Relationships: Screens vs Humans

Terri Novacek 

Imagine yourself and others in your life being intentional with the use of electronic devices, using them to connect and learn rather than cope or escape, setting healthy boundaries with time and purpose, and feeling positive about their experience, rather than lethargic, anxious or depressed.

Terri Novacek 

Hello, thank you for listening today as we continue this journey to discover and develop our element, that place where interesting talents collide to bring great things to ourselves and others. I'm Terry Novacek. And well today we are focusing mostly on the adolescents and teens in our lives. Many of us will realize that younger children and adults as well face challenges navigating screen and human relationships. I had the pleasure of speaking with Casey O'Rourty , who has worked with dozens of parents and teachers to help them navigate the challenges of connecting with the younger of the Gen Z generation. We've talked on this podcast before about neuroplasticity, the ability of the brain to rewire itself. The adolescent years is a time when the brain is highly malleable, meaning it is more highly affected by observations and experiences. While some go so far as to refer to smartphones as the devil's device. Others brushed it off as just another period of time when older people are being grumpy about something that is new and makes teens act differently, like rock and roll of the 50s. Casey helps us to see it's about relationships. Thank you, Casey for taking time to meet with me today. I'm very excited to hear about the work that you're doing. Can you tell me a little bit about what sprout Hubbell is in general? Yes.

Casey O'Roarty 

Sproutable is a company that supports parents with kids, zero through 18. and beyond. We also have programs for parent educators as well as nannies and early childhood educators. And we just stand for, you know, challenges being learning opportunities for kids and for parents. All of us at spreadable are positive discipline trained. So we're all positive discipline, parent educators Julietta school are really yours. LEED is a positive discipline trainer and I myself am a lead trainer. So Julieta and I can train parent educators and certified parent educators in positive discipline. That's what our trainer status is. And yeah, I have a, I work with the adolescent parents of adolescents. We have an extensive library of online learning tools, as well as offer live workshops and classes and coaching one on one coaching Julieta. and I both run membership programs. So she serves the parents, zero to 11 ish, and then I pick them up for the adolescent years. And that's something that we both really love and get to dig really deep into process and experience with the parents that we serve it. The members are committed for a year to work with us. I also have a podcast and have been running my podcast for almost nine years now and have been able to interview some of my idols. Dr. Dan Siegel, Tina Bryson, both have been on my show, as well as others that I adore Dr. Shefali and recently had Michelle Eichert on for the second time. So yeah, I do interviews once a week and then solo shows once a week where I just kind of riff on what is alive for me as a parent of adolescence. What I'm seeing with my clients, sometimes I reflect on the interview of the week. But yeah, personally and I think spreadable. As a company we're all just steeped in the conversation of parenting and being in relationship with our kids and how that really is the place where we have the most influence is in how we are relating and, and living inside of relationship with our kids. I have so long super long answer clearly I need to work on my elevator pitch.

Terri Novacek 

No, that's very tall building. We just Yeah, yeah. Um That, that's what really connects with me is your focus on, you know, relationship. And, of course, it makes sense with, with parents and their children. Us as an education institution, were always saying, you know, as teachers, we need to be building that relationship with students and, you know, making, how they feel about themselves and, and working with others needs to come first before they're going to really care about learning. Do you can you work positive discipline lab school, but just for audience purposes, can you share a little bit about what positive discipline is?

Casey O'Roarty 

Yeah, of course, and I will also something that I left out of the super long elevator pitch is that Julieta. And I have both done a lot of work with schools and classroom teachers here in the Pacific Northwest, as well. So we are both really well versed in the experiences in the classroom. And so positive discipline is based in Adlerian theory. And Alfred Adler was one of the first social psychologists and he found in his work, that behavior is really motivated by our perception of belonging and significance, belonging, meaning how, what our connection to others feels like what our connection to a group feels like. So in the classroom space, it's really how we feel like we connect to the classroom, to the teacher, to the school at large, as well as that significance piece, which is really about, you know, how we feel responsible, right? So knowing that what we do matters, knowing that we have a role knowing that we're in contribution in real, you know, in real contribution, right. So that's really what positive discipline is based on is that theory. And there's, I mean, Adlerian theory, there's whole libraries of that you can read more about Adlerian theory, but it really is that piece around belonging and significance, as well as developing mutually respectful relationships. And what I love when we talk about mutual respect, I think there is a idea that, well, the popular idea of mutual respect is, well, you respect me, and I'll respect you. And positive discipline, it's really about, I'm going to respect the person in front of me, which is the kindness on the kind and firm scale that we talk a lot about and positive discipline, I'm going to respect you, the human in front of me, while also respecting myself. And the situation, which is that firmness piece, that kind and firm, that we're all pointing are trying to point our compass towards it's, it's not easy, there's not great models for kind and firm at the same time, but we're always working towards that place. So mutual respect is another big piece of positive discipline, kindness and firmness, the power of perception and remembering that kids especially they're great perceivers, they are inexperienced meaning makers, I'll say, and they're always making meaning. And they're making meaning from the bank, the very small bank of experiences that they've had. So there's that piece, the power of perception, and keeping that in mind. It is positive discipline is steeped in encouragement, and really stays focused on problem solving, and solutions being helpful, not hurtful. So it's a lot bigger than just what do I do when things don't go the way I want them to go with my kids or my students? And it's more around? What is the ecosystem or the environment that we want to create for kids, so that they can really lean into being their best selves so that they can feel encouraged and they can feel connected? And that's when we've created space for them to be in a more easygoing, cooperative, collaborative mindset. Right.

Terri Novacek 

So focusing on the adolescent, you mentioned perception. What are some trends that you see in the perception that adolescents have of their world? That yeah, is maybe creating some conflict or a hurdle in their success?

Casey O'Roarty 

Well, I think that I really want to say an adolescence biggest hurdle is the adults in their life. Yes. I agree. Yeah, and I have my daughter is it she'll be 21 in January, and my son just turned 18. So I've been really steeped in Gen Z. good parenting for the last, you know, 10 years. And I also have a lot of clients that I work with one on one people in my membership. And you know, I just want to give a little caveat, the people that reach out to me tend to be, you know, at that place where they're like, Oh, my God, I need support. So when I think about what comes up in that population, and what comes up, what has come up with my own kids, I think there's a feeling that adults don't get it, which is not a new feeling, right? I mean, most of us, looking back at our adolescent years, felt the same way. Exactly. Um, and I think that, you know, there's deep discouragement just around what, what is happening in the world, and how the adults in leadership are behaving. I think one of the places that is unique to this generation of teenagers is the speed and the, and how much news they get via their little handheld devices. Right. And so, and it's a really negative news cycle. And there's a lot of opinion, and fact checking, that doesn't happen. So I think it's really overwhelming. I mean, you look back, I can't remember who did the research. But you look back at when anxiety and depression really spiked in teens, it correlates perfectly with when smartphones became available to the masses. I mean, it's right there in the research. So as parents, it's really challenging to be a voice. When there's all this other conversation that's coming at our kids throughout the day, from the time they wake up to the time that they go to bed. And so, if we want to seat at the table, right, if we do want our voice to be heard, if we do want to make sure that, you know, our wisdom, our curiosity, our opinion, or advice has a seat at the table that exists in our teens minds, we've got to be sure that we are nurturing a really strong relationship with them. Because, like I said that belonging and significance really matters. And, you know, once kids get to be 1314 1617 18, they know us better than we know ourselves, would they have been observing us, their relationship with us has been their survival. They know how to thrive, they know how to, you know, get what they want, which is not the same as Oh, they've grown into these manipulative little monsters? No, they're in relationship with us from the start. And so then they become teenagers. And you had mentioned before we hit record, that we're disenchanted, you know, they get to be teenagers. And they realize like, Oh, mom, dad, you don't actually know everything. Right. And actually, I get to have my own opinion, Dan Siegel uses the acronym, essence, the essence of adolescence. And part of that is this creative exploration where they're pushing against status quo. And that's what they're supposed to do. And when we try to confine that, or dismiss that, or tell our kids that they're wrong, it's just more of a push away, and more, and it feeds into the disconnection that happens between adults and kids, which is why I said one of the biggest hurdles are the adults in their life. Because we get scared, you know, we're worried we want to make sure we land the lessons and the values and the morals and in the process, we treat our teens as if, you know, they're not so capable, like their ideas don't matter. And like I said, they feel dismissed and misunderstood. And for safety reasons, or emotional safety reasons, they tend to pull away from their parents, and that's when parents tend to reach out to me is when they've feel like they can't connect with their teen, and they don't know what to do.

Terri Novacek 

Right. So going back to the smartphones, and these devices and I know, a lot of parents will come to us and just, you know, what's the recipe or, you know, at what age can I give my child a smartphone, you know, how many hours can they have on device? And we try to explain that there really is there's not like a recipe so to speak for that. What are your thoughts on that? Well,

Casey O'Roarty 

I feel like the only way to solve the smartphone dilemma is for this entire generation of kids coming into the tween years decides don't do it till they're at least 16 Like just don't do it. And we really just, we got it so wrong. Like we didn't see, we didn't look any of us downstream at what these little devices were going to do. I think you're right, there is no perfect formula. And if anybody selling you that, you know, be letter, beware, exactly. There is no perfect formula, I think something that I tried to talk about with parents is from the get go, normalizing conversations around screen time. And what that means is, you know, in our house will pull, you know, every once in a while, I'll say, and we've had well, before I say this, we've moved through a variety of different ways of limiting screen time of monitoring screen time. And as my kids got older, you know, we tweak and revamp things, it gets really tricky that especially that conversation of how much time because it's, you know, there's so many different things that they're doing, right, sometimes it's yeah, it's watching YouTube videos, passively scrolling, watching tick tock videos, Instagram reels, and there's not a lot of engagement. But then there's also, you know, interacting with their friends interacting with their social groups. So then it's hard to like, try to tease apart all the different ways that they're using their screens. And so that's where the time limit starts to become tricky, especially as they get older, what I think is more useful. And my goal, and I say this to my kids all the time, is I want them to be able to leave the house, I want them to leave the house and like lunch, and have in their mind a place where they're checking in with themselves. You know, what is my screen time look like? How, what am I avoiding by being on my phone this often? And is this getting in my way? I want them to be thinking about that. And, and because that's my goal, our screen conversations, I work really hard. I mean, you'd have to ask my kids about their experience of it. But our screen conversations are really a lot more about wanting them to check in on their use and reflect on their use versus me trying, you know, me versus them. Right? And how am I going to get you to use your phone less, it's I tell this story, when in my 18 year old was a little guy and I we had cookies on the counter. And so I took the cookies, the box of cookies, and I put it on top of the refrigerator. And he said, Mom, I can totally climb up there and get those cookies. And I said, Oh, I know, I absolutely know that you can climb up there and get those cookies. That's not why I put them up there, I put them up there. So we wouldn't be looking at them all day and wanting to eat them. And it's the same kind of idea with screens. When it's set up as parents versus teens, then it's just, it becomes a different kind of struggle. And it doesn't really teach them the tools that I want, which is reflecting on how these devices are being used getting in the way or being misused. And so in our house, it's really normal for us to have conversations around, hey, let's compare screen times because my screen times not that great either in full transparency. And so, you know, my son and I will compare okay, what was your weekly average last week? What was mine? Oh, how do you feel about that? You know, one of us will look and say, Oh, God, Saturday got away from me. Yeah, what were you on? Most? You know, how does that feel? And so we have conversations like that. Instead of me being like, oh, six hours on Saturday, I need to up the limits on your phone, it becomes what else did you do on Saturday? You know, how does that feel? Oh, it was pretty much a down day. Okay. You know, what are you aiming for this week? Yeah, I'd like to have less time on my phone this week. Okay, great. What could that how can I support you? You know, so it's normalizing conversations, and also embedding an internal reflection and monitor for them. Because, you know, they're out in the world, they get to do what they want with their phones. And we do have limits, you know, I, the Wi Fi turns off at our house on school nights at a certain time. And that's changed over the years that's moved up over the years. And, you know, the nice thing with my kiddo, and this isn't every kiddo, but I have to I think it's because of how we've held this conversation, is he doesn't use his screens all the way up to the time that the Wi Fi turns off, right? Write he goes to bed when he's tired. That's I mean, it's messy. And it's annoying to parents because they're like, No, I just want you to tell me what the formula is so that this thing isn't so annoying, the things going to be annoying, and you just have to kind of like the sex conversation, you have to keep talking about it short, frequent, stay curious, stay non judgmental, and really keep your eye on what it is that you want to be nurturing for your kiddo.

Terri Novacek 

You make it sound so easy. I know. And, you know, as we know, every child is different. And every child parent relationship is different. Yeah, you know, even if maybe now my child and adolescent but I haven't done much in the past to get them. So they are not at that place where we can have a reasonable conversation, like what you're talking about? Where do you start with that? And we'll just use the Wi Fi. Yeah, it's, yeah, I was fortunate. My kids are 26 and 28. So while they had phones, they didn't have smartphones. But yeah, I saw it going that way. And so now as adults, I could have those conversations with them. But I didn't. I didn't have that mistake to make when my kids were young. And so I can only somewhat empathize with the parents that are struggling with the peer pressure. I have a family member who, you know, her son was the last of all the friends to get a smartphone, and they finally gave in. And now of course, the smartphone is an issue nightmare.

Casey O'Roarty 

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I want to be, you know, I want to acknowledge too, there are I have lots of clients where the dynamic around the phone is ugly, and and kids won't engage. And as far as like, the holdouts, good job on your family member, this is where if we're talking positive discipline, this is where firmness shows up. That is frustrating. You know, the other parents are not doing us any favors. And that's deeply discouraging as a parent, but you get to do what's right for your kids. So you know, if you're on the I'm holding off on the smartphone thing until ninth grade, more power to you talk to the other parents about this, talk to each other about this? And do you get to also do our own work around how emotional our kids become, when they don't have the thing that they perceive as their only doorway to connection. And there. And it is it is it is hard to be the kid in that situation. And it's hard to be the parent in that situation. But the mental health of our kids should trump the discomfort, they feel that they're the only quote only ones without a smartphone. There are workarounds there are, you know, workarounds being like you get to be creative with your kids around how to keep them connected to their friends. And and I'm not going to pretend that it's not hard. It is. It's hard. So there's that. And then the other piece that you mentioned around families were like just entering into a conversation feels impossible, like the beast has been let free. And now we're trying to have these conversations. Yeah, oh, my gosh, they're like caged animals. And if we try to see through our kids lens, when kids feel they're going to be controlled, like they have no say they are going to behave, they are going to push you away and behave in a way that doesn't give any room for conversation. So the first conversation around screens shouldn't be, I'm going to start turning off the Wi Fi. The first conversation should be could be, I noticed that it's really hard for us to talk about screens. And that's where that's the starting place. And you also get to own if you're the parent in this situation, you get to own like, you know, I was uneducated, when I bought you that phone. And I'm real. And I realized there were lots of things I didn't understand about it. And I made a mistake, not talking to you about healthy habits around the phone. And I really and I want to talk to you about that. It's important that we talk about that. Right? And if it's like Go away, I don't want to talk about it or you don't understand, then you really get to drop into some curiosity. This is really hard for you to talk about. Tell me about that. What are you afraid of? If that feels right? And this isn't a script. This is being attuned to the child in front of you and noticing the experience that they're having. Right? Because there's something deeper there than Oh, you know, they're just addicted to their phone. Right? A lot of parents, you know, that's kind of the go to oh, they're just addicted to their phone. Have they gotten into some habitual use that is unhealthy? Probably. But deeper than that is this is a conversation around belonging, connection, self worth, you know, what, again, what are they avoiding? How was it a coping tool, we talked about some of the parents that I work with, talk of, you know, have kids who are self harming. And I think sometimes the endless scroll can also be an equally useful, not healthy, but useful coping mechanism to avoid hard feelings, or hard experiences. So as the parent, it's really important and positive discipline, we call it going under the surface of the iceberg to really understand your child's relationship with the screen and their device. And it might not be one big, amazing conversation, right? It probably won't be, it will probably be a lot of conversations, because what's also happening is your kiddo is deciding, can I trust you to share? What's going on for me? Or is this another ploy to get me to get off my phone? Yeah. So there's that dynamic to where our kids aren't, maybe aren't talking to us or willing to be vulnerable? Because they feel like, well, this is going to be weaponized. This is going to be used against me. So it's better to just not talk about this stuff, because then you don't have it to use against me later. Right. So there's so many juicy directions to go in. And there's a lot for us to own up to and take responsibility of as well. Because maybe we had been doing that maybe we do go into conversations with an agenda. Maybe we have before said, Well, you said this was your goal. And now I see you doing this, like what's going on here? That's not useful, right. It feels controlling it feels manipulative to the teen. And it's not nurturing a space where they're going to be open and honest with us.

Terri Novacek 

Right? Well, and then there's the hypocrisy piece. You're on your phone all the time. Yeah, Dad. Yeah. And, yeah.

Casey O'Roarty 

And it's true, because we are, I mean, I actively am tracking my daily phone use because I'm working so hard. Well, I could be working harder to bring my total time spent per day down. It's true. They have embedded themselves in our lives, these phones. And so we get to, we get to have conversations about it. You

Terri Novacek 

mentioned addiction. And there are a lot of studies that show that, you know, the addiction to the phone looks in your brain just like the addiction to, you know, street drugs. Would your recommendation then be to help the student you know, rather than going from being on your phone all the time taking it away? But backing off? I mean, do you where do you feel like pull the plug take the phone? I

Casey O'Roarty 

mean, that's a tough? I wouldn't. I mean, I That's a really tough question. Because I think it depends on the kid. It depends on the family. I mean, I think that there. Yes, there is addiction that can happen. I wouldn't be I don't know how to diagnose that. I wouldn't know how to differentiate between misuse and addiction. I do know, I took this really powerful training this summer called the invitations to change and it's a program for people who have loved ones who are misusing substances. But really, it's for you know, anyone who loves someone who has any kind of compulsive behavior, and one of my favorite things. And it's, it was so awesome. I did this program thinking like, Okay, I just want to make sure I'm really serving the parents that come to me whose kids are experimenting with substances. I thought, if I do this training, I'm gonna learn the magic formula, which of course, there isn't one and the whole thing just really reminded me of positive discipline, which felt really good. One of my favorite takeaways was that change happens by addition, not subtraction. So when I hear that question around, taking the phone away or limiting use well first of all, there always should be limits. There should be limits. That's that makes That's right. And it's not a free for all, you know, just like we don't leave all the candy on the counter and just say, you know, be healthy. So change happens through addition, not subtraction. To me, what that means is how can we add to the relationship that we have with our kids? What can we add to the dynamic to support our kids in moving towards a change in their use. So maybe it's an if there is a really tough dynamic, you know, we always say that some positive discipline, special time is not just for the littlest kids, we should have salutely be blocking out time with our big kids, with our teenagers to connect and get to know the person that they are growing into. Because they're continuing to grow and explore who they are, what their identity is. And that's kind of the backdoor way of getting to these conversations around screen use. I do think that it is appropriate sometimes, sometimes to go on a full like, cold turkey diet. I just think that, and I know, I know, some families that have full take away of screens, they are really unsure about how their kid would respond. And in some families, the dynamics are such that it could be violence, they could walk out the door, they you know, so I don't know, it feels precarious, to pull the plug completely in some dynamics. But also, if that's the dynamic that you're in, it might be time for outside support. I mean, it's kind of bigger, right? Well, I mean, like, if it's a phone addiction, like I have clients that I have referred them to, they're up here in the Pacific Northwest, we actually have treatment centers for screen addiction. Right. And I've encouraged families to reach out and find out what the resources are those places, you know, what they have available for families, because my work is really in, you know, just continuing to nurture relationship. And, you know, sometimes it's beyond my scope, too. So, for

Terri Novacek 

us, we're all about active learning. And to me, the screen time is just the epitome of passive. You know, it just takes passive to a an even unhealthier level. And and so, you know, how are how are students going to find their element if they are just sitting there passively? Yeah, playing and, and well,

Casey O'Roarty 

and I mean, my husband talks about graduating from the University of YouTube, you can't believe the things that he can fix and do because of the wealth of information that he finds on YouTube. So, you know, find an example.

Terri Novacek 

Yeah, so perfect example of how it can be healthy. Yeah. And yes, and there are a lot of kids using it in that way, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess that kind of goes back to what you're saying what your conversation is. And it's not as easy as saying, it's this much time. But how are you using it? Yeah. How does it make you feel when you're using it? Yeah, those that are?

Casey O'Roarty 

What are you avoiding? What are you not doing when you're using it? I did an interview with Emily Sherkin. From, I think her business is the screentime consultant. She's amazing. I'll send you her info. So you can put it in the show notes, okay. And she is very much like how we're, we're having this conversation, like her work is helping families with their screentime use. And it's the same kind of thing where it's like, it's not about a certain number of hours. It's not about certain, you know, limits. It's really about the relationship, you know, really fostering our relationships with screens and our relationships with our kids so that we can have these conversations and she talks about, you know, not only how much time are you spending, but what aren't you doing when you're on your screen?

Terri Novacek 

Like that?

Casey O'Roarty 

Right? Me too. Me too.

Terri Novacek 

All right. Well, Casey, thank you very much. This was this was a great conversation. I appreciate any information you can give me to put in our show notes to help our audience. Yes,

Casey O'Roarty 

yes, yes, I'd be happy. I'll share some interviews that I've done with a couple people around screens. I also have a mini summit that is all about teens and screens. And I'd be happy to send the link to that as well. But yeah, thanks for having me. Thanks, everybody, for listening.

Terri Novacek 

As we ring in the new year, take stock of your ecosystem. In what ways are your surroundings your schedule and your habits influencing or reflect Doing what is important to you, and influencing how you feel? And in what ways are they not? Are your priorities determining your habits? Or are you letting your habits determine your priorities? I'm going to give you an A personal example. I am binging on a show right now. It began as an episode at night, then it turned to two. Now sometimes I'm watching three. So now I am up to nearly two and a half hours sitting passively in front of a television at night. And I've noticed a correlation between how much time I sit in front of the TV, and the quality of my sleep and the level of my energy. Now, I know this sounds like a duh moment. But I also know I'm not alone here. Many of us can find ourselves slipping down that slope when it comes to electronic entertainment. I love Casey's question, what are you not doing when you're on your screen? So here's this episode's challenge for you. Outside of work or learning, engage with your electronic devices no more than one hour each day total. That's phones, tablets, computers, television, pretend they all cease to work after an hour. What would you do with that time instead? How might less time with screens impact your relationship with the devices themselves? How might less time with the screens impact your relationship with yourself and others? Give it at least one week. With more time to reflect and connect with yourself and others. You just might find more time to reflect and connect with your element.