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The Motherhood Mentor
Welcome to The Motherhood Mentor Podcast your go-to resource for moms seeking holistic healing and transformation. Hosted by mind-body somatic healing practitioner and holistic life coach Becca Dollard.
Join us as we explore the transformative power of somatic healing, offering practical tools and strategies to help you navigate overwhelm, burnout, and stress. Through insightful conversations, empowering stories, and expert guidance, you'll discover how to cultivate resilience, reclaim balance, and thrive in every aspect of your life while still feeling permission to be a human. Are you a woman who is building a business while raising babies who refuses to burnout? These are conversations and support for you.
We believe in the power of vulnerability, connection, and self-discovery, and our goal is to create a space where you feel seen, heard, and valued.
Whether you're juggling career, family, or personal growth, this podcast is your sanctuary for holistic healing and growth all while normalizing the ups and downs, the messy and the magic, and the wild ride of this season of motherhood.
Your host:
Becca is a mom of two, married for 14years to her husband Jay living in Colorado. She is a certified somatic healing practitioner and holistic life coach to high functioning moms. She works with women who are navigating raising babies, building businesses, and prioritizing their own wellbeing and healing. She understands the unique challenges of navigating being fully present in motherhood while also wanting to be wildly creative and ambitious in her work. The Motherhood Mentor serves and supports moms through 1:1 coaching, in person community, and weekend retreats.
Follow on IG: @themotherhoodmentor , send me a dm and let me know you found me through the podcast!
Website: https://www.the-motherhood-mentor.com/
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The Motherhood Mentor
Screen Freed Families: Liberation in a tech-addicted world. Shed the shame and guilt to make conscious tech choices and boundaries in your family with ease
Join me as I chat with Jenna Lee Dillon, the powerhouse behind the Screen Freed Revolution. Jenna Lee shares her journey with tech limits and screen time, offering practical strategies for healthy habits while prioritizing well-being for the child AND the parent.
Together, we confront the emotional pressures head-on, exploring how they shape our tech boundaries at home.
Discover the Screen Freed Revolution, empowering moms with confidence and joy in mindful parenting. We unravel guilt and shame around screen time, offering fresh perspectives and practical solutions.
About Jenna:
Jenna Lee Dillon is an avid reader, active adventurer, and solo mama with a masters degree in Education & Human Development and a penchant for questioning…everything. Her motto is stay curious, seek truth, and never accept things at face value. In her books and other writing, she teaches others to do the same. She lives in Colorado with her daughter and her mini Australian Shepherd who rules the house with an iron paw.
Where to find Jenna:
Guest information and resources:
Website
Look Up
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Sources Mentioned in this Podcast :
1,000 Hours Outside
Brené Brown
The Motherhood Mentor Navigating mom Shame and Guilt Podcast
Daniel Tiger
Atomic Habits
*Book links are an affiliate link.
Guest information and resources:
Website
Look Up
Instagram
Join us next time as we continue to explore the multifaceted journey of motherhood.
Thank you for tuning in to The Motherhood Mentor. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review us.
Stay connected with us on social media and share your thoughts and experiences tagging @themotherhoodmentor
Welcome to the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. I'm Becca, a holistic life coach, mom of two, wife and business owner. This is a podcast where we will have conversations and coaching around all things strategy and healing that supports both who you are and what you do. So grab your iced coffee or whatever weird health beverage you are currently into and let's do the damn thing. Welcome to today's episode of the Motherhood Mentor Podcast.
Speaker 1:I have an amazing co-host today, jenna Lee Dillon. She is the founder of Screen Freed Revolution, but mostly I'm excited to have her because she's an all-around badass who I love the way she thinks. I love the way she lives her life. So a little bit more about my co-host here today. She is an avid reader, active adventurer and solo mama with a master's degree in education and human development and a penchant for questioning everything. And today we are going to talk about screen-free revolution and we're going to talk about technology and that either made you really excited or you got this feeling in your stomach or your gut and you're like, oh, this conversation, the conversation that can bring up shame or guilt and we're actually going to talk about that today. We're going to talk about the feelings underneath it. We're going to talk about how we change something that's very kind of culturally loaded, whether it's for or against. So thank you for being here. Jenna Lee, would you just introduce your journey to Screen Freed Revolution and what that looks like, your journey to Screen?
Speaker 2:Freed Revolution and what that looked like. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me. You are one of my favorite people. I've been looking forward to this ever since you asked me, so thank you, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I recently found out that the fastest way to scatter parents at a playground is to bring up screens, and so I started talking about screen time, and I think that's a bummer, because everybody has such unique perspectives and we're all kind of grappling with this new relationship and we have something to learn from each other. I learned something every time someone is willing to engage in a conversation about it with me, and so that's what we're doing here today. Right, we're going to talk about it. I think every single person has a different relationship and perspective. My journey started as a. My journey started before. I was a recovering perfectionist and I did a lot of reading before having my daughter. You mentioned my master's degree. I'm a huge neuroscience nerd and I was very clear that my child was not going to be on screens, and that went well until it didn't. Just like all parenting goes really well.
Speaker 1:It went well until it didn't. That's parenting goes really well. It went up and said it didn't.
Speaker 2:That's a great little subtitle. Yes, so she was screen free until she was two. We were trucking along and, without going into details, my life kind of blew up and I found myself in a separation from my ex-husband, in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, and I had a meeting and the long story short is that she ended up watching Winnie the Pooh on my neighbor's cell phone for about five minutes and you would have thought that I had given her meth. I mean, I was a wreck about it In my mind. I had ruined her childhood, I had failed colossally. I was just like throwing the towel. This is it. I've, I've done it.
Speaker 2:And so my journey was realizing the, the enormous cost of this like binary approach to screens. It's either no screens or you know your kids watching Jerry Springer until midnight. And I realized I didn't want to be screen free, and I did for a certain period. I wanted her zero to two to be screen free, but after that I really wanted to be screen freed. And screen freed for me became a sort of call of the revolution. Right, that we can free ourselves from dependence on devices, we can free ourselves from believing we need them and we can free ourselves from painful, uncomfortable, screen-free moments when, in reality, maybe the better situation is to let our child, you know, watch a cartoon or engage with a family member on FaceTime. And so screen-freed is my liberation, and it's a liberation I want to invite every parent to experience.
Speaker 1:That's so powerful. So you said something to me we were talking about this topic the other day and you said something about liberating mothers, not limiting them, and you even just shared this. I love the concept of screen freed versus free, because there's this perfectionism that comes with not having any versus noticing your freedom to choose, noticing your freedom to make a choice that is beneficial in the short term and the long run. So what do you feel like that difference between screen free versus screen freed? Why does that make such a difference for you and for the people that you're working with to accomplish this in their lives.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm a writer, so I'm very clear that the words that we use to tell our story and that's tell our story to ourselves in our own minds as well as tell our story out in the world really matter. And even if we, like consciously, don't notice it, subconsciously we're absorbing whatever messaging we're we're creating. And so screen free is, I think it's harmful on both spectrums, right? So if you're screen free, that means you have to do it perfectly. And if you have a slip up, like I did five minutes of Winnie the Pooh, I had sort of put myself in a corner where now everybody I've told I'm screen free is not able to be a support for me because I'm too ashamed to tell them oh, I slipped up, when in reality I didn't slip up. I made a conscious choice. I chose that five minutes of screen time for her so I could handle what I needed to handle.
Speaker 2:But then, on the other side of it, people who are like well, screen-free isn't for me, and there's like a justification, there's like a feeling of having to root in where they are not being screen-free, and so I think it just creates, like I said, this binary choice of I'm screen-free or I'm not, instead of I can choose my parenting choices moment by moment, what is best for me and my child in that moment, and it's not gonna be the same on Tuesday or six months from now, or when my kid is 10, or when my kid is two.
Speaker 2:And so screen freed. Just saying those words, screen free I feel I feel like my chest lighten when I hear the word freed, right, I want to, like you said, I want to liberate, not limit, moms. And screen freed can look different for every family and it can look different for us moment by moment. And it's an opportunity for us to look at where, where can I use a screen or screen time as a tool and where can I eliminate using it like as a crutch or as an excuse? And it just. It just opens up the conversation of being able to really be deliberate and thoughtful about how we involve technology in our lives, because it's here. I mean. I'm not a Luddite, I'm not suggesting that families in 2024 should just like go live in the woods.
Speaker 1:I mean I would go just be there. Yeah, if I could afford woods in Colorado like I would.
Speaker 2:but here we come Like yeah, Like we're, you know we're an hour away from each other and we're having this conversation and I'm so appreciative of the gifts of technology because they're real and we need to realize the, the, the pitfalls and be able to have this really, like I said, thoughtful, deliberate approach.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like the conversation around the cultural narratives around, I mean applying to screens.
Speaker 1:But you choose any topic and it seems like you have to choose a side. You're either pro or anti and I think this is one of the biggest pitfalls of mommy guilt, mommy shame and this whole cultural narrative around motherhood of you know, you can see it in the birth world, you can see it in the breastfeeding, you can see it in all of these choices we make as parents and there's so many experts I talk about this all the time there's so many experts telling us what to do. They're giving us and this is good. It's good that we have information around what screens do to us, to our kids. We're just now starting to see what screens are doing to our kids and to adults also. But none of that information matters if the women, if people, can't feel their freedom and their ability to respond, their responsibility, their ability to respond, their ability to choose. So I want to talk a minute about just like that grief and shame around screens and what you've experienced, or even what you see other people experiencing, and how you address that.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, I think I think there's this really tricky balance regarding identity, because, on the one hand, on the one hand, identifying my family my daughter and I as a like limited screen or you know, outside time focused family like that enables me to make choices in the moment and ask myself, like, what would a limited screen family do in this instance? Or you know what? I really don't want to go outside because I love climate control. I am a climate control fool and outside it is warm, too warm sometimes, it is cold, too cold sometimes, and so but then I ask myself, what would a you know, what would the thousand hours outside founder do right now with her kid? And then I emulate that. And so there's like this beauty in identifying how our habits can drive our identity, or how our identity can actually help us form different habits, and that's beautiful.
Speaker 2:And boxing ourselves into a category oftentimes isolates us. It isolates us from the people who aren't perfectly fitted into that category, and it even isolates us from people within the category, because we might not be doing it the exact same way as that. Right, like I can say, oh, I'm limited screen, and you can say, oh, you're limited screen, and then you let your kid play games and I only let my kid watch nature programs, and oh, now we're judging each other and so it's just. I think it's incredibly, it can be incredibly isolating. We can get lost in both self-judgment as well as like perceived potential judgment.
Speaker 2:I think even even I really think the reality is there's more acceptance and love among our fellow parents than we realize. But social media makes it seem like no, everybody's just judging and like just waiting for a chance to put us down or to compare, and in reality I don't think that's really true. But so this, this perceived potential judgment, also alienates and isolates us. And so, yeah, I spent probably four months of my life at least in a total shame spiral about letting my daughter watch that Winnie the Pooh, and I was like she's going to reach for everybody's phone. Now she's going to, you know, ask for it constantly. Literally never happened.
Speaker 2:She never, asked for Winnie the Pooh. She never reached for someone's phone. You know she was not harmed. There's absolutely not one bit of science that says if your child watches five minutes of Winnie the Pooh on an iPhone, they're probably never going to learn to read. I mean like there's no. There was no potential negative outcome from this one situation except the energy drain that I chose by by feeling so ashamed. You know about my choice and so when I work with clients we talk a lot about you know. I love Brene Brown's differentiation between guilt and shame, and that shame never motivates anyone. Shame is like I think of weighted blankets and I love my weighted blanket, but then I think of what if I had like 10 weighted blankets on right and I was just trying to function in my life with these 10 weighted blankets on my back? That's shame. It makes everything heavier and harder.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's totally, and I'm not even advocating for guilt, but I think that I think that what's what's what fuels guilt is information. Like we can't feel guilty about a choice unless we acknowledge that there was another choice and we acknowledge that the other choice had merit. I don't feel guilty about not letting my child run across the street in traffic. I don't feel guilty about the choice not to do that because I know for a fact there is not a better choice, but that is good to keep her on the sidewalk. And so I think guilt only shows up when we're aware that there were two choices, which is always so empowering for us to know that there are choices, that we have a choice in every single second of our day, and then that it only shows up when we're aware that the other choice had some merit. And so we start my people I work with and I start looking at okay, um, when you're weighing the pros and cons here, like, do you have enough information about the dangers of screens?
Speaker 2:I think everybody's just like the dangers of screens the dangers of screens, but do you really understand, like, what it's getting in the way of, so that you can make a super informed decision in that moment? We're not going to go down like get into that topic, Cause I would love to have a whole podcast with you about, um, what's the space that screens take up, not even about, like greens themselves, but just the space they take up.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and what you just said was so powerful of what they're getting in the way of, and and I think that's how we move from a place of, like paralyzing shame into a place of what is the, what are the choices that I'm making, that my family's making, and what is a possible outcome or scenario that's even better than this. Like we need a bigger. We need a bigger vision or value.
Speaker 1:A lot of women get overwhelmed with things like cutting down or cutting out screens or, you know, name the parenting choice you want to make. There's this pressure, but really there's a permission of what is the most expansive vision you can create and use that for a direction, use that for the choices that you're making. And what are those things that you experience with your daughter and your family that wouldn't have happened if you had a lot more screen time. What do you feel like you've gained from that? Because I think a lot of us go to that shame place of oh this is bad, this is awful, I need to cut it out, and that doesn't actually motivate us. But this idea of what are we missing out on by allowing this thing that doesn't really actually benefit, it doesn't actually feel good to you or your child. What are those things that screens are getting in the way of?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question, and I think what's hard about it is that it's oftentimes a long game, and so I can tell you like the long game results are innumerable. My daughter at two had her dad walked out. She didn't see him for two months and she went into extreme separation anxiety. So she was diagnosed with extreme separation anxiety at about two and a half and you know I couldn't. There was a time in her toddlerhood where I couldn't leave the room. I couldn't even really be across the room from her without her being extremely upset. And if you met my six-year-old daughter now, you would not believe that.
Speaker 2:Because she is everybody's best friend. She talks, you know, when we travel. She makes friends on every single leg of our trip. We almost all like 50% of the time we leave the plane with her like asking me to exchange numbers with the person because she's they've become best friends. I mean, she is just so outgoing, she's so confident and bold, and I'm not saying, oh, screens are the 100% reason for that. However, I think travel is a big part of it, and then definitely giving her opportunities to experience life and not be able to back away from life and hide from life was really, really critical. And so she, yeah, she's never had the option of um leave, leaving the conversation at the dinner table because she's looking at a device, or um exiting an uncomfortable, you know scenario where she's the only kid and it's a bunch of adults and she's bored, like she's just learned to weather those things, and I've supported her in that.
Speaker 2:But um, her, she has lived fully present to her life and that is uncomfortable sometimes. We know that. We know it's uncomfortable and without her having like the a way to escape it. She, she developed confidence, she developed um articulation, like her conversational skills are so advanced. Um, she developed this desire to connect with other human beings that I think is so beautiful. I mean, I thought I was outgoing. She is so outgoing and she's genuinely interested in other people. She asks them questions and follow-up questions when they answer and she's engaged with them, and so that's something that I I couldn't have predicted at two and one, when I was like, hey, let's limit screens. I was really focused on development and, um, you know, like the damage to her brain, but so there's there's long game things like that.
Speaker 2:Um, likewise, for for me, like becoming a single mom and not having the ability to hand my daughter a device when it was choosing to stay in the moment and or choosing to invite her to entertain herself, choosing to invite her to explore her boredom, choosing to not solve the problem of entertaining her.
Speaker 2:I like to call, I like to say that parents nowadays like to be the chief entertainment officer, the CEO of their children's lives, and I am too busy for a third job. Okay, so, yeah, so I think there's long-term benefits, but then, in the actual moment, there's these really incredible short-term benefits too, like asking your child, like when your child says I'm bored, because it's like a three-syllable word, right every time they say it, inviting them and saying, wow, that's interesting, I've been bored too. What are you going to do about that? And then getting to see what they do about it. You guys, it's magic at two, at four, at six. It is magic what they will do when, given the space to figure it out. So it's exploring. I think it's really there's a patience in expecting and accepting that there will be long-term outcomes. We can't predict in the moment, when it's kind of uncomfortable or difficult and we really would rather give them a screen. But there are short-term benefits as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you said this word that I'm just like I can't stop giggling about it Opportunities and this is such a beautiful and uncomfortable word and identity shifting topic, because I think, as parents, there's so many beliefs around our identity, I believe, of having our kids happy, and this word opportunity just made me giggle of like what are the opportunities we're missing out on because we're choosing the quick, easy fix and, again, not going to this place of shaming yourself of. I should do something different, because that usually I do find shame is very motivating, but it's an on again, off again. Motivation, it's this disconnected motivation that's not actually connected to the core value of what you actually want. So if you want your kid to have the opportunity to be able to be uncomfortable or bored and screens are the thing getting in the way of the opportunity to be able to be uncomfortable or bored, and screens are the thing getting in the way of the opportunity you have a choice there. There's an opportunity for you and your kid to be uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:One of the biggest things I work with with women is being able to sit with their own discomfort, to be able to sit with the emotions that are hard for them, whether that's anger or rage or just general discomfort, and a lot of that will be from sitting with their kid's discomfort when their kid is throwing a fit, when their kid is having these emotions, and without getting too deep into the emotional part, I'm wondering for parents who are listening to this. Maybe they're on the level of like yes, give me all the information of less screens. But I also really want to speak to the moms who tablets are their BFFs, their kids BFF. It's like it is their go-to resource. What would you say is a good place for them to start, if they're looking at it saying there's a part of me, there's a piece of me that thinks this might not be the best for my kid or it's not working for me and I want to try to have less, but I don't know how and where would they start?
Speaker 2:That's a great question, and I know that massive change feels really overwhelming, and so actually, I would say, instead of starting with action, the best place these mamas can start is by tuning into themselves. So, right before they're handing the tablet to their kiddo or they're switching on the TV, it's really important to just pause and pay attention to like what are? What are you thinking and feeling in that moment? Like, are you feeling really overwhelmed? I get it.
Speaker 1:I hear you.
Speaker 2:Are you? Are you, um, are you? Are you just exhausted from fits and you just want to make sure that there's not a fit? Are you feeling like potential future embarrassment because maybe you're in public and you're worried that your kiddo is going to cry or have a fit?
Speaker 2:And you know, there's just always one crotchety like old person staring at moms when they're out with their kids just waiting for them to, you know, be seen and not heard, or heard and seen and all you know, like, so really tuning into, like what's happening before that because we're not giving our kids screens because we want to, you know, damage their brains or we want to take the opportunity from them to learn how to self entertain or to weather boredom or to like self regulate, we're doing it for probably really deep and meaningful reasons that deserve to be considered.
Speaker 2:So I think that's really important and a really important place to start, because we can all force ourselves into new habits and they won't stick unless we kind of root around in the beliefs that are behind um, that are behind our current behaviors, the behaviors that we want to change, and so I think that's the most important place to start. Is really we all like I can't guess at the reasons that a certain parent will have for giving their child a tablet. Of course there are themes and we can talk about those, but um, it's going to be a little bit different for everybody. So that's a really. I think that's the most critical starting place.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and I think you know any. Anytime I'm working with a woman on changing a behavior, which is a big part of coaching, right, like? A lot of people come to coaching either wanting to start a behavior or end a behavior, but it comes back to this no mom is giving their kid an iPad because they're a bad mom or putting them in front of the TV. But there is this internal narrative and I think you know one thing I'm always trying to do is naming the narratives, naming the underneath identity that keeps you from even examining it of I'm such a bad mom, my kids have all of these screen times, and then you make that your identity and now you're just like, haha, I'm a bad mom, or you're like, paralyzed in shame. Neither of those give you the opportunity to be able to like, tap into the reasons of like, what is the need that screens are meeting? And I think from there, I think what's beautiful about what you described. And I think from there, I think what's beautiful about what you described like I would call it like this awareness, this self-awareness of, okay, kids are watching TV all day, or the kid uses the iPad all the time, I would say one is it's like okay, what's actually happening? Let's bring the awareness deeper than just the behavior and looking at the reasons, what's going on at that time? And then also, is it working for you? You are allowed to look at screens and say this isn't working for me. You're also allowed to look at screens and be like you know what Our balance with screens right now actually looks good, because your relationship to them might change.
Speaker 1:A perfect example whenever my kids are sick, like here is the remote child that's like maybe that's not developmentally appropriate, but for us, like for my kids, it started from a pretty early age. I'm not going to lie of just like. I still remember the first real time my daughter started watching TV. I was still weaning her from breastfeeding, she, she nursed until she was older, she was a toddler and I could not nurse one more time, and so I was just like curious, george is like like there has to be a way that I can sit here and comfort you without doing this and I needed a different tool. Um, but it's still a tool we go to, and then, when they're not sick, we kind of have to like, okay, this doesn't work anymore though. This isn't working for us, this isn't good for you, it's not good for me, like we're going to back off this because we're aware of the reasons we're doing it and whether or not it's actually meeting the need.
Speaker 1:And this is where parenting is really hard, because we're not just thinking about what works in the moment, we're thinking about what works long term, what benefits our children long term, and that can get really overwhelming with how many different things there are. But when it comes to Screen Freed, I love your approach of this freedom to choose and be aware. This freedom to choose and be aware. What are the things that, for mothers, help them to engage their kids without screens? Like when the kid wants the screen and the mother doesn't? Do you have any tips or approaches on how you've faced that discomfort of like when people do witness your kid throwing a fit? What do you do as a mom? How do you get through that scenario?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think the thing that you're really great at coaching people on and that I've needed coaching on is like feeling the feeling. Like feeling that for me, when my child has a fit in public, it like my whole body heats up. I feel like this heat wave goes through my body and I can't react to her in that heat wave, even if it means she cries another like four seconds and I have to let the wave like roll through my body before I deal with her. Yeah, and so it's. I think there's like taking us.
Speaker 2:If parenting can feel so rushed, our kids needs are immediate to them and giving ourselves like a pause can often be the difference between being proactive or reactive. So there's that I'm a huge, huge proponent of communicating the why with children from a very young age. I started talking to my daughter about why I was doing things when she was one. Was she capable of understanding what I was saying? No, but I was building a habit then because I knew she would become capable of at least beginning to understand it, probably before I realized, and I wanted to already be ahead of it. And so I think oftentimes we want to sort of make this parenting decision in this black box and then just deliver the outcome to our kids. And that's a real bummer, because actually walking them through our mental process of decision-making teaches them how to make decisions later in life when they're choosing for themselves, and so even revealing to them the ways that we're grappling.
Speaker 2:Hey look, kiddo, I, I want you to have.
Speaker 2:I want you to be calm and quiet while I'm shopping. And it seems like you have a lot of wiggles and loudness in your body and I want to give you a screen because I know that you will watch that and you will be quiet while I'm shopping. And as your mama, I have to do what's best for your mind and your body. And I know that I have about 45 more minutes of shopping and that's too much screen time for you, that's not good for you, and I also know that you and I are going to be shopping together for the rest of your childhood and I don't want to start a habit. So I'll tell you what I'm going to need 30 more minutes I mean, they don't understand time right At a young age, but I'm going to need a little more time in this store, let's say, or this department to do my shopping. And so I want to let you know. You might not be really happy with that. It might not be fun, you might feel like a little bored.
Speaker 2:I try not to tell children that they're bored because I don't want to be like the originator of that idea but you know it might not be easy for you and this might not be what you want to do, and I understand what that's like and we're going to keep shopping and I really hope that you can cooperate. You know, or like, what can we do to get you more involved with the process? And so, walking them through that whole, like I understand why you want a screen, I kind of want to give you a screen too, and my, my job as your parent is to make the tough decision that maybe neither one of us likes that much. I think that's totally okay. The other thing that I talk this is kind of my like super, my super awesome tool. It's my favorite thing.
Speaker 2:The other thing I talked to my daughter about um, if she's asking me for screens frequently, um, we talk about why that's happening, and so the conversation goes something like this She'll say, oh, I really want to watch, I really want to watch something. And I'll say, you know, we're not going to watch something at this time. And when she says, no, no, I really, really want to, I say, oh dear, you know what your brain is confused. See, it's our brain's job to work really hard to make sure we get our needs met, because our brain is supposed to keep us alive and our needs are food, water, love and comfort from people you know, from our family and shelter those are our needs and outside time and, you know, sleep. But right now your brain has gotten so much screen time that it's feeling like that's a need. And it's not your brain's fault, because screens are designed by really smart people to confuse our brains and make our brains think we need them. But we don't do we. Could we live without screens? And she's like oh yes, I'm like we could, and so it's really important.
Speaker 2:It's really helpful that you ask for screens several times, because that tells me your brain really wants them and that tells me we need to remind your brain that they're a thing that we can want, but they're not a need. So we're actually going to have a hiatus from screens, and so what that teaches her is that if she bugs me a bunch of times for screens A, it really is true it means that her brain is consumed by them, but it also sets a boundary for me, that like, if you ask me multiple times or you don't respect my no, the outcome is going to be more time without screens. So it's not punitive, it's actually a healing process that we're going through together to take good care of your brain. So things like that, where I've had people say I could never say that to my four-year-old, they wouldn't understand it.
Speaker 2:And I say, yes, they would. They really do. They're so, so smart. And even if they just understand a small piece of it, you can build on that every time you have the conversation, because you're going to have it over and over and over. It's not like well, I told you when you were two, screens aren't great for your brain. Why don't you remember that when you're five?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, well, and what? What you're addressing goes against so many cultural norms of parenting, which is one. We don't need a reason, right, like, just do what I say, which you know I'm I'm actually not a fan of permissive parenting. I like, personally, when I look at my motherhood, I want my children to grow up knowing that there are things that are good and bad, and there's things that are hard and helpful, and there's needs. And these great tools and tactics, and underneath those, you had a very clear vision and value of what is good for her, even if she doesn't necessarily like it in the moment, or even if you don't necessarily like it. And I think that's one of the most powerful forms of loving ourselves and loving our kids is witnessing that love is not always sweet and gentle and happy. It is doing the thing that is hard for you because you know it's actually better for you. Not as a punishment, not as like a you are a bad for wanting this, but as a like. This is not, this thing does not love you back, like love and health and relationship. Oh, I love candy. Okay, I love candy too, but if we eat candy all day, every day, we're not going to feel good, because candy doesn't really love us back, screens doesn't love us back Like is it feeling good? Is it feeling happy? Are you enjoying it? And asking yourself these questions as a mother? Enjoying it and asking yourself these questions as a mother and then for your kids, I think, will empower you in those moments to be able to hold the value, to hold the boundary, to hold the no, to hold the maybe, maybe now, maybe later, to be able to witness what's happening. And I even love you mentioned just the pause of feeling how urgent everything can feel and how urgent it can be to just give it to them right away or to just say yes right away, even if you gave yourself five seconds to pause. Good old Daniel Tiger, if you're feeling mad like you want to roar, take a deep breath and count to four, like, give yourself a count to give your body and your kid's body a chance to witness is this actually what we want and need? Yeah, is this a yes? Feeling into your body like is this actually maybe that day? You're at level red emotionally, mentally. You literally cannot deal with it right now. Giving them an iPad might be a better choice than another option and choosing that is actually very powerful.
Speaker 1:Like choosing matters more than doing is one of my like favorite quotes that. Where did I learn that? It was through the embody lab when I was doing my somatic training of choosing matters more than doing. And witnessing in your body, in your animal body, that you have a choice, that screens are not actually life or death scenario for you or your kid. And witnessing, even when your kid's reacting like it's life or death, you have to witness in your body through the pods of like this is not an immediate threat, this is not an immediate danger. And noticing, when you have, like those orange or red flags of like okay, it's going to be a yes, today I'm choosing a yes, either because I feel like it's a need or it feels fun, yeah, but what are those?
Speaker 1:So this leads me to another thought of the cultural narratives around screens, and you and I have talked about being countercultural and how uncomfortable it is when there's narratives.
Speaker 1:But I think you spoke to something earlier of like just the perceived people are going to judge you, and I think the reason people judge others is we're judging ourselves harshly, and I think the reason people judge others is we're judging ourselves harshly. So when it comes to our self-judgment of screens, what are the ways we can use those judgments as a way to tap into our values? Does that make sense as like a question of just for people who use screens a lot, for people who are using lots of TV, lots of iPads? I'm especially thinking of them because I think there's a lot of people who have opted in already and this will just give them permission to keep going. This will just give them even more permission of like oh, it's not so weird that I'm so intentional or so intense about this topic, and I'm allowed to be. But what about the people who they're kind of on the fence? Where do they start with that judgment and those values, that identity piece you were talking to, sure?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that I think that there's been a. There have been rapid cultural changes that are not just in regard to screens, and so when we're having a conversation about why parents are using screens, the conversation we're not having is why are parents so damn overwhelmed? Why are we okay with living in a society that does not support parents? Knowing that most people don't live in a community home, like multi-generational home, like why are we accepting that parents who are both working full time should just also be parenting, like in all their off hours by themselves? And so the first thing I would say is I think parents are exhausted and I think they feel that we are living in a time where parents are the least supported in human history. We're living without the help of community. We're not co-parenting alongside other families. Our older kids are in school, so they can't help us with our younger kids. Our streets aren't safe, so our kids can't go play outside by themselves, and and and right.
Speaker 2:It's a really hard time to be a parent, and so I think people are rooting down in that feeling, and it's not even about the screens. Oftentimes it's about the like. This is hard, and I am resisting how hard it is because we know, on a biological, human level, it's not supposed to be this way. I'm not supposed to be alone with my daughter seven nights a week taking care of her. Even two parent families, that's just not normal.
Speaker 2:And so I think we feel on this human level that like this is unnaturally difficult and maybe we can't express why, and so we make it about screens. This is a way that I can make it easier, because fixing those massive societal problems and enrolling help that we oftentimes have to pay for that isn't free, that isn't grandma who lives in the house with us, that isn't the neighbor who has kids the same age as us and we can take trade off. You know, those are big problems we can't, we can't and aren't solving, and society as a society we aren't looking at. And so it's like, well, here's this thing that I can control and that gives me a feeling of another entity, not a person, but another entity in the house, who I'm sharing this massively important and exhausting job called being yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's an ease to it. And it brings me back to to that topic of opportunity, and you know, I've witnessed in my own journey with screens and our family that it felt it does feel easier, it feels less overwhelming to me and it's so crazy. When we went to move, we had this weird thing happen where we had to like change a wire that went to our TV in order to like meet code and then the person who was buying our house fell through. Long story short, we went two months in that house without TV because there wasn't a way to hook it up. We literally we had to like remove the wiring or some weird. I don't remember the whole thing, but we all of a sudden didn't have TV and I remember like the first week was like hard, like there was so much them wanting it, them asking, and then there was this crazy thing that happened where all of a sudden I was like and you know we were moving, so a lot of our stuff was in storage. My kids spent an entire day in the backyard playing with rubber, like a box of rubber gloves and water. They had been fighting less, the house was cleaner, they were more respectful, they were listening better, and I had this moment of like okay, it's actually not easier for me, it's actually not easier for them to be using technology as much as I have been, and when we moved into our new house, we waited a while to put the TV up. And when we moved into our new house, we, like, waited a while to put the TV up.
Speaker 1:And that season, though, gave me this permission and this reminder of those opportunities of like. It's really uncomfortable to change what you're doing, especially for a short amount of time, but especially when you have really good reasons of like this is going to impact us for the better. This isn't a punishment that you're not wrong for watching TV, you're not wrong for letting your kids watch TV, but as soon as I stopped making it about what I should do and made it into this, like this is so much better than that. I enjoy them so much better. They enjoy themselves so much better.
Speaker 1:Like this feels so much better in the long run, even if it's harder in some moments, and it gave me that freedom that I love that you talked about. That screen freed the revolution of like it doesn't. We don't have to be completely off of them, we don't have to pretend that our kids aren't going to grow up. You know I have bigger kids and so we're starting to come into the phone eras and the wanting social media eras. And I keep coming back to this, to the values of like. Is this actually easy, or is this missing an opportunity for something so much better, even if I don't like it or they don't like it in the moment?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I'm going to say something that probably a lot of parents don't want to hear, but I hear parents saying my kid will have a fit, my kid will be so mad, my kid's so used to, you know, they've never gone. They've never gone grocery shopping without watching a show. And I'm just going to say, like bullshit, because here's the deal Kids brains are plastic. The older we get, the more ingrained our neural pathways become and the harder it is for us to make changes. It's still completely possible. So it's not, like you know, not going to say that we can't make massive life changes at any age. We can.
Speaker 2:But for our children, the plasticity of their brain, meaning how flexible their brain is, um, all the so if you think. If you like, picture their brain and all the pathways which are our thoughts and our habits and everything. In human adults they're like super highways and little kids they're like little, just sort of trails through the woods. They're not super hard formed and so they can be changed very easily. So I hear a lot of parents say, like, put it on their kids that, oh they're, it's going to be a massive issue for my kids. I bet your kids adjusted to not having the TV in the house faster than you and your husband. So parents, I think, often hide behind, like my kids have the habit. Is it? Is it the?
Speaker 1:kids Cause I I think it's.
Speaker 2:I think it's you, not the brand humans, I think it's you, and so really owning that. So one of the ways to one of the ways to find out if it's the kids, or it's the adults is, as a parent, stop offering it.
Speaker 2:So it's not a screen time. You just don't offer it and then find out through that experiment how many times a day you were offering when no one was asking, and so that's a really just like quick and easy way to get down to who's who's really the originator of all the screen time and, to um, to reduce screen time simply by just waiting for a kid to ask for it.
Speaker 1:That made me laugh in the most. Like that's so simple, it's so beautiful, it just makes me think of this is so random, but it's making me think of I used to do La Leche League. I was a Leche League leader and when we were helping women wean, one of the techniques was don't offer, don't refuse. And it was so simple of how much just that really massively reduced it. And you and I were talking before this podcast about habit change and you mentioned the Atomic Habits book and how like now I'm thinking through like okay, it's just a habit If we take away the good, bad, the shoulds, whatever, like screen time is just a habit for you, for your kids.
Speaker 1:And so, looking into these simple habit changes, even of like making it harder, like putting the remote in a different spot, changing the password, making it more inconvenient and offering different, better options so many things that you could do to shift and change it as a possibility, as a like, I love you were talking. We were talking earlier about fighting for something, the like opportunities, the positive reinforcement of like. What is this going to gain for you and your kid? The positive reinforcement of like what is this going to gain for you and your kid what? What are the positives of what people can gain?
Speaker 2:Oh man, there's less screens, like, even just like your favorite, my favorite, okay, so one of my favorite ones is patients. You know, I think we we have to be patient. Guess what, I don't care what AI does, it will never be able to rush a human pregnancy. It will never be like. We will always have to wait for the friendship that's worth waiting for and sift through and leave relationships and friendships that aren't good for us. We will have to wait for the right partner versus settling for the one that's in front of us.
Speaker 2:Sometimes we're going to have to wait for a promotion, we're going to have to wait for a great job to come along. College takes a certain amount of time. Like there are just like the most important things and the most valuable things in life a romantic partner, a child, a deep friendship, a worthy goal, a degree, a job that we love, writing a book, climbing a mountain all these things that like are really the foundational, beautiful things of love. All of them require patience and I can tell you like if we don't raise kids with patience, they're going to settle for the shitty partner that's in front of them. They're going to leave the job that's hard, even though the next promotion was going to get them their dream job or never even try.
Speaker 2:Yes, like life is full of times when we have to experience patience, persistence and perseverance, and those are not inherent characteristics, or rather, if they are inherent, we can also. We can also basically take them away from a child by not allowing them to continue practicing that. Maybe we're born with them, maybe we're not, but we certainly have to continue practicing them through our lives. And I think that learning to weather situations, learning to be embodied in our bodies in the moment and feel the discomfort of boredom, and then figure out what we're going to do about it, I can't think of a more important lesson for a child to get to practice over and over in life to prepare them for adulthood. And we're seeing, you know, we're seeing the outcomes in Gen Z of the first generation that was handed devices between like 10 and 14. I think the iPhone came out when the oldest of that generation was eight.
Speaker 2:And we're seeing unheard of levels of anxiety. Well, what is anxiety? Anxiety is a feeling of not being able to take accountability and control of one's life. Well, being off of screens teaches us that. It gives us the opportunity to practice being in charge of our time, being in charge of our attention, being in charge of how we entertain ourselves, problem solving, figuring out. Okay, I'm bored and I'm in the backyard and all we have are a box of rubber gloves. What can we do with that which, by the way, I could totally see children being entertained for hours with that, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:It was like the best thing in the whole world. I love what you just said and it brings me back to this like you know, the value of I I want to my kids to be able to feel hard things, because I also want them to feel and notice really good things, and I think screens feel like a distraction from that and not not in an overall sense sense, but when I think of like in my family, when there's too many screens, we're missing out on opportunities to connect with ourselves, with each other, with the world around us. We're missing some of it and I think there's no opportunity for feeling or talking or taking action on those like good, hard things that will take time, that aren't instant, that aren't easy, that are uncomfy, right, like you think of conversations with your kid. You think of like reading with your kid, like it's not always the shiny, comfy idea.
Speaker 1:But I wonder what our motherhood would look like when we start identifying ourselves as a woman who can handle really hard shit, like you are so capable of holding your no if your kid throws a fit, because your kid throwing a fit isn't actually an emergency, and I think it will enable and bring about skills in you that are so, so powerful for when your kids get older Like we're talking especially about, like younger kids, but even as your kids get older and in relationships, we need to have the skills of holding hard things for ourselves and for other people. And I think parenting it can be really easy to just like quickly tap the easy button and like I think of just like swiping away at like the little problems that come. But those little, those little fits, those little problems, actually dealing with those is what, in the longterm, actually helps us. So, looking at those reasons why we're using it, oh my gosh, I just I love this conversation, yeah that's so true.
Speaker 2:I think there's, you know there's, there's a quiet and contemplation. That's also that's been a natural part of humanity. So it's been a natural part of humanity. I truly attribute the upward growth of humanity and the fact that we even have these technological advancements because somebody a long time ago had the space and quiet in their life to do deep thinking, to contemplate things that didn't currently exist and imagine what could exist. And that's also a really, really critical outcome of having quiet, peace, screen-free moments in our lives.
Speaker 2:We as humans need contemplation, we need peace, we need quiet, we need to be able to deep think about something for a long period of time, not task switch every three seconds which is what technology enables and encourages every three seconds, which is what technology enables and encourages, and so and so there's that too. I think that's my other favorite favorite outcome of making making time making like carving out screen for your time in our lives, and it's not just for our kids. But you know we're mostly talking to mamas right now and I know sometimes we do for our children first what we don't do for ourselves, and then we do it for ourselves and we see how important it is for our kids, and so sometimes the best way to get through a mama is through the kiddo Um and so, yeah, you know I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, If you are having a hard time doing it for you, if you see it for your kid, it becomes exponentially easier for you to do for yourself. So tell me a little bit about the book you just wrote and what parents can expect from it. Oh, it's a journey.
Speaker 2:So it's called Look Up a wild and screen-freed roadmap to enjoying travel with kids. And yes, I heard myself say enjoying travel with kids. I like to make this joke that anybody who's traveled with kids and traveled without kids knows that one of those experiences leaves you feeling relaxed, rejuvenated, just thrilled about life, and one of them is traveling with kids. And so I think when people read the title, they're like enjoying travel with kids. But yes, my daughter and I have taken almost all of the trips have been by ourselves. A couple were with her dad and with my mom, but we've taken over 120 road trips and flights entirely screen-free I would say screen freed Um, there were a. There was a time where I was really interested in them being screen-free, and they still are. But it's really this like um mental approach of screen-free that has made this like mental approach of screen free that has made them so fun.
Speaker 1:So the book that has made them so fun, which it is fun.
Speaker 2:It's. I mean, we're we're avid travelers, and so the book. I think people are going to pick it up and they're going to expect like hacks, like what toys should I buy? Just give me an Amazon list of like what toys I should buy.
Speaker 1:Yes, I see that all the time. We're about to take a road trip, how do I entertain my toddlers?
Speaker 2:And then they're going to open it up and they're going to find out. It's actually a massive journey, deep, deep, deep inside ourselves to uncover what our beliefs are about travel in general and then what our beliefs are about our kids traveling with us. And then what are our beliefs about how our kids show up in public and where do we belong? And, um, you know, do we belong on that airplane or on that train just as much as all the grownups? And, um, it's you know, we.
Speaker 2:We talk a lot about awareness, like we talked about earlier in this call, like learning how to identify how we feel and then tracing how we feel back to the beliefs that are fueling it and then taking those beliefs out from deep where they live deep, deep inside of us, and holding them out in the sunlight and examining them and going, ah, that doesn't really work for me anymore, that's not serving my family and it was great when I had, when I formed it, when I was five or 12, and it's not working for me anymore and here's a new one I could adopt.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, the book goes really deep. It has a lot of stories. There is much, uh much sharing of my hilarious, like pitfalls of travel and crazy times that I've had with my daughter. Um, I really try to communicate in there that like it's not going to look. Travel with kids is not going to look the way it looks on Instagram, and it shouldn't, because Instagram is not real even though it wants us to believe it is, and so, yeah, I share, like I think it's funny.
Speaker 2:I hope that people get the laughs that I got read like writing it, but it's. It's really an all inclusive book about falling in love with the magic of travel as well as the discomfort of travel, because you can't have one without the other, as well as the discomfort of travel because you can't have one without the other. And so when we remove ourselves with the iPad easy button as adults and for our children, we remove ourselves from the discomfort of travel. We also miss out on the potential magic, and so it's really. I spend the entire book, I think, hopefully conveying the, the beautiful invitation to experiencing the full breadth of adventuring and traveling, versus trying to cultivate an Instagram worthy, perfect, un-messy experience, which is impossible.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to read it. You're one of my favorite writers. Every time I open your emails, I'm just like giggling or smiling or I like have a little takeaway, and I just can't wait till this book comes out. So tell everyone a little bit, like where is their best place to, like, connect with you or find you?
Speaker 2:Yes, so you can go to screenfreedrevolutioncom and sign up for my newsletter. It's called moments and it goes several times a week and it's just a moment. It's a moment for you, it's a moment for us to be together as parents. It's a moment to consider. You know, sometimes it's a moment to consider a new way of thinking. Often it's a moment to pause and just realize what a kick-ass job you're doing and recognize that, like I said, you're parenting with less support than ever in human history and you're crushing it. And then there's a lot of conversations in the moments about how to yeah, how to experience screen freedom, what it's like on the other side of screen freedom, and you know the challenges and the tools to get there. So you can go to screenfreedrevolutioncom to sign up for moments. And then I also teach parenting masterclasses about setting boundaries around screen time, boundaries that stick, and other topics related to pursuing screen freedom for you and your whole family.
Speaker 1:That's so awesome. I love it. It really is a revolution, and I think you can go on Pinterest and like what are 20 toys to do with my kid? And I think sometimes that easy button misses the actual goodness and sweetness of the journey that you're taking parents through. And I think what you're building is such a beautiful, powerful resource for screen freed for traveling.
Speaker 1:But even just the conversation in general, the conversation around how we free ourselves from screens, whether it's parents, whether it's kids, I think these are conversations we need to be having, with all of the nuance around. It's not just like, okay, throw away the iPads and pretend they don't exist or never have technology. It's like how do we have freedom, not just in our behavior but in our belief system, so that this isn't something that takes away from our lives. It gets to be a fun thing that enhances our lives, because neither of us believe that screens are bad. I know you don't. It's just like what is the cost benefit and figuring out how we do that. So is there anything else that you would want to add to this conversation?
Speaker 2:I think yeah, so my goal of the entire screen free revolution is to not be part of this billion dollar industry that wants parents to feel lack, less than unworthy, not up to the task of raising their children. The reality is that every parent out there, every mama out there, is the perfect and only person to be raising her child. We are matched for them. No matter how they came to us, we are enough to parent them, and so I want people in this green food revolution to parents to just totally down to the core, feel powerful, feel responsible and feel like they are completely worthy of raising their children and that's what screen freedom is about completely worthy of raising their children, and that's what Screen Freedom is about.
Speaker 1:I love it and I feel like that is the answer to the question. When I see those posts of, like, how much screen time is too much, how much do you let your kids watch TV you know those questions that moms have or, like, am I letting my kids do too much? Your answer, right there, is, like, when you know that all of those other questions that come up whether it's about screens or any other parenting choice or topic you're going to feel empowered to make that choice and to and to feel the ability to respond. Once you witness what you want to choose, you're going to actually be able to make an impact, which isn't that what we all want as moms? As mothers is to like be able to make a powerful impact and connected to our kids while also not drowning, like not being so overwhelmed, which doesn't always just come from not over consuming. It also comes from the beliefs you have about yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's so powerful. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for this conversation. It was so powerful and I cannot wait to read you.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate you and everything you are doing on behalf of mamas.
Speaker 1:Thanks for hanging out today on the motherhood mentor podcast. If you love today's episode, share it with a friend or tag me in your stories on Instagram so that we can connect. Take up audacious space in your life and I'll see you next time.
