My daughter is in middle school
and she's obsessed with her cell phone.
And, um, we could get more
time out of her when we take the phone from her,
but I don't wanna take the phone away completely.
Yeah, so a couple of things there.
Couple, um, going back to where I started today,
most parents today are concerned about their
child's use of the phone.
Now here's the thing, re remember relationship before rules.
I like the fact that you're concerned about taking it
away, but let's, let's talk step back
and say, what is the implication?
What's the outcome of your child being on the device?
What are you observing?
Is it that they're not talking with it with you?
So I would define what you're seeing as the problem,
so get some clarity on what the issue is,
and that's what I would present to the child,
not one at a time, like a boom, boom, boom, boom.
But hey, I was just observing the other day.
You know, we had this family activity
and it, it feels like your, your phone is
such a big part of your life that you're not able
to participate in the family activities that we're having.
And I miss you notice this relationship first. I miss you.
I'm being vulnerable with you. I'm asking for connection. To me,
that's a very important transition
because if I just say, Hey, you're on your phone too much,
that, that's not gonna go over well.
Oh, I, what do you mean? I'm on my,
you're on your phone too much too.
Mom or dad, I, Hey, I would love
to have you participate more in our family activities.
Just even that simple notice that simple communication.
I would love to have you participate more in our activities
and much more positive approach.
Hey, you're on your phone too much.
See, even how we present it, we need to think through it.
What I refer to as mental rehearsal.
So our child, so we've thought through
how are we gonna present this
to our child and what would the outcome be?
And how do we get this message across
in the most effective way?
Those are some of the just simple things that we can do
to communicate effectively with our child.
And, and the other thing is, is educate them. Right?
I, I just wanna help you understand,
and I'm gonna ask you to read some things about cell phone
or media consumption, just so you're aware.
And now we can talk about it intentionally
because there's research
that shows the more time you're on it,
the more it can influence your emotions.
And I think there we have to trust that our children
with the right information,
they will eventually learn to govern themselves.
And that's really what we want to accomplish,
is we want our children to govern themselves
because when they do that,
we get better outcomes rather than it just being our,
our rule, our rule, our rule that eventually they start to push back.
