that's normal, you know, so it's. And again, good, better, best. If, if that's hard for you to do, do a little bit less. Right. Remove it from the, from the dinner table, remove it from the bedroom. Like, this is what we do as a family.

A

Yeah.

B

And work towards that. You don't have to be the model perfect parent of this, but, you know, model for Your kids, what you would want them to be and to do.

A

Yeah. Easy, easy things. Yeah. So in conclusion. So our three takeaways for this episode are collective action. Problems require collective responses. Don't do it alone. Get a group of parents together, you know, do this together when your kids are little. Make a promise to each other. We're not going to introduce smartphones until this age. Or, you know, we're going to do this once a week. We will have a play date or, you know.

B

Yeah.

A

Or hey, we're.

B

Our kids are 15. They've had, I. They've had phones for a while. We don't like their habits with the architect. Then all the time, like, we're taking 8 o', clock, 9 o', clock, you know, your phone is away on the same page.

A

Makes it easier. Yeah, yeah. Write or call your local legislators, you know, write a letter saying, do more.

B

Yeah, I mean, it worked with, it worked with the phone. No phones in schools. The data has shown that, like, you know, put enough pressure on and who knows, maybe it'll all be passed to limit social media or hold the tech. You know, make. Make sure the tech companies have some way to check the age verification for social media and things like that.

A

Yeah. I think in Australia, I think they did ban something until 16. Like, no social.

B

Really? I think I've heard like something about that. I wasn't. I don't know all the details of it. And then there is a lot of organizations, one of them called wait until 8th, wait until 8th.org where they have resources, support and even local chapters that you can start to get parents together to take a pledge and say, we are not going to let our kids have a smartphone until 8th grade or social media until after 10th grade. And, you know, you can literally create a local chapter for people in your community to, to join and do the same.

A

Yeah. So visit that website.

B

Wait until 8th.org our second takeaway is don't just remove screen time, but replace it. Which is what we, you know, have talked about a few times with things that helped your child build independence and responsibility in the real world. So again, don't just. If you take the screen time away, they're going to be eager for it if you replace it with something that is engaging and that is fun. Now they have something that is engaging and fun to do. And we've talked about this before. Let grow.org has some great ideas for replacing screen time. Giving your kids better experiences in the real world.

A

Absolutely. So, you know, just do what you could do. We're all in this together, right? Yeah.

B

I feel like that's been a theme. Like do what is possible. You don't have to be the ideal version of it. Like where in that every family is different, every kid is different. Do what's going to work for you and your family. Yeah. So just one last thing to leave us with. This is, this is a quote from Jonathan Haidt and he kind of acknowledges in this section of the book that it is hard to be a teacher, an administrator, a coach in this age. It's harder to be an adolescent in this age going through this stuff and saying what you're doing is wrong, what all your friends are doing is wrong. But at the same time, like that's what everyone's doing. And there's this tug back and forth. He says it's hard for us to understand what's happening or even know what to do about it, but we must do something. And if we act collectively, together, we can roll back the phone based childhood, restore to some degree a healthier play based childhood.

A

And it makes me think about a conversation I had with a parent. I actually had both of her daughters and she is bringing back the landline. So her that a group of parents are getting together and they, they all agreed getting. Giving their children smartphones instead they have all of landlines and they actually call each other on the phone and talk to each other. And the little girl went to school and gave somebody her phone number and the kid texted it and was like, you're. That's not the right number because I texted it and it didn't go through. And they're like, no, no, it's a landline that gets hospital and I pick up the phone, we talk. So they don't even know what it is. Some kids.

B

Yeah.

A

Oh, that's a good challenge.

B

I love that. And I hope, I really hope that the landline has like the extra long.

A

Yeah.

B

Spiral cord, you know, that stretches halfway across the house. Yeah, that's. That's a classic. Yeah. There. Yeah. Well, thank you to our team that supports us, Chris Vaccaro, Peter Burns, Emily Eich, Dean Mittleman for all their support and helping us set up and edit and all of the great things and we will see you next time.