Chris Colley: 0:13

well, here we are, another episode shifted podcast. Uh, we're coming from the beautiful sunny, as you can see oh, you won't see, because it's audio only, but it's sunny, trust me, and it's audio only, but it's sunny, trust me, and it's a beautiful day. And today I have Emily Cherkin coming in from down south. Emily, where are you coming in from?

Emily Cherkin: 0:34

I'm in Seattle, washington, so office and coast, but not too far from your border.

Chris Colley: 0:40

Right on. So our neighbor to the south and Emily's the author of an amazing book called Screen Time Solutions a judgment free guide to becoming a tech intentional family, and that's just such great stuff in this book. I encourage you guys to get a copy, read it and we're going to talk a little bit about it. But we're going to talk about the crux of all of this, um, screen time that I know all of the listeners out there. You're dealing with it. If you didn't want to admit it or not, we're dealing with it. But how can we better deal with it? Because it sometimes feels like it's slipping away from us a bit.

Chris Colley: 1:16

So, emily, thanks again for joining today. Um, I really love your book. I think it's just so well written and your insights are just. You talk about a lot of aha moments. Well, this book created a lot of aha moments for me, so I thank you for that and putting that out into the world. But I'd like to start always with these is how did you, what were some turning points or tipping points that got you to where you are today in this journey of yours?

Emily Cherkin: 1:44

Yeah, that's a great question and I can tell you very clearly. So I was a classroom teacher for 12 years. I taught seventh grade English, working on literature and writing and all that stuff, and about five or six years into my teaching career as a teacher, I was increasingly being asked to enter grades in an online portal. Teacher, I was increasingly being asked to enter grades in an online portal. Parents had access to these grades 24-7.

Emily Cherkin: 2:08

And I noticed two things happen almost simultaneously.

Emily Cherkin: 2:11

One my students stopped coming to talk to me about grades or missing a homework or what do I need to do to make this assignment up, and their parents started emailing me all the time refreshing that grading portal, started emailing me all the time refreshing that grading portal, and both of those had a direct impact on the time I was spending with my students, because now I was spending time behind my computer entering the grades and responding to parent emails and I was deeply concerned about the way it was changing my students' skill building that I saw is so critically important in that middle school age. You know that executive function asking for help planning your you know projects and homework and all that. So that was a really big aha moment for me, and that was as a teacher. Right, I was being asked About. The same time, my students were increasingly accessing social media platforms on their home computers. Right, this is pre-personal devices and, in fact, when I first started teaching in 2003, none of my students had devices personal devices by the time I left in 2015,.

Emily Cherkin: 3:11

it was like 95% had them, so in just over a decade it was a huge shift for that part of it.

Emily Cherkin: 3:19

So when I talk about screens, I mean there really are sort of two existing problems. Well, I mean there's many problems, but the two is the personal device one, and then there's the sort of ed tech one, and actually they happened to me at about the same time. So when my students were going online at home and at the time, of course, it was Facebook, which no tween would be caught dead on Facebook. Now, you know, they would come into school the next day talking about oh well, somebody didn't tag me in this post and I didn't get invited to this party, and I'm feeling really bad and I was like, wait a minute, this is having a huge impact on their social skills. We cannot not talk about this.

Emily Cherkin: 3:57

So that really led me to conversations with my students, who then quickly pointed out well, yeah, but my parents are texting and driving. Students who then quickly pointed out well, yeah, but my parents are texting and driving, my parents are playing Candy Crush, my parents are on Facebook. And I was like, ding, this is not a kid problem. It's an adult problem that's impacting children.

Chris Colley: 4:19

So those are sort of my aha moments. That's a huge realization, though, coming to you, that kids don't just start doing this stuff. They have to get it from somewhere. It's not just you know osmosis or like magical things, spells or something that happens to them.

Chris Colley: 4:32

They see it and then they internalize it, right. Right, you said something really interesting too that I want to kind of drill down on a little bit. Drill down on a little bit is do you think that, um, that screens the accessibility that the kids have to it now that it's become so easy? Do you think that we kind of miss the boat on not the phones but what happens in the phone, like more around social media? Like I find that schools and parents, you know but I kind of see it from a teacher's perspective as well that we kind of miss that social media education or digital citizenship brie, or because it always seemed like it was it's everybody's responsibility and no one's responsibility and it sometimes got overlooked as we just didn't see what it was going to do to these kids. I mean, I guess in hindsight, right, we have that information now.

Emily Cherkin: 5:30

Yes.

Chris Colley: 5:31

But will it inform our practice and how do you think we can get back on track with social media, because that seems to me the biggest attraction for kids.

Emily Cherkin: 5:43

That's such a good observation because I think you're. I think you're totally right, we're just, it's a constant game of catch up because and I think that is because it has changed so rapidly in such a short period of time Like, I often say that this is a maybe 10 year old problem, but really it's a five-year-old problem and, like, if you don't have kids that were school age in the last five to 10 years, it's not at all the same. And I'll even joke to parents like I actually would love if my kid had access to 2011 Instagram. That would be fine, I mean, no, it wouldn't. But, like, I would be so much more okay with that because it is so fundamentally different today, so fundamentally different today. So I think that's a really really good point.

Emily Cherkin: 6:25

That is like, did we miss the boat? And I'm an eternal optimist. So I think the answer is no. It's never too late. And I think what we're hearing a lot from like Gen Z now is you guys set us up with some pretty bad stuff and we're paying the price and we're mad about it. So you know, I think that groundswell is going to help, and I also just point to the fact that adults are so terrible at our own use of managing social media screens. Whatever that, we're starting to realize the impact it's having on our lives, Right? So it's sort of, as you point out, touches everyone, whether we want to admit it or not.

Chris Colley: 7:02

Yeah, Right, right. And do you think, like looking at these patterns? I mean, if we look at generational use? I mean, obviously we're, we're looking at technology towards now, but parents have been parents for forever and and and had kids that that you know were curious about things and want to discover and didn't want to listen there. Like those relationships haven't changed all that much, or have they as generations? Like, is it the older the generation the less likely that that screens will be affecting? Or or the technology? Like, will you have 70 year olds like on screen for 12 hours a day?

Emily Cherkin: 7:46

or like that's a good question.

Chris Colley: 7:49

Has generations been affected by this in different ways?

Emily Cherkin: 7:53

Yes is a short answer and I think it's really interesting because you're, if we think about grandparents for a moment, you know, and I hear two very different challenges with grandparenting in the digital age. One is grandparents who are horrified by how much time their grandchildren are on devices, and the other is how many parents are concerned because their parents, the grandparents, are giving the tech to the grandkids because that's what they see everybody doing. So it's it tends to sort of go into those extremes. Um, yeah, that's a really good question. I do think there are general.

Emily Cherkin: 8:26

I'm Gen X pretty solidly and I think my millennial parent friends and colleagues do have a slightly different view than I do, because I remember an analog childhood. I I, I mean Gen X is kind of that last generation of really, you know, running around the neighborhood and coming in when the lights came on and, like you know, sort of free play that had really changed, and I know you had Lenore Skenazy on your podcast as well she talks a lot about that fear-based parenting that led a lot of sort of late Gen X, millennial parenting into this, like fear-based mindset that you know kept kids indoors more.

Emily Cherkin: 9:07

So it's easy to blame screens, as like the problem, but it's just one of many and I think there are some parenting cultural shifts, such as fear-based parenting, that have really exacerbated the problem.

Chris Colley: 9:22

Yeah, absolutely. I often talk like I work with preschool teachers and getting them to understand play and free play, particularly with our pre-service teachers or teachers that are just coming into the profession. They struggle with that and I'm like I'm so curious all the time. So my first question to them is always is how did you play when you were young? You know, like when you were growing up, what was your play like? And a lot of them you know it was very, again screen oriented and I'm talking about you know, newer teachers coming in around in their early 20s, that we've lost connection with this play, and Lenore talks about it so nicely in her book and the podcast as well. I know that the stranger danger is there Two parents working all the time. There's less green space. There's more of this unknown. In your opinion, what brought all this about? Is there traces that we can trace to? Where this? Can you? Can you elaborate on that a bit?

Emily Cherkin: 10:27

Because I find it fascinating. I do too.

Chris Colley: 10:29

Going on so quickly.

Emily Cherkin: 10:31

Yes, I do too, and I write about this in the book, and Lenore's work has certainly influenced my thinking on this as well. One of the things that I think really changed for parents is our increased consumption of 24-7 media, and, you know, now it's 24-7. Maybe 20 years ago it was just all-day news, right, but even the 24-hour news channel thing was becoming. You know, we were just it used to be. You get the news once a day, you know, it might be even in a paper, right, and there was no like interaction and comment section and all of this. It's just so different and so A that's part of it. The other problem is, of course, the business model of tech relies on engagement and clicks and eyeballs, and so in order to get us to engage more in these 24-7 news cycles, which are really boring if you don't have sensationalized stories, they had to sensationalize the stories or only highlight the sensational stories as a

Emily Cherkin: 11:24

result, we, as a parenting generation were like oh my gosh, the world is so dangerous, oh my gosh, kids are getting kidnapped left and right. But and this is what I I really talk about this in is a dichotomy between what is scary and what is dangerous, and Pew Research found in America that the top three parenting fears are number one is kidnapping, number two is youth mental health and number three is cyberbullying. And, as Sesame Street used to say, one of these things is not like the other, because it is shocking to see kidnapping as the number one fear, and here's why it's because of our own fear-based news, clickbait headlines. We think it's a problem. But the irony is parents' response to that is I need to give my kid a phone to keep them safe.

Emily Cherkin: 12:20

If my kid has a phone and they God forbid get kidnapped, I could call them, I could trace them, whatever. But if you give your child a phone, what do you do? You make number two and three youth mental health and cyber bullying way worse automatically. And so I understand the intention and in fact, I think Lenore has. Oh my goodness, let's cut that part, sorry, no problem.

Emily Cherkin: 12:44

I think Lenore in her book. She writes about the risk of kidnapping and there's a statistic I love to talk about right, which is if you wanted your child to be kidnapped, you'd have to put them on the street corner every day for 750,000 years to be guaranteed of being kidnapped, which is-.

Chris Colley: 13:02

And this is number one, number one fear, number one.

Emily Cherkin: 13:05

So a lot of the conversations I have with parents and in the work I do is to really help bring parents awareness to worry about the right thing that your kid's not going to get kidnapped, but your kid is going to experience harm in social media. It's not a matter of if it's a question of when, and so helping them worry about or address the problem that they can actually do something about right. And that's hard, I mean I have a lot of empathy for parents. It is scary, it feels scary but it isn't dangerous.

Chris Colley: 13:37

Right, right. Yeah, it's similar to like in preschool teachers not wanting kids to do risky play. Yet that's how they build who they are as humans. Like, if you're not going to let them take chances, you think they're going to take chances when they're older.

Emily Cherkin: 13:52

Never.

Chris Colley: 13:53

I love the reference. You turned helicopter parents into snowplow parents as time has changed and I totally that was like yes.

Emily Cherkin: 14:06

Yeah, and I didn't come up with that, but it was an aha moment for me when I heard that like this idea that now, parents, we go ahead and mow away obstacles, you know, to give kids a clear path, and yet what they really need is a bumpy road. They need that opportunity to mess up in preschool in a safe environment, right when the teachers are there to help guide them. And when we take that away, it doesn't shock me at all that mental health is in a crisis, you know for youth?

Chris Colley: 14:34

Absolutely, yeah, oh, totally, and I guess I had a question about that is that do you think that? What skills in particular do you find that are being left in the history dustbin that we just aren't, yeah, we aren't achieving anymore and this generation will feel it once they hit yes, you know of age? Um, yeah, what are some of those really valuable skills that they that have to happen?

Emily Cherkin: 15:00

yes, absolutely great questionration. Tolerance is a huge one. You know, the ability to sit with something that's uncomfortable or scary or difficult, I think, which the flip side of that would be perseverance, right, the ability to get through something and know you are capable, right? I think again, certainly parents overprotect in the real world and underprotect online, which is Jonathan Haidt's line, but so that's a big one. I think also, again, inadvertently, parents are undermining children's confidence in their own skill set when they rescue, protect, save, prevent. You know hover, whatever word you want to use, you know hover, whatever word you want to use.

Emily Cherkin: 15:48

And parents can make some different choices about letting their kids have these moments of struggle and see that as a gift. In fact, I often will say to parents what gift are you giving your children when you provide them those experiences, or when you delay the screen or when you say no? And I think this is all tied in. But parents are afraid to say no about the screen. You know they're going to be judged by their peers or everyone else. Quote unquote has it Right? So I do. I say to parents it's not your fault, but it is your responsibility, you know, and it is time to step into that authoritative parenting, not authority, big difference.

Emily Cherkin: 16:24

But you know, we need to say no and we need to tell our kids. I know it's hard and I believe in your ability to do it, because that's what our kids need to hear so that they can practice. You know perseverance and and frustration, tolerance and boredom oh my gosh, boredom is a soul that we have to you.

Chris Colley: 16:43

You know it's a muscle we have to flex right like exactly like what am I going to do with on my screen? I'm going to be bored. Oh, I'm not going to be able to follow up all the other kids. Like it's such a pressure from your kids too, and you always, like, you want to please your kids. Yeah, as teachers want to please their students. Like I see the parallel nature of it happening.

Chris Colley: 17:03

Yes, that we want them to be you know and I can help you with all your problems. And don't worry, I'll be there for you if you struggle.

Emily Cherkin: 17:11

And instead of letting struggle happen and developing resilience and stuff like that, yeah, and I was just going to add that friction is so important here, right, and I have a post on my screen that says learning happens in moments of friction and that can be in the classroom or at home. We have to let our children hit those bumps in the road so they know we can guide them, we can model, we can give examples, we can ask if they want help. But when we solve it for them, we take away the opportunity to learn something. And that is where we see that longer term problem. You know the mental health, insecurity, lack of confidence coming out.

Chris Colley: 17:51

Absolutely Well and I think our systems are designed that way to look for error and look at them negatively instead of learning opportunities. And you see that with parents and with teachers, right, this kind of taking away any kind of idea that mistakes are important, that they help me and inform me and make me grow.

Emily Cherkin: 18:14

And I see that also in the form of platforms like surveillance technology, which catches, quote, unquote kids making mistakes and reports it to parents or schools and says your kid typed this or your kid searched up that. And again I mean I'm sorry, but surveillance erodes trust and trust is the foundation of a healthy society, right, like a healthy family, of a healthy school. And so I see a lot of red flags with that Again the misguided preying on people parent fear that but not actually thinking about what's dangerous. What's dangerous is not letting children build the skills so that they can thrive, so that they can trust others. Right, that, to me, is really important.

Chris Colley: 19:00

Yeah, and one of your quotes which I really love, kind of how can we turn this conversation around to see it in a positive light, that we can empower ourselves and I'm not sure if you said it, but you reference it, call it saying replace judgment with curiosity, have to judge about it because we're all kind of doing it, we're in the same boat together, but how can we re jig the conversation around and how we talk to our kids or our students about screen time so that they're not feeling like, oh, I'm doing something wrong, but you're just, we need to get more informed about stuff? Could you, could you elaborate on that quote, cause I just love it.

Emily Cherkin: 19:43

I do too. It's not's not mine, and I always open my talks with this story because I loved that too. And I joke that I first heard it when I took a mindfulness class with my husband when we were newly married and I had time to take mindfulness classes because we didn't have kids yet. But I heard that and I thought, oh my gosh, it's all about the reframe. I feel like when we're in judgment, we are defensive or other people feel defensive, but if you reframe it as curiosity, it disarms that stress intention, and so one of the ways I see that playing out with parents in screen time, for example, is you know, if, for example, you say to your child, you're always on your phone, I can't believe it.

Emily Cherkin: 20:28

You're so rude. You know the things that we all have said and say and instead say I wonder why it's so hard for you to put your phone down. Or I forgot to teach you this is one of my favorites I forgot to teach you that when we go to restaurants, it's rude to look at your phone and you have to make eye contact with a waiter when you order. I forgot to teach you that. So again, that shift in how we say it, just that little again. If our goal as parents is to teach, which I believe it is we are our children's first teachers then that is part of the process. Is we say oh, oh, my gosh, I need to teach you this skill, like it didn't occur to me that I hadn't Right?

Emily Cherkin: 21:09

I just think again like it allows us to just de-escalate the conflict and stress around a topic that is so fraught.

Chris Colley: 21:18

Absolutely. And another really cool tip that you had given out was living out loud or saying your use. You know like, ok, I'm going to check my phone now, I've got to look at some emails, I have a really important one coming in or whatever it might be, but you're verbalizing that usage and I thought that that was just a great trick to you know, get people aware of the amount of use they might be having, because not everybody looks at screen time use or wants to for using it with technology, because it's that accountability piece and it's that increasing our own awareness of our use and getting to teach our children about how we use tech or how tech uses us right.

Emily Cherkin: 22:14

So, that is the starting point, and it is important to note that I tell parents to do this, not children. It starts with the adult right and the hope is that kids will, then, well, they're going to roll their eyes, which they should and they will.

Chris Colley: 22:31

But that means they're listening Exactly.

Emily Cherkin: 22:33

Exactly.

Chris Colley: 22:34

Something's sunk in there and they're like thinking it's churning Exactly.

Emily Cherkin: 22:38

Yeah, and eventually we want to see them doing it too. You know, and that's where again we can do that reframe. We can say, you know, my son might hear his phone making a notification and he'll say, oh, I'm going to go reach for my phone and check what that was and I'll say thank you for living your life out loud, Right. So I'm naming it because I want that attention to that behavior to continue. Like I want him to say that again. So I get to name it and give it that positive reinforcement, because again we're so quick to criticize, judge, blame, get mad. But where attention goes, energy flows right. Like we want them to hear the positive things, what we want to see more of, not what we want less of.

Chris Colley: 23:19

Yeah absolutely Absolutely. And I think. One last thing that we'll we'll end on here again there were so many aha moments when I was going through some of the other podcasts that you've been a part of in your book as well. Um, that a simple thing like turning your notifications off can help reduce so much anxiety. What am I missing? Focus a little bit more, and it seems like such an easy thing to do, but would have really good outcomes.

Emily Cherkin: 23:51

Yeah, net benefit right away? Yeah, absolutely. It's one thing. I've had my notifications off for years.

Emily Cherkin: 23:56

I never miss text messages because the reality is my phone's always nearby or it's on my computer, you know, and thankfully there's things like you know you can put do not disturb, and that's a slight improvement, right, but yeah, you know again any if we're letting this device interfere and actually I quote my husband here he's like letting someone who's not even in the room text you like while you're in the middle of talking to your child is giving permission to that person to interrupt you And're not even physically there you know, it's a pretty shocking thing to think about it if you you know it is how do they have that much power over us? You know?

Chris Colley: 24:34

and it's like the urgency, like it's like I see it in workshops sometimes too like I'll know, like, oh, they just got a notification. They start to get antsy and then they'll get up and walk out, you know, to go, and I'm like we're in the middle of something here, like and these are like educators tolerance too, or the boredom even, like you know, knowing that you can trust yourself to survive 40 minutes without looking at your phone.

Emily Cherkin: 25:00

Like what would that?

Chris Colley: 25:02

be like.

Emily Cherkin: 25:02

I wonder if that's even the opening question is what would it feel like right now if I asked you to turn your phones off and put them in the other room and you have to like? How does that make you feel when you think about it? Right, because I'm guessing a lot of people are going to say, oh, I get all panicky or anxious.

Chris Colley: 25:17

Oh for sure, I think they were right. Refuse, no, no, my daughter's going to contact me. Or oh, the dentist is calling. I got to. I mean, think 10 years ago, what did you do? That's it. And then the reframe.

Emily Cherkin: 25:33

Yeah, right, and the reframe of what gift might you be giving yourself to not be available 24-7, to have to delay gratification or response, Like what is really the worst thing that could happen. I mean, yes, I know I'm going to get a list, but it's also really good to model that right that our kids don't need to respond right away, just like we don't need to, that's it.

Chris Colley: 25:56

Well, I have to think about replace judgment with curiosity when we're having. I was thinking too, like at the start of a workshop, like can everybody just silence their phone or put it in a box? That's a door, because it does eat into time and and the distraction is continuously there.

Emily Cherkin: 26:14

Um, well, maybe start with that story and ask the as a question. What would it feel like? I'm curious yeah and do you think you can challenge yourself Right, I'm into that Cool.

Chris Colley: 26:32

Well, Emily, this has been fantastic. It's such a great, amazing topic and your words and insight is so valuable for the listeners, so thank you for taking some time out. I appreciate your time. People Screen time solution Go get it.

Emily Cherkin: 26:49

Read it.

Chris Colley: 26:50

Ask your kids questions, remember, replace judgment with curiosity and turn the future around a little bit. Yes, we need it.

Emily Cherkin: 27:00

We're going to do it. We are Thank you for having me.

Chris Colley: 27:03

Thanks, emily, my pleasure Great, eat it. We're gonna do it, we are thank you for having me thanks emily.