"My Mighty Quinn" - From Tics, Turbulence, Distraction and Disconnection to Calm, Confident and Connected"

S3 Episode 7: Hijacked: Big Tech, Innocent Brains & the Fight for Our Children’s Childhood with Emily Cherkin

• Lucia Silver / Emily Cherkin • Season 3 • Episode 7

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Welcome to My Mighty Quinn

I’m Lucia Silver, founder of The Brain Health Movement and mother to the mighty Quinn. This is the podcast where we engage in clear-eyed, courageous conversations about childhood brain health, development, and resilience. Today’s episode is one that every parent and educator must hear.

Wake Up to Screen Toxicity — with Emily Cherkin

In this vital episode, I’m joined by Emily Cherkin, a former educator and leading voice in the movement for tech-intentional parenting. She is the author of The Screentime Solution: A Judgment-Free Guide to Becoming a Tech-Intentional Family. Together, we pull back the curtain on the pernicious impact of screen exposure on children’s brains, from toddlers to teens.

Emily brings the data, the insight, and the humanity to a topic that touches every modern household. We explore why screens are not calming children, but instead rewiring their brains in concerning ways; how screen time displaces critical developmental experiences; and why parents must reclaim their power from the tech industry. Emily’s philosophy of “tech intentionality” offers a practical, compassionate framework for every family.

Key Takeaways

  • Children aged 8 to 18 now average 7.5 hours of recreational screen time per day - excluding school hours.
  • Excessive screen use is displacing vital developmental needs such as movement, sleep, social interaction, and executive function.
  • The tech industry is not neutral; products are designed for addiction and profit, not child wellbeing.
  • “Calming” effects of screens are neurological myths - screens stimulate, not soothe.
  • Parents are not powerless. Delaying, reducing, and modelling healthy tech habits makes a real difference.
  • “Tech intentionality” means aligning screen use with family values and developmental needs.
  • Reframing the removal of screens as a gift, not a punishment, can radically change the home dynamic.

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[00:00:00] Lucia Silver: So welcome to today's episode of a Mighty Quinn, the Mighty Quinn, no Less Mother's Conversations with World Leading Experts. I'm your host, Lucia Silver, and the founder of the Brain Health Movement, and today we are diving deep into a conversation that will reshape the way we think about screens our children and their brain development.

[00:00:21] This episode is called 

[00:00:23] . I know many of us feel like screen's essential in our lives and our children's lives, and they may [00:00:30] well help us in so many ways, but my fantastic guest today is here to enlighten us on what is actually happening.

[00:00:38] I'm thrilled to have Emily Cherkin with us. She is a leading expert in tech intentionality, her very own trademark indeed, and the author of bestselling book, the Screen Time Solution, A Judgment Free Guide to Becoming a Tech Intentional Family. Emily's approach is all about balancing screen time, fostering healthy [00:01:00] brain development, and helping families navigate the digital age without sacrificing mental health or relationships.

[00:01:08] Emily, I'm thrilled to have you here today. Thank you so much for being here. 

[00:01:12] Emily Cherkin: My pleasure. Thank you for having me. 

[00:01:15] Lucia Silver: So Emily, I've heard some parents say that screens can help calm down their baby, toddler child, teenager, delete is appropriate or even regulate their [00:01:30] emotions. Emily's gonna explain, I think she's champing at the bit, why that's actually a myth.

[00:01:35] In fact, screens are doing more harm than good when it comes to brain development. And we're gonna look at why this is happening, how it affects children from toddlers to teens, and what we can do as parents to turn the tide. Emily shared with me, a report that children between eight and 18 are spending an average of 7.5 hours a day on screens, and that's outside of school hours.

[00:01:57] And we're at the height of a crisis, and it can [00:02:00] still get a great deal worse with more big tech entering education and AI bombarding into our lives left and center. Emily, could you first share with us some context for how serious tech excess is actually becoming some of the startling facts and stats relating to the reality of screen time in kids' lives now?

[00:02:19] Emily Cherkin: Yes. Thank you. You hit my very first data point, which is , we're talking on average eight to 18 year olds are spending about seven and a half hours a day on screens outside of school hours. We know kids are also [00:02:30] increasingly using screens at school and for school. One of the biggest challenges, of course, when you think about the total number of hours in a day, if we're talking seven and a half hours on screens at home, we're at school six hours a day.

[00:02:42] What's left, what's getting cut? What is not happening for a child in terms of optimal development? The things that we know that decades and decades of good evidence and research has shown about what children need to thrive. So that's certainly concerning. We know there is more than just anecdotal evidence [00:03:00] now about the correlation and causation of social media on mental health especially for young girls.

[00:03:06] We also know that the design elements of these products are fundamentally different than how you and I might have grown up watching television or a movie. The experience is not the same at all. I often think about how fascinating it would be if we were to walk around a street with holding all of the things in our hands that our phones have in it.

[00:03:29] You think [00:03:30] about a television in a movie, in a phone, and an address book and a camera, and your learning platform. And if your social media, all your friends, right? It's a laughable image when you think about how much we carry in our pockets now, and really I like to think of this as a five to 10-year-old problem.

[00:03:47] It's pretty new. Fast and moving very quickly. So going to what I think is most important for parents to understand is the design element. I really think understanding how it's different and [00:04:00] why and how that impacts our brains is the first step in understanding what we need to do as parents.

[00:04:06] Lucia Silver: You reminded me when I last went into the Apple shop and was looking at a phone and the consultant there said to me no. It's not a phone. It's a life support machine that happens to make a call. 

[00:04:17] Emily Cherkin: And they're not wrong. 

[00:04:19] Lucia Silver: I'm like, wow. He said, what this thing does now is, and it now has artificial intelligence.

[00:04:24] The iPhone 16 pro, you can take a picture of something and it tells you where you bought it, where you can get [00:04:30] it. So it's got visual or, intelligence as well. So Yes. It's like we, we're dealing with another creature. Now this thing is quite formidable and powerful and for that reason all pervasive, isn't it?

[00:04:41] Emily Cherkin: Yes. Yes. And one of my favorite lines when it comes to whether we're talking about AI in schools or AI personal use or, even trying to manage the amount of screens or whether kids should have social media, one of my favorite lines is by Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, and he says, why are we asking what is the best way to take [00:05:00] arsenic instead of why are we taking arsenic in the first place?

[00:05:04] Lucia Silver: Yeah. 

[00:05:06] Yeah. It's breathtaking really, isn't it? It's, we've started at the wrong end of the problem, and we really need to take a look at it in the cold, hard light of day. And I think some of it is because it's moving so fast, Emily it's not you know what, it was only one generation ago for our parents versus what it is to our children.

[00:05:27] So in this lifetime, [00:05:30] it didn't exist at all, let alone the acceleration in the last 50 years is extraordinary. There's nothing else that compares, there's no other industry that has moved as fast as tech. So therein lies a problem in itself. It, how do we keep up? How do, and a lot of parents, a lot of generations just switch off from it all together.

[00:05:49] It's it's too much. I just can't, I don't even know what the kids are talking about. It's become another reality. 

[00:05:54] Emily Cherkin: Yes. And there is a lot, I hear a lot about this sort of that's just the way things are. [00:06:00] That's just the way kids are today. We're talking 10 years. That's not how quickly things change from, certainly from a brain development standpoint, right?

[00:06:08] Like brains take a long time to change. But we do know that excessive screen time is impacting brains and it's impacting skills. And that is worrisome because we don't know those long-term impacts yet. And a lot of this sometimes gets, the pandemic gets blamed a lot for why children are on screens more.

[00:06:26] And I will push back on that and Jonathan Heights research pushes [00:06:30] back on this. This problem really began around 2012 when, increased in individ independent smartphones, personal phones for young people. The, it's about the time that the like button came out, right? That social validation.

[00:06:42] All of that moving to the digital platform instead of the real world platform that we live in. And so the pandemic, I like to say, just added fuel to the fire. So it in a good way, I think it pulled the curtain back. People are paying attention more, but it gets blamed. I think there's plenty of things to blame the pandemic [00:07:00] on, but this was a problem prior and it has gotten worse.

[00:07:03] And we need to throw the stick into the spinning wheel and halt is how I would like to think of it before we get too far. And I think AI is a good example of it's, we're being forced to use it now the way it appears in our email, the way it appears in our, word documents or whatever.

[00:07:21] It's, we're not even opting in, it's just there 

[00:07:23] Lucia Silver: happening. It's happening, isn't it? It's very invasive in one of my conversations with one of our leading world [00:07:30] neurodevelopmental experts and then real, extraordinary mind on readiness at school. Sally Godard Blythe, she was talking to me about how a lot of this has also been driven socioeconomically that we are, and I'm very mindful when I put out advice and our training courses and so on and to parents stop this, don't do that.

[00:07:51] Try this. If you're a single mom as I am and you're at home alone with, it could be more than one child. Sometimes it is the only babysitter [00:08:00] that you have. And we've ended up in a situation where sometimes that's the only resource to help us through. And with mothers working with, all of the pressures on families financially, it's become the cheapest. Not only the easiest, but also the cheapest way to keep your children amused and out of trouble. And I know we're gonna come on to all the different strategies for helping with that but that is also a huge pressure for some, it's the only break they're gonna get.

[00:08:27] It's the only break they're gonna get. 

[00:08:29] Emily Cherkin: [00:08:30] And it is a very convenient scapegoat for a tech industry that chooses not to make their products safe. So it's much easier for. Said companies to blame parents for being bad, lazy, weak, ineffective, 

[00:08:47] Lucia Silver: undisciplined. 

[00:08:48] Emily Cherkin: Yeah. Yeah. And I guess it, this leads to my approach of tech intentionality, which is there are gonna be times, I always say I'm not anti-tech, I'm tech intention.

[00:08:58] There are times where [00:09:00] maybe a kid on an iPad or a screen is just the thing that has to happen. What I am really cautioning parents to think about is not making that the default. It's the exception, not the rule. And I think I say that while I also want to say that there is a reason that this is so hard.

[00:09:17] You are being set up to fail. You are being told that it is your responsibility. And if you don't do it correctly, whatever that means, it's your fault. And I always say, it's not your fault, it is your responsibility to understand the problem and to [00:09:30] address it. But you are definitely up against a mighty industry.

[00:09:35] Lucia Silver: And it is a mighty industry. And I think that's part of why we've ended up in this dopin emergic culture of, and we've ended up with even brains. We're all about how brains are developing here and we've ended up with, an extremely left brain dominant, culture where we are constantly nurturing shorter attention, quick reward.

[00:09:53] And with that comes a whole host of symptoms that we're identifying as ADHD and autism and so forth, [00:10:00] which we are exacerbating. We're continuing to wind up minds. And I think it's becoming, it's a bit of a chicken and egg. The more we allow it, the more the problem grows, the more the problem grows, the more we seek it.

[00:10:11] Yes. And with that, your point, Emily, around these big tech companies, they've spent billions billions on making these products addictive. It's the same model, and there's no coincidence those same companies have also taken over the food industry and the processed food industry to understand how to make the food more addictive, right?

[00:10:29] So we've [00:10:30] got it coming at many different angles, and the need for your beautifully termed intentionality is exactly what we need on it, right? So let's hook right back and come into what the impact is of this kind of screen time on a child's developing brain. That's the real secret source for us here.

[00:10:49] What are they missing out on and what's it doing to their brains? Emily? 

[00:10:52] Emily Cherkin: Yes. So I have a teaching background, not a neurobiology background. So I tend to put it in ways to help parents understand what is [00:11:00] happening. So I'm gonna speak at that level and not at the high neurobiology level. Again, the products and the tools that children are using digitally are designed to hook and hold their attention, right?

[00:11:10] So it taps into their neural pathways. The dopamine gets flowing to your point just now, the more we use it, the more our brains adapt. Therefore, the more we need to engage to get that same dopamine rush. For adults who struggle mightily to regulate our own screen use and doom scrolling and social media use, it's hard [00:11:30] enough.

[00:11:30] From a developmental standpoint, we're talking about extremely vulnerable brains. That the prefrontal cortex, the front part of our brain that is sometimes called like the CEO, it's the all of the skills that go into being a sort of successful. Human. Like planning, prioritizing, time management, emotion relate regulation, cognitive flexibility.

[00:11:53] It's incredibly important. And it is the last part of our brain to fully develop, as and what I think we lose sight of is thinking that children are small [00:12:00] adults. So if we just tell them to do what we do, they'll be fine. And a, that's not true 'cause it doesn't work for us.

[00:12:05] But B, it's even worse than that. They don't have the skills, they cannot self-regulate, they do not have an ability to see long-term consequences. They are seeking the short-term dopamine because that's what they're primed to do. And that shouldn't shock us again if we know what children are like. Of course they're gonna pick the cookie over the broccoli whether we want them to or not.

[00:12:27] Lucia Silver: Me too! Yeah. 

[00:12:28] Emily Cherkin: Yeah, exactly. [00:12:30] And so I think there's some excellent research by Dr. Doug, Gentile here at in the United States, Iowa State, and. He talks about this concept of displacement that I love because it really is a simple equation. The time that we spend on digital tools is time that we are not spending doing everything else.

[00:12:51] So whether that is sleep being displaced, which is very common for teenagers and adults, I would argue or outside play or [00:13:00] socializing in the real world or reading a book or volunteering or doing a afterschool job. All of the things that were pretty normal parts of childhood for many years don't exist anymore because they are all being displaced by that seven and a half hours a day or more for some children.

[00:13:16] And so to me, that is the question for parents is to think about what is being displaced and how do I fill the day and the week with the experiences that don't let the screens [00:13:30] displace what we need, but the other way around, right? That the things we need displace the screen. I'm not saying that's easy, 

[00:13:37] but it's important.

[00:13:38] Lucia Silver: That's a really helpful way of looking at it actually, because Dr. Josh and I were recording some of our course earlier today and talking about how it is such a, one of the biggest displacement, I think you listed it, is movement. Yes. And it is movement that grows the brain.

[00:13:54] Literally. We're teaching this as one of the first and fundamental lessons for parents to understand we've got a problem anyway. [00:14:00] 'cause we're so busy, we're carrying them around in a car seat and then moving the car seat into the car and then outta the car seat onto the floor. But then that they're not moving around.

[00:14:07] And that stimulation that's required, not just from social engagement, but from motor sensory input is what builds the brain. Yes. And so when you're sitting in, in, in which I was just a couple of weeks ago, the weekend I was sitting next to a table with a baby. And I say a baby.

[00:14:24] Absolutely. Pre-work, pre-talk. Was. It could have been crawling, put it that way, [00:14:30] and the screen was given to this little person, and this little person was sitting with this screen for two hours. And I was thinking, oh, just looking at it, thinking everything that I know about what is necessary to build that little brain has already been displaced to quote you.

[00:14:46] Yes, that is absolutely, it's 

[00:14:50] terrifying. 

[00:14:51] Emily Cherkin: Yeah. 

[00:14:51] And again I don't mean to harp on the industry and the business model, but it is designed to make parents think. And it, the marketing will tell you, this is what [00:15:00] children need. Don't you want your kid to get into an a good college? Don't you want them to read before kindergarten?

[00:15:05] That's why you have to give them this app or this tool. It's wrong. It's a lie. It's very upsetting because parents who might not know otherwise or who might not have the resources to, do the deep dive into the real research, not the industry funded research are being manipulated as parents. And that is devastating, for the child.

[00:15:27] And it's devastating for the family and it's devastating for our [00:15:30] future civil society. In terms of what children. As adults who 

[00:15:34] grow up 

[00:15:34] Lucia Silver: and hi and hijacking so many important things that you've talked about. The, aside from the fact that idea and that lie that's been given, don't you want them to get advanced in the first three years of life that they're producing these baby games?

[00:15:47] The right hand side of the brain is developing, it's not doing any of that stuff anyway. It hasn't even come online for that. It's there for social engagement, it's there for bonding, it's there for sensory input, and [00:16:00] it, all of that has been completely hijacked. 

[00:16:02] Emily Cherkin: Absolutely. 

[00:16:03] And I really, one thing I would, I was just on a podcast interview this morning, and one thing I really love to think about is what gift do we give by not gifting a device?

[00:16:16] That there is something to be gained by delaying. And how do we help parents see that the delaying, whether it's handing the 2-year-old the phone or delaying a phone for a teenager or whatever it is, that you are [00:16:30] actually giving them a gift. As hard as that is, it's actually much easier to do that. I get it that it's hard, but what them in exchange is so much better for their brain.

[00:16:42] Lucia Silver: So much better. And you said in something that I read as well that you, I think it was in the book, you said, you are giving them the opportunity for social regulation. Yes. You're giving them, you as opposed to thinking I've taken it away. You are giving them the gift. That's such a great way, that's such a great way of thinking about it.

[00:16:57] And if they don't have. [00:17:00] To learn how to self-regulate. Then this is again why we start to see all these children who are severely dysregulated. Yeah, and during those earlier stages we did a, another great piece with the head of the Institute of Child Psychology and of course Stephen Borgers, big piece on polyvagal theory.

[00:17:16] He talks about co-regulation is not a nice thing to have. It's an biological necessity. Yeah. As you've said, prefrontal cortex hasn't even come online yet. The only way little [00:17:30] people, right up to, by the way, quite big people, age 26, as you alluded to quite late in life, can co-regulate is through. Their care, their chief caregiver who's probably also got their head buried in a blinking phone.

[00:17:44] So where is it if it's not, there's no lesson, there's no mirror neuron in, there's no co-regulation. It's not coming from anywhere. So yes, what a gift. Give it back, put your phone down, take the phone and engage. 

[00:17:58] Emily Cherkin: Yes. Yeah. And there's [00:18:00] something I love to share 'cause I think this is so illustrative of the problem.

[00:18:04] I hear parents say all the time, I need to give my kid a phone for safety. What if they something bad happens? Emergency and pure research found in America, the top three parental fears are mental health, youth, mental health, bullying and kidnapping. But what is fascinating to me is that statistically speaking, kidnapping is the risk of kidnapping is almost nil.

[00:18:26] And in fact, someone did some math and they found that you'd have to have your [00:18:30] kids stand outside every day for 750,000 years. Heres to be guaranteed of being kidnapped. That's not applicable, that's not relevant. That's not a realistic experience. And yet if you give your child a phone or a device in the name of preventing kidnapping or helping in an emergency, what do you do?

[00:18:52] You make number one and two, mental health and bullying worse, which is harmful to their health. And so helping [00:19:00] parents get themselves out of that fear-based thinking, which again, I have a tremendous amount of empathy for as a parent because we get twenty four seven news on our phones and in our social media feed, we hear about the extremely rare and awful situations.

[00:19:15] And so we think that's a normal thing that we have to protect our children against. And it is hard to help parents see that's actually you in a state of hijacked, the amygdala response and not a reality. [00:19:30] And so your ability to reason. I hate to say it, but if you, as the adult are having that again, why would we think that a child could do that with a mean social media post or something hurtful that gets texted, we can't do it ourselves, and yet we have these expectations that our kids can, or that they'll figure it out.

[00:19:51] If we just do X, they'll eventually learn. No, they won't. Not on the device itself. They can learn. They should learn. They will, but not on [00:20:00] the device. 

[00:20:01] Lucia Silver: Yeah. Yeah. So Emily, if we come back in again to some of these, a lot of it's about debunking myth, debunking inaccurate information that's out there, really.

[00:20:13] And as we say, information is the mothership. This is really a process of and very much where you are dedicated on your mission to educating. Because with that, we start to understand people, but understand that the process in this instance, screens are most definitely not calming children down.

[00:20:27] So let's just go back to that as a first [00:20:30] premise. Why from a scientific, physiological, neurological, whichever way you wish to answer it, why is that just blatantly not true? What, that it's not, that's not what's happening When you think that they've, that they're fixated. 

[00:20:43] Emily Cherkin: Because at the core of all of this, there is a fundamental opposition between the business model of the technology industry and what is good for children and development.

[00:20:55] That's it. As long as their profits are [00:21:00] dependent on our eyeballs, engaging with an app, watching a show, being on the tool, it will never be good for children. And we know that it is harmful because companies will test their games, their television shows, whatever their apps, and they will. Give it to children and they will measure their response.

[00:21:21] And if they break eye contact or if they lose interest, they tweak and refine the game or the app to make [00:21:30] it more compelling. So again, that we see that play out. When you remove an iPad from a three-year-old and they lose their mind, that is they're, it's been engineered to do that to them.

[00:21:42] It's not the same impact when you take a book away from them, right? That's a completely different experience from a brain development standpoint. I hate to say it, but until the business model changes internet connected technology or even technology designed for children that's based [00:22:00] on likes and engagement, will never be safe for children.

[00:22:03] Doesn't matter how many parental controls we use, it doesn't matter. Even the time limits we spend try to set for it, they're not, it's fundamentally at odds. I always say again, this is not a fair fight and it's, it's you versus this hijacked neural pathway and it's you versus billions of dollars in marketing and manipulative messaging that make you think you're gonna be bad parent.

[00:22:28] If you don't do it, you kid's gonna be left [00:22:30] out. They're not gonna be smart when the opposite is true. 

[00:22:35] Lucia Silver: And also I think we must trust our instincts to some extent as awakened parents, that when you see your child coming off a device or coming off a long period of television or gaming, I have yet to see a child.

[00:22:49] That is calmer At the end of it, what they are is fixated and rewarded and dopamine filled for staying with it, which is, as you say, what millions of dollars has been [00:23:00] spent to guarantee happens. But in that process, my, my little guy, Quinn, this whole journey began because of a tick.

[00:23:07] That was the symptom that presented, and that was what took me down the neurodevelopmental path. And we've ended up doing incredible work with Quinn and seen enormous transformation through all of these very natural methods and applications and changes in lifestyle. But I was saying again, to Dr. Josh this morning and his little boys the same straight after any long period, my little guy's not allowed long time on a phone.

[00:23:28] But if he watches tv, [00:23:30] that's when we see it. Yep. If he spends. A couple of hours, he will come off and his tick is just coming back online again because it's again, that side of the brain that's responsible for that and the feed in. And because those dopamine receptors are not quite working as they need to optimally yet, we're getting there.

[00:23:49] But that is still an impetus. His tick will be aggravated. And Dr. Josh again, who's brought his son up with all of the mindfulness around tech, around diet, around [00:24:00] movement, around airing his little boy, the minute, even if he's on his little phone, he doesn't even have to spend long. His blinking tick comes back straight away.

[00:24:07] He's got an ocular tick and it comes back straight away. So if you look for yourself, not just reading statistics, not just listening to, us having this chat, look at how your child is after that period of time, right? 

[00:24:20] Emily Cherkin: Yes. And I'm gonna say this with love and kindness. Parents are also extremely concerned about.

[00:24:27] Setting limits saying, no, [00:24:30] restricting, limiting, or delaying because they're afraid their children won't like them, or they're afraid that they are somehow gonna be left out socially. And I understand that parental fear, but it is not better. Again, as we keep saying, like you have to think about what gift you are giving by delaying, and that this isn't, we cannot be our child's best friend.

[00:24:56] We are the adult. We [00:25:00] have to remember that our job is to support their development and the mistakes that come with that. Now, that does not mean you just give 'em a phone and you let them navigate that on their own. It ideally means you delay as long as possible, but we have to remember that our job as a parent is to help them build the skills they need to.

[00:25:22] Thrive ideally, but to function at a bare minimum. And what we are finding, and we are hearing this anecdotally, and the research is starting to bear it [00:25:30] out. You have children arriving at primary school or kindergarten here, unable to stand in a line, sit still, hold a pencil, all of this fine motor, gross motor, and to your point earlier when we talk about movement in early childhood, how important that is for brain development, that's completely applicable for things like writing. And then I will add, and maybe we'll get to this as well too. We're giving children devices at school, so they're not even getting the opportunity to practice holding a pencil.

[00:25:57] I have had an occupational therapist share with me that she used to [00:26:00] teach children about handwriting. Now she's trying to teach children how to turn the pages of a book. 

[00:26:06] Lucia Silver: Yeah, absolutely. I was gonna say that the, we're looking at how screen time is affecting children who are relatively regulated, but you look at children who are arriving at school, and all those symptoms you're talking about are to do with retained primitive reflexes to do with missing out key milestones in brain development.

[00:26:23] They're arriving at school and we're exacerbating it. Why? Because they're sitting even longer. That comes the screen [00:26:30] again, and you're wondering what you've got. They've got no. A lot of the eye hand coordination in terms of spatial awareness has been lost because again, we've just got this one thing, we've got no sensory interrelationship.

[00:26:42] How do things smell? How do things look? How do things relate? How did that person respond? Body language? We've missed all of that. Yes. You get teachers saying 20 years ago it would've been fine to have kids playing tag in the playground. Now I can't because they're hitting one another so hard.

[00:26:57] Yeah. They're so emotionally dysregulated. They're [00:27:00] thwacking one another, they're clumsy, they're falling over the whole time. This is all to do with those primary motor fine. And, skills not being developed as well. 

[00:27:09] Emily Cherkin: And 

[00:27:09] Lucia Silver: I would even argue that, not that I want them fighting, but at least they're trying physically to solve a problem.

[00:27:15] Emily Cherkin: What I see are children sitting on the playground, holding iPads in the school, gave them, they're not even playing, they're just sitting on the iPads. That is beyond shocking in terms of what we are doing. And again. It makes me so [00:27:30] angry when technologists who, again well-funded, have this idea that it is somehow better for children in learning and that I as an educator couldn't possibly know what children need, right?

[00:27:43] Or that what I think is outdated. I always give this analogy like that would be like me designing a surgical tool to use in a complicated surgery and going into the operating room and telling the surgeon, just let me do the surgery. That's not how this works. [00:28:00] And I, I think the teaching profession has long been undervalued and underappreciated or blamed for many problems and.

[00:28:10] I think one of the fears I have is, I see teachers leaving. I see teachers feeling like they're between a rock and a hard place. They can't speak out or, say this isn't working because they've been told this is what we do now. Or even worse, there are new teachers coming in who have been trained on this, who are being given scripts to read alongside the digital [00:28:30] curriculum.

[00:28:30] So again, we're only gonna exacerbate these problems. When we continue to give out the devices in school, 

[00:28:37] Lucia Silver: a hundred percent. And it's chicken and egg. I'm feeling for the teachers, because they're dealing now with a class of, in the UK in a state school, could be up to 31, 32 children who are 60% dysregulated, can't sit still, can't hold attention, can't focus a falling off their chairs, ex anxiety, all the rest of it.

[00:28:56] And then you ask them to teach normally as they would've done [00:29:00] two years ago. A no, that's why they're leaving. And b, you know what will keep them going? I'm going to give them a computer aided lesson because if the computer aided lesson keeps them on the dopamine kind of hit and all that, then, and there you go again.

[00:29:15] It's because it then becomes the only way they can contend with it. 

[00:29:19] Emily Cherkin: And I'm so glad you brought this up. My daughter has 36 children in her seventh grade English class, 36 children. Her teacher. [00:29:30] Has to teach while 35. 'cause my daughter doesn't use the laptop. I refused it. 35 kids she's competing with who are playing games and watching YouTube.

[00:29:40] So is it her fault when those state test scores are lower than average? Absolutely not. In my opinion, this isn't her fault at all. She is burned out, exhausted and overwhelmed, and there is no way you can expect. I would love to see anyone go in and try to engage 36 children who are all [00:30:00] holding individual devices five times a day.

[00:30:03] Lucia Silver: Unbelievable. It really speaks to, again, how we need to bring all of these engine rooms together, because equally, I think school can sometimes blame the parents for the children being dysregulated. Parents don't feel understood, feel blamed and judged if their children are symptomatic with, A DHD and so forth.

[00:30:21] Yeah. And then there's the medical situation, which is not dealing with the root causes of any of this anyway, so no single parties actually exactly. Been empowered to [00:30:30] take responsibility, and no one's looking at why. It's like teachers are just going, I can't handle it anymore, but I'm reaching out to them and saying, you need to say why not, that's, that is the question, what is going on and how can we address it?

[00:30:44] And you're, it's so 

[00:30:45] tangled. I think you're right that we all have a role to play and there's a lot of finger pointing, and no one is saying but how is this helping kids? 

[00:30:53] Yeah, absolutely. So dopamine's a big. Piece of this pie, isn't it, Emily? There've been, there's many [00:31:00] books around the do dopa emerge, generate, there's lots of stuff to look at into what is going on chemically.

[00:31:05] Yes. Can you talk to us a little bit about this system and the brains, from our side, the brains dopamine is critical to motivation, reward, and Yeah. Screen based entertainment is designed to hijack that, right? Yeah. And to feed into that. So how is that contributing to this large issue of what is actually addiction?

[00:31:23] Tech addiction, I presume dopamine mean is a big part of that. 

[00:31:26] Emily Cherkin: Yes. And again, your expertise is probably greater than mine on [00:31:30] the scientific side. I just I think for parents to understand again that the design and the way in which these products tap into those neural pathways is so fundamentally different than even watching a television show or a movie.

[00:31:44] And so when you. Think of screen time as all the same. That's certainly problematic, but you can look at it more as like a, a continuum that watching a long, three hour movie is a really long movie for children now, right? And you think about the sustaining focus for that long duration.

[00:31:59] And [00:32:00] by the way, I've heard that movies and plays and life theater, they're actually looking to shorten their productions or take away intermission because people cannot sit like they have to shorten things overall. 'cause our attention span has changed. But then you go down all the way to one of, one of the, I think is the worst, which is like TikTok or its equivalents, shorts and reels, but those dopamine snacks that just keep hitting us one after the other with no end.

[00:32:25] And again, how many times have we as adults said, oh, just roll for a couple minutes and it's an [00:32:30] hour later, and you the sense of time is completely distorted and gone, and I think one of the parts of this that is so tricky is that we want. Technology claims to make our lives easier, better, more convenient, streamlined, and it does, in some ways it does.

[00:32:48] Look, we get to talk across the ocean, right? That's amazing. But we have to remember that from a learning and development standpoint, we need moments of friction. The [00:33:00] struggle is where learning occurs. If we make things easy, we take away that opportunity for growth and for skill building, whether that's in the classroom or helping a tantruming three-year-old get through the tantrum without an iPad, even before you give the iPad, they're having a tantrum because they want it, that's normal.

[00:33:20] We have to let them have that and experience that and help co-regulate with them and help them process what's happening so that when it happens again, [00:33:30] maybe they have a tool, maybe they have a strategy for their next iteration of that. 

[00:33:35] That's growth. 

[00:33:36] Lucia Silver: That is growth. And that is also, that's the nature of neuroplasticity.

[00:33:40] That is how we can help children build back in some cases where they didn't have what they need. But equally, this is the negative realization of that, that if a child is constantly rewarded for short attention span, those, the neural pathways that we are building, right? We're not building neural pathways for sustained attention, hence shortening [00:34:00] movies in cinemas, as you say.

[00:34:01] Exactly. That's a very scary outcome. And I think that's again, part of the confusion where I hear parents saying to me, oh, you know what? I don't think my kid really does have issues with attention. They don't have ADHD because when I give them a screen, they can focus for ages. And I'm like, no, they're hyper focusing.

[00:34:18] They're focusing with very intensively for very short periods of time, which is exactly what it's been designed to do. That is not the same as the attention we need to nurture, [00:34:30] sustained attention for the classroom. And in fact, what you're doing is you're training the brain. To only do that. 

[00:34:37] Emily Cherkin: Exactly.

[00:34:38] There's a great example that I've heard, I think it was Dr. Dmitri Christ here actually in Seattle who did this. And he was talking about how like when children are watching videos like young children about the farm, and they're singing songs and the animals are dancing and bouncing and, popping out of the barn and all of these things, when they go to a real farm, it is boring.

[00:34:58] Nothing is [00:35:00] happening. The animals just stand there. And because they've been primed to think it is this entertaining dopamine surging experience, they're like, why would I wanna go to the farm? It's never gonna compete. The best teacher in the world, the most effective parent in the world, will never be able to compete with the design of these products. And so it, yeah, period. It's just not a fair fight. 

[00:35:27] Lucia Silver: It's frightening. It almost feels reality itself is [00:35:30] becoming less exciting at every level. That's without speaking to the content of social media or, we know what pornography has done in the adult sphere for how it's, how unhelpful it's been to just natural sexual development and what it's exposed the mind to.

[00:35:47] And then coming back to what is a normal, loving sexual connection, then seems uninteresting in comparison to that pneumatic, pornographic territory. So we know how damaging screen time is. Emily this is very [00:36:00] much about starting at home as all our I guess education is, it starts with you as a parent.

[00:36:05] So what role can parents play in this? How does our own screen habits influence our children? And why is this important as a primary step? 

[00:36:14] Emily Cherkin: Yes, and I start all of my presentations by saying we have to replace judgment with curiosity. It is so easy to judge each other and ourselves and be judged and feel judged.

[00:36:25] I would encourage us to start with why are we feeling that way? And [00:36:30] if our goal is to raise a healthy, thriving, mostly happy child, what do we need to do to achieve that? And our use of digital tools does predict how our children use digital tools and. A lot of that is going to be through how we model the use of technology.

[00:36:52] And so one of the strategies that I love, and again, there's no money in these strategies there. It's not an app that I can sell you [00:37:00] because A, it requires you, and B, it's hard. It requires effort. And remember nothing good ever came by being so easy, right? Like that friction is important.

[00:37:11] But one of my favorite strategies to talk to parents about is to live your life out loud, which means narrate what you do as you do it anytime it comes to digital technology. So I'm reaching for my phone. I'm gonna check what time, soccer practice starts. I'm gonna check the map, see how long the drive will take, what's the weather?

[00:37:29] I'm getting a [00:37:30] text constant play by play. Is it annoying? Yes. Will it drive your children crazy? Yes. But what are you doing in this? First of all, it's the accountability part. I'm naming what I'm doing. Why I am reaching for it. And please note, this is about us as adults. We're not asking our kids to do this.

[00:37:47] We are asking our plus ourselves and our parenting partners to do this. And what you find is once you get in the habit of doing it, no one else does. And it's rather shocking to go out in the [00:38:00] world and watch how people just disappear in the middle of a conversation because they are sucked into their device.

[00:38:05] And you wanna say but you're not telling me you're not living your life out loud. And it, it feels very rude all of a sudden, which I think is a good thing that we have this awareness. We also get to model for our kids, the tool-based part of this, from our children's perspective, the back of our phone tells them nothing about what we're doing.

[00:38:22] We could be writing our dissertation or scrolling through TikTok. It looks the same to our children. And so giving them [00:38:30] a context for it can help. But also then attaching that emotional component. Oh my gosh, I'm standing in line at the coffee shop and I was bored and I opened Instagram and I'm just scrolling and scrolling and I'm not, this doesn't make me feel better.

[00:38:41] Like I'm gonna put this away and I'm gonna look around at the people in the line next to us. I'm gonna talk to the clerk who's checking out my groceries. Like there. So many opportunities in our day-to-day life for teachable moments and for modeling social skills and interactions that a lot of adults, we just take for granted that we [00:39:00] grew up in a world that didn't have all of this.

[00:39:02] And so we have those skills without realizing we were building them. But what's happening is our children are not building them. They're not being given those opportunities. They are being displaced by the screen. 

[00:39:12] Lucia Silver: That is such a helpful, incredibly helpful mechanism. I've never, honestly, never even thought to narrate what is happening.

[00:39:19] If you're gonna be on your phone, for me, staying connected with my child, staying connected with the people around me. 'cause you're absolutely right. You disappear off and all they see as the back of the phone. But I was also thinking that [00:39:30] it's almost a meditative tool and in the truest sense of mindful meditation to bring you into this present state consciousness that if you do as you say, Emily, then how hard is it gonna be to say, this is the first thing that came to my mind as I was listening to you and now I'm mindlessly scrolling on social media.

[00:39:50] You're not gonna do it, are you? Because you're actually, you're narrating the experience. You can't get lost 'cause you've got your eye on the ball. I'm here, I'm disappearing down a rabbit hole [00:40:00] and now I'm watching the mindless Kardashians and oh, what shoes as she wear. You're just not, are you.

[00:40:06] Emily Cherkin: But that's it. That's great. And the best thing that can happen when we start doing this is a our other parents in the household might start doing it too. That's a win-win. But even better is when our children say, Hey, you're not living your life out loud. What are you doing? Why are you picking up your phone?

[00:40:21] That's great. That's a win. And then we can invite them to join us. If they have a device or you don't have to do it about devices. You [00:40:30] could be like, oh, I'm opening my backpack and I'm pulling out my binder and I'm looking through to see what homework ha. Assuming it's on paper.

[00:40:37] Yeah. But having, that's executive function skills, right? That's helping model and build those 

[00:40:42] Lucia Silver: hundred percent. That's, and actually in connected play, which is part of, a lot of the tools and mechanisms we use to help. Come back into connection with our children, connected play you, you do that slightly in reverse in that you narrate what's happening for your child.

[00:40:57] Yes. But it's part of the same [00:41:00] connection. It's keeping that shared reality being in a space with someone. Oh, I see. Now you are looking frustrated with that problem you're having with your toy. And now I see that you are, and when they speak to you, oh, so I hear that was a bad day for you at school.

[00:41:14] It's this, it's all the mirroring, but it's all the connecting that we need. So it's also working not just on exceptional function, executive functioning, all of that, but it's also working on our social engagement again, isn't it? 

[00:41:25] Emily Cherkin: And you think about the experiences even around digital tech, like growing up [00:41:30] I had to fight with my sisters about who could change the channel right?

[00:41:34] On the show. And we had to fight about it. We had to take turns, we had to negotiate, we had to problem solve. I. I would love it if that's how kids engaged with technology. Now. Now what happens is they have their own headphones, own device doing their own thing. There is no skill building from a social skills perspective or executive function right there that's lost.

[00:41:53] So that's another thing I think a lot about is these three questions. When we choose to give technology or when technology's provided, what do we [00:42:00] gain? What do we lose or replace and what do we model as parents? And again, we often gain convenience, right? That's usually the number one answer.

[00:42:11] But what do we replace or lose? I would say, sure, it's convenient to give my kids their individual devices and have 'em tune out for an hour so I can do something. But maybe the solution for that is actually having them cove something together that they have to negotiate. That's still a skill building opportunity, right?

[00:42:27] And that might be the choice we make. [00:42:30] And that's one of the things that I talk a lot about with parents is this idea of choices within choices, right? That you. If you are choosing screen time, and again I realize that's a choice many parents make. We do, we watch family movies and shows together and my children play video games.

[00:42:45] Sometimes I think about the choice within the choice. So a bigger screen is always better than a smaller screen. No headphones is almost always better than headphones. Longer content is better than shorter content, right? Just think of it as like within the [00:43:00] choice you're making, what can you do to add in the opportunity for some skill building, because that's better than nothing.

[00:43:07] Lucia Silver: Yeah I made that decision only this afternoon when Quinn got back from school. He's very rarely, as I say, on his device, but he, one thing he loves to watch is football. So I get him to watch his little football highlights and then I get him to link into the coaches that are online. So he's watching it, but he's exercising, he's following the training manual.

[00:43:29] Oh, neat. So he links 

[00:43:29] [00:43:30] right into movement. So it's like I, okay, so that's a bit of damage limitation. He is moving, which I need him to, and he is following quite complex movement patterns on. Great. I'm alright with that. That's fine. Yeah. This takes perfectly into your absolute heartland tech intentionality.

[00:43:46] This is what we're talking about. It's electing understanding, making very mindful choices around tech. But please talk us through exactly what it is and how we can as parents implement this for ourselves and our children. [00:44:00] 

[00:44:00] Emily Cherkin: So I have a longer definition, which is I'll paraphrase, but the idea is that tech intentionality means using screens in alignment with our values, with what we know is true about child development or good for child development and our family what we need.

[00:44:15] And avoiding, delaying and limiting any screens that interfere with those things. The TLDR, the too long didn't read version is this later is better. Less is more relationships and skills before [00:44:30] screens. That's it. That's what tech intentionality looks like, and it's intentionally broad because it's not a one size fits all.

[00:44:38] You might have identical twins, one who can handle two hours of video games and one who absolutely cannot. And that's. Childhood temperament, personality, brain development, all kinds of different factors that go into that. And so what we have to decide is what works for our family and what's in alignment with our values and the goals that we have for our children.

[00:44:56] And so later is better obviously is just delaying as long as [00:45:00] possible. Whether that's delaying giving your child, your toddler, an iPad, whether that's delaying a smartphone in favor of one of the flip phones, it's delaying, as much as you can. Social media, again, that's hard because kids can access it almost anywhere on friends devices, on school devices.

[00:45:14] So you know, you do your best. That was, later is better. Less is more too when you do give it again, thinking about quality over quantity and we all like opportunities to veg out every now and then I do like to eat some cookies or have a piece of candy like I am, I take [00:45:30] a mindset where if you're too extreme and too absolute you're gonna fail and then you feel bad and you don't try at all.

[00:45:36] And so I take that 80 20 approach, 80% of the time we are living and parenting within our values 20% of the time. Yeah, I don't know. We make mistakes. We're not perfect. And I would argue that's a wonderful, teachable moment as well for our children to see that we are human as well. And then relationships and skills before screens is, I know you know this one, it's all about the relationship that, you know, children who grow up to be thriving adults.[00:46:00] 

[00:46:00] Have had healthy relationships throughout childhood. They know how to ask for help, advocate, problem solve, make eye contact, communicate executive function skills, right? That's absolutely important. And learning is gonna happen in the context of relationships. So teaching them about delaying or limiting or why you need to be careful online or what you need to look for in miss and disinformation is gonna happen in the context of a healthy relationship.

[00:46:25] So I often will start working with families and say, it doesn't matter what the screen time rules is right now, [00:46:30] we have to start with a relationship. 'cause not, doesn't matter what the rules are, it doesn't matter what limits you set, if you're not on the same page in terms of having conversations, we're not gonna get anywhere.

[00:46:39] And then, the second part of that third one is skills before screens. And that to me, it speaks a lot to the ed tech piece. The fact that we're giving children iPads or Chromebooks, but never teaching them to type. That's a norm now and absolutely mind boggling to me. And as a former teacher, I just, I think the most important thing we can do as, as [00:47:00] educators is give children opportunities to develop critical thinking skills.

[00:47:04] And we know screens, for the most part, have the opposite effect of on that. And in childhood, right? As adults with our fully or near, formed prefrontal corteses. We can think about that Critically, children are not able to do that because they haven't developed it yet, later is better, less is more relationships and skills before screens.

[00:47:23] Lucia Silver: That's very helpful. So that's the kind of the background music to the whole show. So hold that in your kind of [00:47:30] intentionality. Hold that front of mind and no pun intended, so that when we then move forwards, we can then look at, okay, so next we've got that in context. How do we begin then to improve our family's tech habits?

[00:47:41] What's the first step for parents who wanna start creating a healthier screen environment? Emily 

[00:47:47] Emily Cherkin: and I love that we're starting with the parents. 'cause so many experts I talk to will say they wanna know, parents wanna know, what do I do for my kids? What app do I download to limit their screen time?

[00:47:57] And unfortunately there isn't one, there is no [00:48:00] app for parenting. You are, the app is what I like to responsibility. Absolutely begins with us and how we model tech use. And that begins with living our life out loud. And I would encourage that to be the habit you build and practice for at least two weeks before you do anything else.

[00:48:17] It has to be embedded in your daily conversations, in your family, in interactions before you even speak about your children's screen use. The other thing is like for parents to do a kind of an [00:48:30] audit of their own screen use more broadly. Like when are you using your device? I cannot, I know statistically because I survey audiences I go to, it's 95% of parents have phones in the bedroom.

[00:48:39] 95%. That's unacceptable. We can't do that. I don't put my phone in the bedroom. And I will tell you, I sleep a whole lot better when my phone is not in the bedroom and part of it is. A, it's good for us, right? It's good for us to not doom scroll before bed to not roll over in the morning and scroll the first thing.

[00:48:57] But B, we're modeling that if your [00:49:00] five-year-old sees that your phone is in your room every night, when that five-year-old turns 12, it's gonna be a lot harder to say, oh, you can't have your phone in your room at night when for the last seven years, that's what you've been modeling. So every single parent says it's my alarm.

[00:49:15] Yeah, I know, but alarm clocks are very inexpensive. I joke, I should take a kickback from the alarm clock industry because we work. They're not internet connected. And it'll wake you up when you need to get up. And at the very least, take a baby step, move it to the other side [00:49:30] of the room, move it to the doorway out in the hall, keep the ringer on if you're worried about emergencies, but get it out of the bedroom.

[00:49:37] So that's a harsh truth for parents. I think the other thing I would really encourage parents to think about is the importance of mentoring over monitoring. And that's a line from Devora Heiter's work. And I think too often we want a silver bullet. We want a magic solution that will just solve all these problems.

[00:49:53] And as we keep saying, it's the work that matters here. It's the hard, uncomfortable, sticky stuff [00:50:00] that's gonna make change. And so relying on parental controls is an illusion that it is gonna set your kids up for healthy adulthood. It that, that they're gonna be prevented from seeing inappropriate content.

[00:50:14] Parental controls are limited to, they often cannot monitor in-app content, which is where most of this bad stuff happens. And they're using technology to solve a problem that technology created. And know that's not what parents wanna hear, but it's a lot of time, [00:50:30] money, and energy to spend on something that I'd much rather see parents invest in that relationship building, the modeling part.

[00:50:36] So those are my top three tips. 

[00:50:39] Lucia Silver: Yeah, they're very powerful. And I think it's true to say they're pretty scary too. There's a lot that it's a lot to take on and first and foremost within ourselves. Absolutely. So specifically, what are some strategies for helping, a toddler or a younger child with tech de detox, I'd call it versus perhaps older children?

[00:50:57] It's quite different, isn't it? Have you got some, I know we've [00:51:00] started with ourselves, but in very literal, practical terms, we've seen toddlers screaming when texts taken away. Yeah. And teenagers, it's their lifeline, right? So they think, so how, what do we do? Give us some, give some, give us some guidance here.

[00:51:15] Emily Cherkin: It's a great question and obviously it's much easier to do it when they're younger. It's much easier to start this when they're little, but I also don't want parents of teenagers to hear this and think, oh, it's too late. Forget it. It's never too late. And again, changing your behavior, especially with a teenager, is really powerful [00:51:30] because it shows you that you're in this with them, right?

[00:51:31] That, Hey, I recognize I'm struggling with this too. Let's do this together. This is something our family needs a reset. We could talk about it in the context of sleep, for example. There's so much research about sleep, how good it is for all of us. We don't even have to talk about the phones, but we can just say, we all need better sleep in our family, so we're gonna find some ways to prioritize better quality sleep.

[00:51:51] What do we need to do to get there? So with teenagers, it's gonna be much more about partnering with them. I say side to side parenting instead of head-to-head parenting. And, [00:52:00] sometimes that involves what I say, going backward to go forward. It might mean sitting with your kid and watching the YouTube video that they like, or the video game that they're playing and saying, tell me what you like about this.

[00:52:09] Why is this the game that you choose? What is this about this YouTuber that you admire? You could hate it. In your own mind, but you have to hold your tongue for a minute and let them express why they care about it. It's okay that you don't agree. It might be awful. You have to listen first and then it might be to ask those thought provoking questions.

[00:52:28] What do you think the message of this is? Do [00:52:30] you find that it's hard to turn this off? What could I do to support you and finding another way of learning this information that doesn't rely on that dopamine feed, right? Like parenting with like it's not, again, not that parenting against, with younger kids.

[00:52:44] I think similar approach. I think you can talk about your values in, of course, 4-year-old or 3-year-old terms, right? In our family, we spend time together and when we have iPads out, we're not spending time together. So the iPad's going away now, and that's it. The end of discussion, your child might have a tantrum [00:53:00] and that's okay.

[00:53:01] They have to learn how to get through that. And I will say again, even with and I with the middle or age groups too, I hear this a lot that in some ways this is the toughest group. I take that back, there's challenges with every group, but in that sort of eight to 12 range to do a true detox, to pull a child off a screen.

[00:53:18] And I actually really recommend the work of Victoria Dunkley who wrote, reset Your Child's Brain. She has a new book coming out. It is worth the screaming painful agony that might [00:53:30] occur in a removal of devices, but for some families that may be an absolutely necessary strategy. I don't start there with everyone to be clear.

[00:53:39] It really depends. I think for Neurodiverse kids, especially like ADHD screens make that so much harder. I would also recommend the work of Michael McLeod of Grow Now, A DHD who works very specifically with families with NeuroD diversities on screen removal. And it's hard, but again, it's that hard isn't bad. [00:54:00] Hard. Might be scary, but it's not bad. 

[00:54:02] Lucia Silver: And then you did, it does get better Emily, doesn't it? Just to be without being despairing, those meltdowns and those difficulties, you tear the plaster off, the bandaid off. And it's horrible at the beginning, but it does as with everything get better.

[00:54:14] Emily Cherkin: Yes. Yes. And again, to go back to where we started, it was like, what is the gift you're giving them the opportunity to develop these skills to. Experience discomfort and know that they can come out the other side and be okay [00:54:30] and we can validate all of that. We can say, I know this is really hard for you.

[00:54:34] I hear you, you are so upset. These, I like to help parents think about too is that triangulation, like this is so compelling. Your brain is being tricked. Especially for young kids, it is tricking you into staying on longer. That's not fair. And I'm fighting to protect your brain. Like we can find language that put, that allows us with our children against the tool and the product as opposed to pitting ourselves against [00:55:00] our children.

[00:55:00] Lucia Silver: Yeah. That's powerful. And so is to conflate the last point and this point, modeling behavior. Yeah. A lot of the time we talk about do your primitive reflex exercises with your child. Yeah. But how about do your tech detox with your child? So rather than just introducing to them that the battle is against the tech giants and how they're manipulate, let's take it on together.

[00:55:21] This is what a lot of the documentaries that I've, we alluded to in our chat before we came online, Emily, you know that showing that the parents were struggling just as much as the kids. Yeah. So do it [00:55:30] together. Yes. If you are saying, let's only have a couple of hours at the weekend, let's spend more family time together, then that connected play time or that connected time.

[00:55:37] If they're older, they're teenagers, give it to them in an undivided way. Everyone put your phones in the drawer and let's do this together and get over the itch to need to check your phone every 20 minutes, or more. 

[00:55:48] Emily Cherkin: And I'll speak personally for a moment. Literally this morning I had an argue with my 16-year-old whose phone was in his room last night.

[00:55:56] And we don't have a ton of rules around the tech. Some very [00:56:00] clear, big rocks. But that is a golden rule in our house. All of our devices stay in the living room. And I've reminded him several times and I was really angry and I knew that if I came out and had this head-to-head with him, I wasn't gonna get anywhere.

[00:56:16] Now we are gonna have to have a follow up conversation tonight, but. Part of it is I don't want parents to think that this is smooth sailing even when you do make these intentional changes. But again, what I have to remind myself of is [00:56:30] is he doing the displacement as we've talked about?

[00:56:32] Is he doing other things? Is he exercising? Is he outside? Is he spending time with friends? Is he plays musical instruments, is he doing his music? And I ha I have to sometimes take a very deep breath and say, okay, it's not ideal. The phone in the room thing is one problem, but I can accept that this isn't gonna be perfect.

[00:56:53] As long as I can see that there is still the opportunities for growth and skill building. And that is hard. I struggle with that as [00:57:00] a parent. I guess I am saying I have a lot of empathy. You're not alone. And this is really challenging. 

[00:57:07] Lucia Silver: It is challenging and to keep thinking of the gifts that you give because I think that there's a lot of guilt.

[00:57:11] There's a lot of, yes, I could be doing better. I think when you framed it so differently by saying that, what gift are you giving it? And also the outcomes are extraordinarily positive. They might take some time to get to, but just to touch briefly, it interferes with sleep. Yeah. You alluded to this earlier.

[00:57:28] Let's just go into this a little bit [00:57:30] more. Yeah. 'cause that's a great outcome. If your teenager, your toddler, your who, whomever in the picture yourself is sleeping better because you've not been right up to the putting your head on your pillow on the screen. That's a great outcome. Could you talk to us a little bit why it has a negative impact on sleep, Emily?

[00:57:49] Emily Cherkin: Why screens do Yeah. Yeah. So many reasons. Again, the blue light alone, right? Is stimulating the dopamine. Feedback loop is problematic. It [00:58:00] doesn't put us into a state when we're ready to rest, it puts us in a state of hyper arousal, I believe, the content, right? Whether it's funny or violent or pornographic or, social drama.

[00:58:11] To have that on your brain as you fall asleep is a recipe for bad sleep, right? The need for us to separate, and maybe it isn't I hate to say it, I don't think kids read before bed anymore. I think that's a transition activity that's sadly gone away. I hear a lot of parents say they listen to an audio [00:58:30] book, or they listen to a meditation, and I'm not opposed to those.

[00:58:32] I think audio is a wonderful form of technology, but I still think that there's benefit to silence, to lying in bed with your own thoughts at night. I think we avoid that. I think there is a tendency to wanna fill the silence, to displace the silence because it's uncomfortable. 'cause it's scary 'cause we don't know what to do with it.

[00:58:54] And I guess that's an opportunity too, for a conversation. Why isn't you want your phone at night? [00:59:00] Why do you need the audio book at night? What could we, how could I help you instead? Maybe I need to sit in your room for 20 minutes. Maybe we can just talk for a few minutes. Again, that to me goes to the relationship piece.

[00:59:12] And I, that, that's a hard one. But sleep I always say is the low hanging fruit because poor sleep has such a ripple effect on so many aspects of our life. Everything literally, we all know what it's like to be too tired and how. Enable, we are to function. 

[00:59:27] Lucia Silver: Every, everything you are saying is so [00:59:30] important for our children.

[00:59:30] But I'm thinking all the way through everything you've said, if I'm being bone breaking, honest, it is a reflection for me too. When you were saying just now can you go to bed without the, are you afraid of the silence? Quite often the answer is yes. If I am in a state of heightened anxiety, I find it very difficult to not fall asleep to a film to be carried into the silence.

[00:59:52] Yeah. And I know that I will fall asleep to it, but that has disturbed my sleep. It's not about the quantity of sleep as [01:00:00] our, we've got separate modules on our courses and training on sleep. It's not about the quantity of sleep, it's about the quality of sleep. And you've actually interfered with that by watching something until 1230 until you fall asleep.

[01:00:12] You've missed your, you've missed your most important hours of rejuvenating your autoimmune systems, your digestive, all of that has not had a chance to come into play because you're still engaged. 

[01:00:23] Emily Cherkin: And parents, one way to think of this too is that we're doing this as an experiment, as a [01:00:30] family for two weeks or one week or whatever it, I would say minimum one week, but let's just see what happens.

[01:00:35] I don't have to be right. Maybe I'm wrong, but let's see what happens to the quality of our sleep. All of us, if we put our phones in the living room at night, maybe. We'll find that we sleep better and then maybe we'll opt to do that. Like again, I think when we make it this sort of black and white, good and bad, we miss the opportunity for the learning, right?

[01:00:56] That comes with it. And yeah, I think it's, I think it's fascinating when [01:01:00] you think about, I remember the day when you couldn't check email unless you were at work. I had an office with internet and I didn't at home. Or the fact that I would have to lie in bed at night and think of my own thoughts and what, how easy it would be to just turn on a meditation.

[01:01:15] And I love those, again, I'm not saying they're not a good tool at times, but when we, especially for children, are creating a dependency on that, that my child cannot sleep without it. Now, what happens when they travel? What happens when they sleep over at a friend's house? What happens when they stay with grandparents?[01:01:30] 

[01:01:30] We want them to be able to sleep in. Lots of different environments, right? That's, that is also a skill and it's easy to forget that. And again, I had kids who did not sleep well when they were young, so I get it. I understand how exhausting it is to have young children and not sleep, but I think going for that 80 20, using it on occasion, not every night.

[01:01:51] Lucia Silver: Emily, thank you. It's hugely enriching an awful lot to think about here. This conversation's been eye-opening, and I know our listeners are walking away with a much [01:02:00] better understanding of the impact now on screens on their Children's Brain Health. Emily's book, the Screen Solution is an excellent resource for parents looking to become more intentional about screen use in their families.

[01:02:11] And before we wrap up, I wanna share that we will be creating the highlights of our world leading expert, Emily Chik and Ontech intentionality. We'll have created a free guide and we'll make sure that all the juicy bits are in it. And Emily might put in some more stuff for us there too. But we'll make sure that really helps you to start your own [01:02:30] tech intentional journey today.

[01:02:32] You can download it from the link in the show notes and from our website and start implementing some of these expert tips in your home right away. Emily, thank you again for joining us today. 

[01:02:43] Emily Cherkin: Thank you for having me. As I always say, it's been an honor and a privilege to be your teacher today and or to the audience's teacher today.

[01:02:50] I, I really love talking about this and I appreciate the work you do. 

[01:02:54] Lucia Silver: Thank you. So finally, if you found today's episode helpful, please share it with other parents who might [01:03:00] benefit. Leave us a review and subscribe to my Mighty Quinn on your favorite platform. And together we can continue to bring these life-changing conversations to more families.

[01:03:08] Until next time, remember, information is the mothership. Small steps lead to big changes and healing is always possible. Together, let's keep raising awareness, building community, and unlocking potential for our children. Thanks for tuning in, and I'll see you next time.