217: How to end the video game struggles

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Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Do you ever worry about the amount of time that your kids spend on video games? Do you wish that they would apply themselves to homework and to learning with the same zeal that they do with video games? Do you find yourself rewarding them with video games and saying things like: if you do your homework or tidy your room or do some other tasks that you don't want to do then you can play video games?

Thank you so much for having me.

And welcome Nicole. Thank you for suggesting this episode.

I'm excited talking to you and Ash at the same time.

Awesome. And so Ash, I wanted to just kind of start by saying that you completely messed up the plan that I had for this episode when I started thinking about it And researching. Because I was planning to start out with an acknowledgement that there is some evidence that spending time on video games isn't super amazing for kids because it's linked to aggression. And then I found your topic, your your conversation with Adam Grant on the hit on the TED podcast. And you kind of discussed the state of the research. And I learned things I didn't know and that this whole kind of spate of research on the links between video games and aggressive behavior is way, way way muddier than I thought it was. So can you start? I don't want to spend all of our time there. But can we start by just kind of giving parents the lay of the land on what that body of research says please?

The I would say the shortest way to really summarize it would be to say if you look at all of the research and the meta analyses, particularly the ones more in the last 10 years, as opposed to the, you know, 20 plus years ago, overwhelmingly, there is pretty consistent finding that moderate use of video games is generally associated with neutral or positive outcomes and moderate use in most of these studies. means on the conservative side, up to two hours of play per day, but can sometimes be even more than that. And of course, we're tracking averages, so that but generally speaking, that kind of moderate use is actually where we see the best outcomes, for the majority of players, that's probably the simplest, simplest way to look at it. And if we see some of the kind of outline things, trying to find some of these negative associations, a lot of those studies in one way or the other have a limitation or multiple limitations. And there has often been researchers that have come back and looked at that research and re-analyzed it and have found an existing bias or other limitation that has impacted the results or the suppose it significance of the results.

However, as you intimated already, that tends to be what takes hold in our public consciousness. It's more of the, the negative and the neutral. And I think there's many reasons for that. But partially some of the studies that found these more, suppose that negative results were also some of the earlier ones. So they had a lot of time to kind of take over because they were the they were like the only thing in that area. There was a real dearth of research. So then they're there, when there's only one or two findings, and they tend to be negative that kind of takes over. And then it's very hard to refute that. Because if you find that it basically has not much impact, that doesn't feel like it refutes negative impact, right. It feels like we'd have to find something I don't know, that's proving that it's going to make everyone boom, become a neurosurgeon to actually counteract something negative. But overwhelmingly, there's increasingly more and more findings, particularly also with adolescents that look at things like overall wellbeing, or pro-social behavior and find that screen time of varying kinds in moderate use is gonna have a neutral effect or like, or, depending on what you're measuring a positive outcome on some aspect of well being. Okay.

Okay, great. And so I just want to kind of double click into that a little bit, and just get you a little bit more detail on some of the things that people may have heard. And one of the things that was most interesting to me was that a large number of the studies don't take into account potentially confounding variables. Can you tell us what some of those confounding variables might be that interact with children's propensity for aggression?

But there are many, many things that just really, really difficult to account for in this kind of work. And I know you've probably learned more than I have, but you know, things like sometimes they can account for, you know, socioeconomic status or family makeup, but there's just so many intricacies that we can't necessarily account for or even know to screen for like, like divorce or trauma. Because even defining trauma would be difficult or witnessing violence, like domestic violence, or being the victim of some sort of violence, all of those things are going to have a really big impact. Something that I've noticed is that you know, there there will be often research that will take into account like socioeconomic status, or maybe or maybe the number of caregivers in the home, you know, things that can be objectively measured in some way. But it's really hard to then think about how you would correct for the impact of those things. Okay, I can I can correct for the impact of socioeconomic status, but then what about the things that implies, okay, I have one caregiver at home and a low socioeconomic status. I'm more likely to live in an apartment so I'm less likely to have access to the outdoors and more likely to have, you know, fewer, maybe fewer toys or less adult presence. When we're looking at things like the impact of screen time on, you know, performance or the association of it with doing less well in school or having certain delays? It's important to think about, well, yes, I can I can take some of these things into account. But the sort of watershed, the domino effect of those things is you can't really accommodate that in, in a study. So is that kind of what you had in mind?

Yeah, yeah, it is. And there are so many other topics that I want to make sure that we have time for. I guess the thing that I just want to make sure parents understand is that there have kind of been these dueling meta analyses over the years, where one set of researchers said: yeah, there's really bad impacts. And another set of researchers said: no, and kind of there isn't. And one thing I saw in that is even the ones who were saying there are really bad impacts, the they're really bad impacts is like, really tiny effect sizes. So you know, the actual outcomes, the probability of this outcome happening is not very high. And I think a quote that really stuck with me is: Violent video games could be arguably synonymous to peanut butter, a perfectly harmless indulgence for the vast majority, but potentially harmful for a tiny minority. So we're not saying that there's no risk at all here. But more it seems to me is that the takeaway is like know, your child, right? Know what's going on in your child's life, what has gone on in your child's life, and kind of judge the risk according to your child, rather than according to the risk for all potential children? Would you would you draw a similar conclusion?

Makes sense. Thank you.

Yeah. But even if our kids aren't engaged, engaging, and the kind of violent behavior that would actually show up in one of those research studies, we still might see behavior that we don't like. So for example, I have two kids, and they both respond completely differently to gaming: one becomes super dysregulated, and after playing, he just can't function. And while he's playing, he also was very loud, and you can tell he's stressed, And that doesn't happen when he's watching TV or after TV. I'm just wondering why this happens. And if different types of games have brains differently, and also, if it's possible that a young child isn't ready for certain types of games, that gets too much, but they might be ready in a few years. So now, that was a few questions and one, but yeah, And is there anything I can do to help him or anyone else that experiencing this?

Yeah, I think this is I think one of the things it's very hard about trying to come from a place of feeling like informed with data and research and then eventually the rubber has to hit the road and then you're trying to see it in your own life. And so you might hear even this conversation and think like, okay, so it's not doing some sort of like, really detrimental to harm, but there's like pretty quickly, but right because we see something in our own life, that doesn't feel good, right? If you witness something and you're like, okay, but this isn't, this isn't what I want to see. So, okay, it's not super detrimental, but then what's going on? You know, so, and that almost feels, in some ways, like worse to me because it's like, oh, okay, so you're actually telling me that it's fine. But then, oh, like, if I'm seeing this, then what does that mean, and you know, I feel that way totally. In certain things. I think it brings up some of those insecurities, sometimes as a caregiver.

So something that, you know, all screens and all brains are different. So how they're going to react to things is obviously going to be different. But, you know, gaming is a really, really intense activity in terms of, there are a lot of things that are happening when we're playing games, that are really engaging to our brain that are going to be different than watching TV, which is a pretty passive activity, like gaming, and, you know, anything, whether that's a tablet game, or a console game, or anything like that, with gaming, we're, we're doing a lot of other things, not just in terms of, oh, I'm pressing buttons, and I can't just zone out necessarily, but the, the way, it's kind of satisfying our needs is also different. So it's making us feel a lot of things that the TV is not necessarily, so I'm not necessarily gonna feel like, skilled when I'm watching TV, I'm not necessarily gonna feel, depending on what I'm doing, I'm not really gonna feel that in control. But with gaming, you know, I might feel really accomplished or like, I'm really working on something, And I might feel like I have a ton of power over what I'm doing. And depending on the game, I might also feel like I'm directly collaborating with other people, and it's providing a lot of these, what we call needs satisfying feelings at the same time, and it's hard to then go from that to something that probably is doing that less, right. Video games are very good at satisfying those needs. And they do it in a very dense way. It says the work of rugby and Ryan who've done a lot of work in this area, and they've talked about the density of an other frequency of how games make us feel these things. And it's not that other things don't make us feel those things, but it's going to be less consistent, and it's not going to happen as often. So it's hard to go from something that's doing everything you kind of want and making you feel things you want to feel to something that's like, Oh, I do that as often. And you mentioned the state of dysregulation, so we're doing all of that with our brain, but probably our body is not moving as much. And so there's this real disconnect between the input our brain is getting and what our body's getting. And that can be really difficult, particularly for kids. So when that's happening, I invite people to just to get really curious to see what you might notice. Because, you know, in my household, we also have certain games that are just a much harder ask of my child basically, right? Like there's a harder ask of their brain in terms of staying regulated, and it sometimes helps to stay neutral in those moments. So then notice, okay, what like, is this every game they've ever that they've played? Or is it ones where they're competitive? Or is this particular game, and when we get curious, we can stay open without just sort of spiraling, and we can focus on the things within our control. Like, okay, they really liked this game, but it was like really hard yesterday, what would it be like if we like, shortened it by five minutes? Or if we did it at a different time of day? We put it in an opportunity for some, you know, regulatory inputs, like beforehand or something, just to see if that makes any difference, kind of getting curious about it because if our goal is to have this be part of our kids lives, and we want them to be able to balance with other things, then we also want them to be aware of this too, not in a punitive way but just in a hey, did you notice this? Like, how'd this feel today? How did it feel yesterday? Oh, it seems like maybe this game is better when you have less time or have gone outside beforehand, or wherever they're making those connections and realizing, okay, like, I can make these adjustments for myself.

And the last thing I think can be helpful is if you know your child, you probably know that they have some sort of hell, that they're like trending toward a state of dysregulation. Like you mentioned loud. My kid is also someone who gets loud, like they're not angry. They're just loud. They, their voice volume is just like, up and up and up, or they get kind of like wiggly. You know, there's just more there's movement happening, that doesn't seem helpful. And so when we notice those things, you know, we figure out like, Oh, that was like a warning sign that I missed, right? Because we deal with the meltdown to them, we're like, oh, I should have realized and put the pieces together. So when you figured out some of those early signals for your kid, that's, again, a time that we can maybe build in some regulatory breaks. And I have to preface all this and say, like, kids aren't gonna like this, like, no, kids in this state are not going to be like, okay, you know. But we, again, the goal is, is sustainability, right? The goal is digitally literate kids. The goal is kids who can be adults who can manage these things. And we want that for food. And we want that for leisure. And we want that for, you know, managing difficult social moments. And all of those things require teaching, when it's happening and it's not always fun, right. So these moments are easy to do. But I think that it's really helpful if we can, and we won't always have that in us every opportunity, right. But if we can, every once in a while, great. So if I hear my child trending, that way, we can stop and say like, Hey, we're not, we're not mad, there's nothing like we're gonna keep playing, but we're hitting pause, so that we can and then do something that's going to kind of bring the literal volume down, but like the regulatory volume down of whatever works for your child, you know, some somersaults or some jumping jacks or a quick, you know, run around the block or whatever, to just kind of try to bring that down, and then come back to it and try again.

And then again, we can check in with them, how's it feel now, better or worse, should we try something different next time? My household we bought like a wobble board, like those kind of like half semicircular boards that you can like balance on. And my, my child does not like when we suggest using this, but what we've noticed is that, if they do it, they will continue to play and do it at the same time, so that they are, like getting some of that regulation and that physical input, but they're still able to do the game. And we've noticed that it actually helps them improve their performance, because their body has something to do. And so then we may have been even able to say like, Hey, you're frustrated, because you're losing this race, and you're getting loud and kicking your legs, we're gonna pass get on the board, you're gonna end up doing better anyway. And then we can circle back to that and find a way to make it into a positive and more about like, kind of skill building and skill recognition. So all of that is a very long answer to your question. But any, anything we can do to find those things and just work on a little bit at a time. And if something's really not working for your family, and you're like we can, we absolutely cannot allow certain show or game because it just 100% ends in total meltdown, that's fine. Not everything is going to work for every family. And it doesn't have to be forever. If this doesn't work for us, right now. We can try again. You know, when we think that this might be a better fit, or that we're prepared for it whatever way.

Does that gave you some ideas Nicole for what you might try?

Yes, I really relate to Ash not because I feel like that kiddo you're describing is very much the kiddo that we have at home. In terms of making those suggestions in the moment versus outside of the moment. Yes, definitely would like to try that. And do you think there can be a positive correlation between distress tolerance and self-regulation? By playing video games?

Oh, maybe like you're encountering it? Yeah. There, there is a game. It's an app that actually does this on purpose. And, and has, and they have done some studies with it and found that it has actually has positive results for kids, particularly kids with ADHD, to kind of get counter and overcome, like frustration tolerance. So I mean, I certainly think it doesn't hurt for kids to find some way of encountering that. But was so much of the things that I talked about whether it's this or, you know, the feelings of freedom or creativity or whatever, the gaming provides anything that could be a potential positive, just aware of like the kind of refuting of that which is basically some version of but lots of things can do that. Well, I could do that with many things. They can get frustrated with a board game, right? It doesn't. I don't need video games for that. And I would say like, no you don't. You absolutely don't. But if this already feels like an inevitability, in your child's life, think about all the ways we can imbue it with skill, right with with actual life skills, instead of just thinking of it as a completely vacuous activity because if they are wanting to spend more and more of their time in gaming and digital worlds, what we don't want is we don't want them to think that, that gaming is the only way they can feel certain things, or it's the only way that they can be creative, or it's the only way that they can have say over their, their lives, right. We we don't want that because if that's the only place they think they can get that that's the only place they're going to turn for it. So when we get concerned about like preoccupation, we want to make sure that we're not funneling them toward that, because we want them to know that there's lots of ways they can feel these things or overcome these things and part of what helps with that, in my opinion, is being very neutral about it. Because if I, if I just think it's a complete waste of time, and I'm writing it off, I'm probably not finding these ways of using it to have conversations about skill or skill building. And thus, it kind of creates this gap between like, oh, all these worthwhile things around that, obviously.

And then, like video games are over on the side and it's this thing kids really like, we're kind of like ignoring them. And that just creates this big discrepancy. So yeah, I think absolutely and we can do that in lots of ways we can, if they're having difficulties in the game, we can draw comparisons to the real world, if they're having difficulties in the real world, we can draw comparisons to the game, right? Like the kid who's struggling to learn a new skill and some sport or discipline, we can draw comparisons to how they overcome and deal with things or trying to learn and do in a video game and what they do and how they get over that. Because it is, it is still the same skill, right? It's not done in the same way. But it's still the same idea, I have to try something many times I have to overcome disappointment And frustration, I have to take feedback like all of those, those are all happening, regardless of the medium chatting, that can be really helpful. And it also shows our kids that we are paying attention. And that even if we don't play their games with them, or we don't really like them, that we can still see their their value to our kids, and the value that they can potentially give our kids for other things, I think that can be really powerful.

Yeah, I also saw some research on cooperative games, and that they can have a real benefit on sort of the self-regulation aspect and instead of lower levels of psychological distress, like depression, stress, that kind of thing was associated with playing those games as well. So that that was interesting that it can vary based on the type of game that's played and on who you're playing it with, as well.

You know, in our house, we try to be value neutral about screens. And we want them to have a healthy relationship with technology, because it will be a part of their lives forever. Because as we discussed before, it's so dysregulating to them. I'm just wondering how you help your kids make that distinction? And how do you talk about it with them?

You I draw a lot of comparisons to food, because I think there's been a real big shift, and how a lot of caregivers are trying to talk about food in the you know, compared to maybe how we were raised talking about food, this idea of good food and bad food and junk food and all of that and kind of more division of responsibility and, and more intuitive ways of eating even for kids. And it can be hard to feel like you're being neutral about something when there's when there's still some sort of hierarchy of at some point, right? Like, okay, yes, I'm not going to put value on Cheetos versus apples, but like, I eventually I would not like my child to only eat Cheetos, right. And I think that's sometimes the fear of like, Oh, if I treat them as neutral, then I am essentially like treating any condition of it as neutral. And I don't think those are necessarily true, like I think that being neutral about the value of something is not necessarily the same as like condoning any any boundary or lack of boundary with it. Like I'm not I'm neutral about like my chat, my child's currently in the like, I want to read independently phase, which is fantastic. I'm very glad to be in this part of life, happy to be here not complaining. We've been doing a lot of like, standing And waiting in line, like we were at amusement parks.

And last year it was like, oh, no, like, how do we fill? 30 minutes, right? And this year, my kid is like, can I read my like, okay, great read, right? So people are seeing my kid on a phone a lot right now. I'm like, they're reading a book. Like, I'm not gonna complain about this. But my kid has been reading a lot like yesterday between like travel and standing in line, my kid probably read for like two and a half hours yesterday. And there are times where my kids would just sit in their room and read, like, undisturbed and not moving for like, a long time. And be that neutral and validity of different kinds of activities kind of works in reverse because sometimes I'm like, if you were sitting and playing video games for an hour, I'd be like, we need to do something else, you know. But if they said read a book, we're like, Oh, yay, you know, but that, but sometimes that can still lead to some of those same things of like, yeah, if I sat And read for an hour, And I didn't move and didn't do anything else, like, yeah, eventually, I'm gonna need to get up, like, I am gonna get kind of grumpy and stiff. So sorry, I've lost the thread here.

But the being that neutrality doesn't have to be a lack of boundaries around it, I can still have neutrality and still have boundaries, much like, the Cheetos can be a perfectly neutral food compared to the apples, but I might, you know, serve them less or have fewer on a plate, they can still have more, but I'm not, you know, serving them in the same kind of way. And, you know, my kid can probably read for a couple hours a day, they're not going to be able to be on screens for the same amount of time that I would be okay with them eating throughout the day, for many reasons. But I don't need to necessarily frame it is like, well, that's because reading is better for you. Right? That's not necessarily helpful to them. All I'm doing that it's just inviting us to compare the two things, which is not going to help anybody, let's least of all me, right? But just talking about like, hey, you know, whatever amount you decide is that amount that works for you. Like, oh, we we've done that already today, like we've reached our max screen time today. And now we can do XYZ other things. And if you have a kid is old enough, you think to have those conversations, I mean, you can frame it however you approach or however you'd like. But I think being coming from a place of we want to make sure that this is one part of our lives, that we're doing other things and even asking them up, like how would you know that this is the right amount of the wrong amount? Like what would feel like? What how would you think? What would happen? What would happen to make you think like, oh, this is not good, actually like? Or what do you think I'm noticing that makes me think that or here are the things I want to make sure you have in your life and when we'll make sure all of those things happen? Maybe it's giving them a little bit more control of like, okay, it's Saturday, and we want to make sure these general categories of thing happened today. When would you like these things to happen? How would you like your day to work? So they're thinking about kind of planning all those things out, but keeping into account the fact that these things always have to coexist with other things. So as we can, we can be neutral, and about the value, we can still be neutral about boundaries, and those things can all I think they can coexist.

I really like how you share the responsibility when it comes to setting limits around streams, we try and do that in our house too. But I find that it's really hard because of all the dysregulation that is happening and the impact that that has on our family. So we have definitely set up our own parental limits because of the impact. Because we have given them the opportunity to try and self-regulate and discussed with them and it hasn't really happened yet. And I'm wondering, you know, maybe more detail how you handle limits around gaming.

I have said for a long time that I think that the right amount for a family is an amount that's working for everyone in a family. I think that's really important because sometimes adults will be like, well, if I let them gain that's all gonna want to do and and I say like yes, and you don't have to say yes to that. And I think we hope that self regulation is an eventual place that they get because you know, there are going to be adults living independently. Yes, we do want that. And I draw my mental comparison as to something like riding a bike, which is a think not something that people would think of as an immediate comparison. But my emphasis in that comparison is that is basically skill. This is a skill based thing, being able to regulate is a skill, And it's a complex set of skills that we want our kids to have. And being able to have that skill independently is something that takes practice and time. But also, there's like, there's sort of a shift of the onus of the responsibility. So, you know, thinking even something about like riding a bike, you teach your child to ride a bike, you know, your child, someone on the bike, but the majority of the responsibility is still technically on you, you know, you're, you're holding the seat, or you're guiding them, and you're the one making sure that they're staying safe. And we probably have them with maybe training wheels, and also, you know, elbow pads and like, they're very, very protected. And then we move slowly, right toward this eventual goal of them riding independently, you know, with a helmet on and going and exploring.

And all those little steps you can think of, of the kind of montage of getting from point A to point B, it would take a long time, less time than somebody like this with video games, but still, it would take a long time. And the responsibility is shifting over to them right there. Because they're gaining the ability to have to have that responsibility. You know, they're they are gaining the skill of balancing, so then they don't need us to, you know, keep them balanced anymore. That's a skill. So if our goal is eventually self-regulation, then my question to myself would be, what ways am I giving them to practice this specifically a specific skill within this in a way I think they can currently handle? Right? So if I'm like, Okay, I'll let them you know, just be in control of turning it off but they still need to be turning it off, like within my parameters, right? If they can have an hour on it a day, and I'm like, okay, it'll be their job to keep track of the time, well, if they really completely blow past that, and are like completely unaware. And then we're arguing because they didn't keep track of time but to me, that would be a sign of like, Oh, that was too much like we went too far. And let's back up, because no, if it's way past their ability, right? No amount of doing that, and failing is going to magically just make them be able to do it. Right. It's a skill. So okay, it would be like if I let go of the back of the seat, and they fall over, if I immediately like, oh, well, let's do that again. That's fine, it's probably not going to, it's not going to happen differently, right? And you're not going to magically be able to balance by me allowing them to fall over 10 times in a row. Instead, we would change what we're doing. And I'm not trying to imply that's what you're doing here. I'm speaking just generally. But if instead it were like, okay, so I said that you could have it up to an hour and you blew past it today. Today, it's an hour, and like, we'll have a timer to help you monitor how long it's been. And you can let me know when the timer goes off. Right? Or maybe, you know, you can decide when this time falls throughout the day, but you're going to use your timer.

I really appreciate that bike analogy, Ash actually, And I am seeing in a new light at some of the ways that we have been using those tools without even sort of cognitively realizing what we were doing. And Nicole, I know you've you've been around my work for a long time. I'm wondering, have you ever done an unlimited screen time experiment? I know it's been talked about in our communities a lot.

Per your suggestion I have okay, because I I wanted to see if I also did know how yours went. But yes, that probably and you can speak to that but not was not how ours went.

Ok let me tell mine first and then you can say how yours. So we did this beginning pandemic when my daughter was like 5 1/2. She was wondering always more time on screens more time on screen. So we said okay, well let's see if you can do this right. Let's see if you can regulate this for yourself and find a balance between spending time on screens and doing other things. And so I picked an amount of time I picked a month because to me that felt like for a 5 1/2 year old it was an amount of time that they were not going to be like Okay, we're almost at the end and I'm gonna get every last moment of screen time I can out of this because it's going to come come to an end, I wanted to feel really expansive to her. And it was that I got more work done that month than I ever have in my life before. And towards the end of the month, we're sitting next to each other on the bed, and I'm working and she's on screens. And I said, you know, how are you doing? Do you want to take a break, and she her eyes stuck to the screen and she's trying to turn her head to me without taking your eyes off the screen. She's like, I want to stop but I can't. And at that point, it is crystal clear. We are at the me holding the seat stage of this journey. We are nowhere close to the her riding by that by herself stage. So Nicole, no, I'm curious as to how your experiment went.

I admire you for taking a full month to do that. I think ours probably lasted about a week and a half. And I printed out a calendar so that we could take some data because I thought from day to day, we wouldn't remember how we were feeling at the end of screens when we decided to come off of them. And just so we could have some sort of like happy face, sad face, maybe neutral face, and because all of those days ended in a lot of meltdowns, we decided to end that a bit earlier than you and decide that we are on the we probably shouldn't even be on a bike right now.

Let's stick with walking or scooting.

And then I felt very confident about the limits that I was setting in that moment.

Yes, yes. And that that to me is what's really helpful, right? And you got to the same place I did coming out of it, which is that okay, now I know that limits are required that you cannot do this by herself. And then we repeated the experiment again, like annual intervals, she would ask to do it again. And she's just turned 10. And we lost it just like six months ago. And she's now pretty much managing it for herself. So we lasted a two to three week experiment around Christmas. And, and yeah, she she did it she she did it for up to about the limit that we've been doing. And then she would stop and go and do something else. And it's not perfect. And we do still remind her and you know, how much have you done today? What's your plan for the rest of the day kind of thing. So we're still kind of like, in the same vicinity. As the bike she's not completely, you know, going off on a 20 mile ride by herself yet. But but she is riding. She's riding.

And so Ash, I guess I'm curious, have you ever tried anything like that? Like, how does that fit with your the way that you approach limits on on gaming with your child?

Well, so I haven't tried it personally, especially during the year like during the school year. I, I am like selfish. Like, there's a there again, it's like, how do we make this work for everyone in the family? And right now, I'm like, No, I needed at this certain time, like for me. And I also need that time to be time that won't be too demanding of my attention. In case it's, you know, just too long. And all of a sudden, I need to really switch on to being very present. Currently, I'm like, No, I kind of need like that dedicated chunk of time to make sure dinner's done and things are kind of accounted for at the end of the day. And right now like that, I need that, like, consistently enough that I don't, I don't want to bring it in a variable that might mess with that. But on weekend days, I could see that may be happening. My kid would probably be very happy to try this. But I I do think it's interesting, because essentially, you know, it's all different ways of trying to accomplish the same thing, right. And you're, you're both talking about how, you know, kids are going to reach that at different places. And part of how we determine whether or not they've reached it is by is by letting go right is by seeing if they can balance on their own. And that is hard. Right. And I think it's great that both of you, I think that taking the data is so important, even just the little, you know, thumbs up or thumbs down. Just you have something to look back on. And I think also giving it time for both both of us both to that I think is so important. Because I think we would hope that, oh, if I do the unlimited thing, maybe they'll just like, take care of everything. Maybe it'll just be the mat, the switch will flip and it'll be great. And it might for a couple of days because as you mentioned Jen, just be happy to be able to have it as much as they want and probably exceed way more than we would like but they'd be thrilled and then we're like, okay, maybe this is gonna work after all. But giving it time for things to adjust, I think is also really important. And sometimes you do that.

And I think what's interesting is you both kind of came to the same conclusion of like, we're not ready for this, but you kind of came to it from different places. Right? Because from the outside, Jen, it sounds like actually, people would have maybe looked at your daughter and thought, this was working fine, right? Because you were getting work done, she was quiet, but you still knew like, Okay, you could still tell, she can actually stop on our own. It's just the way that's manifesting is different than Nicole, you are coming to the same conclusion. But you're just seeing it in two different ways. But I think that's really interesting that it technically didn't work it worked in the same, you know, kind of outcome, but gonna see it in different ways. Because kids are different, because kids and their brains are different. And sometimes you get a kid who might have the introspection to be like, I want to stop, but I can't. And sometimes you're gonna have a kid who can't who will not have that introspection because they probably don't actually want to stop. And they would like to keep going. And it's not serving them well. And I think all of that. Like, that's not to me, that's not failure. To me, it's just more information. And then it's another way of talking to our kids about like, what have we learned? Right, like, Okay, we put, we put a thumbs down or a frowny face, but like, why did it feel good? We've had the conversations like that similarly, in my household lately of just like, hey, days that you say that your mood is like this.

We're also noticing this, you know, is there any relationship here just to, again, start that skill building of getting them aware of it? Because then hopefully, we can transfer some of that responsibility from us to them? Like you said, Jen of, Okay, what's your plan for the day? How is this going to fit in your day? That's definitely a thing I would like to be able to say to my preteen, or early teenager, what's your plan for the day? And part of how to get there is having these opportunities to kind of figure out what they can and cannot currently manage on their own?

Yeah, yeah, we definitely don't look at it as success or failure. It was all success. It was just what information did it give us for sure.

Ash, you admitted that using screen time is important to you, as much as it is important to your child. And I'm wondering if you ever have to deal with guilt as a parent for using screens as a break or a time for you to get things done?

I think that guilt, and that potential feeling of shame is a huge reason why we even have these conversations about the value of screens at all. You know, we mentioned data at the beginning of research and I think that's absolutely a part of it. But I honestly think that the data and research part is, frankly, kind of a distraction. Because even if you show people like all of the data in the world, and you can say like, look at all of these meta analyses, and they refute all of this, suppose at negative outcome, people will still come back to like, but it's still not good. Right? And

I noticed brought that in your conversation.

Yeah.

He was like, yeah, all the meta analyses of it, but I'm still not going to let my kids play violent video games.

Right. I heard that you I've really listened to that since and that like, yeah, that was interesting. But yes, we still find we all have some discomfort threshold somewhere. But I think for many parents will still be like, but it's still but they still shouldn't be doing it. And I think right underneath that is, if we really try to interrogate the why I think it's because we don't always value leisure, that's just leisure. But I also think that as parents and caregivers, we see this extreme responsibility that we take very, very seriously, which I think is a good thing, that we take it seriously. But we we do want to do, right by our kids. We don't want to screw up, we don't want to do the wrong thing. And if we allow them to do something that is, you know, "wasteful," that could be filling in for a "better" use of their time more productive could be giving them a skill for their future selves. Right? If if we fill that in with something wasteful, like screens or gaming, then I'm failing them as a parent, right? Because I'm not providing absolutely everything I could be providing. And I think that that is there's you can't win. Like there's there's no way you can win when that's how you're framing it. But I like to flip it and say you know screen should benefit everybody in a family. Because if an adult is using a screen to help meet the needs of their family themselves, right? That is going to benefit your child. If screens are allowing me to make dinner, which is true, in my household. That's often what I use it for. It's not just allowing me to make dinner, right, it's allowing me to to make a meal I probably wouldn't be able to make otherwise. It's allowing me to also, you know, do all the other things that happen when one makes dinner, you know, packing lunches or, you know, going through the fridge or wiping the counter, right, it's allowing me to do some household labor and household tasks. It's sometimes allowing me time to, like, decompress from my own day, because otherwise I wouldn't have a chance.

So my kids on screens, I'm putting in an air pod, And I'm listening to a podcast. So I can like, have a moment to myself. So that when I've made dinner, and now we're gonna have a meal, I'm more regulated, my kid might be more regulated, like they've gotten a break, right? They've been at school all day long being told what to do all day long. They also probably want a break. And that break doesn't have to be a screen, right? It could be something else. But if it is a screen, they're having their needs met. I'm having my needs met. And then we can sit down at the table and have a more pleasant conversation, and I can be more present. And we can all get back. That's benefiting my kid. My kids getting a better parent, because they watch TV for half an hour. That's a net positive to me. And I think when we try to remove the adult from the conversation, frankly, I think that that actually just compounds the problem, because it implies that adults should not be considered in themselves. And I don't think that's true. Should we center ourselves? No, not what I'm saying. But we can consider ourselves because very often, screens are filling in for a gap that we should not have to be filling. Right, we will have to present caregivers. We don't have affordable childcare. We don't have outdoor access. e don't have all the all these other things we might need to meet our needs. We face a lot of systemic inequalities, particularly marginalized people, And something has to fill in. And so the screens filling in, I don't think it's good that we have a gap, I would much rather we not have them. But I would much rather that be filled with something that keeps a child safe, that an adult can potentially monitor And also pay attention to and use as a way to connect with their child, even if it's at the dinner table conversation. I'd much rather that's happening than a parent getting so dysregulated that they can't, you know, maintain composure for their kid or a child doing something that could be unsafe screens or filling in those gaps, that's going to happen so we can allow that to happen in a way that's going to benefit all of us. Because if it's not benefiting all of us, including us like if you're getting so dysregulated that I can't make dinner, then it's not working for us anymore.

And then that's an invitation to get back into the conversation, right? We're not just gonna say, Well, I have to let them have screen time because I have to make dinner, right. But I don't have to allow screen time, that's going to make it impossible for me to make dinner. Right? If I can't do that, then we can have that same school based conversation that I this is not a game. It's available right now. It needs a lot of my attention. I have to make dinner and I cannot be over here so today you can play X or Y. And if it's really important to you that you'd be able to play Z, here are the things that I would need to be able to see. So that we can do that. And we can practice that on another day. So it's so much interweaving of those conversations, the skill and the value and the way we look at it so that hopefully, it's benefiting us and our kids, giving them some skill.

Yeah. And I just want to say I can imagine parents listening to this thinking, okay, yeah, making dinner, that's me being productive. I can imagine feeling guilty about that. But I pretty often, my daughter was a toddler would stick her in front of a screen so I could take a nap. Knowing that I would be a better parent at the end of that half hour in bed. That I would be if I didn't get that. And so I just also want to give parents permission that this does not have to be productive work that you are doing while that kid is on screens. Right? You also have permission to take care of yourself as well.

I'm so glad you brought that up because yes, yes, we talked about how like, everyone deserves leisure and it's okay if kids are doing this just for leisure. And you're right. So often then the conversation is like, but you're using their leisure for productivity. But you're right. It can be both.

Yeah, a friend of mine when I told I was going to be here today, asked me if you had any thoughts on the way that intrinsic motivation versus extrinsic motivation shows up in games. Because when we externally reward we know that intrinsic motivation to possibly do other things decreases. Do you see that coming up with gaming and how might we address that so that gaming is useful and doesn't diminish that intrinsic motivation?

Oh, for other things Oh, that's, that's an interesting way of phrasing that question. Okay. So the way I would probably answer that question, and I'll like wrap back around. But I think that's interesting, because that kind of assumes that, that it's like a pie, you know, that there's like a finite amount of intrinsic motivation. And that if we like, if we give too much to games that can't go somewhere else. And, And there, I think there is an amount that's true to that I mentioned earlier, or a different part of the conversation, I mentioned that games can easily provide what we call what is called the these satisfying these needs. These basic psychological needs. This is self-determination theory, from Deci and Ryan, talking about what leads to intrinsic motivation. And they say that it's, you know, feeling these needs getting satisfied of competence, autonomy, and relatedness. And Ryan then went on to write a whole book about how this shows up with gaming with another researcher, and as talked about how gaming provides these things in many, many ways. And that's not a bad thing, right. Any activity that provides those things makes us feel intrinsically motivated, which means we're doing it because we genuinely enjoy it, not because we have to, but because we we love it. And we love intrinsic motivation, I should say like in education, and we love it as adults, if we saw our kids doing something like soccer, or knitting, or learning the cello, but as soon as they have that intrinsic motivation for something like video games, now, the video game is addicting them.

And I just think it's so interesting how we frame that, because actually, psychologically, no, it's the same thing. It's satisfying their needs. And it's doing so it's doing so in a way that tends to be more dense than analog activity, because the feedback is really consistent and frequent. And so it's a, it's a dense activity of satisfying those needs. But that's it's not fighting against other activities. And I think the more that we are willing to acknowledge that video games can satisfy those needs, we actually can help our kids find other things to satisfy those needs. It's sort of ironic, the more that we kind of resent the fact that video games might be satisfying that the less likely we are to point out the needs that It's satisfying to our kids, because that would feel like we're condoning it, right. If I say, Oh, wow, you did so much. You're accomplished. Then I feel like I'm praising the game. So if I think games are a waste, I'm not going to do that. Well, the irony is, then I'm probably not going to point out to my kid, the other things they could be doing to also make them feel that way. And so then my kid is going to think if I want to feel good, then I should play games. And that's absolutely the opposite of what we want. So we don't want kids to think the only way I can feel these things is through playing a game. We wouldn't want that them to think that about anything, right. But we don't want that for many reasons. One of which is it is such a dense experience that it is easy for there to become this discrepancy between gaming and other parts of their lives because the the learning curve is going to be different. So it might not feel the same. And that's okay. But if we notice that they're working really, really, really hard at a task in the game. And like you mentioned earlier with like risk tolerance or frustration tolerance. If we notice then that they are trying a little bit in a craft kit, and then they're abandoning it, we can try to make that same comparison and say, I know you can do this. I've seen you not give up, you don't give up when you're playing Mario Odyssey or whatever.

And make that comparison and and try to kind of get them into think of it in the same way. What can we do differently this time? We're going to try this time, so that when they hopefully feel some success and an analogue activity, we can praise it the same way we would have with any other skill. And so then we're showing them, oh, I can feel this in other parts of my life, will it feel the same? No, it probably will not feel the same. But lots of things we do make us feel those things in different ways. So I think the more that we can be able to view games again, neutrally, we're more likely to see these actual kinds of skills that they might be getting. And then we can draw those comparisons to other things, to help them realize that actually, this is just one part of their lives. It's not the only thing that's gonna help them feel this way. They might like it more than other things. That's okay. You know, I like certain ways of feeling and getting that feelings and others. It's okay. But it's not the only one, because when it's the only one then it's the only thing they can turn to it. That's the only way they can feel related to other people are in control, and they're always going to want to turn to that it's like the lowest hanging fruit. And then that's when we can, you know, see their attention kind of get focused myopically on one thing and feel like they're getting preoccupied. But when we can draw those comparisons to other things, then they can find other ways of, of meeting those needs and having variety.

Nicole, I'm also wondering, I see a lot of parents who have this idea that extrinsic motivation means rewards. And so intrinsic motivations means motivation means not rewards. And so I think it comes up a lot in like household chores, right? Like, I don't want to reward you for doing chores, I want you to be intrinsically motivated to do chores. But that's kind of not what intrinsic motivation means, right? As you alluded to this, intrinsic intrinsically motivated means I'm doing it for the love of doing it. Some of us do household chores for that reason, but not many of us. And so just because we're in this kind of reward-based environment within a game doesn't necessarily mean your kid, if you cut that off, your kid is suddenly going to want to do chores. And I would say the other piece of evidence that's relevant to that is, is related to food. Interesting. And we've talked about, I said that the correlation between food and video games, is that when you make a food, sort of a gateway, make vegetables and Gateway food for getting dessert. The kid ends up hating vegetables more, and liking dessert more.

And so if we bring that to video games, right, if you're using video games, as a reward for chores, they're probably going to end up disliking the chore more and liking the video game more so. So I think that that those are two really relevant pieces of the the ways that we can approach intrinsic motivation and the research on intrinsic motivation. So I hope that answers your your friend's question.

Should we close with one I know you, we have so many more questions that we're not going to get time to to cover? Do you want to close with one last burning question?

I guess it would be how do you model your own gaming and screen time around your family?

I think that's I'm so glad that we're getting to touch on that one. I think that that is like the secret sauce that people forget, is so so powerful. I see a lot of calls lately for like adults to never be on their phones around their kids. And I have kind of pushed back against that, for many reasons. But one of them being that, you know, if if we're told that we can't use screen time to meet our needs, then okay, if our kid is playing independently in some other way, now, I can't meet my needs, if I need to, you know, use my phone for any one of hundreds of like domestic labor tasks, or invisible labor that might be needing to get done. And that just does not make sense to me. You know, I don't think that 30 years ago, if an adult were sitting on a bench at a park reading a novel, I don't think that people would have been judging them for that. But we see an adult on the phone while their kid is at the park. And we're like, oh, like if they just can't, they don't care at all. And say we have no idea they might actually be reading a book, right? Or they could be doing myriad things to keep their household afloat, because they don't have time to do it otherwise, and their child is safe and having fun and independently playing and also not on a screen in that given moment, which is supposed to be what we want. Right?

And but I think it's so interesting that there's this call of like, just never be on your phone, because essentially what that is, is abstinence education. Right? We're abstaining from showing them any model of healthy technology balance in an adult's life. Because like, in my household, for example, if my kid didn't see me on my phone, they would do, they would quite literally, like never see me on technology, because their screen time and my screen time don't overlap. Like I'm not watching TV with them. So if they didn't see me interacting with my phone, they would think that I just don't use technology, like they know, I watch TV at nighttime, but they don't really see it. So I think it's really, really powerful for us to name many things with our own technologies. I think naming the purpose of why you're using it is really important, particularly because the kids see the device and they see fun, right? We see a phone and we see, honestly not very much fun, right? We see email and grocery lists and banking and whatever, right? I think naming the purpose is really, really important. I'm not advocating for like ignoring my child when we're trying to be connected, right? And there are moments where my child wants my attention or needs my attention and something is urgent. Right now. My spouse and I are often not in the same place physically at the same time. So there's a lot of me being like, I have to text other parents right now. Like, I have to do this I'm going to do this and then I'm going to put my phone away. And then I will continue this conversation with you.

I've just naming what I'm doing and I'm for what purpose and why, like just giving them that little bit of information, just so they know my adults, I'm just like ignoring me, right? And also naming that I'm doing this for a given purpose. And I'm doing this, so our household continues to run or whatever. And they can kind of see the work that's happening there. The other thing I think is so important to model with technology use is if we want our kids to be able to, you know, we've talked about self-regulating, we want to be able to self-regulate, they have to see us self-regulate and self-regulating is not abstaining, right, it's not just not doing it. So I have, when I have had the time to, you know, be on a device alongside of my child, like they're playing games, sometimes I will sit down and play games next to them, or I'll be on my phone next to them, or I'll use my computer next to them, and I will just name, whatever I am doing mentally might be executive function of like, oh, I need to get up in five minutes to, to put dinner on the table. I'm going to finish up this email, and then I'm going to get up, like, I've just noticed the time I'm reminding myself, I need to get up in five minutes. Just naming that out loud, so that they don't think that I just magically get up and I'm controlled, you know, in some way.

And same thing with the difficult emotions that can come up from screens, or using screens to to cope with a difficult emotion, right, one or the other. So there was some day where I was sad, for some reason, like just in a in a funk. And I said to my kid, like, I just I am sad, I don't feel great today, I kind of want to distract myself. So I'm gonna play some Zelda. They were like resting in their room. And I did like half an hour. And then I said, you know, I, I feel a little better. I still feel sad. Like, this did not fix my problem. And part of me wants to keep playing, but I know that we let go about our lives. And this didn't seem to help that much. So I don't think doing more is gonna help either. So I'm gonna pause, and I want to go take a walk while you ride your bike with me. Right? So there's so much there. We can model variance. We can model emotional regulation or literacy of those things. And show them the limits that we might put for ourselves to just have that model in place for them to because so much of what our kids learn from so many things about so many things is from our modeling. So I think scripting some of that and making some of the invisible visible to them, I think can go a long way, in their eventual digital literacy too.

Yeah, 100%.

Definitely. Yes.

I'm definitely going to be doing that.

Yeah, I mean, it's such a such a small but significant step right of actually saying what you're doing instead of, it's so easy just kind of disappear in your phone for half an hour or an hour or whatever and then not say anything to your kid about it. But instead noticing, oh, yeah, this, this is how it has helped me to shift my mood or not. And so I'm going to try something else. And do you want to kind of do this with me. I mean, that that, I have not done that. And I will be starting to do that from now on. So.

Putting some accountability, which I think can be really helpful to have, like, sometimes you can even model of like, it's gonna be really hard for me, like I'm telling, I'm saying out loud. I, I'm going to spend five more minutes wrapping this up, and then I'm going to be done to put in that accountability. And then they'll I mean, kids will love to keep you accountable. Right, then they can then they have a job.

Yes, they do. Well, thank you, firstly to Nicole for suggesting this interview. We you've suggested it. We got it on the calendar, we got it recorded in record time. So that's an incentive to other folks who have ideas for episodes. So thanks, Nicole. I really appreciate it.

It was such a pleasure to be in this space with both of you, because I admire both of your work so much. So thank you for inviting me to be a part of this.

Awesome. And double thanks to Ash for interrupting your vacation to be able to be with us today and illuminate a lot of ideas around screen time that maybe we hadn't considered before. So thank you so much for being here for doing the work that you do in the world. Do you want to tell parents where they can find you? I know you're big on Instagram.

Yeah, yeah, I pretty much. Just look on Instagram at the Gamer Educator. And you can find me there talking all these things, and sometimes a bit more technically. So if you're like, how do I put in limits or you know, settings or whatever, like, I delve into all of that, too. So if you think it'd be helpful for me there at the Gamer Educator, And thank you so much for it. It's such a great conversation.

Yeah, and you're welcome. And so all of the references for the things that we talked about today as well as link to ashes Instagram handle can be found at YourParentingMojo.com/GamerEducator.

Hi, this is Jess from Verlis, Panama. I'm a Your Parenting Mojo fan and I hope you enjoy this show as much as I do. If you found this episode, especially enlightning are useful, you can also donate to help them produce more content like this and also save us from those interminable mattress ads. Then you can do that and also subscribe on the link that Jen just mentioned. And don't forget to head to YourParentingMojo.com to record your own message for the show.