{"id":918,"date":"2021-12-29T01:48:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-28T18:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.granniesgodigital.com\/?p=918"},"modified":"2021-12-28T06:54:33","modified_gmt":"2021-12-27T23:54:33","slug":"limiting-time-on-computers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.granniesgodigital.com\/podcast\/limiting-time-on-computers\/","title":{"rendered":"Limiting Time on Computers and other Devices while Grandkids are with You"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>In this podcast episode we give you lots of information about kids and technology. Screen time is increasingly an issue and here are some tips to help you deal with it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"buzzsprout-player-9227247\"><\/div><script src=\"https:\/\/www.buzzsprout.com\/1436674\/9227247-limiting-time-on-computers-and-other-devices-while-grandkids-are-with-you.js?container_id=buzzsprout-player-9227247&amp;player=small\" type=\"text\/javascript\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Another way to listen is to subscribe to one of these services:<br><\/em><\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/&lt;div%20id=%22buzzsprout-player-9034942%22&gt;&lt;\/div&gt;&lt;script%20src=%22https:\/\/www.buzzsprout.com\/1436674\/9034942-thoughts-and-tips-for-grandparents-as-child-care-providers.js?container_id=buzzsprout-player-9034942&amp;player=small%22%20type=%22text\/javascript%22%20charset=%22utf-8%22&gt;&lt;\/script&gt;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Apple Podcasts<\/a><br><a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/08ejEUzQ0M65IEiIBv5kdF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Spotify<\/a><br><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xNDM2Njc0LnJzcw==\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Google Podcasts<\/a><br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.deezer.com\/us\/show\/2696062\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Deezer<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Disclaimer: Some of our articles may contain affiliate links; when you click on these you can purchase a product or service at no extra cost to you, but doing so provides us some income to run the blog, and we thank you.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Full Transcript of Podcast<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 0:04<br>welcome to our weekly podcast, modern grandparenting, where we discuss issues that grandparents must deal with in this changing world, for maintaining the best relationships with both our children and grandchildren, giving you all kinds of ideas of what to do all year long. And hopefully making memories are going to last a lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 0:21<br>How&rsquo;s it been going this week with grandchildren? Oh, my gosh, what&rsquo;s fun, it&rsquo;s so much fun having this little guy to play with our Monday through Friday,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 0:30<br>to be doing childcare for AJ. And we get them every every day,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 0:36<br>a lot. One of the things we talked about in our fall podcast, remember was going out and picking apples while we did this this past week. Oh, my golly, he had a blast. And then we got this. Great, the apple sauce came out great. And he loved trying, he didn&rsquo;t actually get to take any peel off. But he pretended to peel the whole time we were appealing, and he had the time of his life. So add on to such an experience such a great memory, anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 1:06<br>Well, in this episode, we talked about keeping your grandchildren off devices when they&rsquo;re in your home, or with you on an outing. Now we all know how much all kids are drawn to the TV, the iPad, the computer, their phone,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 1:18<br>whatever, the PlayStation, PlayStation hang game, we want<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 1:22<br>to come up with some ways that you as the mindful grandparent, can keep them off their devices as much as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 1:27<br>Okay, so first of all, we love technology, we think devices are good, all overall, they&rsquo;re not evil in and of themselves. That&rsquo;s right, technology is good. And these are some reasons that they&rsquo;re good even for kids, everyone needs to know how to use them today. And experts even say that kids that start school, already having some basic knowledge about how to use a computer, are ahead of their peers. And it&rsquo;s a little bit of an advantage. Because it&rsquo;s so integrated in the school day, and you&rsquo;re talking to two retired school teachers here, we can tell you that our classrooms or both were very technology heavy. And even at the lowest levels, even garden in first grade, we were using computers for things like math and reading and writing. Yeah, on a daily basis, they have to give the they had to do research, they would go to the library, and you know, look up a book, they have to go to the cafeteria and punch in their pin codes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 2:27<br>I mean, we have math games. Yeah, I<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 2:29<br>mean, there&rsquo;s reading games, kids do need to use technology. So it&rsquo;s it&rsquo;s not all bad. The next thing that&rsquo;s great is for schools especially. And for<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 2:41<br>those things I was talking about Khan Academy, Sesame Street, there&rsquo;s a lot of different math apps, all of those things that can really enhance the educational process for the child at any age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 2:54<br>And as teachers, we have a whole list of them, which we will be sharing with you on the website. So check it out Grammys go digital, and you&rsquo;ll see that we have lots of educational apps and websites that we do recommend, we just recommend them not for hours and hours and hours at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 3:11<br>Now the next one, it can be a little bit controversial if you overuse it. But if you if there&rsquo;s a reason to keep the child quite quiet and contained for a little while, it&rsquo;s a good, there&rsquo;s no better babysitter, a child is gonna sit in front of you and the computer quietly for as long as you let them. And that&rsquo;s I guess where the problem could come in? Exactly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 3:32<br>I mean, what we&rsquo;re saying is there are some times in your life when you need little Johnny to take a seat and you know, not bother you, right? There are there are those times we all have them. And they&rsquo;re not just during it. I mean, they&rsquo;re especially true during emergencies or doctor&rsquo;s office visits or places that you know, you really mean long drives, you know, things like that. But there&rsquo;s also times during the day, when it&rsquo;s appropriate as well, maybe you&rsquo;re maybe you&rsquo;re using a lawn mower, you certainly don&rsquo;t want the kids around you while you&rsquo;re browsing the lawn that&rsquo;s too dangerous. So they need to have something to do. And maybe that&rsquo;s sitting in the lawn chair watching me mow the lawn and working I&rsquo;m playing on the device. So there are times when it&rsquo;s really appropriate. And it&rsquo;s a pretty good. I mean for lack of a better word babysitter, right? But it definitely is controversial. And I would say it should not be used as much as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 4:31<br>There&rsquo;s usually an option, but sometimes that can be an option. Oh, and also, of course, just as a communication device. That&rsquo;s how we communicate these cancers through our screens. Whether it&rsquo;s a phone or a computer, or a laptop or a tablet doesn&rsquo;t matter. Yeah, especially between, like multi generational, and if, like if you&rsquo;re a long distance grandparent,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 4:57<br>even when you&rsquo;re not I mean maybe it&rsquo;s just you You know, you need to have a phone. So you can take some time ready to be picked up from the bowling alley or whatever it is, you know, you&rsquo;re using them all the time. So so the first preface of this is we&rsquo;re not bashing technology or raisins. We&rsquo;re not bashing people who let their kids get on technology, what we&rsquo;re what our premises is trying to limit it, and we have some and<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 5:21<br>being mindful of, and being mindful is happening on it. Yeah,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 5:26<br>I think being mindful is really a key.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 5:28<br>And there&rsquo;s a lot of really strong reasons for this. And while I guess people might be bashing them, but there are some some adverse effects that you really need to be aware of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 5:41<br>For example, I think one of the hardest things is that, you know, kids love it, they just love it to the point and they don&rsquo;t have the, they don&rsquo;t have the same. When you call that? Well, well just give the urge to stop when they know they should stop and do their homework or eat dinner or whatever. So it can cause some behavioral issues. And we&rsquo;ve heard parent after parent after parent complain, either arguing with the kids, or, you know, whatever about them. Being on a hand game, what do you call hand games? little hand devices, like either phone or personal devices, a personal device? So they don&rsquo;t want to get a? Yeah, again, yeah. And me, it can cause some major, some major fights and problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 6:32<br>Right, and the next is having computers or TVs or allowing the tablet or whatever, in the bedroom, that can really lead to problems with Sleep, sleep cycles, and children getting less sleep than they really need. We&rsquo;ve definitely come across that in our classrooms. Absolutely. And the older the kid is, the harder it&rsquo;s going to be. Once you realize, Oh, my gosh, I should not have put a screen in my child&rsquo;s room. Well, now they&rsquo;re nine years old, and you&rsquo;re going to take it away. And now it just seems like a punishment? Well, you know,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 7:11<br>it&rsquo;s kind of a double edged sword. Because, like, like we mentioned already, it does keep your child quiet and out of your face. Yeah. So I know lots of parents who love having a TV in the kids room, because basically, the kid goes home from school, and they go into their room, they have to be called out for dinner, and whatever else, and then they just go back because they&rsquo;ve got everything they need in their room. They don&rsquo;t, you know, they don&rsquo;t have to do anything else. And then when you&rsquo;re talking to the parent, or the teacher, whichever side you&rsquo;re on, and, you know, the parent will say things like, well, he doesn&rsquo;t give us any problems at all. Yeah, because you&rsquo;re not asking him to do anything. You&rsquo;re not asking him to sit down and write. I it&rsquo;s very hard for kids, it&rsquo;s just<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 8:00<br>but even having a screen in the in a bedroom turned off. It&rsquo;s been proven can reduce the amount of solid sleep that the child is getting. And certainly if it&rsquo;s left on. So then, of course, the next thing, repeated muscle actions, we all know can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome, or muscle fatigue or other muscle fatigue, right. And just using the screen and use it in looking at a screen for a long period of time, can lead to eyestrain and headaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 8:31<br>Things like that. And more obviously to the child&rsquo;s on a device, whether it&rsquo;s a computer or phone or what have you. that child&rsquo;s not moving, they&rsquo;re not on the putting the monkey bars, they&rsquo;re not running out in the backyard playing hide and seek they&rsquo;re not getting in the exercise, right. And that&rsquo;s not healthy. And I&rsquo;m sure a lot of us can relate to Well, that&rsquo;s not just for children just for kids, I I spend way too much time at my computer as well. And it shows. So I need to stop, I need to be more mindful of that. So it&rsquo;s just something to keep in mind when kids are not using their muscles and being outside and using their imagination. It&rsquo;s good for their brain as well. It&rsquo;s not just muscles, so it helps them academically to get that exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 9:22<br>Yes. And then finally, socially, socially. It can become easy for kids to withdraw from their friends and family. It can it can really skew their outlook on life. If their whole relationship with the world or a large portion of their relationship with the world is through a screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 9:39<br>They don&rsquo;t know how to talk politely. They don&rsquo;t know how to listen. They can&rsquo;t keep eye contact many times. There are so many things that go into it. And a lot of them you would you might think well, we just need to be taught manners but it&rsquo;s not about being taught manners. It&rsquo;s about those attention spans, and it&rsquo;s about Meaning, like constant gratification, and instant gratification. Um, there are so many issues that, that come around with too much screen time. So the next question is, you know, well, then what is the best amount of screen time? And what is going on with it? Like, what? We&rsquo;ve got some stats for you? Because I think, you know, yes, we have lots of experience in this realm, tons of experience, and tons of talking to parents and giving them ideas of what to do and, and how usually we would come in, when they were already having problems with their children. So instead of doing, yeah, we really would love for people to be aware of it before they start having kids, and then they, you know, or grandkids in this case, because you because, you know, you need to be mindful of what is good for them, what&rsquo;s bad for them, and what it&rsquo;s helpful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 10:54<br>And even in those cases where it has become an issue. There are ways that you can start dialing it back slowly, without causing big problems with the child. You don&rsquo;t want to just cut someone off cold turkey, because that&rsquo;s going to be very difficult. But start working things into it. Well, okay, so the stats that we&rsquo;re talking about, the average child spends the largest share of their free time, on screen based activities of some sort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 11:22<br>We&rsquo;re talking kids two to 10 to 10. We&rsquo;re not and that&rsquo;s pretty little, if you think about it, we&rsquo;re not even talking teenagers, teenagers is much more than that. Even young adults, but even kids two to 10, almost 20 hours a week is screen based 20 hours a week,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 11:40<br>screen based play, according to this. Yeah. necessarily even talking about the more legitimate uses of screen time Exactly. In our communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 11:51<br>This, this survey goes on to say that about nine hours a week, they are with a parent, or they&rsquo;re screen free nine, and about 10 hours a week, they might be outside playing. Okay, so that is almost the exact same, it&rsquo;s like a 5050. So they&rsquo;re spending as much time on screen as they are doing everything else. That<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 12:13<br>Okay, so that&rsquo;s what he was looking at, I guess, playtime, free time, what they were doing, and yeah, half the time was on screen. And half the time was off screen<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 12:24<br>on their waking hours when they&rsquo;re not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 12:26<br>Right, exactly. So the next 170 1% of parents of a child under the age of 12, say they&rsquo;re at least somewhat concerned that their child might might be spending too much time in front of screens. And out of that 31% are very concerned about this, and and they should be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 12:45<br>So 31% of people are really, really concerned about it. But 71% think they&rsquo;re spending too much time on screens. So what that means is only about 30% of parents out there that were surveyed think that their kids are not spending time 30% that does not bode well for our future<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 13:05<br>find out is that 30% you know, we don&rsquo;t have this, this data, but a certain percentage of them don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s a problem, because they are aware of that issue. And they&rsquo;re controlling it in some way. But another percentage of that 30% just<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 13:23<br>they don&rsquo;t care doesn&rsquo;t care. It&rsquo;s it&rsquo;s, it&rsquo;s the way it is nowadays. So we don&rsquo;t want people to be that. And and actually, so then, you know, the next survey, they asked parents, well, if you&rsquo;re worried about it, then what? You know, why are they still doing it? I mean, if 71% of the people have identified that they&rsquo;re worried about how much time their kids spend on technology, then why are they? Well, there&rsquo;s a lot of reasons for that. Yeah, but most parents have said, and this is about, you know, out of 100. It&rsquo;s like 3333 33 almost evenly split, that it&rsquo;s either poor weather conditions, and hey, we live in the Pacific mass, but Northwest. Yeah, we know about that. But<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 14:06<br>but like we say here, we&rsquo;re winco if you&rsquo;re not going to do it in the rain, you&rsquo;re not going to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 14:13<br>And the next thing is they don&rsquo;t feel safe sending their children children out without supervision, which Okay, I think that that&rsquo;s very, I think that&rsquo;s it. That&rsquo;s right, you want your child to be supervised, depending on how well they are safe for them. It does need to be safe, but then maybe we need to make more time in our day somehow. And I know time is always an issue, but I Yay,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 14:35<br>another third of those parents said it was just a lack of other kids or a suitable area to play. So yeah, again, with these ones, we&rsquo;re talking about screen time. That&rsquo;s more free time playtime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 14:51<br>So live questions still is well how much time do they need? So our next set of data says babies From zero to 18 months, they shouldn&rsquo;t be on anything. The only thing that they should do prior to 18 months, the only thing is occasionally being on a video chat with, you know, parent, grandparents or relatives or parents who are not right there with them. Because of course, you want to be able to, to bond with them. But they&rsquo;re little, so you&rsquo;re not going to be spending tons of time on and we&rsquo;re talking about maybe five minutes with this baby on video call. And because most of the time, they should be really working on their their gross motor skills and running around. They&rsquo;re learning they should be doing things with their hands. We have a lot of stuff on the website that talks about activities of what you can do. But really, there should be no screen time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 15:48<br>There is any screen time at all, like we said, video chatting. Yeah, so next you have the toddlers 18 months to two years. And now you know there are educational tablets and videos that are designed for that age group to reinforce learning. And here you really want to focus on high quality programming and personal interaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 16:08<br>But the key is that you can&rsquo;t just say, Well, here is a tablet, like child have it No, you should be doing it completely with them at all times. One study was saying that the kids who do it on their own, still don&rsquo;t understand it or don&rsquo;t do as well as kids that have their parent doing it with them, or you know, an older sibling or grandparent or, you know, whoever, but usually an adult, because they don&rsquo;t know. I mean, if they&rsquo;re just exploring, they&rsquo;re too young to make determinations between what is appropriate, what&rsquo;s not appropriate. And they might learn it completely Well, there&rsquo;s<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 16:44<br>so many ways to explore out of something that is appropriate, if they don&rsquo;t have that supervision, and we&rsquo;re still<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 16:50<br>talking about supervise screen time and limited time. And very limited, like less than 30 minutes, less than 30 minutes a day, much less right, you know, 10 or 15 minutes a day very small. And most kids aren&rsquo;t interested at this age, they&rsquo;re still too active to really spend too much time on it as well. AJ fits into this category. Well, almost. And you know, his attention span, even with a cartoon on TV that&rsquo;s meant for little kids is I would say 10 minutes max. So I wouldn&rsquo;t want him to do that. Anyway, we don&rsquo;t Yeah, that&rsquo;s enough. Then you move on to the three to five year old group, these are young kids, but they&rsquo;re still not really going to school yet, well, maybe kindergarten, depending on when their birthday falls. And they have so much available to them. I mean, they can easily use TV and video, watch videos and use apps on the iPad and they use the tablet and they can use iPhone. I mean, at this point, they&rsquo;re starting to get pretty savvy. And you can start to use it for you know, some remote learning and for the reverse reinforcement learning facts and things like that. Creative play creative Yeah, and creative play and stuff but but even still, at this point, you really don&rsquo;t want to be leaving them alone. So needs to be supervised Evie, and computer time or iPad time, all combined should not be more than an hour a day, right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 18:22<br>And again, supervised and viewing with them. So an adult with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 18:28<br>By the way for all these things, they stats, I have sources in the show notes. We&rsquo;re making this stuff up with, we&rsquo;ve got stuff to back it up. My gut says older kids, though, six years and older. I mean, they&rsquo;re it&rsquo;s integrated into their daily life, they&rsquo;re gonna be using their desktop, or they might have their own laptop they have becomes a communication device. It&rsquo;s communication, it&rsquo;s teaching, it&rsquo;s entertainment, it&rsquo;s texting, it&rsquo;s it&rsquo;s just, you know, they&rsquo;re doing everything that they need to do, and they do need to learn how to use it. There&rsquo;s no, no question about that. But it&rsquo;s really important to worry about cyberbullying, it&rsquo;s really important to worry about what websites are going to there are a lot of parental controls on just about every device on every application that you can set. So<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 19:22<br>again, depending on their age, the usage really should be focused on schoolwork and education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 19:30<br>Yeah. So as far as grandparenting goes with this, what I would do is, if you have an application on your TV for watching TV, like Hulu or Netflix or something, go ahead and set those parental controls Yes. And make sure that they&rsquo;re appropriate for your grandchildren so that you don&rsquo;t wake up at 11 o&rsquo;clock one night and they crawled down on the couch and started watching a horror film or something. You never know. I mean kids will do it all<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 19:58<br>well and the real danger here is Is that we recommend or people, experts recommend the limited usage. The more usage that a child gets, the more they&rsquo;re going to want. And I think start to crave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 20:15<br>So and what am I mean, I can speak to that myself. I&rsquo;m not a young kid, and yet it&rsquo;s sometimes hard to pry me off of the computer. You know, so my brain. That&rsquo;s right. So you have to understand that for kids, it&rsquo;s that much harder,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 20:31<br>is that much more critical? To start early? With a proper outlook on it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 20:36<br>And as a grandparent, I don&rsquo;t, I don&rsquo;t want to invite my grandson over. and have him be watching TV or on my computer. That&rsquo;s<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 20:47<br>my child doing childcare? No, that&rsquo;s, that&rsquo;s not what you want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 20:52<br>Oh, yeah. So we all know how everyone feels about technology, and the pros and cons of the technology, and looking at ways to control the usage, when they&rsquo;re in your charge when you the grandparent are in charge, whether it&rsquo;s at your house, or with you on an outing, or maybe you&rsquo;ve you&rsquo;ve come over to his house or her house, you still want to have ties with them, you know, what are you gonna do? Or Yeah, maybe you&rsquo;re babysitting? What have you? Okay, so first of all, and this is we can&rsquo;t say enough, I think was hating every podcast. Because we think it&rsquo;s very important for your relationship,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 21:30<br>the part of the conversations that you need to be having with your daughter, or your son or their spouse, and find out what they think what, you know, what are their rules? If there&rsquo;s rules in place? Have they even thought about it yet, depending on the age of the child, they may not have thought about it yet. So it&rsquo;s a good time to have that conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 21:47<br>Well, and I know, right, and I have a nephew, in fact, who loves gaming. So that&rsquo;s the way he relaxes, he comes home from work, and he gets right on the PlayStation and starts gaming. Meantime, the TV is on in the background. And so with the young children, whether you like it or not, they&rsquo;re exposed to the screens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 22:12<br>Yeah. They&rsquo;re not playing the game. Yeah, till there. So that&rsquo;s really gotta watch out. So<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 22:17<br>the problem is, when you have this conversation is you can&rsquo;t come across as judgmental, right? You can&rsquo;t say, Well, I just heard this podcast where they spattered off all these statistics from all these different studies, which is why it&rsquo;s bad for the kid. And we do believe that but you know, we want you to have good ways to to deal with that on your own. If you&rsquo;re if your children are the parents of the child, feel like they could have more that&rsquo;s up to them. But when they&rsquo;re in your care, maybe find ways to not have them be on the device as much, you do your part. So for example,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 22:53<br>so one thing I would see while I was teaching these military kids overseas, is that often the parents who were in the military, they grew up in poor neighborhoods, a lot of times, not always, not always, of course, and and they really longed for the things they saw on TV as kids or their friends had, or their friends had, like a television in their room, or a PlayStation in the room, or their own computer. And now that they&rsquo;ve grown and they&rsquo;ve got money coming in being successful, they&rsquo;ve got money coming in, they want to give the things to their kids that they always wanted, we all understand that we want our human nature, kids to have more than more than we have for sure. So they don&rsquo;t necessarily think about the problems that that was causing. And so many times I would have a parent teacher conferences, about not getting enough sleep, like we mentioned earlier, and then ways that they could work on moving the devices out of the bedroom, and into a common area where the parents can, you know, be involved, or at least be aware of what the child is<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 23:52<br>doing. And making sure they go to set on time. Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 23:55<br>And get Yeah, getting them to stop for important times. Like dinner homework or bedtime. Yeah. So what can we do as grandparents to keep them from turning to their device, every time they get bored? I&rsquo;m bored. There&rsquo;s nothing to do. How many times have we heard that? Yeah, not yet from AJ cuz he&rsquo;s not speaking very much yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 24:13<br>But I&rsquo;m sure I&rsquo;m sure every kid talks about being bored. And so you just have to know how to have some strategies that behavior before it&rsquo;s happening. Yeah. So one of the most obvious things to do is to be active with them and keep them active as much as possible during the day, fill up their schedule with you know, all kinds of enriching activities, indoor activities, outdoor activities, art, music, riding your bike going outside playing and just like so there&rsquo;s so much to do. And here&rsquo;s the thing about that, no matter how much you know, even if they&rsquo;re helping you cook or do the chores around the house, whatever they&rsquo;re doing, no matter what there&rsquo;s still going to be some natural downtime and That&rsquo;s when they can be on a device, but for the rest of the time, so they&rsquo;re not thinking about, you know, just sitting on a couch or wandering around the house or playing, you know, whatever, let them play with the dog. Yeah, have things for them to do. And you know, here&rsquo;s the thing, when they&rsquo;re having fun playing, their endorphins are bursting, and they&rsquo;re having a good time. And that reinforces how much doing other things is just as fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 25:26<br>Without that time, then that is where the problem with the screens come in, is, it&rsquo;s a way to get your endorphins flowing in your brain. And it&rsquo;s not a good way. So if you can find other ways to do it, then it&rsquo;s going to help with screen time for sure. And we have lots of ideas on the website for doing a lot of fun things. You know, some really obvious ones, go for a walk, go for a hike, go out on a bike ride, take a day trip, or go on an overnight trip,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 25:56<br>go to Museum, Museum, a live show, yeah, go to a park, go to the park, go, go watch the skateboarders even if you aren&rsquo;t bored, or it&rsquo;s fun to watch those guys. Just getting out of the house will lessen the need for a device. Let me You might still want a phone want to be safe, right. But at the same time, they&rsquo;re not going to be you know, have their eyes glued to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 26:19<br>And as a grandparent, we&rsquo;re lucky to have the time to where we can go do those things with them. The parents aren&rsquo;t necessarily that that lucky, and they may not have as much time to actually spend doing these things with their kids. So that&rsquo;s, I think, really where a grandparent can step in. And the more time that that a child spends with an adult and away from a screen, the better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 26:42<br>And just remember to I think that we don&rsquo;t always remember that the kids are always watching us, always right? Nothing, I am telling you, nothing is<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 26:54<br>past them nothing. So that includes your screen time when you&rsquo;re with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 26:58<br>That&rsquo;s right, whether it&rsquo;s you being on a computer or talking to your friend on the phone, or you know, whatever it is, they are looking up to you and they are taking that in and they&rsquo;re the way they&rsquo;re processing that information is that&rsquo;s the way that adults work. That&rsquo;s right. So hopefully, they&rsquo;re getting positive input as opposed to what I would consider more negative input. And I&rsquo;m sure that everybody has ever been kids, you know, best interests at heart. But it&rsquo;s so hard. Sometimes it&rsquo;s hard for anybody to stay away from your email all day long. Or to<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 27:39<br>this sometimes where you can&rsquo;t help it. Your phone rings. You get it, you&rsquo;re waiting for an important text or an important message. Yeah, okay. Yeah. And<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 27:48<br>understandable. That&rsquo;s right. But it&rsquo;s but having the TV on all day long, or something like that really sort of is, is really not good for the kids. So hopefully we can,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 27:59<br>we can also have some limits worked out ahead of time. Use it as a reward for some things, if you want to that can be controversy. And tricky. You don&rsquo;t want to fall into that trap. We&rsquo;re always negotiating over the reward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 28:14<br>And so maybe that maybe not tells us the child that it&rsquo;s a reward. But in your brain, you can kind of think of it as reward. So you can say, we&rsquo;re going to clean up the house, now we&rsquo;re going to clean up the house, now we&rsquo;re gonna clean up the house. And then I&rsquo;m gonna check my email. You know, and then so it&rsquo;s sort of teaching them a lesson that, that there&rsquo;s a time and a place, there is a time and a place and that you can do both, but get your your job done first, and regard. I mean, you know, obviously, I&rsquo;m not gonna say that song to a 12 year old, but at the same time, it&rsquo;s like if you sort of say, you know, you do some self talks, like, oh, gosh, I&rsquo;ve got to make dinner, I gotta sweep the porch off. I&rsquo;ve got to do this. You know what I&rsquo;m gonna do when I&rsquo;m done with that, I think I&rsquo;m gonna go play a game of solitaire on the computer. What do you think, you know, and so they&rsquo;re hearing that it&rsquo;s gotta go do this. And that, yeah, it&rsquo;s, it&rsquo;s that it&rsquo;s important to have some of that screen time, but not all the time. And that getting things done is very important to Yeah, so again, in a mindful grandparent, and that communication<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 29:23<br>is really a key and the older the child is, the more they can be part of that plan. And, you know, as we all know, when you&rsquo;re making a change, the way to make that change is to make sure everybody sees the benefits to it, and has some say in what&rsquo;s being changed. And that goes with kids with children just as much as with like co workers, for instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 29:51<br>So So, kids having a say that&rsquo;s that&rsquo;s probably one of the biggest things that people overlook. Yeah. It used to be said, kids are to be seen, not heard. And so as a society, we didn&rsquo;t believe that kids didn&rsquo;t have<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 30:10<br>children didn&rsquo;t have a meal planning. They didn&rsquo;t. And they certainly couldn&rsquo;t make decisions, even though they&rsquo;re the ones being affected the most usually,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 30:17<br>i have i&rsquo;ve, when I was parenting my girls, that I can remember people who would not let their children make any decisions at all, they made every decision for them. This is such a, such a hard thing to overcome. Kids need to know how to make decisions, they need to know how to problem solve as part of preparing them for life, they need to know how to plan so how can you How can you help them with this as a mindful grandparent, and as far as devices go, you can say, Hey, this is what we&rsquo;re going to do today. Or even better. The day before little Suzy comes over, you give her a call, and you say, hey, Suze, what do we get to do when you&rsquo;re over the house tomorrow, let&rsquo;s make a plan. And then for the next five minutes, chat about what you&rsquo;re going to do. And you know what you don&rsquo;t mention really getting on the computer, or watching TV. Maybe at the end of the night, maybe you&rsquo;ve got a special video on the Disney Channel to watch right before she goes to bed. But that&rsquo;s the only time so that&rsquo;s already worked into the schedule. And when Susie gets over there, she&rsquo;s ready for it. And make sure that you know, when you&rsquo;re doing this, it&rsquo;s it&rsquo;s a together thing. You know, Susie says, I want to, you know, do x i want to go riding on the bike. Oh, I hadn&rsquo;t thought about that yet. Let&rsquo;s go break wait until maybe right before dinner? How about that? Yes. So that they have some saying what&rsquo;s going on, or maybe the child&rsquo;s young enough where you where they&rsquo;re not really going to come up with their own ideas. So you can say something to the effect like, I was thinking about going on, you know, going to the park, which Park Would you rather go to? Do you want to go to this park where they have the water slides and water features? Or do you want to go to this park over here where we can go feed the ducks, such a easy AB decision. And they&rsquo;re starting to make their own choices? And they&rsquo;re going to be so invested in what they do? Yeah,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 32:14<br>those choices and then stick them yeah. Now, of course, as they get older, they&rsquo;re going to be coming with more. More devices too<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 32:24<br>bad? Yes, yeah, unfortunately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 32:27<br>And it&rsquo;s going to be part of their day. So you don&rsquo;t want to come across as saying that&rsquo;s a horrible thing. You know, have them, show them, have them show you what what they&rsquo;re doing. Get involved with, if it&rsquo;s a game, what games they&rsquo;re playing, maybe give them some optional games that you are aware of, that you can play together, so that it&rsquo;s more of it together time. Because like I said, the older they get, the more screentime really that they&rsquo;re going to have. And the less likely they are to want to just go for a walk. So you need more things to do with them. And you still want to be mindful about what they&rsquo;re doing. And not just say, Okay, I&rsquo;ll see you in an hour. Go play your game. Even though add it to your plan, you still want to have that plan, you still want to, you know working out together on what&rsquo;s happening while they&rsquo;re with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 33:24<br>You also know if you have them teach you with the games they&rsquo;re playing, or the whatever they&rsquo;re doing, then you can also figure out what the natural breaks are. So if they&rsquo;re going to level up, within you know, a few minutes, because it&rsquo;s one of those games that levels you out pretty quickly, then you can say, you know, after this level, hey, let&rsquo;s go do this. But give them a chance to have a natural break in there. So they don&rsquo;t feel like they&rsquo;re really missing out, or they&rsquo;ve been playing for nothing, or whatever it is, right. I also think that that one of the things that would be really, really good is for you to understand your grandkids enough to know what their likes and dislikes are. And maybe you can come up with a special secret club that just the two of you have, whether it&rsquo;s woodworking and you&rsquo;re gonna make a birdhouse on Saturday, and then next week, you&rsquo;re gonna even try and make a chair. I mean, who knows, you could do that or you could do a cooking thing or you could even modeling you can even do dances on tik tok for that matter, you know, whatever it<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 34:23<br>is, you&rsquo;re gonna do a different dance, or you&rsquo;re gonna master it and then film it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 34:27<br>Yeah, that&rsquo;s a lot of time it would take to do that. So that&rsquo;s really gave use of problem solving and education and all that stuff that you&rsquo;re giving to them. And plus having a great time while you&rsquo;re doing it. But have a little club where you&rsquo;re doing<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 34:40<br>something that your grandchildren are doing together. And it&rsquo;s special for them, like you said, and there&rsquo;ll be something that they&rsquo;re going to look forward to and you couldn&rsquo;t get them involved again in the planning process. It&rsquo;s so important. You know what&rsquo;s, what are we going to do next? What cupcake ready to me next week or? Yeah, what dance we&rsquo;re going to do for you Tic tock, but keep them part of that decision making process. You know, give them those choices, and then stick to them. Don&rsquo;t just give them choices and then later say, Yeah, well, you know, we&rsquo;re not going to do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 35:14<br>Yeah. So I mean, like we said, we love technology. And we think learning technology is really important to be in a show. Yeah, it is. But we, as kids are growing up, they need to, well, they<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 35:29<br>need to learn it, it can&rsquo;t just be here&rsquo;s the device, go have fun,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 35:35<br>but they need to learn it in a in a responsible way. Right, they also need to learn what else is important. And they also need to learn when is appropriate, yeah, when it&rsquo;s appropriate, and how to act when you&rsquo;re told to put it down. Or when it&rsquo;s time to go to bed or, you know, do your homework or what have you. So, it&rsquo;s just easier if everybody&rsquo;s sort of working on the same page. Remember, keep your, your center daughter involved in as keep<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 36:02<br>those lines of communication open with, with everybody, your son, your daughter, spouse&rsquo;s, the child, your grandchildren. They&rsquo;re all we&rsquo;re all part of this world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 36:14<br>Now, we really think there are plenty more ideas out there about how people are dealing with modern technology and keeping the kids on it or off it or what good things to do with it. And we would love for you to jump on our additional<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 36:29<br>private group is Facebook and share your thoughts, ask questions, you know, success stories that you have, or, or even<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 36:39<br>some issues that you&rsquo;re having that maybe the general populace on the site can help you figure out I mean, that&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;re here for. This is a community that we want to share our wins, and hopefully figure out how to face any problems that I would have. But our most important goal is to have those great relationships with our grandchildren, and parents of our grandchildren. Right? Right. So we want to go and live are the rest of our lives in happiness with great memories to share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 37:12<br>So hopefully, on this episode of monogrammed parenting, you&rsquo;ve gotten some good ideas on how to deal with screentime with your grandchildren, and with their parents. And you know, thanks for listening. We love having you with us. Thanks for joining us again this week on matter grandparents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Corinne 37:35<br>Please subscribe, tell your friends, please. But that&rsquo;s it for<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Jim 37:40<br>now. Sign up for the newsletter you&rsquo;ll never miss out. Yeah, thanks. Have a great week and happy grandparenting<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\">Transcribed by https:\/\/otter.ai<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this podcast episode we give you lots of information about kids and technology. Screen time is increasingly an issue and here are some tips to help you deal with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":761,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable-in-feed":false,"article-schema-type":"","disable-critical-css":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"mv":{"thumbnail_id":761,"thumbnail_uri":"https:\/\/www.granniesgodigital.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/limiting-time-on-computers-and-other-devices-600x600.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.granniesgodigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.granniesgodigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.granniesgodigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.granniesgodigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.granniesgodigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=918"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.granniesgodigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":922,"href":"https:\/\/www.granniesgodigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions\/922"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.granniesgodigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.granniesgodigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.granniesgodigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.granniesgodigital.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}