Taking Your Kids Back from Their Screens with Arlene Pellicane

It has been extremely difficult during lockdown and virtual schooling to limit screen time for our kids. That is why we have Arlene Pellicane back on the show to talk about Screen Kids, the latest book she’s co-written with Gary Chapman.

Arlene Pellicane tells us what too much screen time will do to our kids’ brains. She explains us how the internet trains kids to become accustomed to instant gratification and how that affects their wellbeing and behavior over time. Most importantly, she teaches us how to set non-negotiable boundaries around computers and devices in our homes.

Learn how to keep screen time balanced for you and your kids once and for all in this episode!

Arlene Pellicane

If you didn’t get to listen to Arlene’s first show, The Cool, Calm, and Connected Family, click here. She is a speaker and author of several books including Parents Rising, 31 Days to Becoming a Happy Mom, and Calm, Cool and Connected: 5 Digital Habits for a More Balanced Life. Arlene has been featured on the Today Show, Fox & Friends, Focus on the Family, and FamilyLife Today. She’s the host of the Happy Home Podcast and regular contributor to Proverbs 31 Ministries.

Now she’s co-written Screen Kids and Grandparenting Screen Kids with Gary Chapman.

Arlene lives in San Diego with her husband James and their three children. You too can have a happy home – Arlene’s books will show you how.

Screen Kids: 5 Relational Skills Every Child Needs in a Tech-Driven World

Has Technology Taken Over Your Home?

In this digital age, children spend more time interacting with screens and less time playing outside, reading a book, or interacting with family. Though technology has its benefits, it also has its harms.

In Screen Kids Gary Chapman and Arlene Pellicane will empower you with the tools you need to make positive changes. Through stories, science, and wisdom, you’ll discover how to take back your home from an overdependence on screens. Plus, you’ll learn to teach the five A+ skills that every child needs to master: affection, appreciation, anger management, apology, and attention. Learn how to:

• Protect and nurture your child’s growing brain
• Establish simple boundaries that make a huge difference
• Recognize the warning signs of gaming too much
• Raise a child who won’t gauge success through social media
• Teach your child to be safe online

This newly revised edition features the latest research and interactive assessments, so you can best confront the issues technology create in your home. Now is the time to equip your child with a healthy relationship with screens and an even healthier relationship with others.

What You’ll Learn

• Your device is designed to be sticky. Everything is created on purpose so you and your child will check it frequently.
• A bicycle is a tool that waits for you to use it. Tech is not. It keeps prompting you to pick it up.
• You’re not a bad parent and your kid is not without self-control. But it’s up to you to empower yourself.
• None of Arlene’s kids have smartphones. How does she do it?
• Children want devices to be like everyone else.
• Kids gauge their worth on how many followers and fans they have.
• There is an increase of suicide, depression, and self-harm in kids. Followers are not friends. The relationships are not satisfying.
• Boys can be exposed to porn.
• Girls are exposed to social media that always makes them feel less-than.
• There are workarounds to raising kids with no devices.
• Every kid is different. Some kids can limit themselves and others can’t.
• Parents must set separate rules for each child if necessary.
• It’s okay to show kids that life can be unfair.
• Teach your kids to use the phone for a purpose.
• When wondering if your child should be online, ask yourself are youR kids consuming or creating? Is what they’re doing digital vegetable (learning, creating) or digital candy (passive consumption, gaming)?
• Screen time reduces kids’ tolerance to waiting, and they are used to being entertained all the time.
• There is a difference between watching movies together as a family and your kids watching what they want by themselves.
• Dopamine can be overdone. That’s why kids who are amused by games all day are moody and unhappy.
• When your kid plays a video game that triggers flight or flight, blood flow to the prefrontal cortex is reduced. The decision-making center for self-control is dark.
• When kids are constantly in survival mode, they lose practice of the executive center of their brains.
• Devices are too accessible. Location is the key to regulation.
  • Make barriers.
  • Collect phones at night.
  • Keep screens in common areas.
  • Delay giving your child a device for as long as you can.
  • Take a digital sabbath, one day completely screen free. If your kids freak out during 24 hours without WIFI, you know you have a problem

RELATED EPISODES:

The Cool, Calm, and Connected Family with Arlene Pellicane

Digital Minimalism with Cal Newport

Parents’ Guide to Video Game Addiction with Cam Adair

Love Languages and Other Marriage Tips for the Pandemic with Gary Chapman