S4 Episode 9: STARTing Summer Right With A Videogame Decision Tree // Tracy Foster of START

S - Start with yourself: model digital health

T - Tables & bed times: keep tech away

A - Accountability

R - Ride, practice, drive: take a Driver’s Ed approach to tech

T - Time well spent: how do you want to spend time offline?

- Tracy Foster

Healthy Screen Habits Takeaway

Resources

For More Info:

https://www.westartnow.org/

Show Transcript

Hillary Wilkinson (00:07):

Today, we get introduced to START an international nonprofit, that equips families to maximize the benefits of technology while minimizing the side effects. So kids can grow up happy and healthy in an increasingly digital world with the podcast screen sanity, as well as tool books and one click parent guides start does an amazing job of helping families choose their path for digital wellness. And my guess today is the co-founder and executive director for this amazing organization. She is going to teach us about the healthy handling of tech as well as go over a tool that I think many will appreciate having a video game decision tree. Welcome to the Healthy Screen Habits Podcast, Tracy Foster!

Tracy Foster (00:59):

Hillary. Thank you so much. We are big fans and so grateful for the opportunity to talk today.

Hillary Wilkinson (01:05):

Oh, likewise! So could you tell us, I'm really interested to hear a little bit. I know you and I spoke earlier, but um, about the background of how, what was the motivation behind you? Co-founding START and like, how did you guys get your start in digital wellness for families?

Tracy Foster (01:24):

Yeah, the motivation was being moms at three different stages who were wondering, what the heck are we gonna do about this? When should we give our kids phones? How should we handle social media? How should we feel about video games? And just feeling like there was a lack of information available when we make most of our parenting decisions. We talk often about how there are usually three routes that we take. One is we ask for elders. And when we asked our elders in this situation, they would give encouraging words or sometimes very discouraging words, like glad I didn't have to do that. Um, but they had never lived it. Right. So the other thing that we do is we go to books. Like we, we were thinking back in our mind to “What To Expect When You're Expecting”. And we are longing for where is the, “What To Expect When You're “Techspecting''!  Because this is something we need to prepare for.

Tracy Foster (02:11):

Right? You read a book like that to try to get a roadmap in a sense of what's coming, just so you can be prepared and have some sense of, of, of, of where you're headed. And then the third thing that we do is we ask friends just a little bit ahead of us. So we hit big red Xs on those first two. And so we thought, great, we're gonna go to those friends just a bit ahead of us. And I don't know if you find this too, Hillary, but typically pick a topic, oh, ranging from babies like potty training or sleep issues up through elementary school, like playground drama or juggling sports. I mean, college processes. You ask these friends just a bit ahead of you. And in general, I think on almost every single topic, you get no shortage of opinions. You might ask three different people and you might get three different opinions, very strong opinions, right?

So for the three of us to go out and say, Hey, we're gonna talk to some different friends. Let's see what they say. And when we went and did that, we did not get the reaction I just described. Instead of hearing ideas, we got these kind of deer in the headlights, very vulnerable, candid conversations saying, I don't know what to tell you to do, but do something different. And here are some of the side effects that I'm seeing in my household that I never expected. And the most startling thing that I think has already just in the past few years, hopefully really gone down, but was shame. The number of people who ended that story by saying, and I've never told anyone that this happened was crushing. It was, it was this awareness of: that was an accident! And how can you heal - one of our co-founders is a therapist-

How can you heal from this? If you're feeling so much shame that you can't go and talk to other people about it. And after we had even just a few, even just once we've had dozens of conversations, we started to see there's, there's commonality here. You're not alone. We are the first generation of parents navigating a life with digital natives. And yes, we're making mistakes, but just like Maya Angelo says, when you know, better, you do better. And we can only know better when we have each other to learn from and to help lift each other up.

Hillary Wilkinson (04:18):

Right. Building that tribe, building that tribe of moms and learning from each other's stumbles. I agree. I think it's equally, just as you pointed out, it's so important that we recognize that we're this first generation of people to be parenting, which is always kind of an interesting verb, but parenting through, through this, you know, digital waters, we are the last generation that will remember the before.

Tracy Foster (04:49):

And that's right. I love that!

Hillary Wilkinson (04:50):

There's power in that  there's power in the knowledge of the before. And it's something that it's critical that we don't lose.

Tracy Foster (05:07):

So you're right. We have a sacred, I don't know, I'm trying to think of a metaphor. Is it like, um, that the thing that Moana has to go recapture that spiral the heart of Tafiti is that what it's called? We have this treasure and we all have it. There's not just one of it of having tasted and known and you're right. It is a treasure that we could easily have get left behind. And even in many ways we do cuz we're here talking about healthy tech for kids, but it starts even with us, even those of us who do have those roots, those life experiences, those memories of going outside and playing in the woods as kids, or having a face to face conversation with a romantic partner as one of our first interactions with them, not just Tinder, you know, we, we have that, but we ourselves even can lose, lose touch of it with all the things that are coming at us. 

Hillary Wilkinson (06:02):

Right. And all of this connection kind of ties into the acronym behind your guy's name of START, which the acronym is stands for Stand Together And Rethink Technology. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And I, I love the emphasis that you have on working through the family relationship with technology as a together thing, as something to embrace and choose this healthy path forward. So, but I'm interested, do you have a top list of things that you find that parents come to you guys for the most help with?

Tracy Foster (06:39):

Yes. Well, I'd say it's probably four things. One is how do I create a plan just at a meta level? What should this look like? And, and there we talk about five general principles. We align in with our name around digital health. Then I'd say the other felt needs are things like, what do I do about  phones, social media and video games are probably the biggest topic, specific things, but at that broader level, um, we think about this as a concept, what we call digital health, just like we think about physical health and mental health. What is our health in this digital world? Cause we're spending a whole lot of time there. And so we, we kind of hijacked our name and came up with five different elements that we think are some key considerations for digital health.

Hillary Wilkinson (07:23):

Very cool. We're gonna get into those five elements in just after our break.

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Hillary Wilkinson (08:07):

My guest is Tracy Foster co-founder of START and mom of two. So Tracy not only is START an acronym for Stand Together And Rethink Technology. It's also a basis for your guiding principles. We were starting to get into that a little bit before the break. And I'm wondering, can you take us, take us through 'em now?

Tracy Foster (08:37):

Yeah, gladly. Well, they do align with the letters of our names. We're gonna do S T A R T but yet another plan on words is that this is all, um, intended not to be a master list of, oh my goodness. I need to do everything on this list or I'll feel bad, but it's just a place to start. So these are some different tenants that you can think about and say, gosh, which one of these really feel like the right next step we find in general on this issue, if you take a simple, next step that feels doable and then you succeed in it and you feel those benefits, that's, what's gonna propel you to do more things. And it's also easier for your family as opposed to going kind of cold turkey on a lot of things and, and feeling intensity that then may not be able to be sustained.

Tracy Foster (09:19):

So they are a place to start. Um, the first one is our plot twist. Start with yourself because we do come into this topic mostly by seeing the challenges that our kiddos are having. Hopefully with empathy, seeing that it is hard for them. It's not just annoying for us, but then realizing, wow, we are the mentors and guides. We are the models here and you know what? I struggle a lot with my own digital health. I am obsessed with productivity and I have a productivity tool that I could carry with me all the time. Oh, what a temptation!  So this is where we help parents think about what the ways are that we can be intentional about, um, thinking about our own tech use, and making sure that that's at the front of our mind when we talk with our kids, our next letter is a T and that stands for tables and bed times.

Tracy Foster (10:06):

And that is the premise of the fact that we are on our devices so much doing a lot of wonderful things for many of those hours, but we just need a break, just like they get to recharge. We say, shouldn't we get to recharge, excuse me. And so we encourage each family or person, whatever your community or individual context is to think about device free zones. And if you're looking for a place to start, we recommend tables and bedtimes. So tables, there's amazing research that shows the benefits of family dinners. You don't need gourmet food, but you need to be able to look at each other eye to eye and have those conversations. It might be awkward at first, but if you press through it’s so good. And then the second one is bed times, getting those devices out of kids' rooms overnight. Oh, we could have a whole conversation just about the power of sleep. And the challenges, impulse control is so much lower.

Hillary Wilkinson (11:00):

Right, right. Establishing a family charging station, but getting the tech out of the bedrooms, I was, I have this conversation so often I feel like people must be bored with hearing it, but it's amazing to me, how many people I still talk to who are hearing it maybe, or maybe it's only resonating with them for the first time. And so I think it's critical that we continue to push forth this message, but the importance of practicing good sleep hygiene, which entails removing digital devices from the bed, the bedrooms particularly of our children is it's just critical. It's. I mean, it will set them up for a better regulated day. I mean, longer health for ourselves, better mental health. I mean the whole family unit gets affected.

Tracy Foster (12:03):

I mean, how grumpy am I when I don't get good sleep?  And so that's what so many of our kids are going through day after day. And we wonder why they're grumpy and moody and all of those things. And like you said, if we could just get better sleep that I think if we could just make this one thing a norm across society, it would be transformative. You know?

Hillary Wilkinson (12:21):

I cannot agree with you more <laugh>

Tracy Foster (12:22):

And they got there accidentally again. Yes. Right. I mean, there's no judgment. It creeped in because sometimes someone wanted to use an alarm clock. Guess what? Our phones they're magical. They're alarm clocks, they're music devices. They're all of these different things. It is actually harder for us as parents to solve those individual needs than to just put a device in there. But we're now realizing, oh, that was easy at the startup, but now it's causing more challenges and it's worth it to go through that work.

Hillary Wilkinson (12:52):

Right. So the price of admission may below, but the cost overall is it is beyond expensive beyond your wildest dreams expensive.

Tracy Foster (13:03):

Yes. And if we do it, where more and more, one of our biggest passions is to raise up communities that are talking about this that are creating some new cultural norms. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so if you aren't the only parent who creates the norm of a charging station and things like that, then it's not gonna be as hard for our kids. They don't have to have FOMO because they're not missing out on anything. Everyone else is sleeping too. Right. And so that's just a huge, huge gift.

Hillary Wilkinson (13:35):

Right. And being the parent being brave enough to be the parent that collects phones during sleepovers and everything else, which is, um, it is so you can feel yourself cringing on the inside and dying a little. And just, I remember the sleepover. It was my son's, I wanna say like 13th birthday. And I had to collect phones because I was like, I know too much. I, I, I am going to die on this hill!  And so I, I came out with my basket and said, “Okay, you guys at our house, we collect all devices at 10 o'clock.” You know, I have to say, my son has done a wonderful job of choosing excellent friends. They all handed them over without fail. And I said, I'll charge them for you overnight, collected everything. And then I have to tell you, it was amazing to see in the next hour, when I just kind of did the “living room walk through”.  That's how our house is set up.

Hillary Wilkinson (14:44):

So it's easy to just kind of be around-ish, you know, mm-hmm <affirmative> and all of a sudden they were, you know, I mean, doing all the goofy “light as a feather stiff as a board” games, they were playing ro-sham-bo. They were playing cards. And without fail, when I asked the boys individually, some of these boys, I had like, you know, outside relationship, you know could chat with easily. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, that was pretty well, how was that for you?  Without fail Every single one of them said the party got better after you collected the phones. And here was the really interesting part, Tracy. The comment was because then the only people that were there were the people who were invited. And I like, it was like the top of my head blew off because I didn't even think about that. It's that digital natives versus digital immigrant thinking, you know, where I was like, oh yeah. Because prior to that, they had their whole tribe, their whole other crew was there and they were having to be on display, you know? 

Tracy Foster (16:00):

You imagine thinking back to your own childhood sleepovers to have those everything you're doing beyond display? 

Hillary Wilkinson (16:05):

No! No.

Tracy Foster (16:06):

It's just unbelievable. I love that Hillary.  I got goosebumps as you shared that story because it is so true



Hillary Wilkinson (16:25):

Such a, such a livable teachable learnable moment. Yes. As a parent and a kid, you know.

Tracy Foster (16:32):

And to get that, to get that reinforcement because it is hard, like you said, you had to be courageous. Oh yeah. And you did it in a winsome engaging way, but Brene Brown talks about how, when you first do things like that, they will act like they are literally dying, but once they work through it and some people say it's about 20 minutes, it takes about 20 minutes from when you've left your phone to stop thinking about it. Like literally if you've left it behind for 20 minutes, you are still thinking about it very actively. And so, but once they make that shift, I mean, that was probably one of the best quality times that those boys had had and who knows how long?

Hillary Wilkinson (17:07):

Right. Right. And what was so great, was it completely set a precedent for, for our house as well? Where both of my kids know if we have sleepovers, you have to turn in your phone.  Like friends are not exempt from the phone turn in rule. And I also, now, as a quick aside, I, I do have to tell you that, like, I, I did inform parents that phones get turned in at this house. So if they're trying to connect with their child, they're not thinking, oh my gosh, what's happened, you know? Right. So, so I say, please use me as the, as the conduit for communication. 

Tracy Foster (17:48):

Can I also clarify you didn't put the phones into a prison because this is the other thing that I think some people can freak out about is, hey, that child or cuz sometimes the parents are the ones who freak out about it the most. But if that parent wanted to get ahold of their kid, you're not acting like you're the only gatekeeper because it could be, they could text you or call you and say, “Hey, Hillary, I'd love to talk to Matt about something” and they're in a basket. So you could say, “Hey Matt, your mom would love to talk to you here.” And then you step aside for 10 minutes, five minutes, you talk to your mom and then you go back. Exactly. So there's so freedom. It's not like we're taking people to a monastery. We're just giving them the freedom of being able to enjoy where they are. Yeah. Right. I love what you did!

Hillary Wilkinson (18:29):

Right. Well, thank you. <laugh> okay. So we are only on the T -  I feel like, gosh, we really, I, I, I know you and I are gonna be able to go off on all of these. So I'm just gonna try and keep us on rails. So for, with you, with your START acronym, we've got S which was, start with yourself T was tables and bedtime.

Tracy Foster (18:57):

So our next letter is A, which is a very unsexy word Accountability, but it's basically about helping to think about the places where kids are navigating online. It is not the same as a playground that has a guard, a recess teacher and fences. They are able to navigate so many different things. And while we don't like to lead with fear, um, there are challenges, there's predators or all of these different things. And so we help equip parents to know what they might wanna think through about providing some technical protections on those devices, as well as some relational prevention and just kind of preparing parents for the types of things kids might be seeing and experiencing and helping them think through who they wanna be and how they wanna respond. Probably not if, but when our kids get into some of those situations.

Hillary Wilkinson (19:52):

Okay. So, and now how about R what is the R?

Tracy Foster (19:56):

So R stands for ride practice drive, which is basically taking a driver's ed approach to technology introduction. Every we could pick almost any metaphor though, because almost everything else we do with our kids, be it cooking or driving or playing baseball or horseback riding, whatever it is, our kids get gradually more opportunity and responsibility. Once they've demonstrated competence of a building block. And right now the norm is to basically give a kid a fully unloaded smartphone at age nine or 10. And instead we live in a moment in time where there are now so many awesome devices that we can give our kids along those ways, along the way to help them taste and build that next skill, fulfill the desire for connection and safety in an emergency without giving them the whole world, the weight of the world on their shoulders.

Hillary Wilkinson (20:50):

The final T is gonna be what, in your START acronym?

Tracy Foster (21:09):

It is time well spent. So that is both online and offline. What are the things that we're doing? Because I think what happens is we end up losing track of the trade offs. What are we striving for? It almost makes me think of the guy who wrote Seven Healthy Habits. He talks about starting with the end in mind, what do you value as a family or as a person, and then how can your online time and your offline time support that. But if we don't take time to think about what time well spent is to us, we end up giving our time away because we don't feel any type of trade off. So we like to help families think through online and offline ways to use that time. 

Hillary Wilkinson:

Okay. So let's talk gaming. My focus this season of the podcast is all about outdoor time and connections with nature. I feel like one of the biggest struggles that families often have during summer months is managing video game time. And we are coming. We are like right around the corner from summer here. And so we gaming is kind of the opposite of being outdoors, but yet I recognize that for many kids connecting online has become a way to maintain friend groups. And we certainly saw that during the lockdown, during pandemic, et cetera. So I think I'm gonna start with the, you know, the 50,000 foot view question of how much gaming should be allowed.

Tracy Foster:

I wish I had a magic number, um, but it depends. And I think what I can give you that hopefully will help is something that you can scale to any of your kiddos in different situations. Our answer is that the number one thing to determine how much is too much for your kid is about behavior change. If your kid is able to get onto that game, whatever the platform is, it really doesn't matter and engage, enjoy, but then transition effectively back into the rest of life. Now, we can talk more about transitioning. There are tips to help them transition and, you know, touch them or do something, engage in the physical world or go outside. That's the best. Um, but that's what you really wanna look for. So if your kids, even if they're playing 20 minutes, but then they have this hangover effect or they're super irritable when it's time to get off. They have probably gotten too immersed into this world and they can't pull back up nor I will give the disclaimer, that one thing that can be tricky about time is games have levels.

Tracy Foster :

So it can feel very artificial and our kids can really kind of push back if it's like, okay, well, no, it's exactly 20 minutes. Of course they're gonna be irritable if they're about to. I mean, I always put myself back in like, um, in Mario World and I think, “Oh man, what if I was about to get to that next mushroom?” And then all of a sudden, it just had to turn off like, no, let me finish my level or let me get to that next milestone. So time is not always a perfect factor, but having some range of, Okay, hey, it's been about 20 minutes. I let them finish their level. They're still just really irritable. That means that they are probably a kiddo that's just getting too wrapped up in it. And so we encourage you. Um, we can talk about our dis the, our video game decision tree, but there are some really practical ways that you can be thinking about it, but we design this also so that you can talk with your kids about it, to explain it to them, how you're thinking about their video game time.

Hillary Wilkinson:

That's fantastic. Yes. On your website, which I will link in the show notes to this episode, you have this great tool that I immediately was drawn to thinking, this is, this is like a boots on the ground. I mean, this is something I would print off and like put on (my refrigerator isn't magnetized) so I tape everything to the inside of my pantry doors. <laugh> I would, I would tape it right next to the cereal Tracy! <laugh> yeah.

Tracy Foster:

Wow. That is the biggest compliment. Amazing.

Tracy Foster:

So that's Our hope!

Hillary Wilkinson :

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you have this tool called the video game decision tree, and I, could you walk us through this? Tell us what, what, how to use it? What types of questions are included, et cetera.

Tracy Foster :

Yes. I will walk you through it. And I think printing it out and putting it somewhere is perfect because it helps have clear expectations in everything it's so useful when you and your kids have clear expectations and they become shared of, okay, Hey, you know, I will react like this if you do this right?  It kind of makes you not have to feel like a bad guy. It creates some consistency. So we start by the question of, can I game? There are some times where the answer is:  “No, it's time for dinner”, so no can always be a closed door. But if the answer is, yes, you can, then you, we do recommend setting a timer. We have some benchmarks in here, but they're just benchmarks. You know, maybe it's 30 minutes for a 10 year old, 60 minutes for a 15 year old, all sorts of factors.

Tracy Foster (04:19):

Is it a weekday? Is it a this?  Is it a that? You can adjust, but we're just throwing something out there. Pick whatever time it is that feels right. Then there are three different kind of outcomes that could come from that. The first is that they could be totally self-regulated. This is the dream for many of us, this feels completely unrealistic, just a dream, but this is where, Hey, the timer goes off and the timer, the kid gets up, they turn off, they turn off the timer and then they're like, okay, it's done with my game. And then they turn it, they close it. And they walk away that's dream world. Right. But some kids can start to get there or they might turn off the timer and then finish their level. But they have the ability to be like, okay, now I'm gonna go to dinner.

Tracy Foster :

Then they can know. And this video game decision tree makes it clear that if you do that the next time, when you ask, if it works for a family, I'm gonna say, “yeah, you can do this again. Cause you're doing this well.” Um, the other place, it could be either child regulated where they're doing what I just said, or parent regulated where the parent says, Hey kiddo, it's time to get off. That can go in two directions. The first one is something really calm where they say, “okay, Hey, I'm gonna finish this level. It should just take a couple minutes and then I'll be off.” And then they essentially go from there. They turn it off. They step away. Next time. If they ask you again, it's like, yes, you know, you're doing, you're doing great. Now the alternative is on this parent regulated side.

Tracy Foster :

If you say, “Hey buddy, Hey kiddo, Hey sweetheart. It's time to get off.”  And the kiddo responds in a really irritable way. I mean, many of us have seen this, like, no, but I just gotta do it or not even responding or just like grunting. I mean, you know, those types of reactions that is showing that they are having an inability to kind of pull themselves out of that world. And so there it's something where we need to intervene and you know, maybe touch them on the shoulder and say, “Hey, I love your brain too much to argue it's time now.” And in that case, we aren't giving them the ability to finish their level because their behavior didn't merit that, right. So we might say, “Hey, you know, time to go outside. Let's, you know, do something else, whatever.” And then the next time, if they ask, “Hey yeah, you can play, but this time we're cutting it in half.”

Tracy Foster :

Right. Or whatever seems right to you in that situation. And what I really like about this is it disarms - we try as much as we can as an organization to be the bad guy, because it's so hard. But so if you can say, “Hey, this is just, this is something that I found.” Ideally, if other families use it too, and you can say, oh, this is something that a bunch of us at XYZ school are doing. And it makes it really clear. Hey, bummer, bummer that this didn't go well today. But guess what? We can keep trying to build up and look there's hope if you're able to handle it better. Next time you there there's repair available so that it doesn't just feel. Yeah.

Hillary Wilkinson:

I like how the consequences are directly tied to the actions involved as well. It's not just arbitrary, like, oh, well, that's right. You have to go to bed half an hour earlier, or now you have to go, you know, do you know dog poop patrol in the yard. Or, you know, but it's like the consequences match the behavior.

Tracy Foster :

Good. That's what we really strive for because our whole goal is to help them learn how to regulate it themselves. This time that they're in our house, it's a training ground, you know, cuz they're gonna go to college and they could video game all that they want. So if we can teach them to feel what that's like to sense how it's affecting them, that's an even bigger win than just having them not be grumpy when they get off the device.

Hillary Wilkinson :

We have to take a short break, but when we come back, I am going to ask Tracy for her healthy screen habit. 

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Hillary Wilkinson:

Foster is responsible for the strategic direction and vision of the organization START. She also frequently contributes to news publications such as the Wall Street Journal on the topic of digital health. So one of the things on their website of start that I like is they show each of the, uh, members online FAS and I knew Tracy and I would get along. When I saw that her faves include the Chipotle app, targets online order pickup and Etsy <laugh>. So I'm quite interested now to ask you for your healthy screen habit, which is on every episode of the healthy screen habits podcast. I ask, I ask each guest for a healthy screen habit, which is a tip or takeaway that our listeners can put into practice in their own home. So Tracy, do you have one you can share with us today?

Tracy Foster (10:04):

Sure. Well, we talked earlier about device free zones, but just like our devices get to recharge. So should we, and we talked about tables and bedtimes and those are great, but we also love encouraging people to think about what is maybe a more unique or random space or place in your life that you wanna have be device free. And for our family, it is sporting events!  My boys love sports and I do now too. It's been a learned thing over the years and it doesn't matter in our family, if it's Little League or Big League, these are meaningful family experiences. And so we have this very random thing that one of our device free zones is at games. We do allow exceptions, might take a picture, a video or two, but it has been so powerful to create these spaces and it, and it has allowed us to even have things where, um, baseball, professional baseball games with one of my kids is a mother son activity.

Tracy Foster (11:01):

And I literally think of the big life topics going on or things that I think that he's stressed about. And that is a space in place. We're sitting next to each other. We're not like having to have intense eye contact, but because we've created that as this device free place and we're just kind of sitting in there together. It is a natural place to be able to have some really meaningful conversations. Great. But who knew we don't put sports games as usually where do you wanna make device free? But that's where it is for our family. 

Hillary Wilkinson (11:29):

Yeah. And I love that also because -  we're not a baseball family, but we were on many soccer fields for many years. And you know, you do feel compelled to take a lot of pictures or do a lot of filming, but when your kid makes the goal and they whip their head around, what they want is your eye contact. They want that recognition, that personal connection of, I see YOU, not, my eyes are on this device, which is capturing this moment, but yet somehow it's outsourced that way. So I love this tip and nobody else has ever given it. So I, I, I <laugh>, that speaks volumes. Yay. <laugh> So as always, I will link the START website in the show notes of this episode, which you can find by going on the healthy screen habits website, click on podcast and scroll down for this episode. Tracy, thank you so much for taking the time to share your amazing resources and great organization with us!

Tracy Foster (12:38):

Um, thank you. We are huge fans of you and Healthy Screen Habits and just so grateful to get to connect.