How parents can keep kids safe on phones, social media

Welcome back. Every parent has to eventually ask themselves whether their child is ready for social media or a phone. In this day and age, it's hard to avoid technology, even though we would like to in many cases. And with it changing so rapidly, it can be hard to keep up. You don't want to make tech a source of tension in the family, but safety obviously comes first. And with cyberbullying, sexting, and now AI chatbots, you have to set some limits for your kids. Joining us now is Dr. Megan Moreno, professor of pediatrics and affiliate professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Thank you so much for coming in to be with us. Thank you. So you say screen time is wrong. Screen time is only part of the picture. Okay, okay. Give us the bigger picture because I think a lot of parents feel like, well, I know in my case, I can't speak for everyone, but I feel like some screen time is okay because you still are keeping up with technology I use it for a learning tool what do you think well I think screen time helps you understand quantity but it doesn't help you understand quality so you could imagine you might sit on the couch with your child watch a funny movie laugh together talk together that's two hours but it's high quality time but you could also see your child watching AI slop for 10 minutes and that's probably 10 minutes too long yeah I mean some and I get like taken by some of that stuff too so when they're still sorting out what's real and what's not in in life you know I can see how that can be damaging to them I asked you when you came in I said are you a parent because oftentimes we have experts come in here to tell us what to do with our kids and they don't have kids you do though you have two older teenagers you told me that you made mistakes with screen time and and and technology raising them what were some of the mistakes that you made and what would you tell parents to do now? I think a big thing that is so challenging in the world of parenting with technology is I hear from so many parents that they think there's one perfect way and that they're probably doing it wrong. And so there's so much blame and shame if you do make a mistake. And I think a lot of what we try to normalize in the book is that there's more than one right way to do this. Your child will probably make a mistake. You might make a mistake and those are really key learning moments where you can say hey I thought dinner was going to be at six but wow there is a really cute cat video feed on Instagram and I got caught up in it and dinner's going to be at 6:10 and let's talk about what I can do, should I set an alarm, should I set a screen time limit and your child probably has six options they can offer you so really making those mistakes learning moments, being that there are so many different options because every family is different. Where would you say a family should start? I think starting with your relationships with each other, knowing who each other are, knowing what you like, and how does your activity online represent what you like, what you care about, because that's really intentional tech use. That's tech use where you might learn and understanding that can help you provide guidance and explore your child's interest both online and offline. I will not allow my child to go on YouTube. I might with supervision, but I will allow her to watch a movie on her tablet. Let's say mommy wants to watch HGTV, then Olive can watch the Minions on her iPad. Is that a problem for a child to watch something like that on a small screen with the headphones on? They don't really know what's going on around them. Is it better to put it on the television? I think it's a balance. I think that if you're having a day that it's really crazy or you need that break to get a little HGTV hit, I understand that, I think that's totally okay, you're showing them here is how I'm getting my break, this is content I enjoy, here's how you're getting your break, this is content you enjoy, but let's also think about maybe on the weekend we can have a Friday night movie night all together or a game board night, when do you as a parent real because for me I limit the iPad now and the reason why is because it became every day I'm being asked, can I watch the iPad? So yes, you're learning on it, but you shouldn't eat this thing every day. So I would let it die. When as a parent should there be a red flag in your mind that maybe this is a problem? I think if it's starting to look like the use is replacing other things you know your child loves and cares about, if it starts to look like it's the default, I can't think of anything else to do, so I'm going to grab this. I think that's a time to reconnect to your child and say, let's remember all the things you like to do. You were working on a drawing the other day. Let's take a look at that. So I think removing the blame and shame and just saying, wow, look at all these possibilities. What do you want to do today? Like the Toy Story movie. Remember, team, that we both love that movie. That's why I let it die. Bye-bye iPad for a while. They quit playing with the toys. Talk to your kids about sexting, cyber bullying. Those are tough, tough topics. Those are really tough topics. And one of the things I remember from my childhood is Mr. Rogers. And he would say, if you can name it, you can tame it. So having discussions up front about those topics, a lot of parents say, gosh, I don't want to introduce the idea of sexting to my kid. But the reality is your kids probably heard about it at school or heard about it from someone else. So being able to sit down and say, what do you know about this? What age is a good time? Well, I think that by middle school, most kids have heard of this or have thought about it, but you could also look for moments where you think your child might've heard about this, a news story. They might come home to you and say, hey, I heard about this weird thing and what is it? And just starting from that place of what do you know about it? What do you think about it? And then centering it in relationships and values rather than centering it in the tech that's a good point and especially if they're on social media they may have heard about it through TikTok and everywhere else anyway right thank you so much for this advice where can people get your book really quickly we have a website connecting book.org and that gives links to buy it at the AAP or wherever books are sold perfect thank you so much for your time thank you