The Truman Charities Podcast
Join Jamie Truman on a transformative journey as she connects to individuals making a difference in their communities. From New York Times bestselling authors to compassionate doctors and visionary farmers, our podcast unveils untold narratives shaping our communities. Whether it's a doctor revolutionizing healthcare or a farmer transforming food systems, our guests are trailblazers, influencers, and innovators driving positive change.
Truman Charities, a charitable organization with a mission, donates $250 toward their causes for every powerful story shared on the podcast.
The Truman Charities Podcast
How Screens Are Destroying Your Kids | Screen Strong Founder Melanie Hempe Ep. 131
Could the growing rate of depression and anxiety in children and teens be linked to technology? From gaming to smartphones and social media, screens are now a major part of everyday life—but their hidden impact on young minds is a growing concern. This episode with Melanie Hempe of Screen Strong explores the science of screen addiction and its effects on the brain.
• Melanie’s story about her son Adam’s gaming addiction
• Discussion on the science of screen time and its effects on brain chemistry
• Misconceptions about moderation and its consequences
• Practical strategies for families looking to detox from screens
• Importance of community support and resources available through ScreenStrong
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Email: info@trumancharities.com
This episode was post produced by Podcast Boutique https://podcastboutique.com/
Welcome to the Truman Charities podcast. I am Jamie Truman, your host. Do you know what really happens to your child's brain once they turn on their iPad or when they start playing video games such as Fortnite and Call of Duty? Do you know that there is an astronomical increase of depression and anxiety when given access to an iPhone too early? The founder of ScreenStrong, Melanie Hempe, knows this all too well. Her oldest son, Adam, was addicted to video games for years before Melanie and her family had any idea what was going on. Melanie has made it her mission to educate families and schools about the dangers of screens. She has now created resources for schools, she's created a screen detox program and so much more through her organization. I personally love the science behind all of this and found the connection between screens and brain function fascinating and a must listen for all parents. Before we dive into this conversation, please take a minute to read and review this podcast. The reviews mean so much to us and help more people learn about our podcast, so please pause for just a second, scroll down, hit the five stars and rate us a quick review. All right, now let's get to this episode.
Speaker 1:All right, Melanie, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. I've been following you for quite some time now. I found you because we both had the same guest on Dr Leonard Sachs and through him I found your podcast. Starting listening to that and then I ended up buying your book, Screen Strong. So we're definitely going to talk about that and just looking over your organization, so I love what you're doing for the community, especially for parents now, because we are so confused on how to navigate technology with our children. But I know your story because I've been following you for quite some time. But I know that a lot of people don't know about your story, about why exactly you started ScreenStrong, so can you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yes, I'll be happy to. So I am a nurse by trade, I guess is what you would say, and we have four children and our oldest child became very addicted to video games right under our noses, and I was really disappointed in myself a little bit because I thought I would catch it. You know, just being in the medical field, I thought I would understand it as it was happening. But when things are happening in your own family it's really hard, and I had no idea that you could be addicted to activity like a video game or even your smartphone. And so we went through lots of years of pain and suffering I guess you would call it in our home with our oldest son. He was a good kid, he would do his chores and whatnot, but he just loved his video games more than anything. And so all through middle school he dropped out of all of his sports and activities and piano and all that. And then, when he started into high school, they gave him a laptop in the high school and that was a really bad turning point for our family, because at that point I felt like I couldn't control his time on it anymore. And I don't know, jamie, if you can relate to this or know what this is, but I was a gaming cop mom and I didn't like that job and it's one of those jobs you get as a parent that no one never tells you about, and I was constantly setting the kitchen timer and constantly trying to organize Adam's life off his screen, because his screen was always his go-to. So I don't know if that makes any sense, but I hated that job and it created a lot of conflict because it was like Adam, could you come upstairs for dinner? Could you come upstairs for your sister's birthday? Could you come upstairs for Christmas? How about opening some presents with us? Everything became more important, and I don't think, as parents, that should be our job. I don't think it should be so hard, right.
Speaker 2:And so then, all through high school, he quit everything else. He had three days though. So this really confused me, because I think, as parents, we grade ourself according to our kids' grades. So I thought, well, I must be a good parent because he's getting good grades and he was my first and I didn't understand how important his friendships and life skills and time with us and attaching to his family. I just didn't understand all that and I talked to my friends about it and this was so heartbreaking my friends and all to his family. I just didn't understand all that. And I talked to my friends about it and this was so heartbreaking my friends and all my peer groups. They just said things like well, at least he's not drinking, he's not doing drugs, he's not doing anything really bad and getting in car wrecks and all this. And I'm like, is this really our bar? Like our bar is so low, but he's in the basement playing video games for five hours a day. Isn't there something wrong with that? And you know there was a lot of them doing it, it wasn't just Adam. And so he went to college and we were so happy I could not wait. All my friends were like very upset, their kids are going to college. And well, not all of them, the other gamer moms you know we were both. We were all like, yes, they're going to go start their life.
Speaker 2:But little did I know that little gamers grow up to be big gamers. And so he gamed all through his freshman year. I had no idea, honestly, at that point he had lost his Game Cop mom to set the kitchen timer, so he couldn't really control his time that much and plus he was really smart. So it didn't take a lot of effort that first semester for him to continue to make A's. But then he got really caught into the vortex and we went to pick him up and he looked terrible and I finally had to ask him in the car on the way home Adam, are you on drugs? I mean, I hate that. You know every parent dreads maybe asking that question and I was just like there's something wrong with you. And he said mom, there is something wrong with me. I've been in bed for a week. I'm depressed, I didn't finish my classes, I'm not finishing school, I'm done, I'm dropping out. And that game, world of Warcraft, is what he was playing at the time.
Speaker 2:He said that game did something to me and it really kind of scared him. And we were driving home and I was just stunned. I couldn't believe that after all these years that this was really what was happening, because I thought he was going to outgrow it. And so I get home and honestly, there's really nothing worse than launching a child and then having them come right back, like we call them boomerang kids. And they come right back and they live on your sofa right With their hoodie and their video game. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this isn't going to work.
Speaker 2:And I had three little kids at home, you know, middle school and elementary school, and I didn't know what to do. So I did what every good parent does when you don't know what to do with your 19 year old who's sitting on your sofa. I called the military and I know this sounds so crazy, but I didn't know what to do and I thought he is going to be safer in the military than he will be at my house, because I've had enough and our family had been through so much and we didn't know what was happening. And I started diving into all kinds of research. I started traveling, I met lots and lots of people in the medical field that were talking about this and I discovered that we were in a full-fledged gaming addiction. This is what we were dealing with. He had all the signs, all the symptoms, everything about it. It's like a process addiction, like gambling, like pornography, like all those kinds of addictions. They all fit in that same path in a kid's brain. But I called the military. They came to the house, it was so great, and the recruiter went in there and I said, before he came in the house I said I don't know what you can do, but you've got to go recruit my son into the military. He needs a different call of duty, because he's playing call of duty right now and the guy must've known this, must've just been a common thing, because he says, yes, ma'am, I've got your back. And so, bless his heart, adam went into the military. He did great. He got what was perfect for him.
Speaker 2:At the time I didn't realize it, but I soon learned that what he needed to get him off of his addiction was the detox. And so he got 14 weeks of the most incredible detox it's called basic training and he got up every day at five o'clock. He exercised. He was on a very rigid schedule. There were no screens, no, nothing. He had nothing and his brain had a chance to reset. And as I was going around doing all my conferences and learning all this stuff, that's what I was learning. I was learning this is an addiction. It's a chemical addiction. When Adam said that game did something to me, he was exactly right. That game changed the chemistry of his brain, the dopamine and the cortisol especially, and the other neurochemicals that are involved with gaming, as well as social media and phones and all that screens, the interactive screens. And so he did very well. He came back and he finished school and we're very proud of him.
Speaker 2:And in the meantime I was dealing with my three younger kids, right, and I thought, all right, we've already made this really bad discovery with this first experiment that we did. This did not work. So I told my younger kids all right, guys, listen, melissa, no smartphone, are you kidding Like I'm so over it. So she got a flip phone off the middle school and high school and you know what she did great, it was great. It was awesome. She ended up going into her sport and diving in and she got a D1 scholarship at a huge university and I'm thinking, wow, if she'd had social media, that might not have ever happened.
Speaker 2:And then my younger two boys, the twins. I said, guys, sorry, but we had a disaster with this video game thing and they knew, they grew up with it, they knew the arguments and whatever. And they're like, oh my gosh. So I said no phones for y'all and no video games and you're gonna be fine. And I gave them a list of life skills that I wanted them to learn, just this long list of things. I said this is what we got to focus on. And Andrew said mom, I'm not ever going to be able to play video games because it's going to take me 18 years to learn how to do all those things. And I said, yes, sir, it will, we're going to focus on your life skills. That's the plan. That's the plan plan. And you're so smart.
Speaker 2:So guess what we did? We had so much fun, you know, with the little guys and, yeah, they wanted to play video games and, yes, they wanted all their phones and whatnot. But I flipped it and we turned our house into the most fun house ever. I spent, instead of money on counseling, like we had to do with Adam, which never worked, by the way, that's a whole nother podcast. But I'll tell you the counseling world out there with this issue, they're so behind and they don't get it, and it's like it was such a disaster.
Speaker 2:So I basically told the guys I said, look, if you want something for the backyard, you want a trampoline, sure, we'll buy a trampoline. You want food, because that's really all they want when their friends come over. So I spent lots of money on food and, of course, our house was kind of the fun house to come to, because, guess what, we didn't play video games over here and we didn't have phones. And you know, sure we're not screen-free and we have, we watch movies and documentaries and we have a lot of fun with that. But the kids had so much fun over here and so, as a result, my younger three kids developed so many more friendships. See, this is the myth. The myth is that your kids won't have any friends if they don't have screens. That is completely wrong. They developed so many more friendships. My daughter and my younger boys are so much more attached to our family and to our values and we just had more fun. It was way more fun than sitting and arguing with Adam, who was in the basement all the time missing out life and missing out on our family, and so that's kind of my story. That's how we started ScreenStrong.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you the funniest thing when Adam went off to the military and everybody thought I was crazy, I'm like oh, no, no, no, he's fine, he's going to get a purpose, he's got to find his purpose. So the counselor at the school called me and she said you know what? I would love for you to come and do a little workshop with all the things that you're learning, because I literally was going out to all the neuroscientists and the conferences and I was learning all this stuff about screen addiction. So I put it together in a slideshow. I went over to the school and I brought 25 little handouts because I thought, well, this will help, and we had over 100 people show up. It was crazy.
Speaker 2:So it wasn't just me, it was like the majority of families and parents and kids were really struggling with this, and this was, you know, eight years ago. I mean, that was a while ago. But now it's even gotten worse, as you know, with the phones Right, that's been the biggest thing ever. The it's even gotten worse, as you know, with the phones right, that's been the biggest thing ever, the biggest problem, because now we're just putting all their little video games in their pocket, like this, is such a bad idea, right. So I learned all about the science. I learned all about the neuroscience and how all that works. And then what I did is, because I'm a mom too, with four kids I was able to explain it to parents in a way that they didn't have to go to medical school to learn all the things, and so our material is really designed.
Speaker 2:It's all rooted in science, it's all evidence-based, and my goal is to take that science and put it in such a simple format that every family can understand this, because if you don't understand the why and how you're managing screens in your house, you will not do a good job. You will be just blowing in the wind with every little opinion that comes out there, because there are many. Everybody's jumping on a bandwagon trying to tell everybody how to manage all this stuff, and I'm here to tell you that you cannot manage an addictive activity. You have to walk away from it, you have to delay, you have to not even delay. You just have to set it aside and do the work of childhood. First you have to get executive functioning skills in your kid's life, and then screens are going to be here forever, right, they're not going anywhere. Your kids will have plenty of time when their brain is big enough and cemented enough, after they've gone through those sensitive stages of development, they're going to have plenty of time to be fine with that.
Speaker 2:Jamie, when you first got your first smartphone, like me, the first thing we did we didn't think of doing something stupid on it because we were adults, we were using it as a tool. But when we give an adult tool to a kid, they're not going to use it like an adult. So we've really missed the mark on this in our culture. And I believe it's like the smoking campaign, you know, we're going to look back in just a few short years and we're going to look back and say how in the world did we ever give this stuff to our kids? Just like you know, right now, if you see a teenager running around smoking a cigarette, you're thinking where are his parents? Like he should not be smoking. Does he not know the medical? You know dangers of all this, and so that's where we're going to look, and I think that the pendulum has gone so far out.
Speaker 2:I mean, we're giving smartphones to first graders. This is ridiculous. I mean we're giving smartphones to first graders. This is ridiculous. I think that it's now shifting back to the middle because it has to come back to center. Right, this is the way everything in the culture. It has to come back to the center. Yeah, it has to shift. And we have the truth and you have to look at the truth and the facts and we have to get our emotion out of this.
Speaker 1:So in your book, which I really loved, and you mentioned a couple of misconceptions and you go through a couple more. But and also you just had a podcast too where you're talking to Dr Anna Anna Lemke yes, about the dopamine effect in your brain. And in your book you go through like very simplistically, which I like, that's how you're saying it, so like the everyday mom and dad can understand. Can we go a little bit into your chapter about brain science?
Speaker 2:So the first thing whenever I do in a conversation with an organization, a group, an audience, we have to start with the beginning. And the beginning is what are we talking about? When we're talking about screen time, that is toxic. So we've got passive screens and we have interactive screens. So when you're watching a movie or a documentary or a baseball game with your kids, that's very different. Right, that's a passive form of entertainment. You're sitting there, you're watching, you're not getting up every two seconds and pushing a button on the screen and then reacting, and there's no volley going back and forth. But when you are on a video game or social media, I mean you have to interact with the screen.
Speaker 2:So once that interaction starts is when the brain starts changing and there's this area in the brain, in the middle of the brain, called the limbic center and that's kind of the emotion center and that's where the dopamine addiction reward pathway is and that gets stimulated. So for a child especially now adults who are brain gets stimulated too. But when you're older it doesn't have quite the same effect, although I can talk about that in a minute. So for a child, when they are overstimulated in that area of their brain, really after about 20 minutes, the frontal cortex starts to shut down. Now, mind you, the frontal cortex is not fully connected, so we really don't need it shutting down Like that's a really bad idea to give your kids things that are going to shut down their frontal cortex. And when I say that, that's the reasoning center of the brain and it's the fight flight that gets triggered. So you know, when you're running in the woods and you know there's a bear chasing you, your fight flight mechanism is triggered and you get tons of adrenaline and you get a lot of energy and you get overstimulated and you're not really worried about your grocery list or your homework because that's not going to save you from the bear.
Speaker 2:So when a kid is on a video game or they're on social media, for a girl it's the same with a social media she's very nervous, she puts her content out there and she doesn't know if anybody's going to like it and her adrenaline kicks in and that fight or flight system kicks in. And so now they're stressed. And so the whole science behind it is we are stressing our kids not only mentally and emotionally, but chemically. They are being stressed chemically. Their cortisol is going up, the dopamine is going up and then they go to math class. It's like they're a wreck, right, and the teacher calls you and says Jamie, I think you need to go get your kid tested for ADHD.
Speaker 2:Right, it's called acquired ADHD because they've been on screens too much, maybe even in the morning, even before they even go to school, they're playing Fortnite and they're getting all revved up, and so the other thing about brain development that is really important to understand is that it takes 25 years for the frontal cortex part, the reasoning part, to be fully connected and through puberty, parents get really confused because they think their kid is so mature, because all of a sudden, they're acting mature and they're saying mature things and they're saying adult things and it's like, oh my gosh, and he's so smart and you can't even do math anymore that your kids can do, right, your kids are so smart, but we confuse intelligence with maturity all the time, and just because they're intelligent doesn't mean they're mature. And this is probably the biggest message initially, that I want parents to understand that their brain is not developed, they are not mature, they are not wise, they need you, they need a coach, they need guardrails, they need somebody to say no. You know the word no is like the best word in the English language, right, I use it a lot, good, good, good. And so they need somebody to say no. So that brain development what's happening is, with all of the chemicals that are being released right in the limbic area, isn't natural. So you know, like with Anna Lemke when she talks about dopamine, we cannot live up here in this unnatural amount of dopamine for any period of time, because we will get sick, we will get addicted to that thing that we are doing, whether it's eating donuts every day or playing Fortnite or getting on TikTok. That amount of dopamine is not sustainable. And so what happens is our little kids' brains are thinking oh my gosh, now I've got too much dopamine on board, now I'm going to have to stop making so much dopamine. And then what happens? Because the brain is trying to get in balance all the time. So then what happens is they get depressed. They don't have enough dopamine Now normal activities like going outside and hanging out with your friends and reading a good book that is not fun anymore and they're depressed.
Speaker 2:And you know, when Adam was in eighth grade, he put on his Christmas list that he wanted antidepressants. Really, who does that? Like I didn't even. Was that not a sign that he was in trouble? I didn't even know like why is he depressed? He's playing his video game all the time. That's the only thing he likes to do. He must be happy, but he was depressed. Gamers are of the most depressed kids in our country. There's so much suicide around gaming it's not even fathomable. People don't understand that we are depressing our kids. So even if you have a 10 year old and they get on fortnite which they shouldn't be obviously fortnite is for more mature than 10, but we don't follow the game ratings and no mom does. It's crazy. Half the time we don't even know what they are. So he's getting very hyped up and very overstimulated and then he goes to school and he can't pay attention and then he starts to do worse in school and then he gets kind of labeled by the teachers as kind of a hard kid to deal with. And it's all because his brain is being exposed to high dopaminergic activities that he shouldn't be exposed to.
Speaker 2:Another thing about dopamine that I want to make really clear with parents, because most parents don't know this dopamine is produced by your brain. It is a chemical that is produced, that we produce. It's good, we need it. If we didn't have dopamine we'd die because we wouldn't get up and do anything like eat. So we need dopamine. It's very important. But a lot of people think that if you take cocaine or heroin or any kind of drugs, that that adds more dopamine to your body. And that is not how it works. When you're on cocaine, what it does is it inhibits certain receptors, certain dopamine receptors, in your brain. So your brain thinks that you don't have enough dopamine. So the brain makes more and dumps more dopamine. So when you get high, you're really getting high on your own supply of dopamine. Does that make sense? It's not a chemical that's coming in. It's making your body make more dopamine.
Speaker 2:And that's why we say gaming and social media is just like a drug, because it's making your body and, especially if you're a teenager and a young kid, you're getting high on your own dopamine. So that's why parents get confused because they think, well, he's not taking a drug. Well, yes, he is, it is a drug. And this is what Dr Lemke talks about, in fact, in her book. If you look in the illustration she's got video games and social media. Those are the two things that are really causing a lot of dopamine to be released. So I think parents need to understand the brain science. The other little piece about brain science is through puberty, the pathways that your child is using, like whether they've learned a foreign language or they've learned a sport, they've learned any kind of skill, they're learning executive functioning skills, all those pathways in the brain. When they get to be around puberty, the brain says, okay, we got to clean things up. What are we using? What are we not using? The things that we're not using get pruned away. The pathways they are using get stronger. And so think about this If you have a gamer who's 10 years old, 12 years old, 14 years old, and they've been gaming for you know, I don't know, five hours a day or two hours a day for the last two or three years. Those are the pathways that the brain is going to keep and the other pathways, like baseball and reading and math and music, those get pruned away if they're not being used. It's pretty simple, because the brain is constantly trying to improve itself. So parents don't understand that.
Speaker 2:When I learned that, I was just shocked and I just felt terrible because I allowed Adam to pave all the wrong pathways, so I didn't put my foot down and make him have some grit around, not quitting things. And so with the younger kids, they did violin, they did piano and they did sports, tons of sports, and quitting was not in the picture. Nobody quit anything Because I knew that if I could just get them through middle school, that by mid high school they were going to be on the other end of this thing, and then they would start those pathways and those talents and those activities would become things that they like to do. Does that make sense? So you can postpone the addictive things and put those hard things in your kid's life? They don't, you know, kids are so good at doing things, you know I mean it's not that hard. And then they, and then by middle school, you know they're frustrated because they're like mom, I want to quit piano.
Speaker 2:Well, let me tell you, by 10th grade, ninth grade, 10th grade, the boys were at the dinner table one night, which was another thing. We did different. We had big dinners every night, like we. That was something I made happen in our house with the younger kids. And Andrew said when I. He said mom, you know, when you're in eighth grade, you know everybody makes fun of you for playing the violin, but when you're in ninth and 10th grade, he said everybody thinks it's kind of cool. I'm like, yeah, and he was talking about the girls and I'm like, yeah, he said the girls really think it's cool when you play the piano. I'm like, yeah, they do yeah.
Speaker 2:And so now they're in college, they just started college, and they're like, thank you so much for never letting me quit, cause I would have quit. I'm like I know you would have, because you're a teenager and you don't know what you're doing yet, and all the time, and they're really great. You should have them come on your podcast, because now they talk about what it was like growing up without this stuff. And you know, jamie, it's only 48 months of high school. I mean, can we not do something for 48 months? It's like so easy that is. The solution to the screen problem is that you've got to say no. You cannot say, oh, we're going to moderate it, and we're going to moderate it and we're just going to play a little bit of Fortnite every weekend because they did their homework and I'm going to give it to them for a reward. That is such a bad idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hear a lot of parents doing that, yeah.
Speaker 2:And what they don't understand.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll let them reward it on the weekends.
Speaker 2:No, would you reward them with a keg of beer? How about reward them with some heroin? We don't do that. We don't reward our kids with things we don't value and things that are addictive, because we know that 90 percent, 90 percent of every adult addiction started in the teenage years, that is a true yeah, huge warning sign that we do not need to pave their brain for addiction.
Speaker 2:Because we also know that one addiction leads to another and this is what Dr Lemke talks about too in her book. And we know that if a kid is addicted to Fortnite when he's 10, the chances that he's going to be addicted to pornography when he's in 10th grade is really high, really Very high, because it's that same area of their brain, that limbic area, it's that pathway is getting paved in their brain. So now Fortnite isn't going to cut it, now it's going to be Call of Duty, then it's going to be Grand Theft Auto, then it's going to be porn. That's the natural progression. And then by the time he's a senior, then it's pretty much going to go into pot. That's what we see over here. It is so common. I don't have my studies done on any of that. I can just tell you from my work in the last eight to 10 years this is what is the most common trajectory. In fact, right now we've got so many parents with eighth graders that are addicted to pornography because everything is shifted back.
Speaker 2:It's like saying to your child oh well, melanie, actually isn't Minecraft okay, and isn't Fortnite okay. Well, you know what it's like. It's like going to the strip club and just not going into the pole dance room. Okay, yeah, no, you're still in the strip club, Like you're on the screen. You're in that environment. When you are on Discord you know when your kids are on Discord, that's the big thing they get on when they're playing video games. There's so much going on in there. There's a lot of sexual content, a lot of sharing of nudes. There's all kinds of stuff going on that parents don't understand. They just think it's like Pac-Man. Oh well, I played Pac-Man when I was growing up. No, it's not Pac-Man. This is not what they're doing. The whole virtual world now is very, very different.
Speaker 1:Is Discord, where they can speak to other people that are playing the game. Is that what you're talking about? Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:It's like social media and, honestly, you know, gaming is like social media too. I mean, it's all because they think they're being social. They're getting out there and you actually have no idea and we're so careful to protect our kids from being around bad people and then we put them online and it's like sending them to the city dump to get their dinner tonight. It's ridiculous. Yeah, can you find some little good thing there? Yeah, maybe there's some little friend that they met at a camp and they can go and play and feel like whatever. But you know what? They are not making friends and that's why we're in the middle of the mental health crisis that we're in. It's very simple Our kids are lonely and they're depressed, and they have detached from their families. It's those three things. They're lonely and depressed, they're anxious as heck because their brain is in fight flight mode all the time on social media and on video games, and they have detached prematurely from their family. This entire conflict and problem in our country that we are seeing right now can be summed up in one word Our kids have detached from their families, they have left home base and they're out floating around in the ocean somewhere and we've got to go get them back and we don't understand this home base. And they're out floating around in the ocean somewhere and we've got to go get them back. And we don't understand this because we think they're having fun and we think, well, that's where all their friends are. Well, that's like the oldest trick in the book, right? Would you jump off the cliff if your friends told you to? I mean, we have to get our kids back, and what I mean by that is we have to start spending more time with them. We have to, you know, because we are all on our screens too, and this is something with families.
Speaker 2:And sometimes I go on podcasts and the host says beforehand well, we don't want anybody to feel guilty. Well, you know, I'm so glad you didn't say that, because I do want people to feel guilty, because without guilt you won't do anything. You've got to feel something, guilt to change. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's healthy, and you don't live in that shame for too long, maybe just for a few minutes. But you think you know what. This isn't working and no matter what I try to do to put the round peg in the square hole, it's not going to fit and I've got to do something about it and I have people ask me all the time don't I feel terrible about Adam? Well, yeah, I did for about a minute and then Adam and I made our peace and he feels terrible too. He's like mom, I had like the worst childhood ever and that's a terrible thing to hear from your kids. But he's like you've got to go share this message and you have to go save as many kids as you can, and so that's why I get up every morning, because I know the truth and we have to promote the truth and we have to stop getting so worried about our emotions, and our kids are going to love us for it. They're going to know that you care about them and you have to say no to this stuff.
Speaker 2:For now you cannot moderate it and it's not moderation in all things. Like I said a minute ago, that's not what a good coach does, and you have to take that parent hat off and put your coach's hat on, and a lot of men especially understand this analogy. When you were in high school, you had really good coaches, but your best, most favorite coach was the one that pushed you the hardest. But they also loved you and they were very warm and caring, but they pushed you, and that's what we have to do as parents, and that is from the research. What we know is the best parenting style, the parenting style that says I'm going to be really strict, but I'm going to love the heck out of you too, and so that's the parenting style that we have to look at.
Speaker 2:When it comes to screens, we have to say no. We can't even try to dole it out in little pieces. It just doesn't work. Now we can enjoy a nice family movie and watch a documentary or watch a ball game. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about isolated entertainment screen time when everybody's off in their own little corner of their house. Every minute that your kid is on a video game is a minute that they are away from doing something much better for them.
Speaker 2:And I'm not talking about being a tiger mom and doing dumb things. I'm talking about just basic life skills autonomy around, how they keep their room, cleaning the house, how they organize their homework, and then they should get a job. If they're old enough, they should have a job. They should be participating a whole lot more in your family life than they are, because any hour that they spend on a screen is an hour taken away from a more healthy hobby, something to physically get them out of that sedentary lifestyle that they're in. You know, running around the block is better than playing Fortnite. Doing jumping jacks is better than playing Fortnite. Actually doing nothing is better than playing Fortnite. Doing jumping jacks is better than playing Fortnite. Actually doing nothing is better than playing Fortnite and getting on social media.
Speaker 2:Because our kids don't have enough time doing nothing and I'm talking about just real downtime to think and to be comfortable with the silence and be comfortable in your own skin. And until we get back to that, if we continue to offer a dozen donuts for dinner every night, they're going to eat the donuts and they're not going to eat dinner. They're not going to eat the healthy stuff. So we've got to get rid of the donuts and we have to have fun doing the healthy stuff. And I think kids out there have fun doing the healthy stuff and I think kids out there the mental health crisis that we're in.
Speaker 2:They are begging. They are desperate for their families to spend more time with them. They are not really begging for more screen time and they're begging for someone to be tough and to say no, and I've talked to so many teenagers that have said you know, we don't really like social media. We wish nobody had it. And that is true. If they all got to vote, they would all vote not to have it and just hang out with each other instead, because that's really what they want. And so that's what Spring Strong is all about. We wrote our curriculum. We have our new kid curriculum. I don't know if you've seen that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wanted to talk a little bit about what you offer Right.
Speaker 2:So on our website, you can go on our website and join our Connect group for free. It's a non-social media forum where you can get in there and get your questions answered and get support, because you've got to have support. If you're going to go screen strong, we call it if you're going to take the screen strong path, that means you're going to detox your kids, right. So we have a free seven-day detox, but then we have a 30-day detox in our Connect Plus group. It's only $15 a month. It is the best $15 you'll ever spend. But we have a Connect, we have the 30-day detox and we'll show you how to take this out of your house for now and what to do instead, because it's all about replacement. And we have, of course, I write a sub stack every week and a podcast every week where we bring on different doctors and stuff. But we have a new curriculum right now that just came out this year and it is called Kids Brains and Screens. That's our signature series. We have a Kids Brains and Screens digital course for parents, which is really good. Gives you a deep dive into all the stuff that you need to know. And then the Kids Brains and Screens for Students is like a graphic novel. So I don't know if you've seen it. I've got a copy back here. It's literally like a graphic novel. It's got beautiful art in it and we're basically explaining to kids all this brain science and dopamine. I have some wonderful stuff in here for kids to understand dopamine. So, mom and dad, you are no longer the bad guy. We're going to talk about the science. We're going to quit being all emotional and argumentative about it. We're going to look at the brain science and we're going to say this is the science, this is what's the best thing for your brain. And what middle school kid really doesn't want to have a healthy brain? They don't like to feel like they're being tricked, but they need the science. They don't need you to say, just because I said so, right, you need to explain it to them. So we have the kids' brains and screens. If you go on our website, you can get the little bundle on there where you get the parent course and the kids' course, and we have a new piece that's coming up. It's coming up on the site either tomorrow or Monday and it is how to have a phone-free school. So this is something else that you can do. You can take this to your school administrator and say we need to get smartphones out of our school so our kids can actually have social time together. We have a beautiful poster series that goes with that that you can as a parent. You can just go get those posters and put them in your school Like they're so great because it talks about overuse and warning signs, and it's done very tastefully. The posters match the curriculum. So those are the main things that we have for parents. So we're all about education and we're all about community, and we provide both very well. We're going to educate you.
Speaker 2:You are no longer going to feel like you don't know what you're doing, right, because don't you think that that's the big thing with parents? I think that they just they're so stressed and I'm like, no, no, no, you don't need to be stressed. The answer is so simple. It is so simple. You have everything you need and by tomorrow you can start making changes. Like, it doesn't take that long. You have everything you need and, just like Leonard Sacks says, virtue begets virtue. So what you do now, chances are much greater that your kids are going to be much better off if you don't give in to the culture on this issue. Your kids will not hate you. I promise They'll get mad at you for a minute. They may slam their door and say ugly words, but who cares, we don't care about that.
Speaker 2:When you're a coach, your team may get disgruntled and they don't want to do jumping jacks and they don't want to do their core exercises and they don't want to run. But you know what. They do it anyway and they may complain, and that's okay. But can you good coach out there I mean think of all the professional coaches out there If they just got up in their team's drama. Oh well, let's vote today. Do we want to do laps? I mean, are you kidding, right? That's how you have to approach this. There's no voting.
Speaker 2:I think that we're trying so hard to make our kids adults and again, this is what Dr Sachs talks so much about we are hurting our kids when we treat them like adults. We're hurting our kids when we let them vote. They don't get to vote. They need a leader and you, as a parent, need to lead in these very difficult issues, because what you'll find is when you say no and when you are confident about that, because you've been to ScreenStrong and we have your back and you got all the right words over here, like we're going to teach you how to do this. When you learn how to do that, your kids? It's just amazing, moms, I get emails every day and they're like, oh my gosh, we got rid of the video game and now my son comes in the kitchen every night before dinner and we just talk and while we make dinner, like he's never talked to me so much, like that's usually. The first thing that we hear is there's so much more conversation and that is 100% always a good thing.
Speaker 2:That's what we want. We don't want our kids to be isolated. We don't want them to eat donuts all day. We want to feed them really good food and we want them to be attached to our family instead of to that video game, because they will be attached to one family instead of to that video game, because they will be attached to one or the other. Adam was very attached to the virtual world. That was his family. That video game family was his family. And you know what? To this day, he doesn't know those people. He has no relationship with them. The relationships we have are built in real life and you know it takes 200 hours to move an acquaintance to a good friend, and that's 200 hours of in-person time, not virtual time. Virtual time doesn't count.
Speaker 2:And the reason why you and I might have friends on social media, which I really don't have I'm really bad at social media, I'm like over it but the reason why we did fine with it is because we had built all those friendships in person first, right, and then we can kind of keep up with people. But social media is designed to keep up with people. It's not designed to build deep relationships. And when you're talking about teenagers, they don't even know how to do that to begin with. So we have to teach them how to do that the right way in person and make your home the home that's going to be the fun house where your kids and their friends will all want to come. And to this day, my younger kids have so many friends, and that is the biggest gift that you can ever give your kids, by the way, is the gift of knowing how to really make good friendships. And I told them when they were little. I said if you have one best friend, your whole life, you were blessed, because most people don't even have that right, and but they have way more than one, and that's the biggest difference.
Speaker 2:I will tell you that growing up without video games and social media, first of all, they know all about video games and social media. They are not sheltered. The kids that are sheltered are the kids that are growing up with video games and social media. They're very sheltered because they don't know how to do real life. They don't even know how to go into the grocery store and ask where their orange juice is. Like they're scared of people, like they can't.
Speaker 2:And so kids that grow up without all that they are not sheltered. They are doing things on their own. We let them ride their bikes to get their haircuts when they were 10 years old and I thought I was crazy. I'm like no, no, no, they're going to get out there in the real world. So they're going to have more friends and they're going to be more connected to your family, because your family is really going to be your family. That's who they're going to go to. They're not going to go to Google to ask Google about what to do in a hard situation. They're going to call mom and Adam goes to Google, right, but Andrew and Evan call me and my husband and the other kind of cool thing and anecdotally a little story is when they were in high school.
Speaker 2:When the twins were in high school, they ended up because they didn't have social media. And, by the way, they both say to tell parents that it's a big myth that you get made fun of all the time because you don't Middle school you get made fun of for everything, but in high school nobody cares, right? So this whole thing that, oh, I'm so worried my kids are going to get made fun of because they don't have social media. You know, andrew says get over it, that's not even the thing. Nobody cares. And in high school, being different is great, like, because you spend your whole time being like everybody in middle school and you go to high school and it's really cool to be different. So it's really cool not to have social media in high school. But they both were in student government and this is really interesting. I think the reason why is because they knew everybody, like they knew their name, right. So andrew was the senior class president and their senior year, evan was the student body president. Well, how do, how do they do this? They didn't have social media, but they ran a campaign without it. They passed out little stickers and they got to know everybody and it was like, oh my gosh, this is so funny that the two kids who were the least likely you would think to be able to run a campaign, right, they did great and it was like not even a runoff. So I'm not bragging about that, I'm just telling you the outcome is unbelievable.
Speaker 2:What happens when kids don't have this? They actually, you know, I tell Andrew and Evan all the time y'all are just normal kids, but you look really not normal because you can do all these things. But you got the world in your hand. You can do anything because you know how to have a conversation actually, and you can make eye contact with people. And that's really what it's about and that's what our job is as parents. Our job is to equip our kids and give them those advantages yeah, and the tools and to feel comfortable in your own skin and to get over that in middle school and mom and dad and grandparent out there.
Speaker 2:Please, please, please. If you have a gut feeling that something isn't right with all these screens in your house, please, please, follow it. I wish I had followed it with Adam. I had no clue about the science. I didn't understand, but I had a gut feeling that something was wrong and I didn't figure it out in time with Adam and I'm just telling you.
Speaker 2:There is something wrong If your kids are having meltdowns when you take the screen away. There is something wrong If they are playing more and more and more over time, and you know what I mean. There is something wrong If they are choosing their game over being with people. There's something wrong, like if your kid's playing on his game or your daughter's on the phone, the doorbell rings and there's somebody coming to play with them and they don't want to go. There's something wrong If it's the only thing that puts them in a good mood.
Speaker 2:There's something wrong If they can't list three things they like more than their screen. There is something wrong If they can't say they love baseball more than Fortnite. You got to have real life. That has to be more fun. That has to be their go-to. If they're lying to you, there's something wrong If they're playing their video game for 20 minutes and they don't get bored after 20 minutes. That's Adam's test. He says if a kid doesn't get bored after 20 minutes on their screen, he's in trouble. So and the lying and the sneaking around and the warning signs were all there with Adam and I didn't put it together. So my mission is to just explain that I'm not about telling people what to do. You can do whatever you want. I'm just. I just want people to know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you make sure that I think a lot of parents are equipped with the information that they need to know to make the best decision. So I find science so fascinating. So when you break down the science of the brain and what exactly is going on, like that was my favorite chapter and ScreenStrong has really helped. So our school that my son goes to is phone-free no cell phones. However, one of the schools nearby they do have phones and so she's taken your material and is getting all of these parents together to try to get that. So it is a phone-free zone. You're helping so many communities and I really love everything that you're doing. I'm going to make sure that we put your podcast, because I listen to that weekly. It's fantastic. I love all the guests you have on. I learned so much.
Speaker 2:By the way, christmas is coming up Please, no one, give your kid a screen for Christmas, because you're going to have to take it away. And so then they say, well, this is the gift you gave me. I'm like, no, it really wasn't a gift, it was a really bad idea. So you just have to own up to it. And then the other thing you got to do is get over it, and we cannot be emotional about it. So you know, especially for moms, it's really hard because it's like the only thing they want, and those big brown eyes are looking at you and you're just melting and you get no. No, you got to be firm and you cannot get emotional about this one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I do think that, at least for in my experience with my one son, when we took it away, I said you know I made a mistake. No more iPad, it's gone. And he gave me and he would talk about it a lot, and now never even mentions it. Doesn't even go through his head to like even think to ask for it.
Speaker 2:So what you did is you retrained that habit. And, the way you know, old habits never really die, right? We know that. But we retrain a new pathway. That's how you get rid of the bad habit. And so I'm so glad you said that, because with the younger kids, with our younger kids, that pathway never got paved Go to the iPad, go to the game, go to the phone. That just never got paved.
Speaker 2:So now that they're in college, it is fascinating to listen to them talk about this, because the big thing is, well, they're going to binge and go crazy, right? Well, let me tell you who's going to binge and go crazy, and that forbidden fruit thing that's Adam. Those are the kids that grew up with it. They're going to just get worse when they go to college, because college is a transition period and during transitions we revert back to the easy street, right? So the easiest thing for Adam, instead of getting out and awkward and meeting new people, the easiest thing for him was to revert back to his video game. And so that pathway for your son, you cut it off pretty early.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a couple of weeks. I was just noticing his patterns and I was like, okay, this is acting strange.
Speaker 2:Right, but the longer they develop that, the harder it is. So if you have a 14-year-old, it's going to be much harder to take their game and their phone away than it will be when they're seven Exactly. But I don't want anybody to think that it's ever too late, because it's never too late, Like even with Adam when he was in 10th grade. If I had just taken it away in 10th grade, we would have had two years to rebuild some pathways before he went off to college. Two years to help him learn some new activities, two years to replace that. But we didn't because I didn't know what I was doing. But so with the younger kids I was like, look, we're not going to pave these addiction pathways right now. So by the time they're 18 or 19 or 20, they are more mature, they can make better decisions, and because we filled their life with really healthy things, those are the things they're still doing. That's what they're doing more of.
Speaker 2:In fact, let me tell you it's so crazy because they complain about their violin and whatnot when they were little. But Evan just put his second Spotify album out. That is fabulous. It's his piano. He's done two albums now and Andrew is in the symphony at his school. I'm like how did that happen? You complained about it when you were growing up, and now that's what you're doing, Isn't that? I mean, I'm just between you and me. I'm just like giggling inside because Because they wanted to quit.
Speaker 2:He wanted to quit, yeah, but he loves it, and so that's the pathway that got paved for him. So that's what he loves to do and he feels comfortable doing it, and I'm like this is so great and he'll even, every now and then when he comes home, cause he says, mom, you know, I practice now more than I ever practiced in high school and I'm like, oh my gosh, are you really saying this? Cause I used to have to put the kitchen timer on for them to practice their violin, right, and he's like, I practice every day, like, and I'm getting better. He said it's really crazy, I'm getting better. I'm like, of course, if you do anything an hour a day, you're going to get better, and so that's a really good tip to leave with you Whatever your kids are practicing right now is what they're going to get better at.
Speaker 2:So if they're on their phone for an hour a day, that's going to add up. If they're on their phone for an hour a day, that's going to add up. If they're on their video game an hour a day, that's going to put them on a whole different path. And as a parent, as their coach, you are their life coach. We have to put the things in their life that are good for them, and I'm not saying that they don't get to pick some of their activities. But there's a period of time when a kid is growing up where the parent really kind of has to direct that, Because if you let them vote when they're, you know, in sixth grade they're not going to vote for cross country, but cross country is really good for sixth graders.
Speaker 2:You know they're going to they're going to go for the the low effort, high reward stuff, and so you really just got to get them through middle school. Honestly, I think that's the big answer, yeah.
Speaker 1:Middle school is tough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really tough. Then by the time they get to high school they are well on their way. But I'm telling you, andrew and Evan never had social media all through high school Best thing ever. They had a flip phone, you know, when they were 15, but they could just text. They could not. I fixed it so they couldn't send photos. I don't think any child needs to send photos at all. If they need to send something, they can use your phone. They don't need access to that. That's the big disaster.
Speaker 2:So you know, get a flip phone, get a Gab phone. We like the Gab phone. Go on our site and learn more about that. Use the code STRONG, you get a really good discount. And then we love Canopy. I'll just say Canopy is my favorite filter because it filters everything out before it ever gets to their phone right now and to all of our computers in our house. We have it and go on the site and look about that too. Look up that too. I've tried them all and I have my little test group of eighth graders and they they can hack everything, but they can't really hack canopies.
Speaker 1:That is the smartest thing to do. I'm like, if you want someone to hack something or figure something out when it comes to technology, go to like a 14 year old, that's right, and they'll be able to do it for you. But, melanie, I could talk to you all day, okay. Okay, I know I wish we could, but is there anything before I let you go? Is there anything else that you want to leave on? Is there anything we haven't talked about that you think someone should know?
Speaker 2:I just want to encourage everyone listening that it is not too late to go get your kids and to save your kids. It is not too late. I don't care how old they are and if they're little, good for you. You're learning this information now and you don't ever have to go through the pain and suffering. But if you are in pain and suffering, we are here to help and I don't want that to sound like a commercial. I really mean it. You can email us. You know, team at screenstrongorg. Go to our site, screenstrongorg.
Speaker 2:We have over a hundred ambassadors that we have trained, and if you feel very passionate about this and you want our slides and you want to know how to get out into the community, into your school, please contact us. Our ambassador program is fabulous and we will train you and you can be an ambassador and you can be that champion in your school that promotes these non-tech activities. Have fun with your kids. You only have really just a few more summers with them when you look at the scope of life, and 48 months is a really short time during high school that you need to get them off these addictive screens so you can enjoy them. So thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for everything that you do for all the parents out there and I want to thank everybody for tuning in to another episode of the Truman Charities Podcast. Didn't you find this episode mind-blowing? I know I mentioned it a little bit in the episode, but I took my oldest son's iPad away years ago and I had given it to him and I noticed the kind of addiction happening very quickly and I took it away. It was really hard. At first he definitely was not happy but honestly, after about a week just stopped. And it's hard and I know detoxing your kids from screens is really difficult, but after listening to Melanie and learning about everything with the connection between the brain and screens, oh my gosh. So please, if you liked this episode, like I mentioned before, please rate and review this podcast. It means so much to us. And, while you're at it, click the subscribe button so you don't miss any future episodes.
Speaker 1:If you'd like to follow us, you can follow us on Instagram at Jamie, underscore Truman Charities. Facebook at Truman Charities. You can follow me, jamie Truman, on LinkedIn and go underscore Truman Charities. Facebook at Truman Charities. You can follow me, jamie Truman, on LinkedIn and go into Truman Charities find out when our three events are this year, plus our Bethesda's Best Happy Hours we have coming on. Sign up for our newsletter so then you don't miss any of our upcoming happy hours or events. So go to trumancharitiescom to do that. And then, of course, I wrote the book Vanishing Fathers the Ripple Effect on Tomorrow's Generation. 100% of the proceeds from that book go directly to charity, so make sure to pick up a copy of that on Amazon or any online bookstore. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of the Truman Charities podcast. Until next time.
