HU008 Positively Impact Your Child's Life With Technology

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We talk about how to leverage today’s technology to prepare your children for the real world and provide tips on how to balance screen time with everyday life.

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Danielle
0:00:00–0:00:04
Do you worry that your children spend too much time on their tablets and not enough time outside,
0:00:04–0:00:14
are you unsure how to find balance between exposing your children to modern technology and YouTube unboxing videos? We will tell you how on this episode of Happily Unmarried. Hi my name is Danielle.
Daniel
0:00:14–0:00:15
And my name is Daniel.
Danielle
0:00:15–0:00:20
And you're listening to the Happily Unmarried podcast. A podcast about adulting and living your best life.
Daniel
0:00:20–0:00:33
In this episode we will talk about how to leverage today's technology to prepare your children for the real world and provide tips on how to balance screen time with everyday life. Children growing up today are exposed to all kinds of different technology for example.
0:00:34–0:00:40
Televisions, tablets, smartphones, PC or console game.
Danielle
0:00:41–0:00:47
The exposures everywhere so I think as parents we find that,
0:00:47–0:00:52
it's hard to find a balance. You can't control all of the,
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screen time your children have right? They go to their grandparents house, they spend time with their friends. But you know I think one of the things that we talked about a lot is you know, what can we do in the home
0:01:02–0:01:08
to ensure that our children are being exposed to modern technology while not overdoing it.
Daniel
0:01:09–0:01:20
Maybe we should start with looking at some of the challenges that modern technologies pose for children. Both actual challenges as well as kind of perceived challenges.
Danielle
0:01:20–0:01:34
Right I mean there's a whole community of people I think that like to stir up this idea of fear and what exposing their children to technology can do so,
0:01:34–0:01:36
Let's kind of cover would a few of these are.
Daniel
0:01:36–0:01:50
Maybe we'll start with out lining some of these challenges that modern technology poses to children and then later we can go over how we specifically address those challenges with tools and processes.
Danielle
0:01:50–0:02:02
That we've implemented at home? So I think one of the first challenges that we hear about a lot is you know screen time keeps kids sedentary. They're not getting up and moving around.
Daniel
0:02:02–0:02:16
That's a big problem then another thing is just like the amount of time they end up spending on their screens. Obviously sitting on the screen may cause all these other problems but a lot of times the screen pulls them in and they spent way too much time on it.
Danielle
0:02:16–0:02:23
There's also this idea that screens get in the way of actual learning whether you believe that or not.
Daniel
0:02:23–0:02:33
You're not reading any books in that time or learning something about the world. In edition there's a perception that screens or technology can isolate kids from family and their peers,
0:02:34–0:02:41
if you're staring at a screen you're not going to talk to your parents or to your sister you're not going to interact with your classmates.
Danielle
0:02:41–0:02:55
Sure but I think related to that one we mentioned earlier about getting in the way of actual learning there's this idea that screens actually can stunt our children creatively. Because they're just passively consuming media.
Daniel
0:02:56–0:02:59
And then from the parents perspective when kids are,
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reading a book or maybe even watching a TV show it's very easy for us to kind of like monitor what they are doing
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and what they're consuming and what kind of media where as on a lot of
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these modern devices it's really hard to keep an oversight on what are the games that they're playing. What are the websites that they're browsing, to what is the YouTube video that they're watching.
Danielle
0:03:21–0:03:28
And related to that is this whole stranger danger on the internet and I mean this has been going on since we were kids you know who your children talking to online.
Daniel
0:03:29–0:03:43
Yeah and then there's the possibility of too much screen time causing physical effects on your children. I remember there was this article just a couple weeks ago that talked about children growing horns from using tablets too much.
Danielle
0:03:41–0:03:45
Maybe not horns but.
Daniel
0:03:45–0:03:53
Well it was a very sensational article but the headline was literally that children are growing horns. There's apparently a muscle that attaches,
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to the back of your head and when you lowering your head all the time and looking down then the bone can like start growing which will look like a horn a little bit.
Danielle
0:04:02–0:04:03
Terrible.
0:04:04–0:04:10
But I mean we all know what it feels like when we're staring at our screens for too long and what that does to our neck and our eyes and our,
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shoulders. I can just imagine what it does to our children. And the other thing is, it's not just the physical effects it's the developmental effects
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that too much screen time can play into specifically around communication skills and problem-solving skills and being able to interact with
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other children socially and specifically around children who are or very young.
Daniel
0:04:30–0:04:40
Yeah I think this is at least a good overview of some of the key problems or issues that people may face when dealing with children and modern technology. Maybe next let's look at,
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how we generally think about children and modern technology. Like what our kind of general approach to this is.
Danielle
0:04:47–0:04:54
Sure I mean as a couple we believe that exposure to modern technology is in the best interest of our children,
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Technology is not slowing down. If anything it's only getting faster and we don't want to put our children at a disadvantage by completely cutting them off from the latest ways to interact with the world.
Daniel
0:05:06–0:05:16
Yeah it's like if somebody a hundred years ago did not allow their children to read novels because like they proceeded to have like all these negative effects.
Danielle
0:05:16–0:05:18
So I mean that there were people like that.
Daniel
0:05:18–0:05:20
What that's what I mean. It's
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the novelty of the technology makes people skeptical. When in reality the ability to proper engage with technology and use technology is critical for their success in later life.
Danielle
0:05:32–0:05:47
And the other thing for us is as a family we are very Tech forward. We both work in the tech industry. It is literally our job to help people have better experiences using the products that we serve.
Daniel
0:05:47–0:06:02
Yeah and then our house in general is very smart like we have sensors everywhere and voice assistants across the house that we use. So if we didn't allow our children to use modern technology we would be quite the hypocrites.
Danielle
0:06:02–0:06:10
Right and especially since we use screens on a daily basis. I mean not just in our personal lives but for our job so
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it's kind of like telling your kids that they can't have a small slice of cake but you're going to go in the kitchen and eat a whole care yourself, which I may or may not have done.
0:06:18–0:06:24
At one time or another. Visit happilyunmarried.media/support to learn how you can support our podcast.
Daniel
0:06:24–0:06:35
And then we generally have a strong interest in technology and how technology develops and what the recent latest trends are Etc.
Danielle
0:06:32–0:06:39
All this being said we don't take our children screen time lightly.
Daniel
0:06:39–0:06:48
We've put into place a series of rules and tools meant to help us manage screen time in a way that our children can make the most of it.
Danielle
0:06:48–0:07:00
Right so why don't we take some time to go over the tools that we currently use and have used in the past to help manage our children screen time and one point actually that I do want to mention is that,
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you know our children are we one child under a year old and we have one child that is 6 years old so we're speaking specifically to young children
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come back to us in 10 years and we'll tell you what we've learned about teenagers, because I'm definitely not looking forward to that. So just a
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PSA that we're only talking about the young kids right now.
Daniel
0:07:21–0:07:34
There's a whole range of different kid friendly versions of app that you can use to help manage screen time and as well as the the content of your child consumes on devices. So for example
0:07:34–0:07:42
we are using YouTube kids which is a kid-friendly up with kid-friendly content specificly curated and selected for children.
Danielle
0:07:42–0:07:49
So the one thing two though about YouTube kids is that it is content for children but that's also going to include
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the type of content that is marketing at your children. Specifically I think we're all very familiar with the unboxing videos. We are not fans of unboxing videos. That is not content that we want our daughter to consume. There's a reason we don't have cable with commercials,
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so I think one of the things that we like
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best about YouTube kids that you actually can selectively whitelist specific content that you approve of which means we pick the channels that
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she has access to and she can only watch those channels on her YouTube. So another tool that we use I'll be it
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our daughter still a little young I think to use it successfully is Messenger Kids so.
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Facebook Messenger but again as parents it allows you to have a certain set of restriction.
Daniel
0:08:35–0:08:38
So one thing that it allows you to do or.
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Does is it restricts your child from being able to communicate with anyone. So if they want to connect with somebody on Messenger Kids,
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you have to whitelist that specific person. So that person has to be a friend of yours and
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you need to explicitly allow the kid to communicate with that person so for example you can whitelist the grandparents and maybe one friend from school and,
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the kid will be able to send messages and photos and videos and whatnot that they record with their device to those people but they won't be able to,
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communicate with like the creepy neighbor or something like that.
Danielle
0:09:16–0:09:23
Right and this works really well for us because you know Daniel's family is in Europe so this allows
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and will allow our daughter to you know send photos and chats to her grandparents and her cousin. So while it might seem,
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for some people I think why does a 6 year old need access to Messenger ? Well that's the beauty of technology is that you can allow your child to maintain,
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contact on their own without you having to help them with family who might be all over the place.
Daniel
0:09:47–0:09:52
Another tool that we've used for quite a while is Samsung
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Samsung Kids is like is a kid-friendly application launcher basically. So what that means is when you boot up your tablet, instead of seeing your normal home screen
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what you see is this kid-friendly UI that does two things. For one that has curated content, games, shows, stories,
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music, videos, that kind of stuff specifically for kids, for small kids and it restricts the kid from using any other features of the tablet than those that you have explicitly whitelisted.
Danielle
0:10:24–0:10:32
So essentially locks them into the app they can't exit out of Samsung
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off of YouTube or off of the internet. Places that you don't want them to be exploring but still giving them the freedom of accessing content.
Daniel
0:10:40–0:10:41
Right,
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you can whitelist specific apps if you want to. So for example, if you want to try to be able to use Spotify to listen to music you can whitelist the Spotify app and so they get access through the Samsung Kid environment to the Spotify app
0:10:54–0:10:59
in addition to restricting access to applications what this does is
0:10:58–0:11:06
tracks usage of app so you can actually look at how much time your kid has spend on various different apps. As well as
0:11:06–0:11:11
enforcing a time limit. A daily time limit for the tablet use so you could
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configure it to say the kid can only use the tablet for an hour or two hours per day or whatever and the application then will shut down with one set limit has was reached.
0:11:21–0:11:29
There's one noteworthy drawback to be able to use Samsung Kids you have to subscribe to a service which costs I think 40.
Danielle
0:11:29–0:11:36
$40 a year and it's a little buggy so it doesn't always work there's been times where we.
0:11:37–0:11:46
Our daughters managed to get herself out of the application somehow without our help but other than that I think as a as a first-time tablet for young children I think it's it's pretty good.
Daniel
0:11:46–0:11:52
Yeah and a lot tablets that you specifically buy as a kid's tablet, actually come with this app pre-installed.
Danielle
0:11:52–0:12:00
So more recently though we've kind of moved away from the Samsung Kids app over to Google Family Link. So Google family Link
0:12:00–0:12:11
is an Android built-in system for tracking and managing children accounts on Android devices specifically and it does require the Android version of 7 or higher in order to
0:12:11–0:12:11
use.
Daniel
0:12:11–0:12:25
And noteworthy here is a lot of the cheaper Android devices specifically for children come with older versions of Android so if you want to use Google Family Link you need to make sure that you buy a more recent tablet with a more recent version of Android.
Danielle
0:12:26–0:12:36
Similar to Samsung in that you have the ability to set and enforce daily time limits, but what's nice about as you can actually have varying,
0:12:36–0:12:46
limits depending on the day so for example during the week our daughter can spend one hour a day on her tablet but we give her more time on the weekend so I think we were like 3 hours,
0:12:46–0:12:47
over the weekend.
Daniel
0:12:47–0:13:00
And then we have no screen Monday which will talk about that little bit later where she cannot use any devices and so this is enforced in the system as well so she can't use the tablet all on Mondays and in addition it basically it has all the features that,
0:13:01–0:13:10
Samsung Kids has as well. Meaning you can restrict access to apps, you can track how much time she spends on the various apps.
Danielle
0:13:10–0:13:18
But there's some key differentiators between it. So one is that you actually can not only just set a daily time limit you can choose the hours,
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the range of hours in which the tablet can be in use. So for example of our daughter cannot use the tablet before 7 a.m. and then it shuts off at 8 when it's time to go to bed.
Daniel
0:13:28–0:13:29
So even if she has time.
Danielle
0:13:29–0:13:38
If she has time left it gets shut off and then the other thing is that you know while the Samsung Kids app keeps them inside the environment
0:13:38–0:13:51
Google Family Link allows her to utilize her tablet as is, but it said some restriction specifically around her being able to download an app. So if she does go into the Google Play Store and attempts to download an app we are notified
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and then we have to approve the app before it can be downloaded.
Daniel
0:13:54–0:13:58
Right and that is true for both free as well as for paid applications.
Danielle
0:13:58–0:14:03
Correct and then the last thing which I think we like most about it is that we can manage this all from our phone.
Daniel
0:14:03–0:14:12
Right so there's a companion app that exist for both Android as well as iOS that allows you to manage the Google Family Link device remotely
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so you can approve applications for installation or you can change the time limit so you can,
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Grant additional time on this device.
Danielle
0:14:23–0:14:35
Granting the additional time is a little different actually like it because while the Samsung kids app you have your 4 digit code which if your kids paying attention they could probably see it and figure out what you're putting in. Google Family Link has a like a
0:14:35–0:14:44
authenticator generator that goes and changes regularly so you have to go into the app to get the current code and then that goes into the tablet.
Daniel
0:14:44–0:14:50
And it also allows you to basically all the features that we just outlined they are available from within that app where is with,
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Samsung Kids you actually need to physically grab take the tablet the kids tablets put in your parental code and then you can navigate the menus and information on the kids tablet which is a little bit of an inconvenience
0:15:04–0:15:08
if you can do it on your own phone it is significantly better and so,
0:15:09–0:15:15
then if you're an iOS user or have too much money and want to buy an iPad for your six-year-old.
Danielle
0:15:15–0:15:17
Congratulations.
Daniel
0:15:17–0:15:24
IOS has a similar feature to Google Family Link. iOS Parental Controls. I believe their.. so we've not
0:15:24–0:15:35
used those because our child has an Android tablet not an iOS tablet but I believe there's a similar set of functionality it's I think a little bit less sophisticated,
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but basically all those features are there approval of app download, setting time limits, ect.
Danielle
0:15:41–0:15:48
Follow us on social media to get a peek behind the scenes we are @unmarriedmedia on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
0:15:48–0:15:56
Okay so we will talk about the tools that we use but that's only one part of this right the other half is content,
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right so we put a lot of tools in the place to help us manage how much time and what our children have access to but you also still have to address the actual content that your children are consuming.
Daniel
0:16:10–0:16:18
So let's start with television the the classic media consumption device so.
0:16:19–0:16:28
We don't have cable all of their shows whatever are coming from YouTube or from streaming services like Netflix but we do have a,
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specific set of content that we like to expose our children to when we're talking about watching TV. We allow our little one the,
0:16:38–0:16:45
nine month-old occasionally to watch some TV he has his little what do you call that thing I don't know a.
Danielle
0:16:45–0:16:47
Jumping chair.
Daniel
0:16:46–0:16:47
A walker.
0:16:48–0:17:03
You set him in there, he can stand in it, he can walk around in it even though he cannot actually walk yet. So you can put him in there like he'll happily watch for 30 minutes or something a TV show specifically we like to play Baby Einsteins for him
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which is.
Danielle
0:17:04–0:17:12
Classical music with pictures and children and activities that are brightly colored and interesting to small children.
Daniel
0:17:12–0:17:18
Yeah it's specifically designed for babies and toddlers. The other thing that we like to play to him
0:17:18–0:17:33
I don't know if we ever mentioned this before but we are raising our children bilingually and so there is a show on Amazon Prime video. We like to call it just the panda show. I think it's technically called Little
0:17:18–0:17:33
Pims
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it's basically a language show so they will they will show objects and things and people interacting with each other and then,
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speak in German in this case what they are doing or what they can see.
Danielle
0:17:46–0:17:58
Right so we'll put that on for him just as additional when I get it it's this fun for him to look at, there are children on the screen, there's music, but just more attempts to exposing him to to German.
Daniel
0:17:58–0:18:03
Right end in case you're interested they do have these for other languages as well, not just Germen.
Danielle
0:18:03–0:18:16
The other thing that we recently have started putting on. I think mainly because our daughter was a big fan of it, is Daniel Tiger which ties into the PBS catalog
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in general. So we actually purchased the PBS subscription through Amazon because
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the PBS shows are grounded in education right at you know they have a spelling show they have a show that talks about history they have show that talks about wild animals and these are cartoons geared towards children,
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if children are going to watch television these are the types of shows that we are encouraging them to watch.
Daniel
0:18:43–0:18:53
And then you can't get around it and then there's also some Netflix that especially older daughter watches and she has this weird affinity.
0:18:55–0:18:57
Does weird affinity for cooking shows.
Danielle
0:18:57–0:18:59
She loves to watch cooking shows.
Daniel
0:18:58–0:19:03
So all these competitive cooking shows like Chopped or what not like she loves them she watches them.
Danielle
0:19:03–0:19:10
Baking shows yeah she's a big fan of watching people cook yet I can't get her to eat half the things I make.
0:19:11–0:19:22
You know any other things like you know Our Planet was a series that we sat down and watched together we watched an episode every night and could have talked through what was happening and you know what.
Daniel
0:19:21–0:19:23
Like walruses.
Danielle
0:19:22–0:19:31
Oh my God, that was the worst. She was so upset, I was upset that was horrifying was not prepared for the walruses,
0:19:32–0:19:33
be prepared.
Daniel
0:19:33–0:19:34
Bring bring tissue.
Danielle
0:19:34–0:19:38
Lots of tissue. But again it opened up a dialogue,
0:19:38–0:19:51
and to be fair like we're not perfect right she's going to watch shows and sometimes we let her watch shows that aren't ones that we are particularly fans of but whenever we can we are enforcing her to watch more
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education best based to television.
Daniel
0:19:54–0:20:00
Let's move on to some more modern media and away from TV more to stuff from the internet.
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Specifically for YouTube. She watches YouTube. She likes watching YouTube. She has a specific selection of content that we try to gear,
0:20:12–0:20:22
towards her and her interests while also trying to address some of the potential shortcomings of sitting in front of the screen too much. So specifically,
0:20:23–0:20:23
there's a
0:20:23–0:20:36
there's a whole bunch, like YouTube is full of science and education channels both for grown ups and I personally like to watch a lot of those but also specifically for children. So in the set
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of content that she is allowed to consume there's a bunch of those. So for example there's a panel called Hiho Kids which is mostly children interacting.
Danielle
0:20:46–0:20:53
I mean there's a lot there's a few different types of videos that are in Hiho Kids you know there's one that she enjoys worth kids you know,
0:20:53–0:21:04
being adventurous and trying different foods from different countries and they have a whole series around that but then they also have this really interesting series where they have children sit down with somebody
0:21:03–0:21:12
who has like a something very specific kind of reminds me of like a Reddit AMA where like they'll sit down with a refugee or
0:21:12–0:21:16
a bodybuilder or someone who is transgender and,
0:21:16–0:21:28
children just ask questions and it this series specifically I really like because unless she comes across these things in her real life and that would then be the opportunity to talk about these things she's being exposed
0:21:28–0:21:34
through her media. So I thought that was really interest interesting part of HiHo on top of just kind of the fun you know.
0:21:35–0:21:38
Kids doing science experiments in and eating weird stuff.
Daniel
0:21:38–0:21:53
Yeah I know what channel is great I think is Scishow Kids. So I love to watch the grown-up versions of that but they have a channel specifically tailored towards kids. Kid-friendly content put together in a way that is easily understandable for kids. They address,
0:21:53–0:21:58
I would say classic science topics to a degree but in a way that children can understand them.
Danielle
0:21:58–0:22:04
And find interesting. Another set of channels that we,
0:22:04–0:22:14
you know allow her to have access to on YouTube and I think this kind of addresses one of the concerns of children having too much screen time it's that kind of,
0:22:14–0:22:15
sedentary.
0:22:15–0:22:26
just sitting around not doing anything so one of the first way she interacted with YouTube was via yoga for kids. So specifically there's a channel called Cosmic Kids Yoga
0:22:26–0:22:39
and it started when I brought her to a yoga class with me randomly once and she really enjoyed it and she wanted to continue doing it and I came across this channel that is yoga geared at children
0:22:39–0:22:45
and she loved it and so you know she randomly decides that she wants to do yoga and she'll get out her mat
0:22:44–0:22:58
and sit in front of the the show, and cast you know to the TV and she'll do yoga. And she also really likes to dance, she loves to dance. So we'll get her give her access to the Just Dance videos where she's
0:22:58–0:23:07
learning dance routines, she really enjoys that as well. So those are the kind of things that is great about getting your children active maybe for some reason or another you can't get outside.
Daniel
0:23:08–0:23:18
And then she also loves to sing and music in general so another channel that she watches a lot is Kidz Bop.
Danielle
0:23:18–0:23:20
Love's Kidz Bop.
0:23:21–0:23:29
That girl gets some moves from Kidz Bop, but yeah I guess she'll put that on, she'll sing along, she'll dance.
Daniel
0:23:29–0:23:37
And then she'll be very confused when she listens to the original song on the radio is like this is different why are there bad words in the song.
Danielle
0:23:37–0:23:38
What is this song.
Daniel
0:23:38–0:23:45
Did you know that you can listen to our podcast on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, and even on a website.
0:23:45–0:23:48
Just search for Happily Unmarried podcast and don't forget to subscribe.
0:23:48–0:23:58
n terms of games, when she plays games on her tablet we try to give her a selection of games that add value where she can practice her logical
0:23:58–0:24:08
combination reasoning and communication skills as well as be creative in some way. Obviously, she will want to have some games that are a little bit simpler and
0:24:08–0:24:15
less educational maybe so we don't completely withdraw her from those but we try to provide her
0:24:15–0:24:23
a selection she generally approaches. Some example here are Minecraft which I think it's like one of the best educational games and
0:24:23–0:24:30
frankly it doesn't even matter how old your kid is like there has to be certain minimum age 5-6 is probably.
Danielle
0:24:30–0:24:36
Yeah she's 6 and just now she's actually getting in it and building stuff and not just kind of walk around.
Daniel
0:24:36–0:24:42
Yeah but I occasionally still fire up Minecraft and play it because it's so much fun. It's a little bit like a
0:24:42–0:24:53
digital Lego toy right where you can build things and be creative but also it's very deep so you can get into a lot of details in terms of
0:24:53–0:25:07
it implements an entire like logic kit where you can build contraptions that automatically process things and execute tasks within the Minecraft world and so if your
0:25:07–0:25:10
if you're like a programmer or interested in this kind of stuff.
Danielle
0:25:09–0:25:14
The foundation for programming like from a starting for like children.
Daniel
0:25:14–0:25:15
Exactly.
Danielle
0:25:15–0:25:26
We also speaking of programming recently came across a game that we think is pretty neat same kind of concept it called Scratch Jr where she.
Daniel
0:25:26–0:25:38
And Scratch Jr. the idea is basically it allows children to create short stories and kind of like clips and compose their own little,
0:25:38–0:25:40
movie or video by having,
0:25:41–0:25:52
the characters and actors interact with each other and respond to each other and trigger off of each other and so the only thing about this is this entire thing you need to basically implement in a,
0:25:53–0:26:01
semi programming style environment. It's a visual and all very easy to understand but you do have to kind of like.
Danielle
0:26:01–0:26:02
create steps.
Daniel
0:26:01–0:26:10
Create steps, so like let the character move left for five steps and then move up for one step and then if character A character B collide then.
Danielle
0:26:10–0:26:20
One disappears. Again it helps with the logic piece and she seems to really enjoy that game, she actually has she picked it up really quickly,
0:26:20–0:26:25
one day she didn't quite get it I think she spent a couple minutes with you,
0:26:25–0:26:36
on it and then the next day she was showing me how she was making her characters do all these things so I thought was really cool and then lastly you know regarding creativity, coloring apps, and puzzle apps.
Daniel
0:26:36–0:26:40
So we actually got her a tablet that has like one of these.
0:26:40–0:26:53
Digital pens with it so she can actually quite naturally color on her tablet and and draws and paint basically on her tablet which is specifically, where we would travel a lot we're like on the road a lot.
0:26:53–0:27:01
That allows her to to do a thing that she really enjoys like even when we're not at home and don't have paper with us and pencils and whatever.
Danielle
0:27:01–0:27:02
So
0:27:02–0:27:12
you know music is something that our children really enjoy, something that we enjoy, and the nice thing about you having access to things like a tablet or you know Google Home
0:27:12–0:27:22
is the ability to applications like Spotify, Google Music iTunes, so specifically with Spotify we have a family.
Daniel
0:27:22–0:27:24
Yeah, a family account.
Danielle
0:27:24–0:27:26
So she actually has her own
0:27:25–0:27:44
Spotify account which means that the stuff that she's listening to isn't going to mess up our algorithms. By this allows her to you know play the music she likes. We were able to create playlist for her and folders of the stuff that she listens to regularly so she can easily access it and that way she can put you know whether she's utilizing her tablet or she was cleaning her room
0:27:44–0:27:48
she can you know play and listen to whatever music she wants to listen too.
Daniel
0:27:49–0:27:55
And so one last thing that work for the introducing her to is podcasts and like,
0:27:55–0:28:02
stories. Maybe if you're our age as a kid maybe you had cassette tapes that you listened to with stories or something
0:28:02–0:28:07
this style of content still exist but it's today it's in the form of podcasts essentially
0:28:07–0:28:21
so this is another great way how you can provide quality content, educational content, to a child especially if you maybe have some kind of speaker or voice assistant or something in their room they can very easily
0:28:20–0:28:24
just asked to play a specific podcast so specific story.
Danielle
0:28:24–0:28:37
And it's great for the car to right? That's an us a piece of media that you can consume with your children. So you know similarly to how we listen to audiobooks, they have these short stories that are perfect for you know a car ride.
Daniel
0:28:37–0:28:43
The last thing in addition to tools and content is,
0:28:43–0:28:52
the processes that we apply and enforce. We mentioned a couple things already but I think the most important rule that we have is
0:28:52–0:28:59
The limited screen time. So during weekdays we limit her screen time to an hour per day,
0:28:59–0:29:08
on her tablet. She can watch some more TV, general in the evening watching some TV but we try to limit that as well to not.
Danielle
0:29:08–0:29:11
And in the evening is typically were watching something with her.
Daniel
0:29:10–0:29:14
Yeah we'll watch together... mostly cooking shows.
Danielle
0:29:14–0:29:27
The other thing that we've done that actually think has worked really well is that we have a dedicated no screen day and that's not just for her although we have and we still have to work sometimes we try our best.
Daniel
0:29:27–0:29:28
She will remind us.
Danielle
0:29:28–0:29:43
Yes she will remind us where we really nobody uses a screen. So we tend to listen to a lot of music on Mondays and she helps with cooking and it's just a way to kind of detox from from all of that and
0:29:43–0:29:48
again remind her that she can still live her life with without a screen.
Daniel
0:29:48–0:30:01
Yeah and then addition to that we also try to have other days have dedicated non-screen activities. So far example, Wednesdays we will play board games together which,
0:30:01–0:30:11
she's it's not that she's not allowed to watch any TV on Wednesdays but at least for half an hour, hour or whatever time we spend playing board games she'll be removed from the screen and we'll spend time together.
Danielle
0:30:11–0:30:26
And it's something she's excited about too. So and it is just a nice activity that we can all do together and you also get out on the weekends, getting out in the backyard, you know whether chalk or bikes or just doing something outside without a screen.
Daniel
0:30:25–0:30:29
Encouraging her to do things that do not involve the screen.
Danielle
0:30:29–0:30:39
The other thing that a couple other things that you know I think are really important is that we have to educate our children on screen time on
0:30:39–0:30:46
content that they're they're consuming and that requires us as parents to sit down and actually talk,
0:30:46–0:30:52
to them about what they're doing so when our daughter submits the request to download apps, you know we'll approve them
0:30:52–0:31:06
but then you know after a day or two, we'll sit down with her and say okay take us through these apps that you downloaded, what are they, what are you doing, have you played them, and then we discuss whether or not we think that it's something that she thinks you should be spending her time on
0:31:05–0:31:10
is it does she think this is valuable and then we remove them.
Daniel
0:31:09–0:31:23
Yeah so having access to all these tools and an end processes. Does not relieve you as a parent from doing your due diligence and putting in the time and effort to understand what your children are doing.
Danielle
0:31:22–0:31:28
And then the last thing is you know our children are growing up in a technological world,
0:31:28–0:31:36
depending on how old you are you know you may or may not be able to relate to that but it's important to engage your children in conversations about
0:31:36–0:31:47
the thing that they're doing. What is their favorite game? What is their favorite YouTube channel? Ask them questions. Get them to talk to you about it. Right? these are skills that you know some would say they are losing
0:31:47–0:31:56
by spending so much time on screen so it's our job as parents to engage our children ask them questions, get them to tell us what they're learning, and have those interaction.
Daniel
0:31:56–0:32:01
If you show interest you will be surprised how excited a kid can
0:32:01–0:32:10
talk about Minecraft or whatever other game they are playing and show you all the things that they have built. I think a lot of times the problem when were talking about,
0:32:10–0:32:19
modern technologies and video games and whatnot is actually not the children consuming that content but their parents,
0:32:19–0:32:21
not understanding
0:32:21–0:32:34
what they're doing what's going on and not showing any interest in that. So if you show interest and you ask questions, children will, they will blossom and will be super excited and you can feel much more confident that what they're doing is actually valuable,
0:32:34–0:32:39
For them for the personal development compared to what you might have thought otherwise.
Danielle
0:32:39–0:32:46
The reality of the situation is our children are growing up in a world full of technology. It's not slowing down
0:32:46–0:32:49
and frankly by restricting your children
0:32:49–0:32:57
from having any access to technology you are putting them at a disadvantage. They will be behind by the time they get to high school,
0:32:57–0:33:04
they will need to utilize technology to to do their assignments to prepare for college to have,
0:33:04–0:33:13
sorry I just get so frustrated, and I think the reason why I get so frustrated about this is there's a whole idea that we should be protecting our children from technology.
Daniel
0:33:13–0:33:28
You go out and teach your children how to use scissors or sharp objects like knives responsibly as well. You guide them in using them and learning how to use them instead of not letting them have access to a scissors until they're 18.
Danielle
0:33:28–0:33:33
At the end of the day it is our responsibility as parents to not take the easy way out,
0:33:33–0:33:44
we need to ensure that our children are safe and that they are benefiting from technology and in order to do that you can't let screens babysit your children you have to put in the work.
Daniel
0:33:46–0:33:51
What's that I think we're touching everything that we wanted to talk about thanks for listening.
Danielle
0:33:51–0:33:56
If you enjoyed this podcast leave a thumbs-up, comment, star or review and make sure to subscribe.
Daniel
0:33:58–0:34:12
How do you handle children and technology? What rules do you have for screen use? What tools do you use to enforce them? What content do you select for your kids? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter @unmarriedmedia. I am Daniel.
Danielle
0:34:12–0:34:15
And I'm Danielle and we're Happily Unmarried.
0:34:22–0:34:29
Or a gun! Let's teach our 8 year old how to shoot a shotgun but God forbid they spend 2 hours on YouTube.
Daniel
0:34:32–0:34:33
This escalated quickly.
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