Notes From This Episode:

Background

• your children or how the tech and children combination is changing your home life?
• We have to be aware of how much we are wasting our time on our phones, the internet, social media, and even texting, and what the cost is to our family and our interpersonal relationships.
• As parents, we must be vigilant about how much our children are on their devices and how technology is impacting them.

The Problem

• One of the most frequently asked questions I receive is, “How do I get my kids off their phones?” or “How do I get my kids of PlayStation?”
• If you are asking that question, technology is affecting your children in a serious and destructive way.  The question implies two things:
  • First, you are not the parent in your family, and you have lost control of your child’s formation.
  • Secondly, your child is addicted to their phone, their iPad, or their gaming system.
• Every time your child goes on the phone, iPad, or gaming system, they receive a huge dopamine hit, and not only when they go on, but they continue to receive those dopamine hits while they are on the devices.

The Relationship Interrupter

• All of this technology and our acquiescence to it has been a serious relationship interrupter within all facets of society.
• We are losing the important connection of eye contract and interpersonal connection through communication.
• Remember when you had your baby and all you wanted to do was gaze into each other’s eyes?  That human desire does not go away just because the children get older.
  • They still need to look into our eyes to feel safe, connected, and understood.
• Physical touch has also slipped away.
  • We are all so distracted with holding phones or giving our attention to computers or TVs that we have misplaced the critical component of human touch in our relationships.
  • While we may be physically present in the same room as our children, when we are all on our devices, we are not emotionally present.

The Effects of Isolation

• The more isolated your child becomes, the harder it is to deepen your relationship with them.
  • They disconnect from you and instead choose a false connection with anyone and everyone who was on the screen.
• Your role as parent begins to slip away and you begin to lose the influence on their values and morals.
• The suicide rate among teenagers has increased 57% within the last ten years, and there has been a five-fold increase in suicide among children 10-12 years old.
• Children with more online presence report greater sadness, lower self-esteem, and constant anxiety of missing out, being rejected, or not being good enough or pretty enough for the people they interact with online.

Changing Your Child’s Brain

• We have changed our children’s brains with the flood of technology and have conditioned them to have a low attention span.
  • When you are in the car or a store, instead of pacifying your children with devices, why not teach them to look around and explore all the cools things or simply to be quiet?
  • You will be giving your children the skill set so they can occupy their minds, rather than entertaining them.

Some Solutions

• Do not give in to peer pressure
• Look at your own screen time and set time limits for yourself and for all of your devices.
• Have a place within your sight where all phones are kept, and do not let your children take the phones into their bedrooms.
• Set up all devices in public rooms so that everyone can see what is going on.
• Reserve gaming systems for Friday or Saturday night entertainment.
• Turn off the phone at dinner time and keep it off for the rest of the night.
• Install parental controls/apps that are password protected.

Final Thoughts

• Ask yourself if you are using technology as a drug for your children.
• There are many things that adults can engage in appropriately that children are simply too young, too immature, and too inexperienced to handle properly.
• Children will lose their creativity and joy.  They cease to be inquisitive and are no longer satisfied with the good, the true, and the beautiful in the world – they are only concerned with when the next hit of dopamine is coming.
• Keep your long-range family goal in mind when you are looking at the technology that has infiltrated into your family.
• Be the leader and put your phone away.  Connect with your children – physically and emotionally.
• You want to have to be bold, brave, and decisive with swimming against the current.  The families that swim against the current are the ones that thrive.