S4 Episode 3: ReSet Summer Camp - A Digital Detox Experience // Michael Jacobus of ReSet Summer Camp

"The kids that come off gaming…after about a week of good nutrition and good sleep habits, they, they miss their games, but you know, they're fine and they can function.  The kids that are into social media, they derive a lot of their self worth off, how many likes they get…they have a harder time."

-Michael Jacobus

Healthy Screen Habits Takeaway

Resources

For More Info:

https://www.resetsummercamp.com/detox

Resources Mentioned:

Reset Your Child's Brain: A Four-Week Plan to End Meltdowns, Raise Grades, and Boost Social Skills by Reversing the Effects of Electronic Screen-Time by Victoria L Dunckley MD

Show Transcript

Hillary Wilkinson (00:03):

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 3 of the Healthy Screen Habits Podcast. This season, I am all about bridging online to offline pursuits or better yet taking it outside. And right now.  Many of us are realizing as we come off of spring break, summer is right around the corner. A lot of us got used to using online entertainment during the past two years, and now we're having a tricky time convincing kids to get offline and head outside. However, pandemic aside, this is not a new problem, which brings me to our guest today. In fact, in the summer of 2018, he started the world's first clinical summer camp program for teens and adolescents suffering from unhealthy overuse of screen time, social media and problematic gaming Reset Summer camp offers a fully immersive clinical program couched in a fun filled summer camp atmosphere. And today I get to talk to the guy who started it all. Welcome to the Healthy Screen Habits Podcast, Michael Jacobus.

Michael Jacobus (01:44):

Thank you, Hillary. I'm happy to be here.

Hillary Wilkinson (01:47):

So let's talk for a minute about summer camp in general. Michael, why is camp important to you?

Michael Jacobus (01:56):

Well, I've been a summer camp director for, um, over 35 years and I started as a camper going to summer camp. And then when I got older, I worked at summer camp and then became a program director and eventually a camp director. Um, I strongly believe that, uh, summer camp experience for kids is something so vital, uh, to get kids out of their normal routines, get them to take some healthy risks in a safe environment, meet people that they wouldn't normally met before and try experiences and activities that they wouldn't normally do at home.

Hillary Wilkinson (02:32):

You are like living a dream. Who wouldn't want to spend their career at summer camp?! I recognize that when you're, when you're directing the summer camp, it's not same thing as being a camper, but

Michael Jacobus (02:48):

It's, it's still a lot of fun.

Hillary Wilkinson (02:51):

Can you explain what reset summer camp is and kind of like, what was the driver for you to create it?

Michael Jacobus (03:00):

Well, what's funny about reset is it was not originally my idea. I was actually going to retire from running summer camps, cause I had done it for over 30 years and I was approached by a colleague at the American Camp Association who knew that I was thinking about being done and said that they had been contacted by a psychologist that was thinking of doing a gaming addiction summer camp program. And uh, I said, why not? That sounds really good. And the long story short of it is, um, the gentleman involved was really more interested in how much money he could make and how many kids he could enroll. And he was enrolling anger management kids and uh, sexual, uh, deviation kids and you know, all kinds of kids that we don't serve at ReSet. And so the first year was kind of a disaster and uh, I told him, you know, I, I can fix this and it's a really good concept.

Michael Jacobus (03:57):

You just need to, you know, kind of get out your head, how much money and how quickly you can make it and, and not accept anger management kids, cuz we're not an anger management program. And um, he didn't wanna do that. And he ended up shutting down his business and I continued with the model that I thought would be best, uh, working with uh, clinicians and therapists and a lot of our staff are PhD candidates or, or therapy interns. Um, so we sort of have a blend of summer camp, fun counselors and therapists who are also, you know, college age. So, uh, it's still a summer camp environment, but there's a lot of therapy around it.

Hillary Wilkinson (04:37):

Okay. my next line of questioning was sort of like what makes reset, um, different from other camp experiences and it's this element of kind of therapy involved?

Michael Jacobus (04:54):

there's three things that make us different than a regular summer camp. Well, four things actually, uh, the first thing is a regular summer camp has kids that are Excel to be there who, uh, you know, came last year and can't wait to come again this year and bring their friends and their cousins and their brothers and sisters and swim in the deep end and all kinds of, you know, traditional summer camp things this summer camp, uh, virtually not a single kid is excited to attend. Uh, they are, uh, I, I don't like to use the word forced, but maybe for of a better option, they, they pick us over a wilderness experience or a therapeutic boarding school experience. Um, we're we kind of don't fit a summer camp model and we don't really fit a therapeutic boarding school model we're sort of in the middle.

Hillary Wilkinson (05:36):

Okay.

Michael Jacobus (05:36):

The other things that make us difference is we do have clinicians on staff, all the kids participate in group therapy, three mornings a week, and individual therapy kind of as needed. Um, the individual therapy is not scheduled. It's very organic and I'm not a therapist, I'm a camp director. Um, but I see therapy happen, you know, on the walk to lunch or sitting on the beach or after dinner, before our evening gathering, you know, it, it's just very organic and the, the therapists pick and choose the kids, you know, going through the whole roster to make sure every kid has access. Um, and then we also, uh, host our program on a university campus, which is different than a traditional summer camp. You know, I do miss the campfires cuz we don't have that. We have a gathering every evening, but it's not around a campfire.

Michael Jacobus (06:25):

Um, but we teach a lot of life skills. One of the reasons we do it on a university campus is we want the kids to be responsible for more than just themselves. You know, they have a, a roommate or two roommates and they have to clean up the room communally. Um, they get a chance to feel what it's gonna be like to move out of mom and dad's house and go to college and, and live in a dorm or rent an apartment and have a roommate. Uh, and then in addition to the therapy and the summer camp activities, you know, we, we teach culinary classes and we teach 'em how to do their our own laundry. You know, things that aren't typical summer camp activities. But our goal is to have them leave the program after being with us for a month as independent, responsible individuals who can take care of themselves, who can cook their own meals, who can do their own laundry, who are responsible for their own rooms, because a lot of the kids who come to are, are not used to doing any of that.

Hillary Wilkinson (07:20):

Right. So it's interesting. Cause it sounds like what you're doing is a lot of competency building, a lot of competency building through chores, which in turn brings confidence.

Michael Jacobus (07:32):

Absolutely a and, and the fun thing for me as, as a, as a camp director is the kids don't really notice they're doing it. You know, they're, they're having fun even though they're reluctant to have fun. The first week is always the hardest cuz none of the kids wanna be there and their sleep patterns are horrible and their eating habits are horrible. Uh, their behaviors at home are horrible and uh, they sort of form a little us against them bond because they, they're not the only socially awkward kid. They're not the only kid who's up till two in the morning playing video games.

Hillary Wilkinson (08:06):

And they're not the only kid that doesn't want to be there probably.

Michael Jacobus (08:11):

Right. So they reluctantly participate the first week. It takes us about a week to get their sleep patterns, you know, set, you know, we, we go to bed at 9:30 and nobody's ready to go to bed at 9:30, but we wake them up at 6:30 and nobody's ready to wake up at 6:30. So it's funny during the staff interviews, I, I really punch that home because, uh, it it's gonna be rough the first week while we get them all on a stables leak kit.

Hillary Wilkinson (08:36):

Sure, sure. I um, I do, don't envy you that first week. I'm thinking of these beautiful, beautiful, uh, camp environments that you're in. And I, at first I was envious, but now I'm going, oh, maybe not so much.

Michael Jacobus (08:54):

It's a very challenging first week.

Hillary Wilkinson (08:57):

We have to take a little break. But when we come back, I am going to ask Michael for some more information about reset summer camp. 

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Hillary Wilkinson:

My guest is Michael Jacobus, founder of Reset Summer Camp, an internationally recognized author, child development specialist and camp professional. So Michael, before the break, we were talking about how your campers come to you not necessarily because they want to be there, but it's my understanding that most parents sign them up. And I even understand that not every applicant gets accepted. Can you talk a little bit more about your screening process and why that exists?

Michael Jacobus (09:49):

Yeah, absolutely. Um, we have, uh, I think it's about 35 questions. Anybody can apply to come to camp. The application process is completely free and you answer the 35 questions and then those answers go to our clinical staff who review them and then schedule a phone call with the parent who filled out the application and then they will set a time, have a phone call and go over how they answered those questions to make sure we have a real clear picture on who the camper is that they want to send. Um, it's not hard to get accepted into our program, but kind of like I said before, the break, if there's, uh, anger management issues, um, you know, we, we turned down a mother, um, two summers ago who said the police have been to her house three times for her 12 year old who came at her with a knife because she turned off the wifi.

Hillary Wilkinson (10:42):

Oh.

Michael Jacobus (10:43):

And you know, that, that exists, that that happens. But we are not a camp program for that kind of kid that, that requires much more intensive treatment than we can do in a summer camp environment. Even though we have a three to one camper to staff ratio, we're, we're a pretty small program, very heavy staffed. Uh, but, but still we can't handle, you know, excessive anger management issues. Um, also, um, I, you know, I call it sexual deviations if there's, uh, um, sexual misconduct in the child's past, we don't really want them in a dorm situation where it might happen. Again, we are a co-ed program, although we, uh, tend to have a higher, uh, capacity of boys than girls. Uh, boys are usually the gamers girls are usually the social media kids, but that's not always the case. Um, so, you know, I kind of leave that up to the clinical team to, uh, address the answers to the application, to determine if the child is a good fit.

Michael Jacobus (11:40):

And it's also to, you know, there's no nice way to say this. It's also to screen out liars, uh, because I have in my career found parents that will answer any way possible to get their kid accepted into a program. And then we end up having to send that kid home because the application wasn't correct. And it's horrible for the kid. It's a bad experience for the parents. it's not good for anybody. So we really try to make them understand, you know, if it's okay, if your kid is on medication, it's okay. If your kid has an IEP, it's okay. If, if your kid has, you know, high functioning autism, none of those factors are, are, are reasons to reject the child's application. We just need to clearly understand what we're all getting into.

Hillary Wilkinson (12:24):

Right, I can understand the need for all of the types of screening that you're talking about. And, um, I appreciate you talking about that. You do accept neurodiverse population members and everyone who is, qualified to fit in your camp, but you kind of recognize the lane that you're in.

Michael Jacobus (12:50):

Well, when I first talked about this with our clinical staff, I said, I, I just need to know if the child can complete the program and, you know, participates. And, you know, I, I understand they don't want to, you know, that that's another problem, but, uh, as long as they can physically and mentally participate, understand and gain something from the program, then, then I, I don't have a problem accepting them. And then, you know, over the years, they've added questions, um, based on, you know, kids that we had to send home for one reason or another. And, you know, there's a few more anger management questions on there than there was originally and, and things like that, but it's really the, the clinical staff's call on who gets accepted.

Hillary Wilkinson (13:33):

So just out of my own curiosity, is there a few more anger management questions because you have found a rise in anger management issues over the years, or simply because you recognized, oh, we kind of missed this category?

Michael Jacobus (13:47):

It, it's probably a little bit of both. I, I think the pandemic certainly didn't help with the kids staying inside, um, and, and, you know, going  to school from home and, and talking to their friends online and doing homework online and playing games online and never coming out of their room, that all their, their social, emotional growth has been completely stunted. Uh, and a lot of them act out. Um, but again, you know, acting out is one thing and coming at your mom with a knife is another thing. So, you know, I think we've expanded on the questions and some of the conversation that happens that isn't even on the questionnaire to really dig, dig into exactly what we're looking at when this kid comes to the program.

Hillary Wilkinson (14:29):

Can you talk about what, what are the age ranges that you, you see, you've got both boys and girls coming and what, what are the age ranges of campers?

Michael Jacobus (14:42):

Well, typically we'll accept kids 12 to 19. Uh, two years ago, we did have a 21 year old, uh, last year we had a 20 year old. Um, we, we, and we, you know, if you're 18 or over we house you in dorms, apart from the under 18 kids, um, typically we're a teenager program cuz the whole goal is to get ready for life, right. To get out of mom and dad's house and finish high school and move on and go to college. Um, but we do see a, a certain number of, you know, over 18s that are, you know, doing an extra year of high school or still at home and, and you know, the failure to launch crowd. Um, we sort of made a conscious decision not to go beyond 20, uh, because that's a different, you know, that's an adult program. Right. And my background is, you know, kid summer camp. So we're, we're just gonna stay with teens.

Hillary Wilkinson (15:34):

I like how you've specialized. Um, so when we talk about the sort of dangerous areas of online use, we, we cover the, what we call the big three, which are gaming, social media and streaming and for listeners who are unfamiliar with that term “streaming.”  Streaming refers to continuous watching of any streaming platform, be it YouTube, Netflix, and a lot of times adult content channels. Um, having seen the detox process happen over that first, the whole time, I'm sure your camp, Michael, do you find any one of these areas to be exceptionally difficult for campers to break free from?

Michael Jacobus (16:21):

Um, well the exceptionally difficult one I would say would be the social media connections and, and which is funny because most people would probably expect me to say the gaming. Um, but it's funny because the kids that come off gaming, you know, after about a week of, of good nutrition and good sleep habits, they, they miss their games, but you know, they're fine and they can function.  The kids that are into the social media, they derive a lot of their self worth off, you know, how many likes they get. And, you know, I, I, I asked a question one time, a couple years ago, I said, how many people have ever posted a photo online of themselves and then taken it down within an hour because it didn't get enough likes and every girl raised their hand and most of the boys.

Hillary Wilkinson (17:06):

Sure.

Michael Jacobus (17:06):

Which, which cracked me up being an older person, uh, because I, I put pictures online because I liked the picture because, you know, I like where I was or the experience, not because I care if anybody else likes it, but today's youth it's completely reversed. It's, you know, how, how does my hair look and did I use the right filter? And you know, all these different things. So the withdrawals that the social media kids go through is much more intense than the, the gamers or the streamers.

Hillary Wilkinson (17:36):

So they're almost having to kind of redefine an identity or a sense of self worth without that external validation.

Michael Jacobus (17:46):

Absolutely. And, and one thing that's nice about the camp environment is everybody's in that same boat. Sure. You know, and the girls, you will typically bring makeup, uh, and will tell them you don't need any makeup here. You're you just get to be yourself here. And in that first week, you know, they don't listen and they wear a lot, but after a while they stop wearing it because it's okay because nobody's judging and nobody really cares if they have makeup on it or not, because it's not about what they look like or who they're presenting themselves to be it's about who they really are.

Hillary Wilkinson (18:18):

Nice. Nice. So I find it interesting that your summer camp is four weeks long because that kind of holds hands with length of time prescribed by Dr. Victoria Dunkley the author of Reset Your Child's Brain, which is:  A Four Week Plan To End Meltdowns, Raise Grades and Boost Social Skills By Reversing The Effects Of Electronic Screentime. It's a very long title for an important book, but a very long title. So four weeks is a long time. And I just wonder if you can kind of speak to the length of it and why is it necessary for, uh, four weeks? When, when I think about my family's summer, I think, gosh, if I, if I commit my child to four weeks of a program that that basically is summer, it's not, we're not gonna be able to do much else. So can you speak to the length and why that's necessary?

Michael Jacobus (19:18):

Yeah, absolutely. Um, it's funny coming from a summer camp background, a lot of east coast, summer camps where American summer camping began, uh, it's not unusual for it to be for even six weeks here in C and on the west coast, you know, typically camp is a week and, and you're, and you're gone. Um, I decided on four weeks, um, for a couple of reasons, but mostly from the input of my clinical director, um, kind of doing the math on, you know, the first week is crazy and nobody wants to be here and we're getting all the sleep. So can't be a week week, the second week. They're just sort of coming around to getting used to the sleep habits, getting used to the, but they're not really opening up in therapy yet. The third week they're starting to open up in therapy and the fourth week kind of reinforces everything the first three weeks have done.

Michael Jacobus (20:07):

So we sort of decided that the fifth week would be kind of redone of the fourth week and three weeks would really not be enough. So we decided on four weeks, um, there's, there's also, uh, the possibility that we might expand this program in, uh, you know, and have an east coast location. We had actually planned on doing that, uh, this summer, but it, we put it off till next summer. Um, and based on when kids are getting out of school or have to go back into school, you know, one of the reasons we do pretty much the entire month of July is because most kids and college students who are our staff are available in that month. If you push too far into August, then kids are going back into school. And if you push too far into June kids, aren't out of school yet.

Hillary Wilkinson (20:54):

Right. And this year I think camp runs, July 3rd through the 31st.

Michael Jacobus (21:00):

Yeah. So we start, uh, staff training on June 27th. So we'll have staff there for a week before the kids arrive. And then July 31st is the last day of camp, uh, which we end with a family workshop weekend. So the families will show up on that Friday of the last weekend.

Hillary Wilkinson (21:27):

Okay. So everybody goes home on, well, the campers all go home…

Michael Jacobus (21:32):

The 31st

Hillary Wilkinson (21:34):

Harry Potter's birthday. Which is what I was thinking. Okay. Which is when we know all magical things happen Michael! of course. So there you go. So do you ever, are there ever any instances? I think you've, I think you've already answered this in the philosophy behind the amount of time, but I just, I feel like people are going to want to know, do you ever let people enroll for only half of the time, like do a two week stint or is that?

Michael Jacobus (22:04):

No, we we've. We've had that request many times. Um, and it's funny because the parents usually request it because they have other busy things to do in the summer. And to me, there's nothing more important than detoxing your kid. If, if you've called me in the first place, you have a problem and you recognize that your kid might be a good fit for the program, but you wanna get out early. And, you know, and we also ask, one of our screening questions is can you show up to the family workshop? You know, and if parents can't make it, then we don't accept the application. Now some parents will say they can make it. And then something comes up and, you know, they, they, you know, they'll send one parent or a grandparent. The whole goal of the family workshop is that somebody who will, will be at home with the child when he leaves camp or she leaves camp, uh, can participate. Okay. Um, but no, we've had, you know, can you take younger kids for maybe two weeks? And we thought about doing that a couple years ago, but, but we, like I described the four week program. We really need the four weeks to do the whole program that we do.

Hillary Wilkinson (23:08):

Right. Right. And I think the residential part of it is really important as well. So I was thinking for local people, they might ask, “Oh, can they only go during the day?” 

Michael Jacobus (23:21):

A no, because the social emotional development happens during non-program specific times during sharing a dorm room during, you know, wake up, call, wake up and get out of your dorm room. So, you know, we're not a day camp program. We're not just a midweek program. You can't just pop by on the weekends. It, it doesn't work.

Hillary Wilkinson (23:40):

Right. Right. And I think for people who have kind of bought into what I consider, I'm getting, I'm showing my own biases here, but the, the whole concept of quality time over quantity time, I think, you know, for many years, it was taught that, oh, as long as you've got this intense amount out of quality, then that's that kind of negates the need for, for the quantity of time that needs to happen. But actually the quality is in the quantity of time.

Michael Jacobus (24:18):

Right. And, and one of the first things we tell parents, you know, I communicate with parents during the camp program. And of course during the parent workshop, is that they have to lead by example, you know, all the time, you can't be mad at your kid for being on their cell phone at the dinner table, if you're on yours. Right. You know, you can't be, you can't get your kid to take tech out of their room if tech is in your room.

Hillary Wilkinson (24:37):

I think also having the child gone for a full month would also allow time to kind of maybe reorganize the house if need be. So if you need to get tech out of the bedrooms during that time, that is, that is the month that that can happen. So to support your child in their moving forward, when they come home, you don't want to have had them have this amazing reset experience and come home, ready to work their program and then throw them right back into a bedroom. That's got, you know, the screens, the chargers, the everything online.

Michael Jacobus (25:23):

Yeah, exactly. We tell all the parents to do that while their kids camp. And we tell the kids at camp that when they go home, their home environment will be different or should be different.

Hillary Wilkinson (25:33):

So do you receive, um, follow up feedback from families and campers after they leave?

Michael Jacobus (25:40):

Uh, well, we do an eight week, uh, follow up with, with each camper or each family, uh, which is to say one of our staff will video chat or a phone call each camper once a week for eight weeks after the program. And really that's a check in it's to see if they're maintaining what they learned at camp. If they made that meal, they learned how to cook. If they're doing their own laundry, um, you know, it'll, it'll barely get back into the school year. So we're checking to see if they're doing their homework first, before getting online and we'll check in with the families. Now I do get, um, a lot of emails from parents thanking me for, you know, the change we've made in their child. Uh, we had a couple parents want to sign their kids up for the next year, not because they went back to the dark side of, of tech addiction.

But because they really enjoyed the month off and the kid expressed a desire to help the next generation of kids. Oh. Which I was very pleasantly surprised about. And we've even had some, uh, return to be junior staff members. We, we actually had to create a junior staff program for these kids because I, I didn't anticipate anybody would want to come back. I figured they'd, you know, get detoxed and then go to surf camp next year or go to sailing camp. I didn't expect returners. Um, so, uh, you know, we did get a, a lot of positive feedback.

Hillary Wilkinson (26:59):

Well, that's fantastic. And congratulations to you because truly the measurement of success of a program is its durability. And if you are creating people who have gone through the experience and want to continue it for others, I mean, you are successful. So, yeah. Yay You! Um, so I, we've talked a lot about, um, this kind of, you know, building of life skills and therapy and all of this kind of what sounds like a lot of weighty stuff, but I want to make sure that people understand that you do offer, you know, more traditional what we would consider summer camp fun. Could you kind of like go, maybe just like take us through a day? 

Michael Jacobus (27:43):

Oh, sure, sure. Uh, we have, you know, we have beach day once a week where our camp is in Santa Barbara. So one day after breakfast, we all get in the van and go to the beach and, and we don't do any therapy. Well, you know, I say that -  we, the therapist comes with us and I see them talking to kids on the beach, but they don't realize it's therapy. So we're boogie boarding. We're volleyballing, we're playing the guitar, um, we do, uh, we do sports and activities on campus. We swim, we play basketball and volleyball. We do self defense classes. We do improv, like I said, we did cooking. You know, we try to make the life skills portion happen as an expectation, not as a learning activity. Um, because we treat all the kids like adults, even though they're kids, you know, the adults that they will be one day.

Michael Jacobus (28:30):

And so we don't single out any one person who, uh, who has never done their laundry before. We assume we assume nobody's ever done their laundry before. Oh, nice. And I even share a story with the kids that I didn't know what a lint screen was. So I went to college because I lived at home and my mom did my laundry. It doesn't mean I was a bad kid or lazy or way rich, cuz we weren't, it's just how life happened. So it, you know, we try to make sure that it's not an embarrassment for anybody. Um, but like I said, we'll, uh, we'll do art and we'll, we'll play guitar. We'll do yoga. We, we do a ton of summer camp activities in the context of being on a college campus and having it be somewhat therapeutic.

Hillary Wilkinson (29:14):

We have to take a short break, but when we come back, I'm going to ask Michael Jacobus for his healthy screen habit.

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Hillary Wilkinson:

 My guest today is Michael Jacobs, founder of ReSet Summer Camp. And before we get into the healthy screen habit, I know I've got listeners from all over who I'm certain are just leaning for and trying to figure out where is this place? How do I get more information? Um, what's the pricing, all the deets! Can you, can you give them to us?

Michael Jacobus (30:32):

Yeah, of course you can learn everything. Uh, you need to know on our website, which is ReSetSummerCamp.com. Uh, the application button ends in the upper right hand corner. And like I said, it it's free to apply, fill out questions and, and talk to a clinical director. Uh, the camp program itself this summer is at Westmont college in Santa Barbara. Um, we do, uh, request parents drop their kids off, although we are, um, allowing airport pickups at the Santa Barbara airport the day before camp. So that would be, I second, um, the campers should arrive after 2:00 PM on July 3rd. Otherwise, uh, the cost of the program is 82 50 that's $8,250. And before your listeners have a heart attack, I know it sounds expensive. Um, being a summer camp director for so many years, it is very expensive, uh, although not the most expensive for a month of summer camp, however, um, as compared to a residential treatment facility, uh, it's the cheapest game in town. So you really need to sort of weigh the costs and benefits of what it would mean to send your kid to a program like ours for a month, uh, versus, uh, you know, a wilderness program or a therapeutic boarding school, which is considerably longer and considerably more expensive.

Hillary Wilkinson (31:51):

I noticed on your website, there are areas for, um, financial assistance.

Michael Jacobus (31:58):

Yes. Once you're accepted into the program, if you, if you require financial assistance you can apply for tuition help, we'll send you a form and fill it out and send in your tax return and it gets reviewed. Uh, there's also a banking, um, partner that we have that will allow you to set up and make payments. I think for as long as five years, like, like buying a car, um, and, and, uh, the, the fee for the camp, covers everything except the actual transportation to, and from camp for the camper and the transportation and accommodations for the parents, for the family workshop. And I say the accommodations, because there are some limited dorm rooms available at Westmont, but I don't make those plans for parents. Some choose to stay at a local hotel, some choose to stay on site in a dorm room. It, it all really depends on the family.

Hillary Wilkinson (32:50):

Thank you for all that information. And, um, yeah, I certainly understand over pricing. I also recognize that, uh, lots of times this type of investment is cheaper on this side than on the recovery side of follow up. 

Michael Jacobus (33:10):

Absolutely.

Hillary Wilkinson (33:11):

Michael, on each episode, I ask every guest for a healthy screen habit, which is a tip or takeaway our listeners can put into practice in their own home here. I thought you'd be giving us one on like s'mores building and you know, campfire, but you say you can't, you don't, aren't allowed campfires. So that seems cruel and unusual, but do you have a screen habit you can share with us today?

Michael Jacobus (33:40):

Well, I'll share two, actually. Um, the first one is, you know, we, we talk to the kids about the importance of sleep. And of course, when you're a kid, you don't think you need any sleep. Um, so my first screen habit suggestion is to turn off all electronics, at least an hour before bedtime. And that's really to allow your brain to calm down, allow the melatonin to start producing. So you're sleepy and ready for bedtime. Uh, obviously having a good number of hours to sleep -  at least seven or eight, especially when you're a teenager is super important. Uh, but then my other, uh, healthy screen habit suggestion is to not use your iPhone as your alarm clock. Um, if possible, charge your phone, charge your devices outside of your bedroom. We have a lot of parents that will actually put a power strip in the closet of the master bedroom and put a padlock on that door. So at bedtime, all the devices go on the charger and the closet gets locked. Uh, and you know -  two objections that I hear, well, I need my alarm clock or I listen to music, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll lift up my Walmart  $4.95 alarm clock and say, here's an alarm clock. You know, you don't need it to sleep. Right. Uh, we're just so used to it,  is the problem.

Hillary Wilkinson (34:58):

If our listeners would like more information about this incredible four week opportunity.  Or if you are concerned about your child's tech use and would like to take a short quiz for use as an informal screening tool, please visit resetsummercamp.com as always I'll link all of this information in the show notes, which you can find by going to healthy screen habits.org, click the podcast button and scroll down to find this episode, which is season four, episode three. Thank you so much for talking with me today, Michael.

Michael Jacobus (36:06):

My pleasure.