The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
"Adolescence"...Raising Tech-Healthy Humans interview with Daniel Sih
I'm tying in with the wonderful "Adolescence" program on Netflix this week as I did an interview that I think a lot of people will love on a subject that the program touches on.
A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of talking to Daniel Sih; Daniel is an award winning author has written a tremendous book called "Raising Tech-Healthy Humans".
It's a practical handbook to help parents reset their children's tech-habits and give them a great start to life.
If you're concerned about your kid's social media/phone/tablet habits then this is the interview to listen to!
We're talking about many things including;
How to get an 8-year old off a tablet is a different process from teaching a 4-year old to use devices sensibly.
The difference between "lean-back" and "lean-in" technology and why it really matters.
How YouTube on the television is completely different from family movie night.
Why family technology time is a positive whereas spending time on the phone maybe isn't.
How to spot when your kid's tech-habits are becoming a problem.
How the technology, and social media, is DESIGNED to keep your child online so you as a parent have to be aware of what you're really up against.
YouTube is different when you're not signed in!
The physical, and developmental, effects of certain tech on your child.
The easiest ways to progress your child through the different forms of technology, and why you should slowly build up their exposure rather than just giving them access all in one go.
And much, MUCH, more
Daniel is a tremendous speaker and is very knowledgeable on this subject, if you're at all interested in what YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and everybody else online is doing to make sure your child is an avid consumer of their products, and how to make sure you teach your kids to use these tools properly, you will want to listen to this.
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You can find Daniel's book here and connect on Facebook here
Email peter@healthypostnatalbody.com if you have any questions or comments
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So this means that you not only get 3 months FREE access, no obligation!
BUT, if you decide you want to do the rest of the program, after only 5 months of paying $10/£8 a month you now get FREE LIFE TIME ACCESS! That's $50 max spend, in case you were wondering.
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Playing us out; "Since you let me go" by mommy issues
Hey, welcome to the Healthy Postnatal Body Podcast with your postnatal expert, peter Lap. That, as always, would be me. This is the podcast for the 23rd of March 2025. And today I was going to do something else. I was going to bring you an interview I did with Kacey Oler, which I did with Kayce a few weeks ago, but on the back of Adolescence. You know the Netflix show that everybody is banging on about, which is a wonderful show, by the way, and you should definitely watch it If you have kids, or if you're a man, or even if you're not, Just watch it. There's wonderful television.
Peter:I remembered an interview I did with Daniel Sih A few years ago, in 2023. And he wrote a book called how to raise tech healthy humans. Now, one of the takeaways that I had from Adolescence and there's many this show works on many, many layers, but one of the bits that stuck in my mind was not just the pressures of social media, but how adults don't know how to navigate the world of social media that the child lives. If you remember, if you've seen it, the the detective doesn't know how to interpret text messages or instagram messages and all that type of stuff. So that's why I'm bringing this one out, kind of to tag on the back of that one, because I thought some of you might find that interesting. So what did I discuss with daniel?
Peter:I hear you ask you know virtually, um, how to get an eight-year-old off a tablet is a different process than teaching a four-year-old how to use devices sensibly, so you can't use the same approach. Uh, if you already have older kids, you want to do slightly different things. The difference between lean back and lean in technology, and why it really matters how youtube is on the television is different from, like, family movie night, why family technology time can be a positive, where spending time on the phone might not be, and how the technology and social media is designed to keep you online, and basically, much, much more. You know it's. So, yeah, I highly recommend you listening to this, or you might get something from it that you hadn't considered yet.
Peter:I definitely found it very enlightening. So, without further ado, here we go. So there's a question that one of my listeners emailed in a while ago. I have an eight-year-old boy and I can't get him off his electronic devices. You know Kindle, tablet, ps4, and mobile. Where do I start with getting him off them and how do I prevent my four-year-old having the same issues?
Daniel:Wow, yeah, it's a big question to start with, but it's a really important one and it's probably why I wrote the book actually, because this is exactly the question that parents are asking, maybe not the specifics, but about how do we manage tech overuse. How do we manage technology, knowing that technology is helpful and it's we need to be using it on a regular basis. Our kids will need to be great at tech as they get older, and yet there's definitely this problem with technology that we're experiencing. Look, firstly, on that question, I mean eight years old versus four year old. They're quite different. And actually the idea of helping a child who's already overusing their tech and is digitally dependent in an unhealthy way, you know, maybe a bit kind of struggling with their dopamine dependency, compared to a child who's just being set up, that's quite different.
Daniel:But the principles are very, very similar. And so where do I start with that? Do I start with the four-year-old or the eight-year-old? Probably it's worth starting with some of the principles, because I can give like a prescription and I'm sure you can imagine. You know, every eight-year-old is different and every situation is different, but to have the principles will help with both. The four-year-old is different and every situation is different, but to have the principles will help with both the four-year-old and how to set them up well to start with, and the eight-year-old okay. How do we reboot and reset some of what we probably haven't done in the most informed way and then help them go backwards?
Peter:Does that make complete sense? Yeah, sure, yeah, way, and then help them go backwards?
Daniel:does that? That makes complete sense, yeah, sure, yeah. So firstly, I'd like I like to start with the idea that, um, you know what is digital tech in terms of the types of tech because you mentioned? You know my eight-year-old struggling with the kindle, tablet, ps4 and mobile. Okay, but they're quite different devices and I would split them actually. I mean, the kindle is a book, essentially, and it is an e-reader, but it doesn't have those kind of interactive, the interactive colors and images. It doesn't have the addictive design that you see in some of the other devices mentioned.
Daniel:So if my child was reading lots of the Kindle, I know that from the research, when they're reading fiction, they're developing empathy, they're developing creativity, they're learning obviously you know literacy skills and and they're putting themselves into the, into the place of the characters that they're reading and they're actually growing their intelligence, and so you know that's quite a different idea. But obviously, when it comes to shooting people on fortnight or building things on minecraft and hiding from monsters and, uh, and you know, playing candy crusher, whatever, you know social media on mobile devices, that's a very different game, and so it's important to start by understanding what interactive media is about, because this is where kids really struggle and uh, and I really like dav. Like David Murrow writes a distinctive about leaning forward versus leaning back media. Have you heard of that distinction before?
Peter:I've not come across that, no.
Daniel:Yeah, I find it really useful because okay, because not all media is the same and particularly not all devices are the same. A very famous person, marshall McLuhan, said that the medium is the message. This is in the 1950s, I think, and so he was saying that the content is important. Obviously, we don't want our kids to watch R-rated and MA content when they're eight years old, and that's really, really bad for them. However, the medium that they're using also is the message, and this is where kids get dependent or even addicted on their devices, and so lean forward. Media is media where they're interacting. So they are the phones, they're the iPads, they're the gaming consoles, where kids are changing and manipulating the environment, and most of the apps on those types of new devices are designed intentionally to make you maybe I won't say addicted, but certainly dependent. They are designed to cause you to want to have more eyeball time, to ramp up the dopamine pathways and to keep you hyper-stimulated and then so lean back.
Daniel:Technologies, or passive technologies, are more like television, even if it's like Netflix or Disney Plus, because you're watching something, unfold, a story, and even though it's incredibly engaging, nowadays, because of the way television is made, you can't stop and then every episode just keeps playing. It does something different to your brain than those leaning forwards technologies. I would consider leaning forward technologies a bit more like a poker machine and they're designed that way. They're intentionally designed to ramp up a particular part of the brain and I know you've talked about this before, but in a work like Dr Daniel Siegel he describes it where you imagine a fist. If you make a fist, you can imagine that being your lizard brain or your downstairs brain, the parts of your brain which is fight, flood or freeze, and that's an important part of your brain.
Daniel:But in children, obviously, you know that's the part where they have tantrums and they have their emotions and that's the types of stuff that the downstairs brain needs is. Or the parts that stimulate the downstairs brain is what you'll see in the lean forward technologies. So when you have flashing lights, when you have variable rewards so you keep digging for diamonds in Minecraft and then randomly you get them when you have social cues, particularly with social media or gaming with others, where you need to be online for a particular time, or you get social cred based on who you're playing with, all of that is deliberately designed to ramp up that downstairs brain, the amygdala, the limbic system, all the stuff that creates anxiety in kids. So it's a long explanation. I'm sorry, but feel free to jump in when you need.
Peter:No, no, that makes perfect sense.
Daniel:Okay, and so the top? You know. Put your hand over your fist. Imagine you've got your fist and your hand goes over the top. Well, that's your cortex, your prefrontal cortex. It's the thinking part of your brain rather than the feeling part. It's the part that thinks before it acts rather than acts like, reacts, and then maybe thinks. And, as we know, this part isn't developed in young children. It takes years to develop through experience and through what kids do. And the kids don't have emotional regulation in the way that adults do, because they don't have an adult brain, they don't have empathy, they don't have the ability to self-regulate, you know, to think in the way that an adult can think. So, in all those ways, if you ramp up the downstairs brain for hours and hours and hours and hours on end with devices which are deliberately designed as poker machines to make you addicted, well then is it any surprise that by the time our kids are eight years old, they can't handle them?
Peter:No, exactly they're hooked.
Daniel:Yeah, and actually the research says with internet addiction that actually the earlier you give your kids these interactive lean forward devices and the more they use them, the less likely they are to develop a healthy prefrontal cortex. So kids who use a lot of these kind of devices early on they develop less emotional regulation, they develop less empathy, which is really no surprise, because if you just constantly ramp up the anxiety part of your brain and you and and you don't give your kids lots of books and uh, walking and playing and eye contact and community and and all the beautiful things in life that actually develop our human brain, then it will change the way they end up developing.
Peter:Yeah, that makes complete sense, of course, and the interesting thing is, of course, for most adults, at least from what I see and from myself as well up to a point, I mean, I came off most social media for this exact reason Social media, especially Facebook, instagram, whatever, tiktok can be massively overwhelming to deal with. I was re-watching Bo Burnham's Inside this thing that he made during lockdown, during lockdown period, and Bo Burnham is obviously a stand-up comedian and he made this thing and there's a song in it because he's a musical comedian and it's called Welcome to the Internet and it's basically, you know the whole song is about we are putting the world in the palm of your hand, and there's a little bit of everything for everyone all of the time. And you know, most, most adults can't deal with it, but kids have no chance and do they?
Daniel:and this is this is what we don't realize, as, as parents, we don't realize just how hard it is. I mean, I've I rarely get parents push back on me anymore when I talk about the need to actually slow down and change the way we're giving our kids a particularly lean forward technology. But if I do get pushed back, I just say to the parents well, do you have any difficulties with your tech habits? Do you find that you're checking it too much or you're uncomfortable with how often you're online and what it's doing to you? And everyone says yes. I'm like well, how can a child who can't even have the self-control not to grab like chocolate or candy when they sit in front of them, how are they meant to manage an adult device designed for the adult world, which is deliberately designed to ramp up the part of the brain which finds it hard to regulate your emotions? And when you realise that, it's like oh, it's not so much about screen time. I'm giving my children a device which is highly addictive, it's adult-based and designed for adult brains and even adults struggle with them. And once you start to think about it like that, I'm like oh, actually giving my child a tablet isn't as innocent and as easy as I thought it was, just because everyone else is doing it and there's absolutely no blame here.
Daniel:I'm fully aware of the incredible social and commercial pressures on parents to get kids tech early and to help them with tech and I'm not anti-tech at all.
Daniel:My kids use tech, I'm pro-tech.
Daniel:But we need to give them technology at a much later age than and then help them grade up as they grow up, so as their brains, emotions and habits develop.
Daniel:Then let's introduce these technologies in a graded way and help them learn as we would need to learn as adults. So, in terms of the passive and active, ironically I would say that it's much better to give kids, like particularly young children, television, even though it looks like they're lazy, they're sitting on the couch, they're not doing anything, whereas you give like a two or three-year-old a tablet and they look like they're learning because they're so engaged. Their pupils dilate, they're engaged. You can keep them quiet for hours, but in actual fact, that type of learning isn't the type of learning that I think our young kids need. It's not good for their brain. Even some of the educational apps and I'm not saying no educational apps are good, but the very nature of the apps themselves means that they're stimulating a part of their brain which isn't actually going to help them develop the type of adult brain and character that you think you want them to develop.
Peter:Well, see, that's fascinating because I'll give a practical example. My brother-in-law has a child who's severely autistic and we're talking nonverbal communication and he has his own kid's tablet. He's usually on the phone looking at YouTube and this kid gets YouTube. Doesn't get much else, but he gets YouTube and he really understands, he knows what all his favorite things are and YouTube obviously steers him, Because YouTube does it with me. The algorithm steers you in certain directions where you start watching. Either you watch a bit of a Joe Rogan podcast before you know it. 24 hours later you're watching Ben Shapiro and two months later you're following Andrew Tate, or something like that. The algorithm isn't that different for kids as it is for adults. So you're saying he's essentially better off watching Dora the Explorer on the television than grabbing a tablet and unsupervised watching YouTube and pressing all the buttons and that becoming a much more interactive experience.
Daniel:Yeah, yes, I think I'm saying that. So co-watching is important for whether you're using passive or active technologies, and so for younger kids, to watch with them and to communicate what you're watching and talk about your values is an important thing for both types of medium. I'm not saying this. So there's a problem with the algorithm and the content. So YouTube, for example, if you sign in and most people do the research from Johan Hari's book Stolen Focus shows that the algorithms make you more radical, either to the left or the right. And so when you sign in because because you tend to watch the stuff that makes you angry or fired up kind of emotionally well then you get more of it and you end up like you said to Andrew Tate or to someone on the other side of the political spectrum, and so that radicalizes you. That is that. So it's better to watch unsigned in for kids. Firstly, because it seems that there's a difference in the algorithms when you sign in versus not sign in. But really beyond all of that. So that's more about the content. Okay, but what I'm talking about is the medium itself will ramp up parts of your brain, like irrespective of the content. So an example is that when there was a large study where children would watch um, passive, you know television for two hours and after two hours of media it would start to impact their sleep at night. But half an hour of new media so the lean forward, swiping, and and technologies, tablets etc. Only half an hour impacts their sleep. So it's this hyper-stimulation of the brain that comes with swiping and moving things on a screen which seem to be impacting our brains in quite a different way than passively watching. And you can imagine I mean I'm not sure about you, but when I play either games with my kids, my kids, like like Fortnite, and once I play, I'll play that with their kids and my older kids, not my younger kids, I'll play that with them and I'll go to sleep thinking about all these things, like there's this. I mean maybe it's because I'm an old man and it seems to affect my brain more, but there is this sense where it hyper-stimulates your brain.
Daniel:And I mean, even if you look at the research of Dr Victoria Dunkley, she wrote a fascinating book where she works with kids with a whole lot of different either neurodiversities or disorders or pathologies, and she started to see a pattern in a whole lot of kids which didn't seem to make sense, even though they had been diagnosed with quite severe mental health disorders in some cases.
Daniel:And so she started to take kids off of media in a graded, sensible way over four weeks and she wrote a book about it, and she found that after taking 500 of her patients off of basically off of media full stop, particularly lean forward media they had more than a 50% reduction in their symptoms without medication.
Daniel:And so what she's finding is that and so she says that these kind of swiping type devices are a bit like an amphetamine response in kids, and so you get the hit and you feel happy when you're on, but then when you get off you get the crash.
Daniel:And that's where you get the hit and you feel happy when you're on, but then when you get off you get the crash and that's where you get the behavioral issues which we see in kids and that's where we get the that sense where kids always want to be online and they find the rest of life a bit dull and meaningless. So riding bikes and riding like riding bikes, climbing trees, playing at the beach, you know, just having a chat with your friends or like basically all the stuff that makes us happy and human that we want our kids to experience in their childhood. That stuff becomes a bit meaningless because it doesn't have the same dopamine effect, and so part of the problem is that these games are so fantastic and so interesting and so engaging that the rest of the life just becomes boring and dull and it's very hard to engage our kids in them. And that's what you're seeing in the eight-year-old, for example, who is struggling to get off of his devices or her devices.
Peter:That makes complete sense because, let's be honest, I mean I'm 48, right? So if I watch one of my friend's kids play, he's 12 years old and he plays Battlefront 2, one of the Star Wars games, and if you look at the graphics and just indeed the interaction, that doesn't compare to Pac-Man, which existed when I grew up. I mean, pac-man was okay, it was fun, but you could easily step away from it and, okay, some people struggled with it. Maybe some kids played too much Pac-Man or whatever, but the games these days are on a whole other level. And telling someone who's just had an hour games these days are on a whole other level. Telling someone who's just had an hour of game time to just go play in the garden, that's a completely different pace.
Peter:It's a lot more boring, so to speak, to him than it is. Whereas he used to be, before he was allowed to play PlayStation games. He used to always be out on, was allowed to play PlayStation games. He used to always be out on the swing just sitting there for hours. It's just, he cannot go back to that easily enough anymore. So how do you then start? Because obviously we spoke a lot about the issues that we find. So how do you then start setting up kids to, how do you prepare them for the tool I suppose that the internet and and all these tech gadgets still kind of are. Where do you start? At what age can they do what?
Daniel:yeah. So I have a framework in my book where I talk about how would you set up kids and how would you develop not just the tech habits and not that you would want them to develop but also experience the breadth and depth of life beyond a screen. I mean I called my book Raising Tech Healthy Humans because it's about raising humans and I actually don't think we should start with tech or screen time or cyber safety. All that stuff's important. I cover that in my book but I think we need to start with an imagination of who do we want our kids to be when they grow up. You know, what type of adults would we want to be and what type of adults would we want them to be? Because they're going to spend the majority of their life as adults, in the adult world and therefore the decisions we make today are they the decisions that are going to help them become the types of adults we want them to be. So start with an imagination of life where you're raising adults not children who have, hopefully, kindness and empathy and goodness and friendships, who are risk takers and who enjoy adventure, who know how to use their bodies and interact with the real world. Does that make sense, like we want to start with an imagination again for what humans are like, and technology is part of that. I mean, I love that I'm in Tasmania talking to you, where I'm on literally the other side of the world and we're having a conversation, because of technology, so technology is part of the equation of adulthood. Because of technology, so technology is part of the equation of adulthood. But even I feel diminished when I spend 12 hours online and I realize that I haven't played board games with my kids or talked with my wife or had a run. Do you know what I mean? And so what's the vision? I think I'd like to start with that, because you can get old tech-o and give the right tech advice and it feels overwhelming. So let's start with what we're trying to get, which is to raise healthy humans. The second I will get very specific, but I did want to frame it first positively. The second thing, and it's the first part of my framework the starter framework is an acrostic and the S stands for start with self.
Daniel:I would say, before you start to change your eight-year-old's habits and before you obviously make decisions about your four-year-old's habits, start by looking at your own tech beliefs and your own tech habits, because parenting is caught more than it's taught and we can say something like get off your screens or you're on your screens too much, but then if all they ever see you on is your phone every time, you have a moment alone when you're on your screens too much, but then if all they ever see you are on is your phone every time, you have a moment alone.
Daniel:When you're at the supermarket, uh, when you're at the bus, when you're cooking dinner, having a drink, scanning your phone, you know like you might be looking at a menu actually for how to cook the meal, but they don't know that all they see is that they have this extra person in their life and you have this relationship with this device, and it seems to be really, really, really important to you and encompasses almost every moment that you don't have with them, and so what you model is what you're going to pass on to your kids and what you believe about tech is what you'll pass on as well.
Daniel:And most adults haven't actually reflected on their relationship with technology deeply or their beliefs around tech or how they express their loves and longings through tech. My first book, spacemaker, was all about adults, and how do you understand the relationship we have with tech and make space from the online world to live our best life before we look at kids? Does that make sense? Because if you don't examine your own beliefs, it won't work. Because, yeah, you're modeling something different no, absolutely.
Peter:It's monkey, see monkey do. Right, it's. It's um, well, at least that's what I call it, and I'm sure one or two people will complain and they compare their kids to oh, I like it, but it's fun. That's fundamentally what it is monkey Monkeys, see monkeys do. And it's exactly like what you were saying.
Peter:We talk about self-awareness. It's funny. I've had I don't know we're like 190-odd episodes into this podcast and almost every single expert, like yourself, talks about self-awareness, every single one. It is phenomenal, and it doesn't matter what we're talking about. Whether we're talking to a physical therapist, whether I'm talking to nutrition and lifestyle coaches, self-awareness is always at the top.
Peter:Um, because it is indeed skill that a lot of us and I include myself, everybody has a blind spot. Let me, let me start there. I'm I'm well aware when I say, oh, people need to be more self-aware. I'm a hypocrite in one or two other two areas of my life because I'm not as aware as I would like to be, but, but, but, it is exactly that and it's like what. Uh, I interviewed someone quite a while ago I can't remember what her name was.
Peter:We're talking about philanthropy and we're talking about how our values, as in what you were talking about with how you want to raise your kids, what you want your child to turn into and how you want to be yourself as a human being doesn't necessarily always match your beliefs. To be yourself as a human being doesn't necessarily always match your beliefs. It doesn't necessarily match what your actions are or what you think. Uh, what you think your actions are indeed, like, like you said, we want to raise healthy kids, we want to be healthy adults.
Peter:But, on the other hand, you know one rule for you and I'm just going to ignore that I spend most of my day on my phone as well and, like again, like you said, I'm massively guilty of this myself. My phone is usually. I have a cover on my phone, so I usually can't even look at it because any notification that pops up is distracting, even if I don't intend it to be, because that's what they're designed to be. They're designed to be distracting. So they open up my phone and you know that social media thing uh, this netflix documentary a while ago I can't remember what its name was the social network. Uh, yeah, I think.
Daniel:I think that's what the social network, I think the social network.
Peter:Yeah, so that that was there where they spoke about the how the algorithm actually works and how it pulls you back into your phone and all that sort of stuff. It's difficult, like you said, it's difficult for adults to fight that and it's difficult for kids to fight that. Make a saying that okay, looking at how you want your child to be and how you would like how you yourself, uh, set an example on that makes complete sense to use that as your starting point that sounds good and look, I'll jump forward into the framework very briefly.
Daniel:But uh, one of the things I look at and I agree with you in terms of being a hypocrite I mean I like I don't know a hypocrite I like Richard Bach's comment. He says I teach best what I most need to learn and I've been wrestling with using too much tech all my life and being a type A who loves to get stuff done, and I use tech like hours and hours a day for my job and yet I feel uncomfortable with how much I'm online and how it is impacting my brain and making me distracted. So I I'm like you as, and I'm like many people who are wrestling with needing to use tech and loving the use of tech and yet seeing how it's changing me from the inside out and wanting to wrestle with making more space. So I won't go into that side, but I've got a whole book on how to actually unplug as a pattern and reframe your tech habits as an adult. But in terms of the value piece, what's interesting, I think I listened to a podcast with you and Dr Schneider who talked about values, which was fascinating, and what was really interesting is the idea of we don't necessarily live out our values, but you can do that with tech.
Daniel:So in my book I talk about tech and non-tech rhythms and how the patterns we develop in our families can reinforce the values we want to live. And so community is a really deep value for us. And so in terms of the how do we live that out? I mean, I live in community. I actually have shared land with another couple, but we have non-tech rhythms. Like we have a fire pit where we have like a monthly fire pit, we light a bonfire in the backyard and our neighbors from around the street and friends come and just eat potatoes with us and because it's a pattern, then we're reinforcing the value of community. We have a fortnightly big dinner where we eat with a bunch of people and it's a potluck and we have basically a tech-free dinner and we experience life together with friends. So that is a way of reinforcing the value in a habitual way.
Daniel:So I call that a non-tech rhythm, sorry, and my kind of tech rhythms, I suppose around that is, we have digital-free meals, but then we obviously have tech rhythms. Sorry, they're my non-tech rhythms. My tech rhythms are we have a family movie night where we don't just watch TV to get you know. Individually. We watch it together and sometimes watch it with friends, so that we're experiencing community through technology. So the key is to work out what are the values that you want to pass on, what type of adults would you like your kids to be? And then creating patterns and rhythms in your family and environment where you're disconnecting from technology intentionally to reinforce that value or where you're using technology intentionally to reinforce that value. So it's working for you and not against you. And you can do that with almost anything you know physical exercise, kindness, faith, like it's. It's about being intentional and how you set up your tech and non-tech rhythms. That's later in my framework, but it might be useful because it connects with what you talked about no, absolutely.
Peter:I think that makes. I think that makes complete sense um shall I go back to the question?
Daniel:What about the tech itself? Definitely, yes.
Daniel:Yeah, so we start with self, once we've assessed our own habits, our own loves and longings, and tried to change our own habits in community, hopefully. Then, yeah, when do we start with kids? So the second part of my framework is to take it slowly and this will affect both the eight-year-old but particularly the four-year-old. Basically, in culture, we are going too fast, we're giving children devices which are not age appropriate and if we go with the flow of culture, then we're giving our kids addictive devices before they're mentally able to use those devices. And so I would say, where possible, yeah, like for the four-year-old, don't give them the ps4, don't give them a mobile, don't give them a tablet. Uh, avoid lean forward technologies for as long as you can.
Daniel:You know, when I was a parent, like with really young kids, I didn't give them cake and sugar and lollies until they're about three or four, because I thought, well, if they don't know about it, then they're not going to start to ask for it and it's not particularly good for them. And so so I I started with that don't have any sugar approach. And then eventually it was like, okay, well, you can't avoid birthday parties, so you can have it at birthday parties, but we're not going to have it at home. And then obviously, as they get older, they have to make choices about when they eat sugar and when they don't, because they can buy it with their own pocket money. It's the same with technology, but we need to start tech way slower, particularly the lean forward technologies. So I would buy us television early on and co-watching and obviously suitable shows, and yet wait until.
Daniel:You know, I didn't give my teenage well, I didn't give my child a phone until they were 15, like I stayed that late. But they certainly had their own laptops and their own devices. By the time they were at the end of primary school, which is about 12 years old for us. So we started. I mean, we were way behind the social curve in that sense. But when I look at the research, if you want your kids to be great at school, great socially, to be healthy mentally and to even be a tech leader when they grow up, to use tech really, really well, that the the prerequisite is not that they know how to use technology. The prerequisite is that they have a healthy brain and if they have a healthy brain, healthy personality, healthy sense of self, some self-awareness, some empathy.
Daniel:If they can relate to people as humans and if they can read and imagine the world in themselves rather than having it fed from different people, well then it's easy to pick up tech. I mean, a two-year-old can pick up a phone and use it really really well, right? So a 12-year-old, a 13-year-old, a 14-year-old can use it really really quickly as well. But so a 12 year old, a 13 year old, a 14 year old can use it really really quickly as well. But what a two-year-old doesn't have is a healthy brain, and so I'd say, um, slow down as much as you possibly can. There's no right age, but I would definitely I would encourage parents to not give mobile devices soenabled phones rather than dumb phones that don't have the internet to wait until they're teenagers.
Peter:That makes sense because what you hear quite a lot and I see this with a lot of my friends who have kids just about that age, just about that age eight and upwards where the kids start needing air quotes right, massive, massive air quotes, needing a mobile phone, because you know what, if they need to get in touch from school or something like that. And okay, part of that is this is the way of the world. But when you then ask them, I said, dude, a phone, is this is the way of the world? But when you then ask them, I said, dude, a phone, is that really the best idea? I mean, there's a lot of stuff that you have access to on an iPhone.
Peter:The internet is a miraculous place and it's also a miraculously disturbing place.
Peter:And then they'll say something along those lines of what you said. Yeah, but it's a tool that they need to learn to use, but without critical thinking, without the skill to have critical thinking, to be able to look at something and understand what's happening, understand being manipulated is one thing, right, but when I walk into a casino and I place a bet on the roulette wheel, I know the house is likely to win, because the odds are stacked against me, at least I know, and I know that by them giving me free drinks, they're manipulating me to spending more time with them and spending more money. As an adult, I can cope with that because I'm aware of what is happening With regards to mobile phones and the internet-connected device. It is much more manipulative and it's much more sneaky, because the audience using these devices doesn't necessarily understand what is happening. So do you think the school curriculum, for instance the school curriculum, should change to include some sort of level of awareness, includes some sort of level of awareness, or do you think this is just a parent's issue, so to speak?
Daniel:Yeah, look, I mean, I would even go beyond education. I think you know again I agree with Johan Hari that it's actually quite unfair to speak to a parent when all the other parents have now got devices and kids are getting phones at seven years old and your kid is actually the only one or two kids left in your class that don't have their own tablets. It's very, very hard as herd animals to then fight this individually. So I'm asking you to do something which is quite unfair, which is actually to create countercultural choices now and to slow your kids down for their health and their mental health, in a way that no one else is doing around you. Um, so he would say that this is a you know, this is an environmental issue and it's fundamentally based on the business model of social media and tech giants like google, who only make money when they make you distracted, unfocused and addicted and when they redesign their apps from Gmail to Google to you know, obviously you know Facebook, tiktok, instagram, twitter. If they redesign them and they have tried to they lose money, and so the business model is wrong, which creates a social problem. So I mean we do need to think at that level when we get down to a school level.
Daniel:Well then, obviously, yes, I think schools need to definitely educate kids about technology. It's like I think it's one of the most well, I know parents say that technology, both in America and Australia I'm not sure about the UK, but they say that technology is the number one reason they feel like parenting is harder now than it used to, and it's the number one or two reason that it's the number one or two most important thing that parents are concerned about the tech overuse in their kids. And so how can schools not be addressing this? And obviously they need to be addressing when do we give technology to our kids themselves? Because my kids first used Minecraft and a lot of other popular games at school through the tablets as reward mechanisms, saying they're educational, when actually, when you look at the research behind it again, they're all designed on addictive methodologies. They've got variable rewards, colors, flashing things, you hide from monsters. I mean, you can't get more kind of limbic system than that right. And so schools need to be thinking about their educational curriculum as well. But you know, we can't change those big picture things except for through voting and advocacy, but what we can do is create small communities ourselves.
Daniel:Where we find like-minded parents, we talk about the issues together and we support each other, which is what we've done. You know, we have a bunch of people who eat regularly with each other and we talk about tech, sometimes as part of our general parenting conversations. And so when my daughter said, well, I'm the only kid who doesn't have a phone and I'm 13 years old, was like, well, actually that might be true in your school, you might be the last kind of I don't know the centile, but actually you know, you've got Kate and you've got Mimi. You've got all these other people in your life who are having similar conversations, because we're aware that we really, really love you and we really want you to develop a healthy sense of self and healthy mental health habits and a healthy brain and healthy physical habits and study habits, before we've distracted you with too much social media and all the other stuff that will come. And they can see that, like they, they see their friends going down this rabbit hole and um and being distracted and it's it's like the world is, it's like the matrix.
Daniel:The world is moving in one direction and I can see I don't want to become like that, but I need my kids to, but it's also hard for them not to engage in that type of culture too early and we make compromises. They use a lot of technology. I'm not at all Amish, but they use particular technologies in a particular way. Yeah.
Peter:So they tend to use more harsh tools in the way that we kind of want them, in the way that I like to use most tech. So we've done the take it slowly. So we've had S, we've had T. There must be something else.
Daniel:Yeah. So the next one is once you've taken it slowly, generally, then we look at age-appropriate setup and so when you're obviously going to give your child these devices, I would say, don't do it when they're four, but yeah, at eight obviously many of them will be getting devices and certainly by 12 they will. Then how do you do it? And one of the things that we often, I often hear is parents say no, you know, no, no, no, no, no. Because they realize that they don't want to go down that kind of, they don't want to start and open the Pandora's box of tech yet in terms of at least their own devices. But then it's all in. So when the kids get their tablet, it's just an adult device that's completely unfiltered here. It is same as the phone, et cetera. And so what we need to realize is that actually these are adult devices for the adult world and we need to be thoughtful in how we give it to them. And you can seriously protect and dumb down your devices if you understand how to do it and then grade up as they grow up.
Daniel:Years old, and he wanted to, he was interested in me chainsawing I was, I was chainsawing wood and he was curious. And so I thought, you know, as a dad I'm like, oh, I'm going to teach my boy how to use a chainsaw. So I put protective equipment on him and and I got him set up. I taught him how to use the brake. I said never, ever let go of the handle, always have two hands on the chainsaw, et cetera, et cetera. I set him up with a pretty safe piece of timber or wood and I turned it on and he couldn't do it. It was really noisy, the wood chips flying in his face scared him, it was too heavy and it wasn't a positive experience actually. And we stopped pretty quickly and I realized that actually the chainsaw is actually not an eight-year-old device, it's an adult device. But it's the same thing for a phone. A phone is the most powerful tool we've ever had from a kind of a mind perspective.
Daniel:The digital power through that is unbelievable and it's wonderful. But it's not for kids. So, from the chainsaw example, how might you put on kind of earmuffs and safety goggles? How might you teach them to use the brake? Well, you don't give them the full power to begin with. So I mean, obviously, to start with you might get rid of the internet altogether, but certainly put in a digital contract, which is an awareness contract. So a digital contract is where you would write down a whole set of agreements and say this is what's expected of you at this age, and let's talk about it and we'll sign it together.
Daniel:And part of the first digital contract my kids got is there won't be any social media or games on your phones, because social media and games, for a whole lot of reasons, have been shown to be highly addictive and they don't end up leading you to where I want you to be as an adult, like if you want the phone, that's a deal. So they're like okay, we'll sign it. There's the contract. Then there's the parental controls. So obviously you can set up your phones where they turn off at a particular time at night, so they don't have the internet access. You can set it up.
Daniel:Phones where they turn off at a particular time at night, so they don't have the internet access. You can set it up so that they can communicate with particular people. You can set them up so that they can't download any app that you don't approve, et cetera, et cetera. So they had a phone or they had a tablet, but it had limitations. So I was helping them learn to use it without full access. And the other one is downloading internet filters, particularly for pornography and to protect them from some online stuff which is very, very hard to protect them from. So all of that's fairly complex, but it's really important that if you give your child a device, particularly at a young age, you protect them from the worst of the internet so they can start to enjoy the best of it.
Daniel:And now that my daughter is older and she's demonstrated that she does put her phone away at night, that she isn't always on her devices, that she heads off to the mall and she heads off with her friends and she leaves her device at home she's not tethered to it like the second appendix. Well then, now I'm giving her some of the more addictive apps and allowing her to access some of the things that I know will draw her into that pattern of dopamine addiction. But we have, she has the self awareness and the conversations that have allowed her to treat it more like an adult, like she's more like an adult in that sense. Um, so I've graded up as I grow up. So does that make sense? So there's no right or wrong, but don't give your kids an adult device out of the box.
Daniel:And the last piece I would say is from juliana minor. She says that unless you're willing to start talking about pornography with your kids and unless they're willing to start talking about it with you, then they're not ready to have an adult device that is unfiltered. Yet because the stats say as soon as you give a young boy, particularly a boy, any mobile device which is internet enabled without filters, you're basically giving them continuous access to pornography wherever they go, and parents really don't understand the reality of what's happening in terms of the internet oh no, I think you know it's completely different, and again I'll show my age a little bit here.
Peter:It's completely different from from one of your 14 year old classmates showing up with one of their dad's playboy magazines. And you go and you know, oh, look at this, right, the. If you have 20 or 30 kids in a class and and 20 of them have have a smartphone, uh, with full internet access and all that sort of stuff, the stuff kids can be exposed to at a fairly young age, like you said, which will be well it's they're all rabbit holes, like we already said. So it goes from have you ever seen a boobie? To have you ever seen this? And it'll just escalate from there because you know, one-upmanship is a real thing already when you're 12 years old, especially if you're a boy, when you're 12 years old, especially if you're a boy.
Peter:And, yeah, some of the stuff some of my friends' kids have told me about this and have you read this cartoon or have you seen this? I'm like dude, I don't look at that stuff and I'm 48 years old, to give an extreme example, when ISIS was still kicking about. I don't know a single adult that actually watched any of those videos. I can name you three kids that were 12 to 14 years old that had seen them. That's astonishing to me because I don't watch it, because I'm like I don't have to see this stuff. This is that is like next level, sort of out of my mind. Kids don't have that filter, they just go wow, can you believe this is what's happening? So it makes complete sense to say we need to build this up very, very steadily because, like you said, if you give people unfiltered access to everything all at once, yeah, that's like you know the same kid in a candy store, right, unsupervised, you wouldn't do it, yeah.
Daniel:And so, look, I realized with parents, I mean, this is this is a really hard message, like it's hard enough just getting your kids lunches and getting them off to school, and you know what I mean. Like just surviving the day-to-day stuff. And this is why I realized that tech parenting is so complex, because A most of us don't feel like we understand tech as well as our kids understand it and at the same time, yeah, there's all these dangers, but it's not like you know, it's not like drugs, where it's like, okay, I don't want my kids to smoke pot, you know, or to do drugs, because it's just there aren't positives. They're going to need to use tech, you know, and we need to grade them up as they grow up. So it's much more complicated with tech, because there are some real risks and yet there are some tremendous benefits and they will definitely need to use it really really well as they become adults. Become adults. But to simplify at least the starting point, I'd say look at your own habits and then slow down with your kids so they experience the breadth and depth of life away from a screen first. So help them have a joyful, simple childhood and it'll actually be simpler for you, because it's way, way, way more complicated to parent your kids.
Daniel:Once you give them internet-enabled devices. Then you have to have age-appropriate setup and understand filters and contracts and parental controls. You need to have some screen time limits which we won't talk about because most people have a sense of that, but, you know, have a sense of when should they be online and when should they not be online, and to create those patterns and rhythms where you're turning off their tech and they're turning off their tech to learn that self-discipline and self-regulation. So the world gets more complicated once they start getting their own devices, so slow it down. And then, once they hit the end of their kind of, you know, pre-teen years, well then, obviously this is when I think parents should be engaging more and more in these conversations, rather than when they're three and four and they honestly have zero ability to regulate their emotions and their habits and then obviously have a really positive experience with tech when you do spend time with them. So I talk a lot about relationships. How do you talk about tech and the movies they're watching and and have movie nights and, and you know, play games with your kids. So enjoy the tech world with them, but just at an age appropriate time. Uh, and and with all that I mean, I think then tech can be. It'll still be a challenge, because it just is. In my household we still probably wrestle with tech more than almost anything else, but I'm so glad I started slower and the types of wrestling I'm having with them is different than the wrestling I would have had if I started really young. For the eight-year-old, the last thing I'd say on this is for your number one question. We've only done one question For the eight-year-old, who is already really struggling.
Daniel:It is tough and there are some things that you can do. Again, start with self, but then I would say, think about, okay, what are the things you'd really like them to change? What are the things you'd really like them to change? You know, again, have an imagination for how you would like their childhood to be, as opposed to, I just want them off their screens more and I would start by replacing.
Daniel:Instead of tackling tech first, I would start by trying to add some life. And you know Stephen Covey says you can't say no without a greater yes. And so what is the greater yes? Start with the greater yes. You know, I would love them to ride bikes? Well then, you're going to have to take them bike riding a bit more. I would love them to surf. Well then, let's get them surf lessons.
Daniel:Do you know what I mean?
Daniel:Like, try to give them experiences that are beyond a screen and try to work out something that actually fires them up and gives them a bit of joy, and then you've got a pathway to say okay, now let's talk about tech, because what I find is that you're spending so much time here that you're neglecting all the other aspects of your life which are joyful, and I apologize for that, because I realized I hadn't understood tech very well when I gave it to you, and in retrospect, we probably would have set it up differently.
Daniel:You can also say I'm struggling with addiction myself. I realize that you see me on Instagram way too much, and I check my phone on the toilet and I check it in the car, and I have all these bad habits which I'm trying to shift. I wonder if we could try to shift our bad habits together as a family, and actually so it's not about you, but these are the things that I want to do and these are the things I'd like us to do as a family, how can we recalibrate when and how we use our devices? And it may eventually involve taking some of those devices away or or significantly limiting their use, and that will absolutely create fights and tantrums. But if it's done with communication, with humility, with firmness, but also love, you can reset your children's habits and give them a better start to life.
Peter:Yeah, just grabbing the iPhone and saying you're not going to get this back for two years is probably not going to go down well, Because, it's interesting that you mentioned the greater.
Peter:yes, because I have had this conversation a lot with clients and members that say their kids are always better after a holiday with Guards to Tech Because on holiday they never looked at their phones right. You're in the Bahamas or the Maldives. There's camels on the beach crying out loud why would you want to look at your phone the whole time? And by the time they get back after a week or two after the holiday, when they did loads of stuff together, usually as a family, the children were much easier to deal with than they were before. They went on holiday and spent a lot of time on their devices. And that was maybe the ideal talking, the ideal point to start that conversation with them, or even on the plane ride home, when everybody's usually watching film or something like that, to just say listen, we had a great time on holiday. How's about we change things up a little bit Rather than indeed, like you said, just restricting without changing your own behavior?
Daniel:I mean, I once asked my kids. I said what are the best experiences of life you've had so far? We were walking and I just asked them. I mean, so my daughter's 15, my middle son is 12, nearly 13. And my younger son turns 12 today, which is exciting. But they came up with things that actually surprised me. Like we've taken them to Disneyland. I assume that they would say that, you know, eventually Disneyland came up, you know. But the things that they said was I used to jump on the trampoline with a friend of mine from next door and that was really fun. And another child said I loved it.
Daniel:When you read the Star Book to us. I'm like what Star Book you know. You used to put the torch through the book and make funny jokes. Oh, and then you used to play guitar to us and we would go to sleep and I'm pretty, I'm pretty terrible at guitar, but they liked it.
Daniel:You know, like the things that they mentioned as their best experiences in life, okay, were all relational. They were usually pretty simple. They didn't use tech, they didn't involve tech in that sense. They were just experiences of life where they felt like there was connection and community. And when I think about the best experiences of life that I've had, and when I ask parents for the same thing, we almost always come up with the best experiences of life that I've had. And when I ask parents for the same thing, we almost always come up with the same type of stuff they are.
Daniel:They're either things we achieved which we had to work hard at, but it wasn't about the tech, it was about the effort and the perseverance.
Daniel:They might be adventures that we struggle through or relationships that we, you know, manage to kind of connect with, or just simple, beautiful things that we remember.
Daniel:And if they're the things that make humanity humanity, if they're the things that give us joy and hope and laughter and fun, then we want to major in those things and minor on the stuff that kids will never mention and we will never mention at the end of our life, which is I got through this many levels on this type of program, you know, or I got, I got my inbox to zero every day for 20 years, you know I'm like um, yeah, and and and. The results for young kids are pretty terrible in terms of their mental health because they are neglecting the beautiful, rich things that make us human and trading too much time for time online, and so it's just about rebalancing the school card. But within the vision of humanity, of raising humans, of that bigger, yes, and if, if you can keep that in mind, I think over time you can chip away at helping your kids start to imagine. Imagine the life that they actually really want, rather than the one that has been sold to them.
Peter:Well, that is a very, very good point. So I'm not happy now because I think we covered, like I said, only one question, but a lot of ground there. Was there anything else you wanted to touch on before I wrap this one up, because I think we covered loads here.
Daniel:Yeah, simply to say to parents be kind on yourself. I mean, it's super hard to be a parent, and even the eight-year-old they're probably doing okay. And the fact that you're concerned means you're probably a pretty amazing parent, because you're thinking about it and you listen to parenting podcasts and you're asking Peter, how do I deal with this problem? And kids are actually amazingly resilient and good enough. Parenting is actually a pretty incredible parenting. So probably just to finish on an encouraging note that, look, there's best practice and then there's making small steps, and I think that's all we can do, one small step at a time, to help raising healthy humans.
Peter:Yeah, no, that's absolutely, absolutely right. An not happy note I'm going to to press stop record here, and press stop record is exactly what I did. So that was a couple of years ago when I did that. Like I said, I've watched adolescence. I think there's a ton of interesting takes to come out of that show, to come out of that show, but I thought this was one of them, and it gets overlooked a little bit in the brilliance of the program that this is one of the many, many, many things that we maybe should be working on as a society Teaching kids how to use the internet, how safely and effectively, and allow parents to be aware of what is actually happening. You know the whole. I'm checking up on my kids sort of thing and I see the messages, but if you don't speak the same language, um, as the kids do, then then you're going to miss, uh, you, you might be missing one or two cues um that you otherwise would have liked to have picked up on. Anyways, again, thanks to daniel for coming on this a couple of years ago. At the time the sound quality was horrific, um, because I'm an idiot. Terrific Because I'm an idiot. Admittedly, it was on my end More than his, so I've done my best To fix that a little bit.
Peter:Next week we're back on track. Back on track, which is always nice Because there is a schedule. I've got a ton of interviews Still to put out. I have a ton of emails to get back to as well. Uh, peter, at healthy postnatalbodycom, for so um, apologies if I haven't gotten back to you yet. Uh, I'm about a week behind with my correspondence, as they say, next week we're about mental health prep with Casey. You're going to love that. Casey is absolutely amazing.
Peter:Here, my friends, is a new bit of music. You take care of yourself. Bye now, look the same. You think I haven't changed, but I'm done claiming all of your mistakes. Oh, are you ashamed, cause? I'm a long way from where I started. I'm a long way from coming home, a long way from being brokenhearted. I've come a long way since he let me go. Come so far. Come so far From where I started, from where I started, where I started. Come so far. Come so far from where I started. Since you let me go, this new freedom. Think I'm floating now All my problems? They seem so somehow.
Daniel:You can say I never tried, when all you did was lie. And I don't wanna cry anymore, Cause I'm a long way From where I started. I'm a long way From coming home. I'm a long way from being broken hearted. I've come a long way since you let me go. Come so far. Come so far from where I started, where I started. Come so far. Come so far from where I started. From here we go.