Is Your Kid Ready for a Smartphone?

Andrea  It doesn’t matter how good your kid is. This is really powerful technology. And you’re giving your kid the world when you…

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Bill  …all the way to the studio and being here in person with me today.

Andrea  I’m so excited.

Bill  We’ve gotten to know each other a little bit over the last few years and I’m really excited for our conversation today.

Andrea  Yeah, me too.

Bill  I want to talk with people about the fantastic organization you’ve built and about the book you’ve written. Before we go there, tell us your origin story. How did you get into this important work?

Andrea  Yes, well really I think it started a long time ago. My husband was in grad school and I had a really good friend who was a voracious reader. And I asked her one day, I was like, “Rachel, what did your parents do to instill this love of reading?” And she said, “Oh, well, we didn’t have a TV growing up.” And I was like, “Oh, really? Fascinating!” And so I remember going home and telling my husband, Tyler, I’m like, “What would you think if we just put the TV in the closet and we used it like an appliance?” So we’re just pulling it out when we need it. And frankly, he’s not really into sports or things like that and he’s a super practical engineer, so he was like, “Sure.” So we did. We put the TV in the closet and we would just pull it out for a family movie night, the Olympics, special events. And some of my kids thought that was just the best when we pulled the TV out. So really, for whatever reason, this desire to just create a family that was not centered around technology even before smartphones existed, that was just a part of me. And so fast forward years later, our family moved from the Midwest to Oregon where we now live and at that time our oldest was 12. And this was right when smartphones were starting to become more common, and especially I would say among younger kids. And her friends were starting to get phones and we were moving to this place where we didn’t know anyone. So we handed over an abandoned smartphone, just one that we had laying around, and gave that to her thinking she could stay in touch with these friends that she left behind. And we could get a hold of her in this place where we don’t know anyone. And for us, that was as far as it went. It was just like, this is a communication device. And this was before there were phones like Troomi; that type of starter phone didn’t exist at the time. In fact, Apple’s Screen Time didn’t even exist at the time. So if you wanted to control anything on an iPhone, you would need to get some kind of a third-party app. It just was not even on my radar. So I remember her coming home from school one day, and it was normally a time of day when we would have a conversation like, how was your day? You know, how was school? And she was having her after school snack and she’s spooning her cereal into her mouth with one hand, and she’s doing this with the other hand, scrolling and not talking to me. And it was my first aha moment where I was just realizing, I have failed my kid. Like I’ve done something wrong here, and this is getting in the way of our relationship.

Bill  How far into the smartphone experience was she? Was this after weeks, months?

Andrea  Months. I would say five or six months. It was quite a while. And yeah, and again, this wasn’t uncommon in that era. I mean, for middle schoolers, we’re just starting to get to a regular iPhone, right? But then a few months after that, I was in the kitchen scrolling on my own phone, leaning over the kitchen counter, and I came across a post from her. And this was back in the day when Musical.ly was a big thing. Well, she had a Musical.ly video post and she was singing a song about a Glock, about a gun, and she had her hand to her head. And it, for lack of a better word, mentally pulled a trigger inside of me where I realized, wow, what have I given her? Like I had kind of given her this loaded gun with all this information and all these things that I just didn’t really even know where it was out there. And so I remember telling Tyler, telling my husband, I think we need to hit the reset button. This just has gotten out of control and I didn’t realize really what we were giving her. So I actually started doing a lot of research, reading a lot of books, and talking to people. And I just knew that the thing I needed to do was to take the phone away, which I know, as parents are listening, they’re like, wait, what? So we gave her a brick phone. This was just like the old basic phones that we used to have that could just text. And it was not a smartphone and I’ll never forget sitting in the kitchen and she just had tears just streaming down her face. And I felt horrible because I was like, this was my fault, not yours. It wasn’t her fault, but she felt like it was her fault.

Bill  I know that most parents listening right now have been faced with that same question and they have felt like, I can’t take it away. How did you have the courage to do that?

Andrea  I think at the end of the day, it was just knowing what’s best for your kid. And as a parent, that’s always your top priority is to do what’s best for your kid, even if it means a disruption maybe in the relationship temporarily. But it is following up with warmth and love and working on the relationship. And I think also it was me emphasizing that it wasn’t her fault. And I actually apologized to her. I’m like, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize everything that was accessible and available on here. And it was hard. She stuffed that phone far into her backpack. I mean, she, of course, did not want any of her friends or peers to see it. And we can get to this later, but eventually she was grateful for that decision.

Bill  I tell all the parents who are listening to that and going, oh, my goodness. I think something that we have to acknowledge and everyone needs to recognize is that kids themselves, research shows they realize how harmful some of these things are. You know, like 10 hours a day of screen time and social media and smartphones in general, there’s research that’s been done by the Pew Research Center, for example, that shows 73 percent of teenagers acknowledge, ‘Yeah, I know this isn’t great for me,’ but they feel trapped by it.

Andrea  Yeah, but that’s now. That wasn’t then. So back then, I mean, again, we’ll probably talk about this, but nobody was really talking about this. And I think as we talk to this generation of kids now, and my daughter is now 21. They will say that. I’ve talked to young adults who are like, I’m sad actually that my parents didn’t have more boundaries because I wasted so much time or I got into pornography or whatever the thing is. And so I think now this generation, the young adults are very aware and we’re talking about how many hours we’re spending. But at that time, no one was talking about it and kids hadn’t had the exposure long enough to see all the bad effects. It was a different era.

Bill  So how did that go? You had the conversation. There were tears. She stuffed this brick phone deep into her backpack. How did that evolve? I’d also love to hear about your husband and how did he take to all this? Was he like, oh my goodness, Andrea is losing it or was he on board?

Andrea  Yeah, I mean, initially, I think he wasn’t as convinced as I was because he hadn’t seen the evidence. And I think this is another thing to mention: sometimes there’s one parent who is just more aware because in parenting and in a relationship, you’re each kind of taking care of different duties and different things. And also, I think I used my smartphone more in that way than my husband did. So he wasn’t seeing the Musical.ly post that she was posting because he didn’t have social media. And so I think it took a while for me to kind of show him like, look, this is what she posted. And like, this is what I’m reading. And so I hope that offers some encouragement to some parents out there who feel like they’re the only one that maybe their spouse or partner isn’t on the same page. I say, like, share what you’re learning. Share what you’re learning from this podcast. Share as you’re reading books and articles because that really does help. It did take some time for Tyler to understand and see the real harms that smartphones and social media were doing. So that does take some time. As far as my daughter, it just was a lot of working on the relationship, kind of repairing that trust in a way, and also providing some tangible steps toward working toward someday having a phone. So it wasn’t like we’re never having a smartphone again. I was like, let’s talk about this. So we actually sat our kids down. This is when we started creating a family tech plan. But we also created something called Am I Ready? It’s a self-evaluation we have at Better Screen Time.

Bill  Yeah.

Andrea  So we sat down with our kids and we asked them two questions. We said, you know, what does it mean to be responsible and what does it mean to be emotionally mature? And we made this long list and they’re like, OK, well, if you’re responsible, you get up for school on your own, you do your homework without being asked. You do your chores. And if you’re emotionally mature, you’re kind to your siblings. You don’t throw a fit when things don’t go your way. Long list. And when we got done, I was like, you guys are right. And those are the things that a person needs to be able to do before they’re ready for a smartphone. They were like, oh, are you kidding me? But that was the idea. Because I have a background in teaching, I just knew, especially because I had taught junior high, it always goes better when kids or students can have a little ownership over their own boundaries. So I wanted to give them an opportunity to self-reflect. And so that’s what we did. We took basically those answers, but also some just research on child development and put those into some questions that parents can give their kids when they’re asking for a phone and be like, OK, well, you know, do I do my homework without being asked? And then years later, we added a parent side to that as well. So the parent can also be like, well, have I prepared my kid? Because I want other parents to avoid that mistake. I don’t want them to have to go through what we did because it was not fun.

Bill  I can tell that you were a really good teacher because in everything that I’ve read from all the resources you’ve produced to the way you wrote your fantastic book and outlined discussions for families to have. Every step of the way, we’re involving the kids in these discussions. We’re not just dictating to them. It’s not a, “Well, this is my house and these are our rules,” kind of approach. It’s not that approach. It is very, very inclusive of the kids in those discussions so that they’re learning and they’re connecting the dots as you have those discussions, which I agree is so important because if they feel like, hey, I was part of this. This is something I can live with and I understand it. I understand why mom is concerned, not just, “Well, here’s some rule.” It’s a completely different approach.

Andrea  Totally. And it helps them take ownership. They own it. And initially, that actually wasn’t really my approach because I was so scared. I was definitely making decisions out of fear. And as a parent, that’s never a good place to be. And so I learned that like, oh, I was panicking and I was overwhelmed like, oh, my goodness, like, I have to take this phone away. And now what do we do? And I had to like, yeah, calm down and realize like information and knowledge is power. How can I then teach my kids? Because also my husband Tyler, he is a mechanical engineer, but he works as a software engineer. So he understands a lot about the technology. And that was part of the conversation, too, is I kind of wanted to lock everything down like Fort Knox. And he was the one who was basically telling me like, it’s impossible. You can do your best. And definitely parental controls help and safe technology is a huge help. But at the end of the day, you have to teach your kids. So it was a combination of those conversations-him letting me know that just using parental controls wouldn’t be enough, and me realizing I couldn’t make decisions out of fear.

Bill  That distinction you just made is vital. It’s not control, it’s preparation.

Andrea  Yeah.

Bill  And so that kids, as they graduate into increasing levels of responsibility, they know what’s appropriate and what’s inappropriate, they’ve learned how to have discipline. And they have a desire to have discipline, not just, well, for this, you know, for this time period, I have to deal with these rules. Later on, I can do whatever I want. Yeah, you’re helping them understand an approach that’s having the right desires and wanting to have the technology as a tool, not as this tyrant that can run their lives. I think that’s pivotal.

Andrea  Yeah, totally.

Bill  I love it. So you had this experience with your family, you did your reset. How did that turn into Better Screen Time, your business, your organization, and this incredible book? I actually have it right here, Creating a Tech-Healthy Family. How did your personal experience grow into these things?

Andrea  Yeah, well, my background is in teaching, and I spent time teaching all ages in a variety of settings. And I thought, I mean, what’s my contribution to the world? And I decided that rather than going back into the classroom, once my kids were all in school, that I would instead teach and help parents so that, A, they could avoid the mistakes I had made, and, B, empower the next generation. That’s also part of my motivation: being a youth advocate, and making sure that youth have those tools and parents have to be the teachers because they’re the ones that have to enforce the rules. So I decided I’m going to start an organization, start a business. And it was also really important to me to have some kind of a positive spin, as well as I was debating, like, what do we call this because technology is here to stay. And we all use it every day. It’s an incredible tool. But we need to be aware of the dangers. And I was seeing a lot of fear-based information out there. And it was very dark. And I felt dark when I read it. And I thought, how could we still talk about the hard stuff, but put kind of a positive spin on it. So that was why it was just Better Screen Time. It’s like, “When you know better, do better,” which is the quote by Maya Angelou. And I thought, you know, let’s do Better Screen Time. And so I just started on my computer, right, using technology from home, jumped on Instagram, started sharing. And then as we had these discussions with our kids, I thought, well, I should just write these down. So we just self-published on Amazon. It’s, you know, it’s nothing fancy, but it’s really solid. And they’re the exact conversations that we had with our kids. So it was like, let’s create a family tech plan. Let’s talk about when we’re actually ready, what does it mean to be ready for more technology? And we talked about, you know, all the hard conversations about online predators and pornography and all those things. And also just balance in life and what it means to be healthy, like how are we using our time? So we package those conversations and discussions in our book, Creating a Tech-Healthy Family. So hopefully other people could feel like they could do it too.

Bill  Well, I think what stands out to me about your book is it’s so easy. And there are many books that take the approach of just studying the problem. And it’s focused on fear, fear, fear. And it just actually makes parents feel more overwhelmed and more helpless. And you’ve taken the exact opposite approach where you touch on, hey, we have to be aware of X, Y, and Z. But here’s how to have the conversation that navigates that challenge. And it’s from the first chapter, it’s just practical. And as I read it, and as my wife and I discussed it, it was this feeling of empowerment. It’s like, hey, fear goes away when you have a roadmap for what to do and how to handle these things. And I just commend you for making all this available. It’s fantastic.

Andrea  Thank you. I really appreciate that because it is again, it’s nothing fancy. It’s not a New York Times bestseller. But I’m married to an engineer and I’m a teacher and we’re all about practical in our house. And really, I’m like, I want to make this easy for parents. And I had read all of the books. And I thought, how could I just synthesize this a little bit and give people just the steps to take so that they feel more empowered. So I love that it did that for you. And I’ve heard from thousands of parents that they’ve used the discussions and the guide, they’ve had these conversations with their family and parents over and over again. That’s what they’ll say. Like, I don’t feel so fearful anymore. And I feel like it doesn’t fix everything because technology is always changing and your kids are growing. But it gives you that solid foundation of like, we can have conversations about the hard stuff and we can make decisions and we can work together to have better habits.

Bill  I love it. I love it. What has been the experience of your kids over the years? So now you’re years into this work and you’ve got kids who are older and off to college. And, you know, as they look back on growing up with their mom who’s been so involved and not just in leading technology management for your family, but for now, thousands and thousands of families. How do your kids reflect on growing up with you, I guess?

Andrea  Yeah, well, it definitely depends on the kids just based on the experience they’ve had based on their age. So our oldest is 21 and then the next one’s 18. So they both are out of the house now. So we have three at home and then our youngest is 12. So definitely with my oldest, that was the hardest, rockiest, toughest patch. And she’s such a great kid. I mean, she was the kind of kid that cleaned her room without being asked. She still is. And I think in my mind, that’s why I felt like I wasn’t really even worrying about handing that over to her. But that was when I learned and why I tell parents, I’m like, it doesn’t matter how good your kid is. This is really powerful technology and you’re giving your kid the world when you hand this over to them. And so it just was a wake up call for me. And she definitely didn’t love the restrictions at first. And she definitely got a little bit more access than like our other kids have simply because we were backtracking and figuring it all out. I mean, the poor oldest kid, that’s how it goes. They’re the guinea pig. But years later, she sat down, was writing her college admissions essays, and she sent them over to me in a Google Doc. And I’ll never forget. She was like, “Mom, can you edit these?” And I opened them up and I opened one up and it was all about this process of getting the phone and having it taken away. And she said, “I sat through TED talks and tech talks.” And she’s like, “I thought my mom’s goal was to make me miserable.” But later, as I matured, I realized that my mom’s goal was just to help me and make my life better. And as I read through the essay, it was such a relief to me, I guess, that she appreciated those boundaries. And she said, “When my classmates were being fed just harmful content on social media,” she said, “I was taking ballet classes and I learned to love my body.” And she said, “My ears were covered when the world was telling me who to be. I found myself on my own. I know who I am.” And when I read that, I’m like, “That’s it. That’s why I do this. And that’s why I go and when I’m traveling and I’m speaking, I share her essay at the end.” And there’s usually not a dry eye in the room because I think that’s what we all want for our kids. We want our kids to know who they are before social media or an influencer or a mean kid on a group text is telling them who they are. And I think that’s why I feel especially protective of this age because I taught that age in school, but also as a volunteer in my church have just always been with the teenagers. And I’m like, they need to know how awesome they are and how special they are. And if they’re constantly hearing these voices, that they’re not enough online, that they’re going to start to believe that. And so I just think we have to be really conscientious, all of us, of what we’re bringing into our lives, into our minds, into our hearts. And adolescents are at such a critical stage because their brain is going through this pruning process where it’s deciding what to let go of and what to hang on to. And so that’s why it’s so important that we help them protect their time and their brain and their soul. But with my other kids, it’s definitely just been easier because we had a plan, we had the family tech plan that we created, we had clear boundaries about not taking phones in the bedrooms or bathrooms. They all knew that it was going to be later for them to be getting an iPhone. And with my other kids, it was more like 16 by the time they got an iPhone and it still had restrictions on it. And so right now my senior in high school still doesn’t have social media. And it’s interesting, we did a class just this week with parents and teenagers. And I mentioned how this daughter, she came to the class with me and was talking to the teenagers on the call. And I mentioned she’ll be getting Instagram at some point, you know, later this year once college applications are in. And she turned to me and she’s like, actually, my friend and I decided that we’re not going to get it this year. I was like, oh, this is news to me.

Bill  I love it.

Andrea  But she has one friend who also is holding out, which it definitely makes it easier. You know, my daughter that just went to college, like she’s been enjoying her time on Instagram. And again, it’s like you just have to have those conversations of like, make sure you set some personal boundaries and helping them. But you can’t control at that point. But that’s why it’s so important to have these conversations when your kids are at home. And then I have a 15-year-old son that still has a brick phone. He’s still working through it. We do these tech talks, as I call them. And so that’s what I’m creating in our next book. It’s called Live Real Life. And it’s actually a set of prompts for preteens and teens to ask themselves. And so it’s got a lot of self-reflection rather than just like reading a book.

Bill  Excellent. Yeah. I’m glad you brought up the tech talks. My wife’s name is Heidi, and she brought up the question I’m going to ask. She said, I love the idea of the weekly tech talks. How do you do that without your child feeling like it’s this weekly inquisition? How do you keep it positive and make it something your child is comfortable with?

Andrea  Yeah, it’s a good question. Well, all kids are different. And so some kids will be totally receptive and it’ll be easy. And other kids will push back. But I think number one, keep it short because nobody wants to sit there with their mom or dad for hours at a time feeling like they’re getting grilled. I think it’s about having one specific topic that you want to cover or talk about. And that’s why I say watching a TED talk is great because you can just sit and kind of watch it together, have a little conversation, then maybe pick one action you’re both going to work on that week. And that’s been really helpful with my kids because they’ve seen that I’m in this too, that I also have to watch my screen time. I also don’t take my phone into my bedroom. Just modeling that. And that modeling will look different for every family. But I told my kids like eight years ago that I wouldn’t take my phone or my laptop in the bedroom or bathroom anymore. And I’ve stuck to that. Even if I’m traveling, I’ll leave it out or somewhere where it’s not within reach. And so I think when you’re sitting down to have those tech talks, even saying something that you’re going to work on as a parent that week, like, yeah, I’ve been on my computer too much doing work at night. That’s my thing. They’ll be like, oh, I got to go answer one more email. Let’s schedule time when we’re going to play a game instead or something like that. One of my favorite TED talks is called How Screens Make Us Less Happy by Adam Alter. So that’s one that I highly recommend. It’s a great place to start. It sounds like it might be negative. It’s not very empowering. It’s very tangible. And he just does an incredible job. He also wrote a book called Irresistible, which talks about how technology does hook and addict us. And that’s a great one. So I think it’s just picking something small. And then we do tech checks where we’ll manually check their phone. And I’m like, you know, I’m not looking here to be nosy or find everything out. I’m basically just looking for red flags. And sometimes there have been some. And so it’s a good chance to talk about it before things get out of control. And I know parents worry about respecting their kids’ privacy. But what I always tell my kids and I tell parents is like I’ve sat in a call with the FBI and they’ve said you definitely should be checking your kid’s phone. Because in reality, if something goes wrong, the police could check it, Google could check it, the phone company could check the texts, or the school, depending on what happens. So as a parent, you definitely should be the first one that kind of knows what’s happening.

Bill  A hundred percent. And I’ve had conversations with parents who, because of those check-ins, have literally stopped terrible, terrible things from potentially happening. You know, one dad who just had this feeling, I need to check her phone. I need to check her phone and discovered that she was texting with someone that she thought was a teenager. His Spidey sense was just going off and he could tell from the nature of the conversation, something is off here. And they were planning a meetup. And he was, thank goodness, able to jump in. These are real things. And so, yeah, you can’t overstate the necessity of doing that.

Andrea  Yeah. And I think that just goes to show the importance of doing the tech talks, because then when you’re doing a tech check, that’s going to come more naturally. And we always try to do that when our kids are in the room. It’s a team thing. I’m not like, oh, they’re away. I’m going to go spy on their phone. Obviously, if you thought your kid was in trouble or something was going on, like, then that’s a moment when you might need to do that. Right.

Bill  We have a 17-year-old daughter who not only doesn’t have an iPhone, she uses a Troomi phone.

Andrea  Oh, I love that.

Bill  And she knows that Heidi and I can see her text messages. Now, are we reading her text messages every day? No. But she knows that we can. And, you know, we check in with her periodically. She’s actually come to us and said, hey, I got a weird thing going on with so-and-so. Could you go read my text messages? Did I say something stupid? I love that. And that level of trust is there. And it’s not awkward at all because that’s been the norm.

Andrea  I love that. I also think that points to the beauty of the starter phones, because I know a lot of parents are like, oh, why, you know, why not just start with an iPhone? And I’m like, you have so much more capability with starter phones, like seeing the kids’ texts and those kinds of things. It’s just a lot easier. But I love that your daughter felt that level of trust with you.

Bill  Yeah. Does she want to get an iPhone? Of course. Yeah. And that’s coming. But we’re definitely off on the right foot so that she does make that transition. And it will still be without social media for the next while. But she’ll have learned everything she needs to be ready. Yeah, I want to switch and get into some more depth on this notion of building a family tech plan. So when people think of Andrea Davis, I think what you’re known for is how you’ve empowered parents to build family tech plans. Can you just walk us through at a high level? And I know there’s lots of information on your website and obviously in your book, but walk us through what is a family tech plan and how do you go about doing that?

Andrea  Yes. So a family tech plan is creating a plan for how your family is going to use technology or not use technology. And it’s so important because it helps your family get on the same page and creates clear expectations. And then there’s less back and forth between parents and kids because we want to minimize that conflict in the home. And I just as I talk to families and I experienced it myself, we know that technology can bring a lot of conflict. And so a family tech plan helps eliminate that. As you start to have these conversations with your family, you could sit down and do this in one night, or maybe you want to break it up. But we keep it super simple. We just talk about where, when, what and how long. So where are we using tech? Where are we not using it? When are we using it? When are we not? What’s okay and what’s not okay? And for how long? And obviously like when it comes to what, there’s no way you can catalog the whole internet. But in general, you can talk about your family’s standards and your family’s values. And perhaps there’s a YouTube channel that’s okay to watch in your house. And so we’re like, yeah, we’re adding that on the green list. Check. That’s okay. But maybe there’s a YouTube channel that you’re not so keen on. And that’s like, yeah, we’re not doing that. But let’s talk about why. What’s happening on this YouTube channel that makes it feel like it doesn’t have a place in our home? And again, kids are always going to make their own choices, but they still know where you’re at. And so on your family tech plan, we recommend writing it out and then posting it somewhere. Like we have ours on our refrigerator and that’s great because then sometimes it’s like, mom, you said that I could have 45 minutes on the computer today. And it’s like, oh, let’s go look at the family tech plan. Oh, it says on weekdays that we just do 30 minutes or whatever it might be. And again, I don’t tell families, ‘This is how long it should be,’ because I think every family is different. And we also talk a lot about the three C’s of screen time. So creating, connecting, or am I consuming? And that can help your family, maybe even divvy that use up. So you’re like, yeah, we’re going to use tech, but let’s be low on the consumption side and high on the creativity and the connection.

Bill  I love that notion. I always tell people we’ve got to keep screens from being the default for every minute of our free time. You know, let it be a tool. In your book, you actually walk through that object lesson of having a toolbox and you know, it’s full of all the other hammers and screwdrivers. And you put a phone in there as you’re introducing this concept to younger kids and helping them establish this is a tool. And the more we can say, ‘This is a tool, and it’s a good tool when it’s used as such. It’s not a lifestyle,’ It’s not the default for every single minute of time that we have. I think that is essential.

Andrea  Yeah. And I love that. As you were just talking, if you have young kids, you can just be like, you know, pulling out the hammer. Like what happens if I give this to a two year old, you know, versus maybe a 15-year-old that knows how to use it. And so it’s also helpful to just talk about like the tools, a tool at the right time, right. And the right hands with the right experience. So

Bill  you mentioned something just now you alluded to, you know, crafting that plan around your family’s values. You know, every family has their sets of standards and norms and values. That’s essential. One of the questions you ask people to look at is, you know, picture what life is like five or ten years down the road. How is that question really helpful to the process of doing a tech plan?

Andrea  Yeah. Well, I think it’s helpful for families to just picture like what do we want to be? Our last name is Davis, so as a Davis family, what do we want to be known for or known as? And actually, Cal Newport talks about this in his book, Digital Minimalism, about your identity. And I think even when it comes to technology, like do we want to be known as the person who’s always on their phone in the friend group or who do we really want to be? And so just thinking like as a family, we want to be connected. We want to know each other. I mean, maybe we have the family group chat and we’re connecting that way. But when we’re together, do we know how to put phones away at the dinnertime or do we know how to be present for our friends when they need us? And so I just think it’s helpful to have that future vision of really understanding that technology can shape who we become. It’s shaping our society right now and it will continue to shape our society. So we have to be future focused and think, you know, who do we want to be known as?

Bill  AI is the next- I mean, I can’t even say it’s the next frontier because it’s here. Yeah, it’s here. You know, as you’re looking at helping families with family tech plans, what are the discussions you’re having about AI?

Andrea  Yes. Well, really, I’m starting with my own family first. I think it’s just important to know that I don’t think anybody really knows right now where it’s going, where it’s headed. We’re all learning as we go here. But as we’ve just been having discussions, I like to talk about kind of the A’s of AI. And first off, starting with the fact that what does artificial mean, like looking at an artificial plant and thinking, you know, it’s not real. It’s not alive. So teaching your kids that AI runs on machines, not a real human. So it’s not your friend and being mindful of that, that it’s not someone to go to when we’re feeling discouraged or depressed and being mindful of like, what does artificial mean? And when do I need to turn to something real? And when can artificial be an okay substitute? And I think the next A of that is advanced. I believe AI is an advanced tool. And as we’ve seen, there are schools across the country that are banning AI from, you know, elementary and middle school, which I think is a smart move. And just really understanding that putting those tools into the hands of children who still have developing minds can be very harmful in a lot of ways. However, it doesn’t mean that we don’t show them what it’s capable of or that we don’t talk about it. And as a parent, I think right now the most important thing parents could do is use it if you haven’t. I know people have, it’s going to become political. It’s a political thing already, but I think just being aware of what it’s capable of and what it’s doing if you haven’t used any form of generative AI, I think that’s important. And then having those conversations of like, this is an advanced tool. Maybe let’s talk about when would it be okay to use, and when is it not okay? Become familiar with your school’s policies on it. And if you’re not excited by them, then speaking up. And I definitely work with our local school district a lot on their tech policies. So we’re all discerning as we’re going here, but we can’t pretend that it’s not here. We need to be familiar with it and we need to be talking to our kids about it.

Bill  Very well said. When it comes to the discussions that go into building a family tech plan, if someone’s listening who’s at square one, they have felt overwhelmed. They hadn’t heard about this idea of a family tech plan before. Where should they start? What’s the right first discussion for them to dive into?

Andrea  Yeah, the best place to start is our website, BetterScreenTime.com, and we have a quick guide to creating a family tech plan. So it walks you through all of the steps, helps you go through the where, when, what, and how long. And prior to that, we actually do a little conversation with our kids where we make a thumbs up and a thumbs down list. So we say, okay, thumbs up. What are the things that we love about technology? And we did this with our kids, and this is also in the book, but you make a long list and then thumbs down. What are the things that we need to watch out for that can be harmful about tech? And your kids will know, like kids are so smart and they know a lot these days about technology. Make your list and then just talk about that. Because it is a tool, we have to make those decisions about when we use it. We have to make good choices. And I call that digital discernment. That’s something I talk about a lot with teens. It’s the ability to see the difference between right and wrong and good and bad, and specifically on a digital tool. So that discernment is so powerful. So I would start with that conversation, then work into your family tech plan. If you feel like your spouse or partner is not on board at all, perhaps read a book together, like The Anxious Generation. There’s so many books that we have on our website and you have some amazing ones here in the studio that can be helpful to just bring some awareness to the conversation before you sit down with your kids. Or listen to your podcast; it would be another great thing to share together. So you’re helping the other person and your partner or spouse become aware.

Bill  I love it. Thank you. Wrapping up, we’re going to shift to our Fast Five. We end every podcast with some quick-fire questions. Awesome. And so let me hit you with those. What do you or your family do when you’re not on screens?

Andrea  Outside. We live in Oregon and we live by a beautiful river and mountains by Mount Hood. So I’m either on a bike, I’m swimming, hiking, skiing. Just outside is therapy for me. I grew up right by the Grand Tetons in Idaho. And yeah, we just love being outside.

Bill  Excellent. What is one childhood memory of yours that still makes you smile?

Andrea  Yeah, well, it’s probably no surprise it’s being outside. So my dad was a genuine Idaho potato farmer. And we had acreage around our house and we had this gravel pit that was down the road. And so it would fill up with water every summer and had all the critters that, you know, maybe some people don’t love. But as a kid growing up in a farm in the country, I loved it. I would run down there and my dog and my cat would be running with me and I would go catch salamanders and snakes and all of the things and run things through the stream and watch it go. And yeah, I spent hours outside. Yeah, that always makes me smile because I loved it.

Bill  What is something that every kid should experience before they’re 18?

Andrea  I think every kid should experience something that is physically or mentally taxing-something challenging. And I don’t mean something traumatic. I mean something like potato harvest. So growing up, we always had to work during potato harvest. And this is a time when in the fall, around this time of year, actually, they’re starting to dig all the potatoes up out of the ground. And they go through on a conveyor belt and there’s just a lot of manual labor. So we would sort out dirt, clods, vines, because they kill the vines on the potatoes before they dig them up, rotten potatoes, rocks. And so we would stand for hours at nine in the morning till sometimes 11 at night or midnight. We got a little lunch break and a little dinner break for two weeks. And many times when I’ve been around peers and they’ve been like, oh, this is so hard. I’m always like, this is still not as hard as potato harvest. Last year, for example, one of my girls went to Bolivia. She did an HXP trip and went and helped build a school for a couple of weeks and she paid for her trip. I think every kid should do something hard like that. And I just think it helps build resilience and then it helps when other things get hard down the road. It’s always relative, like it’s still not as hard as potato harvest or whatever that is.

Bill  Excellent. What’s one thing that every family can do this week to help their kids thrive beyond screens?

Andrea  I would say sit down with your calendar and schedule a time to do something together where screens are away. And I say schedule the time because I know this from our experience. We’re like, oh, we’re going to play games or we’ll go on a bike ride. But if we don’t sit down and put it in the calendar in today’s world, I just know we’re all so busy. Our kids are involved in a lot of things. Then it just doesn’t happen. So I would say schedule a one-hour block on your calendar today when you’re going to do it, and then decide what you’re going to do. A few of our favorites are a game night or just something easy going on a walk, going on a bike ride. And I think don’t overcomplicate it because your kids just want your time.

Bill  More than anything else. That’s what makes the difference. I credit my wife with a really fun tradition that’s come into our home where we do bucket lists. So, you know, as school is getting out every summer, for example, we do a summer bucket list or we do a Christmas break bucket list. And I know you love big Post-its. We do it on big Post-its. And literally, we just brainstorm as a family all the things that would be fun to do. And we know we won’t get to all of them. Yeah. But having that list always there. So it’s Saturday morning. It’s not spending half the day deciding what are we going to do today? We stand around the Post-it note, look at the bucket list and pick one. And we’re out.

Andrea  Love that.

Bill  And it’s a lot of fun.

Andrea  Yeah. We’re very similar because we do the exact same thing. And yeah, because I love being outside. I always want to capitalize on summer. I’m like, if we don’t write it down, we won’t do it.

Bill  Yeah.

Andrea  So yeah, I love that.

Bill  You’ve mentioned your website and it’s full of some great resources that we’ve looked at. What are other great places to find you if people want to learn more about Better Screen Time or get a copy of your book?

Andrea  Ironically, on Instagram. It’s the watering hole where all the parents are. So there are times when you won’t find me there because I do social media sabbaticals quite regularly, especially in the summer. But I’m there consistently. Instagram is a great place. We try to share current things that are happening either in the news or updates with technology. So that’s a great place to find us. And then yes, on our website, BetterScreenTime.com, our guide, Creating a Tech-Healthy Family, is on Amazon. So you can find that there. But yeah, head to BetterScreenTime.com and you’ll find us. We have a lot of great free resources.

Bill  We’ll drop that into the show notes as well.

Andrea  Thank you.

Bill  Thank you so much for coming in and spending this time with me today. One last question for you. As you have worked with families and your own family included, how have you seen the impact of doing a family tech plan? How does that translate to other parts of family life?

Andrea  It helps your family reduce conflict, increase trust, and increase connection. Because I think, too, when we’re willing to sit down and talk about the hard stuff, we can actually grow together. And I think sometimes we want to avoid those conversations and avoid talking about the hard things. But we have to deal with it eventually. It’s going to rise to the surface. And so I find that if we don’t plan ahead of time, then it rises to the surface in the moment when perhaps we’re trying to make dinner or we’re trying to get somebody somewhere. And then as a parent, sometimes we react in ways that we don’t want to. And so if we can make plans ahead of time, it actually helps your family stay closer and more connected.

Bill  Beautiful. Thank you, Andrea.

Andrea  Thank you for having me.

Bill  Thank you, everyone, for joining me and Andrea Davis today. You know, raising kids in today’s world isn’t always easy, but it is the most important and most rewarding work that we can do. Until next time, keep helping your kids thrive beyond the screen.