welcome back parents and children don't always see eye to eye no kidding when it comes to setting limits on screen usage but if families can work together to create a tech plan with mutually agreed-upon expectations the benefits can be substantial here to help us navigate this idea is school counselor Amy Adams from healthy screen habits we've just been chattering away because this is a topic everybody can relate to no matter how old your kids are and it's a good time before school begins again
to kind of go over this correct yes this is really important because parents and kids really need to be on the same page a lot of times parents feel like it's us against them and kids for sure feel like that right but if we can sit down together and kind of craft this and you know get by mutual biood then your kids are gonna have a lot more buy-in to the whole plan that makes sense to me so you recommend a family tech plan and if I understand this we as parents have some limitations that we acce
pt as well right so everybody's in this together yes as a team yes this isn't just oh these rules are for kids and you have to do this but we're exempt this is all for kids because really where our kids best examples so they're gonna view how we view you know how we use tech and how we use tech is gonna influence how they use tech so if we don't want them to be using tech at the mealtime then we need to set the example even then we may feel like we have a really important email or something for
work we need to show that example by putting it away I'm here for that I think that's good so here's the family technology plan you've got a form which is awesome because it gives people different questions identifying technology dangers determining what technology devices will be allowed in the home and where they'll be kept so you go through this with your kids yes in fact you know I have four kids myself and so I imaginations we have done it one family and at first you know it's it's kind of
scary because there's so much or like well I don't know what to do and this we've kind of made this so it's very easy you walk through these steps together as a family you decide these things and it's it's been a great experience in my family this hangs up in my and on our cabinet and everyone can we can refer back to it and it's just great it makes something gets it outside of the mom and dad you know reigning over this every day you've made agreement it's up in writing we can all kind of go ba
ck and look at it if we have questions but it's two pages and it's got to open up a humongous discussion a really good discussion with your kids yeah it opened up a lot of really good discussions in our family such as like one's a good time for device curfew you know when do one should homework be done because a lot of times kids say well I have homework I have to use the computer it's like well what's a reasonable time to expect the homework should be done you know by 9:30 or 9:00 o'clock you k
now homework should be done if it isn't then we got to talk about other things maybe other priorities so it's been great so you suggest and I'm all for this that you keep computers out of kids bedrooms but they've also got their phones they might have an iPad let's talk about where devices should live within the home okay so this is a really important this is one of our steps and as a family kind of sitting down together and deciding where should devices live and where should they never live you
know what are spaces where they should never go in really bedrooms you know they should never be in the bedrooms and you know I'm a school counselor and I see this every single day that device is going bedrooms a lot of times parents aren't even they don't even realize that the devices are in the bedrooms kids tell me they sneaked in the iPad at night and they look at it under covers and parents are asleep and have no idea what's happening so it's really important to have that family rule and j
ust everybody's on the same page no devices in the bathrooms for obvious reasons and then like I was mentioned before you know in the kitchen when you're eating meals no devices at them at the table or exam that shows your kids that that's the most your your conversation if that's the most important thing so do you collect the devices at night yes we collect the devices at night and our family and we dock them in our room actually because what happens too is sometimes you know I've heard from a
lot of people they're like oh at first we started to just put the movie would charge the device is outside of the children's bedroom well what do you think's going to happen the kids it's it's a really big temptation because they're made to be addictive right so it's it's right almost like it's not even their fault it's it buzzes and their friends are on it and because other families may not have the same limits and curfews that you do and so you want to remove that temptation completely from th
em so that it's just they know there's a bed they know that just like them that's like they go to bed the device is going to go to bed and bilk they can have it in the morning you know everything is gone overnight and there are specific reasons for this and let's go over the whys you say there are four s's that involve reasoning for keeping screens out of kids bedrooms the first is sleep yeah so sleep is so fundamental to our well being I mean think of the last time that you didn't get enough sl
eep and what what that looked like for you now imagine a child with the growing and developing brain they're trying to study and concentrate on school and they just can't do it when they're not getting enough sleep and like I said this is a problem I see all the time in our schools I have teachers coming to me saying this kid can't concentrate one of my co-workers telling me that she had a child that was up consistently gaming all night long and would come to school actually hallucinating becaus
e just when that sleep is not you know that's so vital to our well-being both both physical well-being as well as emotional well-being for our children and they might not know why they feel the way they yeah they don't be connected with a lack of quality so we see it as maybe anxiety or depression but really the problem behavior problems but really the culprit maybe just they're not getting enough sleep got it so social isolation is another reason don't go in your room shut the door right this i
s what happens right in a lot of families you know it's called a bedroom for a reason because there's a bed and it's for sleeping it's called a family room because it's a it's a room for family gathering and too often what's happening now is everyone kind of comes home and disperses through their own their own little alleys salacious content and you know this is no surprise that kids who have some privacy or maybe gonna check out some things that they wouldn't if they're sitting on the family co
mputer in the family room right and that's kind of an obvious one but yet you know behind closed doors you don't have ability to monitor that and remember that kids don't have this the same fully-formed brains that we do so they don't make sometimes the decisions that we would think would be important for them to make so this this kind of puts that a guideline and helps them to be able to not have some of those opportunities where they're going to make some decisions that really may you know the
y regret and we'll follow them that's such a good point because their executive reasoning isn't fully perform so it's not their fault it's not even a moral choice they just don't have that ability to stop it we as parents need to do something about it and then the fourth is sexual predators because when you have an open Internet in a kid's room you basically or open a portal to the outside world to come directly in which we'd never do physically so why do we do in cyber right you wouldn't let yo
ur child you know you went drop your child off in a bar at 10 o'clock at night and say okay I'll pick you up at 6:00 in the morning hope not but that's kind of what's happening with with phones being left in rooms overnight is that and and you know that sexual predators need two things they need that you know accessibility and vulnerability of a child and so if it's left in the room all night that gives them access that like you said a portal yeah to be able to contact your detective so let's pr
otect them completely thank you so much healthy screen habits is sharing its guidelines for setting up your family tech plan and you can find the link on our website it's just super organized thank you so much welcome
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