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Technology, Devices and Screen Time with Kids
914 Plays10 days ago
In this episode, the hosts reunite after a long winter break, swapping stories about vacations and raccoon encounters. The conversation takes a fun detour into awards season, with Caitlin sharing favorite nominated films while Kallie remains hilariously out of the loop—even missing the latest Timothée Chalamet dating news.
Next, the ever-relatable Mom Fails segment returns, featuring forgotten sheets, travel mishaps, and Christmas decorations that just won’t come down.
The main discussion dives into technology and screen time for kids. Charlotte shares her strategy for introducing phones at 13, using BARK parental controls to set boundaries. Megan talks about managing devices in her household, where her daughters have phones but her son sticks to an iPad. Caitlin keeps a tight rein on her daughters' smartwatches and iPads, enforcing strict internet and messaging rules. Meanwhile, Kallie embraces a tech-minimal lifestyle, with no screens on school days and an intentional approach to phone use in the mornings.
The hosts also reflect on childhood independence, parental control apps, and the importance of screen-free play—contrasting today’s digital habits with their own MapQuest-and-atlas upbringings.
Wrapping up with Pits and Peaks, the group shares everything from fireplace stencil disasters to Bingo losses, new family-favorite meals, and an unexpected squirrel visitor.
Join the conversation for laughs, parenting wins (and fails), and practical insights on navigating screen time with kids in a tech-driven world!
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Just For Moms' Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Finding things on my phone, Caitlin, is like you getting set up for the podcast. It's like I've never been here before. It's like I'm new here every time. Or like the best was the first time we did this and it kept – what did it keep saying? Like I needed to like go get something checked, right? Your health.
00:00:17
Speaker
Your health and your hearing. Welcome to Just For Moms. I'm Charlotte. I'm Caitlin. I'm Megan. And I'm Callie. We are regular moms talking about regular stuff like aging, parenthood, work-life balance, and figuring out what's for dinner.
00:00:33
Speaker
Again, no-judgment zone to talk, laugh, and maybe cry about all the things women think about on a daily basis. things i'll plan
00:00:42
Speaker
Well, I'm going to declare it. We are going to get started because this is a good one. Welcome back to Just For Moms. And this is episode nine, which seems wildly impossible that we've already done nine of these. So fun.
00:00:53
Speaker
And this is going to be a really good one. We're talking about tech time, devices, screens, not social media. That's a whole other conversation, but tech time. but But before we dive into the topic, we haven't seen each other for a while. And obviously these are going to post later, but we are just getting back from
Managing School Breaks and Vacations
00:01:10
Speaker
long weekends and spring breaks.
00:01:12
Speaker
Did you guys do anything? Anyone been up to something? i see Caitlin nodding. No. Okay. No. You went away, right, Megan? Yes. We just went to go see my parents. Do you have nice weather?
00:01:24
Speaker
We did. We did. Four days was pretty like 85. I don't want to rub it in. And then the other two days it got kind of chilly. But yeah, I mean, that's the benefit of your parents living there somewhere to go stay. Oh, so good.
00:01:37
Speaker
So we, yeah. So it was nice to, i got very burnt. Yeah. I forget how quick the sun gets you. Any raccoon update? I feel like the people need to know. I feel like there was There was?
00:01:50
Speaker
Okay. So there still is one. And the gadgets, like I didn't want to like annoy you guys. So like I kind of like held back. But yeah, so there's still one shitting in the pool.
00:02:02
Speaker
But they haven't caught it. So it's like, yeah. So there's still like gadgets and sounds. And there's like, he my
How do families manage tech and screen time for kids?
00:02:10
Speaker
dad has these like net things where you would go in for the water and And there's like ah owls set up, like owl statues. Mm-hmm.
00:02:20
Speaker
Have you seen the people that want to see hummingbirds? And so they just cover themselves in like blankets and hummingbird feet. Has your dad considered like sitting out there under a camo net and just catching this guy red handed?
00:02:33
Speaker
I know. i know. So apparently it happens like in the middle of the night, like 3 and 4 a.m. m So I think he should do that for sure. Or he said that he wanted to put the dog in a life jacket in the pool.
00:02:44
Speaker
yeah i mean, he's retired. What else does he have to I know. I know. I know. It's just like, like, I remember the first time when I told Callie about this whole thing and she was like, cause they like the way it feels like, you know, like it's so weird that like, again, if you Google raccoons pooping in pools, I mean, you could go down rabbit holes galore. It's nuts, but let's move on.
00:03:06
Speaker
Yeah. I implore our audience not to Google that. I fear what the research might show up, but. I just have a question. Wait, how long did you guys have off? Because my kids only had a Monday and a Tuesday off.
00:03:19
Speaker
We have the the whole week. Isn't it weird? We had the Friday before the long weekend and then obviously the Monday of the long weekend. It was just like winter break? We used to have the whole week and then there would be another week in April around you know Easter when we typically have it.
00:03:37
Speaker
And I think they've given us a handful of isolated singular days, whether it's for like election day or i think there's different holidays that we now add. Like, I feel like maybe we didn't always get off for Rosh Hashanah. I think Juneteenth is a new addition. But what about you, Callie? Where your you live? Did your kids have break or no?
00:03:55
Speaker
So my kids are not. We don't have somebody in the post school system oh next year. But are our school district did have the whole week off. So like everything was closed. Like a lot of the youth services stuff that we go to was all, they were all off.
00:04:07
Speaker
But I have noticed that it's, I have friends like in central Connecticut and they just had the Monday, Tuesday. So I feel like, yeah, it's one or the other. Yes. Yeah. I think when I was little, we used to have a long break. It was not enjoyable here.
00:04:19
Speaker
was just my kids were home. A February break is weird to Yeah. Cold. If you can't figure out how to go somewhere... yeah There's nothing to do. or Like spring break, it's sort of nice enough that if you have to stay home, you can usually come up with something. Yeah. Where my kids are currently, they used to do a February break and an April break, which they got rid of this year, which was great.
00:04:39
Speaker
But like February break was the pits because yeah, I've got ah four little kids. Like um'm we're not going places right now. It costs like thousands and thousands of dollars for us go anywhere. The flights are not. Staying homes. I agree. Yeah. Okay. My second question, and we can move through this quickly because I feel like our topic's going to be meaty, but, and this is going to be late. There have been so many award shows recently. We were watching at the time of this recording. I feel like the SAG awards were just out. Oscars are coming up, which will be behind us when this airs.
00:05:07
Speaker
Are you guys up with any of the recent movies? I've seen Wicked. I think that's period, full stop. A little bit. oh Like i i've I've watched, I'm mostly waiting for them to be free because I don't feel like paying for it. So I've watched the previews, the extended trailers.
00:05:25
Speaker
So I feel like I know what they're all about. a lot of them at least. For a minute, I thought the previews was one of the movies and I was like, I have never even heard of that. No, but i I want to see a lot of them. Like I want to see the one with Demi Moore. Yes, the substance. Yeah. And I want to see, there's one about,
00:05:44
Speaker
Is she a prostitute? Yes, Anora. Yeah, I want to see that. I did watch
Impact of Weather on Screen Time
00:05:50
Speaker
the one that Kieran Culkin keeps winning. um like those guys. That movie was horrible.
00:05:55
Speaker
Oh. It was so horrible. Like, the premise of it was lovely, but Brandon and I just kept looking at each other being like, i mean, we can't turn it off. He's won all these awards. You just have to see what happens. But it just, it's not, it's just not a good movie.
00:06:13
Speaker
Wasn't for you. No, I don't think it's going to be for you either you watch it. What about the one, and I hate to say it this way, Kylie Jenner's boyfriend? What's his name? Oh, Timothy Shalem. Is he an actor in one a producer?
00:06:27
Speaker
Bob Dylan. I think he's in it. may be a producer. That would probably be a good one. My parents liked that one. Yeah. I'm nodding along. I have not heard of a single one of these video movies that you mentioned, and I had no idea – that those two people were dating. That's like basically once Opal was born, any pop culture, I've just, it was, I have not up to date.
00:06:49
Speaker
and I've heard of none of those movies. I mean, Wicked. You've heard of Wicked. I've heard of Wicked. Yes. Okay. We can move on. Mom Fails. ah We always have little notes that we refer to and I appreciate that this episode, we have four out of four for Mom Fails.
00:07:02
Speaker
yeah um Callie, do you want to start? I will. Okay. So my son had a bloody nose while he was sleeping and I didn't change the sheet for like Too many days. It wasn't like a lot of blood, you know, like it wasn't right where he slept, but yeah, there was just blood on the sheet for, just felt like I should probably should have done that sooner.
00:07:19
Speaker
Well, that happens to us because they tell you in the middle of the night and you're like, ugh, like I can't deal with it. And then you forget about it until it's bedtime the next night. And then. Yeah. Agreed. Yeah. You know what? My, I'm not going to name who, because we've talked about not targeting children.
00:07:36
Speaker
One of my kids eats a lot of snacks
How does screen time affect focus and learning?
00:07:40
Speaker
or she's bed. And i found Nutella. Yeah, and it's still there, and it could be poop, but I know it's chocolate. But I just left it there because I'm like, you know what? You chose to eat it right there, and then you left it there for me to wipe up, and I, like, blotted it. I did soap and water. So, like, you can sleep in what looks like shit, and it's not for another two weeks because i wait – I'm lazy. I wait for the cleaning lady to do the sheets.
00:08:05
Speaker
Sorry. Wait, is it it just a spoonful right into the Nutella situation? I think it was the sticks. the sticks Ah, yes. And she was probably – he or she was probably, and it fell and just got left there for mom. And yeah, I mean, I could change the sheets and probably that maybe now I'll be at my task initiative, Kelly.
00:08:25
Speaker
Kelly, what did I just go through? I'll complete that task today, but. do you Do you have a mom fail or is that that it? I forgot Nico's kid headphones for traveling on the airplane and then the nice polite flight attendant gave us them but the they're the little ones that go in the ears and he doesn't like the way they feel
Navigating Personal Screen Habits
00:08:50
Speaker
so we there was like drama and whining and I had coloring stuff packed and activities book like what we did when we flew as kids you know it couldn't really ah you didn't have wi-fi and there was no televisions but that wasn't
00:09:04
Speaker
Suitable. So there was, yeah. i remember going through that catalog. They probably don't even have it in the seats anymore, but that departures catalog, whatever it was. And you'd play the game that was like, I'm allowed to get three items on every page. And so I'd sit there and I'd be like, I'd get one. Yeah.
00:09:20
Speaker
And if I didn't get three in any one page, I could carry it over onto the next page where I could get four. The amount of time I killed as a child doing this with that or catalogs, like the inane stuff that we would do to fill our time, our kids will never know the pressure. Or what was the ones we used to do in the doctor's office? Was it the highlight? Yeah. Yeah. Right?
00:09:40
Speaker
I pack all this fun stuff and it's like they just want to like watch television, be on their iPads and watch movies. And it's just like, you know. There's other fun things to do besides that.
00:09:51
Speaker
ah Caitlin, you and I have the same mom fail. We do, except... I'm hopeful that by the time this airs, maybe we can recant. But what is yours? It's just taking us a really long time to get our winter decorations down. It's not necessarily Christmas, but there's a lot of winter happening and some of it is maybe holiday themed And my husband's trying really hard. Like he's been very proactive, but there's, just we have so much it's everywhere. i just did one living room today and walked into the other living room and I was like, Oh, I forgot about this one.
00:10:28
Speaker
And it's just, it's everywhere. And it's so difficult to do because you have to go find the boxes and then you have to wrap it all up. And so my kid, my kids keep saying, why does the house look so bare in some spots? And I'm like, Oh, because I took some of the decorations down and had to put new ones up.
00:10:46
Speaker
The only way I'm able to get the inside decorations taken care of is that I will literally take them all down and just put them in the dining room. So they're in one space and then I can sort of categorize them.
00:10:58
Speaker
And then somehow it doesn't feel as hard to then like bring the bin from the storage that is for just the little wreaths or just the trees. But somehow having one room that is just cluttered with them feels like incremental, like exponentially that's the word exponentially better than having it everywhere else so maybe try that i well i i can't with
Teaser for Future Social Media Discussion
00:11:20
Speaker
arbor because she just wants to help and touch everything and and unless i'm doing it after hours which yeah after hours i want to do other things than put away reindeer
00:11:30
Speaker
Wow. mine Mine are just the exterior lights. And for a while, they were literally frozen onto the trees because we had snow. And so I couldn't, but I also made the mistake of this year we did those icicle lights. By we, you all know, I mean me, right? Yes. Yes. yes This year i put the icicle lights on the front, but I had to, i got like 500 feet of them. And so I stapled them and they just go back and forth and back and forth and back. And and they look lovely, but I knew at the time that future Charlotte was going to be not happy with the staples.
00:12:01
Speaker
And so that's been holding me back a little bit too. Like I'm have to go and pry them out. and So we're just exterior. It's not like the worst, but they need to be done. I do feel like though, a lot of homes around us still have their lights on and they're like proud and Reese and tree. Oh yeah.
00:12:18
Speaker
Yeah. They also have that giant Home Depot
Weekly 'Pits and Peaks': Personal Stories and Challenges
00:12:20
Speaker
skeleton out front. Is that how they roll? Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm still seeing it in my neighborhood, so it don't feel bad. Okay, we're getting there. I mean, by the time this airs, it will be mid-March or something, so I hope they're down, but it was also like three degrees, and that's not what I was in the mood for.
00:12:35
Speaker
No, it's not been acceptable weather outside to just even... get the mail. So, okay, let's move on to our topic. This topic is a good one and I fear that we can go on for a long time. So I'm going to try to be really bossy with our time, but this has come up in various ways through reader questions. We talk about it on our own all the time, but the topic is sort of tech time and screen time with our kids. Again, not social media.
00:13:01
Speaker
For me, that's a very different bucket. And this coincides well with my middle child just turned 13 And when my kids turn 13, that's when we've sort of established precedent that they get a phone.
00:13:14
Speaker
And so I'll talk a little bit about how we have done it in our family. And so far with three kids, it has worked pretty well. The first thing I would say is that we use a security software called Bark that my husband is in charge of.
00:13:30
Speaker
I don't really know any of the mechanisms, but I do know what it allows us to be in charge of. And it allows us to control... They can't download any apps without us getting a notification. We can shut down the phone at any point. So like at nine o'clock, the phone is shut down.
00:13:46
Speaker
They bring it to us so they don't have it in their rooms at night anyway. But if we forget, it's just a dead... piece of electronics after nine o'clock. What else does it do? It limits what websites they can go to.
00:13:58
Speaker
So they can't just, if there's a website that is, I don't know, I don't, we probably have the ability to limit the websites, but then there's also just some that I think Google has determined maybe not suitable for kids.
00:14:11
Speaker
And so for me, that has been ah very reassuring way to introduce what will be a tool for these kids. And like, they have to learn how to use a phone. It's just part of life And again, for me, social media was the more problematic sort of troubling aspect of devices, less so having a phone. Like for me, the phone is the equivalent of us with the phone cord like wrapped around the kitchen corner in the you know hallway closet talking to our friends.
00:14:39
Speaker
So that's how we have managed phones, which is just I know one aspect of screen time and devices. But Callie, I'm assuming your kids don't have phones. Is that fair? No. yeah Megan, your kids are old.
00:14:54
Speaker
ah Do all three of your kids have phones? What is your phone policy? So I do have to say Ava is 14. She got it probably two years ago.
00:15:04
Speaker
And Gianna is 12. She just got one. But My kids of their group of friends are probably the last to get phones, which is crazy to me. And I even think it's early.
00:15:16
Speaker
I wanted to wait. I would have even waited longer, but it got to the point
Reflections on Children's Device Use and Social Interaction
00:15:20
Speaker
where our oldest was like, you know, I'm the last of my friends. And, you know, and the the convenience of it is knowing where she is. You know, I have the 360 tracking app and then we do also have the Verizon phone.
00:15:34
Speaker
app that joe controls like your house charlotte of she can't download anything without us giving permission in the code and then it gets turned off at a certain time and then we can see which app she goes on which ones she spends it's like parental controls which one she spends the most time on but nico does it just has an ipad no cell phone no watch none of that what about your kids caitlin last summer my kids got watches that were not phones but they could call it's a Google Fitbit watch. So they could call me or only myself or my husband and text us, only us.
00:16:09
Speaker
And that was great. It's like a way to keep track of them because they'll go play out in the neighborhood and they'll walk to the park and stuff. And that that was perfect for me. But then all of a lot of their friends have iPads and you can have Facebook Messenger kids. You can have a Messenger on an iPad and they got them for Christmas. And so of course it turned into, well their cousin has it, their best friend has it. And I have the, I'm the most strict out of anyone I know when it comes to it. It's like, you have to ask me if you can text someone.
00:16:43
Speaker
FaceTime is almost not allowed at all, unless they're FaceTiming their cousin and me and my sister. I know my sister's in the room. And then they have no internet privileges. Like they can't go on anything because you can go through your Apple family and you can just block everything.
00:17:00
Speaker
So even Eileen the other day wanted to look up a picture of an owl because she was painting one and she couldn't Google one because Google was shut down. So I can, you know, give them that ability, but phones themselves, they ask all the time. The reason they even got the watches in the first place was like, I worked with the brand, so they got them.
00:17:21
Speaker
I don't need to track my kids at this point. I don't think they need to communicate with anybody. i have very strong feelings against phones. I think 13 sounds like a lovely age. Although last night I said 16 to Eileen, she got really mad. but In our experience, because I think we had a later date and what has happened, and my husband felt guiltier about this than I did, is that because like nobody has a landline. And so like Oliver, Eleanor was a little bit less social, so it wasn't as much of an issue, but Oliver would go off and do what we did with our buddies. They'd just go riding around the neighborhood and,
00:17:55
Speaker
It was great. And I didn't really worry. I figured if there was an emergency, someone would get a hold of me. It was more that he doesn't have a great sense of time. And so there would be days and it would be like, dude, you have basketball practice in 25 minutes. You need to come home.
00:18:08
Speaker
And so I was always bugging his friends to go track down Oliver. And there was a point when my husband was like, it doesn't seem fair that we're like taking advantage of all of his friends to, you you know, he's going to have to get a phone and learn how to use it responsibly at some point.
00:18:25
Speaker
And so we've been sort of pleasantly surprised at how Martha's already sending me little memes and texts. I mean, it is a nice way to stay connected once you have all the information securities and and whatnot in place. So they're not taking it to bed and on it at two in the morning and that sort of thing.
00:18:43
Speaker
Callie, what sort of devices or screen time do you have with your kiddos? Like what is your family policy right now with younger kids? We don't have devices. We do have devices, but are our kids don't have devices. So we have two that get stored away with like our travel stuff because that's the only time that they use them. So our kids don't have devices in that sense. So the only sort of screen time that we deal with is TV. And again, my kids are still very young. My oldest is six.
00:19:11
Speaker
So this is part of this is just like we haven't. dipped our toe into that water. But we don't do screens on school days is our policy. And by screens, like I said, it's TV for us right now. And that's just what's worked for us. I mean, we're sort of our family tries to be generally like a tech minimal family. That's just something that like we do. I've shared with you guys in the past, my husband has a dumb phone, so he doesn't even have a smartphone. He doesn't have a personal laptop. I just have my laptop that I use for work. Like I don't have an iPad. We don't, you know, we try to just be tech minimal. This is just something that personally, like we've decided that we prefer to have less of it.
00:19:46
Speaker
My husband and I don't watch TV on weekdays. Like again, it's just like a personal family choice. And so it's sort of what we do with our kids too. And then we're not like crazy strict about it when it's allowed. Like if it's the holidays, the kids have the week off, then like they can watch a movie or we like we'll put some show on in the morning and they can watch it or whatever. And I feel like we...
00:20:06
Speaker
It's sort of like less stress about it because we know they're they're not using any of it during school days. And so if it's like a crappy Sunday and the weather sucks that like like we like to put Smithsonian on. do you guys ever watch the Smithsonian channel?
00:20:19
Speaker
No. oh my God. they have like how it's They have like how it's made, which my kids are like obsessed with. It's just like inside of a factory. yeah like and know we'll put that on on Sunday and like we all like watch it and have our breakfast and it's like a fine little whatever. So but again, like we have not have to dip our toe into the world of...
00:20:36
Speaker
dealing with peers having device. I mean, some of their peers have iPads and that has come up like a little bit, like why they can't have their iPads. Like, ah you know, we sort of, they just understand that like in our family, we use it for when we're traveling, it's for the airplane. So that's come up a little, but that is ah a whole new thing.
00:20:54
Speaker
place we will have to venture when the time comes. and We've had a lot of luck with my husband's dumb phone. Like he likes it a lot. It texts, it makes phone calls. You can have podcasts, you can have music.
00:21:05
Speaker
The newest rendition actually even has like a camera little camera built into it. It just doesn't have internet. In our mind, we're like, maybe when the time comes, that's something that we'll use. But again, like, I feel like that's still so far off having and only a six year old. Like I feel like it'll be a whole new world by the time that comes.
00:21:19
Speaker
That's just sort of where we are now. Does he use the GPS in the car for maps or do you have like an Atlas in the car? No, his stuff his dumb phone has his dumb phone has GPS. Okay.
00:21:29
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Atlas. Just like MapQuest. Remember when I used to print out MapQuest? I'm just picturing a stack of maps. Did I ever tell you about, i may have told you guys offline, so my father is real tech fan. resistance and as a result he also is tech kind of not great at um and he refuses to get a smartphone he finally has one but he got an android so none of us can help it and help him with it but he refused to get a smartphone and he had to go somewhere and so he had printed out the directions on map quest and there is a detour and so cut to my mother is telling me this story he's pulled over on the side of the road like lost because his directions don't reflect the detour some trucker had to pull over and be like, sir, you need help? And like lead him back to the route because he refused to get whatever he needed to figure it out on his phone. That's funny. And my mother was like, I really tried hard not to be like, I told you so. Yeah.
00:22:26
Speaker
But I remember, I mean, when we first started driving, like if I was going somewhere 17 year olds, I never that I didn't know how to get to like you were printing out on MapQuest and like, Jesus, take the wheel. Hopefully you'll get there.
00:22:37
Speaker
In college, we went on spring break ah from Tennessee to Florida and we printed out MapQuest. And I remember it's like I got the 3 a.m. m shift and I'm up front with the light on trying to see where I'm going next because there was you didn't just have a phone or or a GPS in the car that's like ter turn right. and OK, guys, there was not Internet when I was in high school. So I did have the Atlas. So you can suck on that for little bit.
00:23:02
Speaker
I just remember highlighting where like the start and the finish. Did you do that when you printed it? Right? Yeah, I did that. And they so you would, the choices were like, if you were going across state lines, you could get one paper map per each state. But if you were like, my big route was going from Washington, like back to Providence where I was in school.
00:23:21
Speaker
And I would always want to have the map because I wasn't quite sure. And so I'd have to have a separate, either a separate map for each state or an atlas that was specific to the Northeast, or you got the whole 50 states. And that's really tricky because that's a lot, like it's very small to figure out where you're going. Boy, times have changed.
00:23:40
Speaker
I mean, I vividly remember going in fourth grade and going to Maine for Thanksgiving with my parents and them fighting in the front seat over the map. Like who's going read it? I remember that paper getting like tossed at each other. You take it, you read it.
00:23:56
Speaker
Callie, we have the same approach. Sorry, back to our topic. We had the same approach to screens, I think, as you did. Our kids, they still don't get screen time during the week. Obviously the kids with phones, like can make a phone call, but they don't get access to any apps or games. There's, they found a couple loopholes, but essentially they can't do anything that they want to during the week. So they can only use it to listen to music or text.
00:24:21
Speaker
even when they were little. And what I found that afforded us, first of all, it was just a concrete rule. So there was never that debate about how much can we watch? Because it was like, you just can't.
00:24:32
Speaker
Like, it's a non-starter. And so that made after school a lot easier because it was just like, we don't even do it. And then I also found that, and I've told them this, similar to junk food, if you're given the choice of like, you know, fried chicken or like a chicken...
00:24:48
Speaker
salad, you're always going to choose the fried chicken. It's so good, but it's not great for you. And so I think kids are always going to choose devices and screen time and TV. And so for us, it just the years when they're younger and really learning how to be curious citizens of the world, it was really nice not to have that sort of choice for them because we knew they would take it. And at some point they got Kindles, like the Kindle Fire, and that has gotten more sophisticated over time, but they would use that for reading.
00:25:21
Speaker
i think you can technically get apps on it, but ah that's not, what they not really have access to it. And so for us, I guess that's technically a screen, but it felt, I don't know, for us, it felt different. If you're just staring at a Kindle reading, that seems like not problematic.
00:25:36
Speaker
We've always been pretty much the same as both of you. i mean, I think back when Annabelle was younger, like trying to put the television on so she would watch it so I could do something when Eileen was a baby and she had no interest.
00:25:50
Speaker
And then Eileen came along and Eileen had no interest in TV either because she just wanted to do whatever her big sister did. Then, you know, you had five years off and we have a third and it's like, just...
00:26:01
Speaker
it's a gateway drug, you know, like who turned on the TV one day and then I'm like, oh my gosh, this is horrible. And I think we were doing really well in the summer, you know, lots of outdoor play, lots of imaginative play.
00:26:13
Speaker
Then the kids went back to school and i'm like, okay, we're still not doing the television and Arbor never touched an iPad or anything like that until Christmas. And not even an iPad, but like a little baby Amazon fire tablet that all you could do is play games where you repair her animals and weird stuff. But Renter really set us back this year because it's like that we couldn't get outside. It's been so cold. There's been nothing to do.
00:26:40
Speaker
I had things I want to do around the house and my toddler either wanted to play with me or watch TV. And and and I'd be like, okay, just watch TV. And so today is the first day i woke up this morning. i My older kids have lost TV for like indefinitely for like the rest of their lives at this point. But I said, there's no TV on and Arbor played and played and played. And it was so good to see her pull random stuff out of the playroom that she forgot about and set up little scenarios versus yelling at me from the couch to
00:27:13
Speaker
put another episode of Daniel Tiger on. I heard a speaker once, and I know I've told you guys this, but I will repeat myself, a speaker on just the importance of play. And one of the things that she cited was that it can take kids up to an hour to get into really good, creative, like in the zone play.
00:27:31
Speaker
And a lot of times as adults, we don't understand that. And so we caved. to the first 20 minutes of whatever complaints that come with it, we cave instead of just digging our heels in and being like, go figure it out. We're not putting on a TV. And then after a point, we've all seen our kids, you know, depending on their age, it can be 20 minutes, 30 minutes, two hours. And that is magic, but it does take a little stick to your guns, which is often easier said than done. Yeah.
00:27:58
Speaker
I like that, Charlotte. That makes sense. I've made notes too about the winter time. I feel like that for like Nico does soccer and basketball and then he has play dates, but I feel mom guilt because some days I just, you know, he's sitting on the iPad for way too long because again, it's my fault, but it's cold out. I don't really love going out in the cold for too long.
00:28:23
Speaker
You know, I'll do some activities with him here and there, but you know, sometimes it's just easier to let him go on the iPad. And another ah point I wanted to make, and I think you said this in another episode, Charlotte was,
00:28:35
Speaker
So the girls both have ah limits and their phones get turned off at a certain point of the day. But then I do catch them going on their computers, the school computer and sort of cheating.
00:28:50
Speaker
So you know, I like when it started happening, I was like, well, your phone gets turned off and go to bed. That's it. Go to bed, you know, 10 o'clock. That's that. And it's like, well, I'll just go on my computer. And then I'm like, I look at my husband and I'm like, okay, what do we do now? Like,
00:29:05
Speaker
go get the computer, you know, take it away. But it's like they try to find loopholes to get on those screens sometimes and it's just managing it all. The computers have been tricky. And we were talking about this in a previous episode and someone commented, and I think we shared the comment. I've forgotten what her point was, but for us, that's been tricky is that they send the Chromebooks home and the kids have learned how to get into the Chromebooks. I wish that they would filter out like YouTube or even the math program that they're so insistent about is basically like crack for these kids. They just play games and are like, but it's math. And they even like keep score. And I think for the school, it's a source of some pride to be able to say that 75% of our kids are doing blah, blah, blah.
00:29:50
Speaker
But it's, for me, it's just another way to not, I don't know, to sit on a computer and answer math games feels like, I guess you're doing math, but you know what I would like you to do? Be playing like games with manipulatives at the kitchen counter with your sister where you're moving and counting and using fine motor skills. And I guess that for me,
00:30:07
Speaker
the TV is sort of this slippery slope of like, yeah, these programs are teaching nice messages and, you know, like blues clues or whatever it is. It's, it's great. You're seeing all different types of families and I'm not going to take away from that, but there's just always going to be a more dynamic, more sort of powerful way to interact with your kids and teach them the same lessons in person with I don't know, reading books and then drawing pictures. And it's probably all about just quantity.
00:30:38
Speaker
and how much of it. i heard ah I feel like I'm saying all these stats that I heard and I have no support. But when I was a teacher, I did hear that when children are watching a screen, it's they're sort of passively engaged with that. And it can take up to an hour or longer for them to switch gears into that active brain mode so that if they're watching TV, for example, before school, and then they hop into the classroom, it's taking them a second to switch into the you know learning mode that they need to be in.
00:31:07
Speaker
you know We never had TV. I mean, my parents are the same way. We never had TVs on at home or before school, but I do think it's just background noise in a lot of homes. And that made me sort of pause to think. Yeah. I just did read a stat about this because I i was thinking in my mind, well, if I let my toddler watch a little bit of something, then I can do a little bit of something, but what what's a good amount of time?
00:31:30
Speaker
And it said, If you put something on for 20 minutes, then they need 20 minutes to re accolade to everything. And then 20 minutes later, they'll be fine.
00:31:42
Speaker
It was like, they needed this. If they watch it for 20 minutes, they need 20 minutes for their brain to just get back to whatever for their eyes to adjust. And I was thinking about that for myself too. You know, you sit down to watch something.
00:31:55
Speaker
and you're an hour into the show, isn't it a lot easier to start the second show than to get up and go do something else? And so I get it. I've seen my older children when they're sick. And mean, my oldest, she can, she can slam down a series when she doesn't go to school and, you know, it's completely zoned out What about first thing in the morning?
00:32:16
Speaker
Do you all go on your phones right away or no? I know I, that's the first thing I do, which isn't good. Do you, do you do it, Caitlin? Of course. and Yeah. Yeah. What about you, Callie?
00:32:27
Speaker
I bet you're good. No, Callie and Caitlin are the ones that are already up texting for an hour and a half. But then I turn it off and I'll usually go do, I read and I journal and then I write Callie goes and exercises and then maybe comes back and talks to me a little bit and then But I am not texting you from my phone. So i don i've done i've I've tested this. And I feel like it applies to children the same way.
00:32:51
Speaker
They talk about that if you use your phone, obviously texting or certain things on your phone is probably fine. But they talk about specifically social media scrolling, that if you're doing it first thing in the morning, that it's sort of setting your habit for the day. And I've tested this.
00:33:04
Speaker
On days where I refuse to use social media for the first two hours of the day, I don't find myself just like habitually trying to check it. Where if I do in the morning, i literally find that like I am wanting to pick it up or like picking it up and not really showing like just to check it. So I'm sort of conscious of it that way. I use my computer when I, the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning, besides like get up and like let the dog out and have coffee is I'm on my computer for an hour, but I don't pick up my phone and I don't pick up social media because I find that it messes, it messes me up for the whole day. And I've sort of like done this weird study on myself to, to see it because I do it. Like it messes me up for the whole day. It really does.
00:33:42
Speaker
I need to try this. Cause do you guys ever like walk around And you're just doing things and then you look you realize you've been looking at your phone and yeah and almost like scrolling while you're doing other things. Like yeah I'll be scrolling and vacuuming, scrolling and like putting clothes away. And I'm not even looking at my phone. It's just this habit of and I might not be scrolling social media. i could be looking at the weather, just opening different apps on my phone. Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:06
Speaker
I did another. This is ah another just you guys know that a few years ago we really tried to cut back tech. And so we've I've tested all of these whatever. But another thing that I do is when I'm out in public, when I'm waiting in line, i'm waiting for like them to give me my food or like any sort of situation when usually I would scroll my phone because I'm just sitting I don't.
00:34:28
Speaker
And it's weird even having done this for like two years now that just your brain wants to do it. Like your brain is like, I'm just sitting here. And it's not even like there's nothing that I need to check. It's not like I need to know.
00:34:41
Speaker
what's in my email, I'm waiting for somebody to respond to me. It's just a habitual sort of thing. And I even having sort of detox from as much as I have, I have to actively be like, I'm going to stand here and wait for my sandwich. I'm not going to look at my phone.
00:34:54
Speaker
And it's sort of some of it's sometimes sad because I'm in this social place with all of these other people around me. And all sometimes in some situations, everybody's on their phone. And it's very sad when you're the person not And not to say that like, and this is not like I'm better than these people because I've been the person in the waiting room on my phone plenty of times before.
00:35:11
Speaker
But when you're forced yourself not to be on the phone and then you realize, you know, like I'm in this place with all of these people and we could be having maybe an interaction. um But it has been nice in other situations where I haven't and I do have interactions that I would not have had had I been looking at my phone.
00:35:26
Speaker
So it's, you know, but just another one of those weird experiments that I do on myself, but it's been sort of nice. My big pet peeve is no cell phones when we're eating or at the dinner table. Even like if we're home all together on a Saturday, it drives me nuts. I'm like, get off your phone for five minutes while we eat, please. You know, like pits and peaks, let's go. You know, i don't know, something. Two things. One, the other dad I was waiting for my daughter to come out and dance and I like to sit in the studio and try to sneak a peek at what's going on behind the windows.
00:35:55
Speaker
And I watched every single older girl, one of the teen classes come in looking down on their phones. They looked up at each other. if If it was someone that you could tell they were close with, they kind of like maybe did a little hug or like a shoulder bump. And then they all sat down on the floor and just stare at their phones.
00:36:12
Speaker
And all I could think of is what are they doing? I know some of them aren't allowed to have social media. So are they texting each other while they sit next to each other? But what could you possibly be doing on your phone? You have some of these girls are your best friends. You haven't seen them all day because you go to different schools.
00:36:27
Speaker
You should be interacting. Like, get excited to see each other. and so that was an observation I had, and then it carried on over into yoga. There's a lot of college kids in my class.
00:36:39
Speaker
They are the only ones that bring their phone into the classroom. You're not supposed to. They are the only ones who look at their phone. They take a picture when they get in there, they show each other their stuff and then they keep it there. And now they're starting to make a rule where you can't, you're not supposed to have it in there to begin with, but you can't bring it in and leave it in here because it's a distraction.
00:36:59
Speaker
And it distracts me too, because now I'm looking at you wondering what you're doing on your phone before class. That probably will lead us to a future conversation about social media. Because I think that for us, when we're talking about scrolling, I mean, we're on it doing other things, but social media is a beast.
00:37:15
Speaker
But that's for another conversation. Let's, should we move into pits and peaks? Yeah. You even mentioned it, Megan. I thought that was like a genius segue. Oh, thank you. Do you want to go first, Charlotte?
00:37:26
Speaker
No, no. I've been yapping. Callie, why don't you go first? Okay, so I can't remember how many episodes ago. When we talked about hobbies, I was mentioning how was stenciling my hearth. And I went back and forth with Charlotte on this. It took me a few times to get the stenciling.
00:37:41
Speaker
I'm talking about like there's a stone slab underneath the fireplace at my house. And it's an old house and painted out like a color. I went back and forth. took me a bunch of times to figure out how to stencil it properly. And then I finally was working my way through it. I could stencil like a couple at a time because I could only do it when my one-year-old was napping. Otherwise, he would touch it.
00:37:59
Speaker
And then we took a little break because everyone was sick and I was like about to get back to it. And my one-year-old permanent markered all over what I had stenciled. Like you cannot, you can't, you can't get it back.
00:38:11
Speaker
so i was like Oh, I wasn't really sure where to go with it because I was like, am am I going to start all over like the blood sweat and actual tears that I've put into this? And so I decided instead I've just painted it black.
00:38:23
Speaker
And I was like, I'm just going to paint it black and I'm going to seal it. And it's just going to be black for now. And that's fine. Like at least that matches enough. But the best part is I painted it black and then like i had to do it while the one-year-old was napping.
00:38:35
Speaker
One-year-old comes down. I've put him down. I'm about to steps in the black.
00:38:40
Speaker
Steps in the black. So now we have footprints in the black. I got to do another coat. So it's sort of peak. He just wants to leave his mark, Callie. He's just trying to leave his mark. Part of me wants to leave the footprint. Part of me wants to leave it.
00:38:53
Speaker
Yeah, you should. i feel so it's a It's a pit because of what happened, but it's also peaks. I'm like, I guess I don't have stencil anymore. So I guess that's good. But you had finished. You were done. No, God, no. I'd only gotten like maybe a quarter, a third of the way through it, maybe. Yes, yes, yes, yes. That would have been worse.
00:39:12
Speaker
I'm still so sorry, but I was picturing this finished masterpiece. No, no. I had finally figured out how to stencil them and I had gotten through ah a chunk of them. Yeah. Megan, do you have a pit or a peak?
00:39:24
Speaker
I have a pit. We were visiting my parents and we always play bingo in their community with all the old people. And we lost at bingo. There was like 12 games and we lost and Nico was so bummed and they did a raffle too. You pay for the, you know, the bingo card and then the route, we lost at everything. Everyone else, all the, all, all my parents' friends won. We didn't And did they gloat? Were they bad winners or were they okay?
00:39:50
Speaker
I mean, you know, we were like, ah and like they, you know, they get their cash and, you know, it's like. They wave it in your face. Yeah. And, you know, it's like,
00:40:01
Speaker
Let some of the young kids win, you know? we came all this way. But it's very intense. Very intense bingo. But it's fun. But I feel like bingos, I mean, it's just luck. It's like not even like... There's no skill.
00:40:16
Speaker
Unless you like move fast, you got multiple boards. Yeah, some people have a lot. yeah You're right. No luck this trip, Callie. Caitlin, do you have a pit or a peak? I have a peak. I feel like I get really bored feeding my family because they just want the same stuff every single week and I finally got them to just try some new dishes. And one of them is this, it's a peanut Thai sauce and and it's really easy to make and I can cook chicken in it and then I can serve it with rice or salad or they just eat it straight out of a skillet. And I like to eat it too because I rarely want what they have. So that's my peak.
00:40:53
Speaker
My kids love that too. I have like a pit peak. My parents were visiting this past weekend. We have the same bird feeder you have, Megan, that like suctions to the windows. And it's great. So over the weekend, we came back and there was a squirrel like shoved in it. And we were like, oh crap, did the squirrel like die in our bird feeder? Like that's no good.
00:41:11
Speaker
Turns out he just figured out how to like parkour his way up and into it. So we had a lot of conversation. I took some video of my parents and deep conversation. How do we deal with this? Turns out he was able to like crawl on a windowsill and get on her garden hose and then get up.
00:41:27
Speaker
All I had to do was move the feeder over to the window right next door. hasn't found it yet. So that is a pit that was averted and now it's a peak. So that was high drama in the Smith house. Yeah.
00:41:39
Speaker
Was he fat? I know. I couldn't tell. I knew Caitlin was going to want to know what he looked like. She wants a photo. I just love animals. I'll have Oliver text you. I think he took a photo. Speaking of devices.
00:41:52
Speaker
So you know what I noticed with my kids? It's so funny is that if we had to pay for text messages this weekend, we would be out thousands of dollars. Martha's phone has just been ding, ding. like people she has not spoken to for years. She's so sweet. She's like, Hey, can I get your number? And then she's FaceTiming them.
00:42:07
Speaker
I was telling our neighbor, I would have been so insecure. Like they're going to think I have no chill. Like I would never have. She just is like, Hey, you like number. Oh, that's cute. It's so sweet. I mean, it really is cute.
00:42:21
Speaker
But what they do is they get each other's profile pictures and they get the ugliest, goofiest, weirdest. So she's showing me profile pictures of them with it's like up their nose and it's like cross-eyed, which I think is so cute too. Like we would send our headshots and like edit it with some Facetune bullshit and like send it off. They are like send, she's like, you have any weird pictures of me? And I'm like, yeah. Yeah.
00:42:44
Speaker
You, they're all the ones you've taken on selfie mode on my phone. And that's what she uses for her profile picture. but I love that. Maybe we can figure out our own, what our tween profile pictures would be and post them to social.
00:42:58
Speaker
Yes. I already know. Okay. All right. Well, we weren't too chatty. That was a big topic. And I think we talked within reason. So thank you all for listening. We still need reviews and ah rankings and ratings. So wherever you're listening to us, go give us five stars. I mean, vote with your heart, but five stars would be great. And thanks for listening. I like ranking. It makes it sound like it's a video game.
00:43:34
Speaker
feel.