Healthy Screen Habits Takeaway

Resources

For more info:

https://www.weetalkers.com/

Show Transcript

Hillary Wilkinson (00:38):

Speech, language and communication skills are essential to young children's development. Being able to speak clearly, understand others, express ideas and interact are foundational for social skills. Pair all of this with the research that suggests good communication, language and literacy to young age have the highest correlations with positive outcomes at school. And you have really compelling evidence that validates the concern of many kindergarten and preschool teachers I know who are referring more kids than ever to speech therapists. And this is where my experts today come in. Carly Tulloch and Katie Sterbenz are pediatric speech language pathologists and the founders of Wee Talkers a developmentally based program for speech and language development through courses, memberships, and social media, they share parent-friendly tips that families can put into use during their daily routines to help their toddlers talk and communicate more. Welcome, Carly and Katie.

Carly Tulloch (01:49):

Thanks for having us. Thank you, Hillary. We're happy to be here.

Hillary Wilkinson (01:54):

Ooh, I'm happy to meet with you. So I really like to start with kind of finding out how people got to the point that they're at today. Like sort of like stories of origin, what is yours? How did Wee Talkers get it’s  start?

Carly Tulloch (02:12):

Okay, sure. So Katie and I have worked in a variety of settings for a long time now, since like mid two thousands as pediatric speech pathologists. So we've worked in schools, hospitals, clinics. And then as time went on, like we absolutely love what we do, but we found ourselves in our therapy rooms when we worked with families one-on-one thinking like, this is great, we can share this with this family, but we feel like all parents could benefit from this information, not just families seeking out speech and language therapy. And a lot of what we do is kind of, um, actually parent coaching because we want families to know what they can be doing at home to help their kids with their communication skills. And there weren't a lot of resources out there. There, what there was was kind of just, you know, old websites that kind of weren't very parent friendly and they weren't very inviting.

Carly Tulloch (03:08):

And so that's when Wee Talkers was kind of born and it started out with just basically sharing education on Instagram. We had an Instagram account before we even had a website, and we just thought, you know, where are moms these days? And that's when Instagram was just kind of coming up, especially in the parent education space. And yeah, so we just sought out to create resources to help families. And then the courses and memberships kind of, um, came after that. And we wanted to help increase awareness about our profession as well and how families can seek services because we found people didn't really know what to do if they were concerned. Um, so we hope to help with that as well.

Hillary Wilkinson (03:52):

Sure. It makes sense to me that you guys kind of started your home base and Instagram. Cause that's where, I mean, that's where I found you, you know, <laugh>. And one of the things that I love about the Wee Talkers feed is you look like you could be in my living room. I mean, you look like you're, you're very real, very, I love, I don't know, I just, I'm such a little kid junkie. I love seeing the post where you guys are clearly like singing with a little guy or, you know, and you're showing the finger plays and you're, you're doing all of this stuff. Yeah. And I also love how you're so relatable <laugh> in that you're like, okay, so raise your hand if you don't think you have a singing voice. <laugh>, you know? Yeah. You're very, you're very honest with that. And coming from a background in elementary ed, I'm very aware of being the teacher in the front and you go to sing and then you're like,” oh no, there are other grownups in this room.” <laugh>. I love how you're like, “this is more of a talking song!”  I really find your, um, social media feed to be very relatable, very approachable. It's like no wonder that parents flock to you.

Katie Sterbenz (05:08):

Oh, thanks Hillary.

Hillary Wilkinson (05:09):

Great. <laugh>. Oh, <laugh>, I know there are windows of development for various milestones and so I, this is kind of a two-part questions. I wanna know if, like, does this hold up in your field, which I'm sure it does. And is there any sort of like quote unquote normal when it comes to speech language development? Like, are there, I guess what I'm looking for is maybe a parent who is thinking, Hmm. Like, I mean, should this be a red flag? Should it not? Do you have anything along those lines that you could recommend for people to have a look at?

Katie Sterbenz (05:46):

Yeah, for sure. So I mean, it's crazy to think about how much happens between when a newborn is cooing and just making some sounds all the way to like, you know, know being three and sharing opinions and ideas. And we know that those first three years are super crucial because their brains are growing faster during that time than they ever will again in their life. Um, and there is definitely a typical progression of speech and language development. Not all children are going to follow that linear progression exactly. But at 12 months we expect kids will have about one to two words at 18 months. They jump to 10 to 50 words, and by two they're putting two words together. Um, and so that's quite like, language builds upon it upon itself very quickly. And there's so much more happening when it comes to communication besides just the number of words. And we actually have a couple free resources for parents of babies and toddlers where you can kind of see what happens at each age.

Hillary Wilkinson (06:50):

So when we come back, I'm gonna ask Carly and Katie about the effects that screen time may be having upon speech and language in toddlers.

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Hillary Wilkinson (07:03):

My guests are the creators of, we Talkers a company whose mission is to share the importance of talking, singing, and reading with babies and toddlers to families around the world. You guys are already like in two countries yourselves. So you're this, this worldwide domination of speech <laugh> therapy is happening. Right. Katie, you're in Arizona and Carly, are you up in Canada? Did I read that right?

Katie Sterbenz (08:24):

Yeah.

Hillary Wilkinson (08:24):

Vancouver. One of the things that I love about Wee Talkers, like I said on your Instagram feed, is that it's, you offer so many low to no cost ideas on how to increase babbling and sound repetition and like what I'm gonna call child initiated verbalizations. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But equally, equally important. What I love is the, uh, no blame, no shame approach that you take towards parents. And I think, I think I'm particularly sensitive to this because my own child was really slow to speak and mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, I certainly have a background in education. I taught many kids how to learn how to read. I mean, all of the things. I mean, and I really beat myself up about this and y you know, I mean, I think it's so easy to do. You guys are really kind in your encouragement and information giving. So was that a philosophical thing that you had decided upon or are you just that

Carly Tulloch (09:37):

Well, you know, we're moms like, we have six kids between the two of us and we've worked with families for, for a long time too, even before we had kids. So I guess through our experience, we just know that, you know, parents can do all the quote unquote right things and kids may still have certain needs in certain areas. And we don't want parents to feel bad for that at all. We want parents to know there's support available, there's help for your child, there's help for you. So I guess, yeah, we just wanna encourage, encourage people because we have had our own kids have, you know, different therapies for different needs and different things that they go through too. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I guess it's just kind of based off of yeah. Our parenting and our professional experience. And I think just kind of realizing too, like some of the very best parents we've ever worked with have like sat in our therapy rooms, you know, for kids who are late talkers and they're, they're phenomenal. Like I would aspire to be half the parent that they are. So it's definitely not a one-to-one correlation.

Hillary Wilkinson (10:42):

Yeah. And I, I mean, I have to tell you, my late talker is now at university and thriving and writing amazing papers and I mean all of the things. So yeah. So if you're a parent who is concerned, don't, don't worry. <laugh>, yes,

Katie Sterbenz (10:56):

There is. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> definitely supports and they'll get there.

Hillary Wilkinson (11:01):

Yes. Yeah. So I have a lot of, um, preschool teacher friends and kindergarten teacher friends and they, one of the things that they are kind of approaching me a lot about cuz of what I do, and they're like mm-hmm. <affirmative>, well, you know, could you look into this <laugh>, they seem to be requesting unprecedented levels of support in their classrooms for speech therapy for their kiddos. They're not sure if what they're seeing as a result of being like on lockdown with covid or it does it relate to screen use. And I'm just kind of, since I had, since I had you guys coming on, I was like, I'm gonna ask the experts. So <laugh>, <laugh>. So what are your thoughts on this? Because I can, I only know like what the teachers are seeing. Do you guys have causative or correlational type theory?

Carly Tulloch (11:56):

Yeah, I mean, anecdotally we've heard that as well, um, from colleagues and teachers and friends. And I think it's definitely something important to be talking about. And we definitely don't have all the answers, but we have, you know, thoughts and things and there's research and things. So we can dive into that a little bit when it comes to speech and language development back and forth, interaction with a responsive caregiver is going to be the best way for kids to learn speech and language skills. Like there's simply no, um, substitute for the real deal. We often think of it like, if you've heard the concept of serve and return, where the child may make a sound, a gesture, even eye gaze, and then the parents respond back with something meaningful. And that's helping build the child's receptive language skills. So there's this whole back and forth interaction and that's like the gold standard for learning language.

Carly Tulloch (12:50):

So when it comes to, um, screen time and we're looking at both the parents' use of screens and the child's use of screens that can be substituting some of this time where we would ideally want to be engaging. And just so people are listening, like we're not like anti screen time or anything like that. Like we are, um, right alongside you in learning this information, reevaluating, looking at it for looking at it for our own families and the families that we work with. So we don't think it's so black and white, but we definitely think that screens can contribute to missed opportunities for language learning and not just language, but other areas of development. You know, problem solving skills, motor skills, like scribbling with crayons, all these things that are important of, um, early childhood.

Hillary Wilkinson (13:43):

I, I find that, um, more and more it seems like we have to come from a place of recognizing that, uh, intentional use of technology is where it's at for all of us. The effects are greater of what tech is taking us away from mm-hmm. <affirmative> rather than what it's bringing to the table. I mean, outside of like, you know, research and I mean, you know, tech, tech when used as a tool, but typically when you're dealing with younger children, tech is being used as entertainment. Right. And I think that is very important to recognize, just like you were saying, the importance of that serve and return and all of that is that's what tech removes us from. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, so mm-hmm. <affirmative> even, you know, I mean the classic grocery store outing where you see so many kids with, um, you know, tablets or whatever, and it's like, and the opportunities for just conversation basic serve and return conversation are huge. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> granted on any given day you may just be needing to get through and get, get stuff for dinner and get out. I mean, it's like, you know, I mean I think that's just where we as a society just have to suspend your judgment. You don't know what's going on in anybody else's house, so. Right.

Katie Sterbenz (15:08):

Right.

Hillary Wilkinson (15:09):

Yeah. Yeah. Do you see any emerging trends that you feel is related to screen use? Do you feel there's any behavioral cues that people might go, “Oh shoot, I need to pay attention” to?

Katie Sterbenz (15:24):

Yeah, I mean, I think, I think one thing I would see when I worked in the children's hospital, um, was like the transition from the waiting room to the therapy room. Like if the child's watching like an iPad show or something, and then it's time to put the iPad away and go play blocks or something, and there's like a really big meltdown tantrum upset, um, that was happening a little bit more frequently than I remember it happening. I think, I think that when you, when you look at, um, just how much we're using screens as grownups, we are using them all the time and they're just always available. And so it's really easy to hand your kid a phone. Um, it's really easy to entertain them with just something that you have on hand. Um, so I think the transitions have been trickier for kids.

Katie Sterbenz (16:16):

I think, um, some inattention possibly just, I know I hear that a lot from teacher friends too, that they just feel like nothing's holding the kids' attention. Like it, it used to because they're so used to that fast paced, changing interactive, or not even interactive, but just active <laugh>, um, screens. So I definitely think like inattention and difficulty with transitions, um, we, we've seen arise in, it's really hard to comb through all the research because I feel like a lot of it compares apples and oranges. Hmm. Um, it's like, are we talking about screen time where the parents sitting on the couch co-viewing Daniel Tiger or are we talking about like the toddler has an iPad in their crib? Like the amount of screen time is what I feel like a lot of researchers pay attention to, but the content and the quality of that is so different.

Katie Sterbenz (17:07):

Um, and the context. So I think we have a hard time combing through some of the research, but we do find what is conclusive is that research seems to support that excessive screen time is what precedes these developmental difficulties, not necessarily that 30 minutes to one hour per day. Um, and so I, and I, and I think the other thing that we have seen is that, like Carly was talking about with that serve and return and that opportunity to practice language, if you are a child who has a predisposition towards a speech delay and you take away some of those opportunities and replace them with screen time, then they have a child who has needed more opportunities now is getting less opportunities and thus that speech delay is going to be a little bit more glaring.

Hillary Wilkinson (17:57):

Between the two of you. You have like over 25 years of experience within this field. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So that definitely puts you in expert territory, <laugh>. Knowing that you've had this longitudinal kind of look at speech language development, can you track any timelines from the onset of like kid and toddler directed tech to maybe an increase in speech delays or is that, is that something that you guys have noticed over time or, I mean, I'm just wondering where like you guys are kind of the boots on the ground here.

Katie Sterbenz (18:39):

So I feel like it's so hard to look at things in a vacuum. Um, right. So, so screens definitely, uh, we feel like an excessive use of screens definitely does impact, uh, child's ability to learn language. Um, but it's hard too because parents' use of screens is so part of this. And when you look back at like, the evolution of the smartphone and when everybody had a smartphone, I think that's when things really started to change. I remember back in grad school, like 12, 13 years ago, a professor commenting about how even pushing a child in a stroller on a walk used to not involve screens, but now people are taking their phone, um, catching up on emails, they can do a bunch of things on the go and we're missing out on those simple things like noticing what your child notices or commenting on what they see.

Katie Sterbenz (19:38):

And so I think that our use of screens has also impacted our children's ability to learn language and opportunities, um, for them to learn language. And so it's hard to pinpoint an exact time when that changed to just fully kid or toddler directed tech. Uh, we've also seen a huge increased reliance on screens after the pandemic. Sure. Um, because parents were in really hard spots and they were trying to work and entertain kids and juggling all of that was really tricky. And so I know that there's definitely research that has showed us that kids were on screens way more than they were previously. And now it's kind of a hard thing to change. Like I think, I think the screen use has kind of remained elevated and anecdotally like wait, lists are really long wait lists to get speech therapy are really long. Mm-hmm. Is that because parents are more informed, doctors are more informed, the wait and see approach isn't as common? Um, or is that because it's truly there are more speech delays? You know, it's, it's hard to, to prove cause I think, but I do think it all works together.

Hillary Wilkinson (20:54):

Right. Yeah. So maybe not, maybe not like a hard set timeline. Like we, we have like mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I mean there is actual data from like National Institute of Mental Health where you can track like what, you know, where, where the rate of depressive episodes, suicidal ideation, et cetera was. And then you kind of go along and you see where the drop of the smartphone hit, and then about four to five years later, so drop of the smartphone was 2007, by about 2012 was where Jean twang Ye's. Research out of San Diego get, you know, found that that was the tipping point at which like 51% of the American public now had smartphones. And what was happening was people were just handing them down to their kids with that kind of next generation of phone as it came out. And you just see the rates just skyrocket at that point. Yeah. So I was wondering if you saw the same in the littles that we see with like teen mental health, but it sounds like Yeah, it sounds like it's a little more

Katie Sterbenz (22:02):

Mm. It's just more nuanced. I feel like there's so many variables, but it did, research does show us that the National Institute of Health shows us that at 12 months of age, kids were spending about 53 minutes on screens and then they would increase to about 150 minutes at three years old, those same children. And so it, it increased quite a bit from 12 months to three years old. 

Hillary Wilkinson (22:29):

Um, so we do know, was, this during the pandemic? 

Katie Sterbenz (22:32):

Is 2019. 2020.

Hillary Wilkinson (22:36):

Okay. Okay. So pre-Pandemic.

Katie Sterbenz (22:37):

So pre pandemic, so pre pandemic was, I think it was 2000, 20, 53 minutes at 12 months and 150 minutes at three years. Um, yeah, I think that's pre pandemic, but we know research has also shown us that, that kids were spending an exorbitant amount of time on devices during the pandemic, but Oh

Hillary Wilkinson (23:00):

Yeah. But I mean, the

Katie Sterbenz (23:01):

Parents, yeah. Parents were, were in a hard spot

Hillary Wilkinson (23:05):

When you're in survival, you are doing whatever it takes. Yeah. So, I mean yeah. Yeah. It was a different, a different time for sure.

Katie Sterbenz (23:13):

Yeah. <laugh>. And so it's just kind of being mindful of that now and trying to wean ourselves and be intentional

Hillary Wilkinson (23:20):

<laugh>. Sure. Yeah. Sure. Are there any other kind of research or studies that you feel might be beneficial for parents to know about, hear about in regards to any speech language development delays that you feel could be related to screen use?

Katie Sterbenz (23:38):

Yeah, there's a couple good ones. Um, a study in 2020 found that children at increased likelihood of autism or A D H D or other language delays found that at 36 months of age, an increased amount of screen time was correlated with those language delays and symptoms of inattention. Now, the study didn't look at the cause of these links, like was it that more screen time resulted in these developmental difficulties, or did having these traits cause children to engage in more screen time? Um, but the results did show that children at higher risk for neurodevelopmental delays do have negative associations with screen time. Um, so that, that one was by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Hillary Wilkinson (24:20):

Yeah. I think that's really important to remember that our neurodiverse populations definitely have different mm-hmm. <affirmative> different things to be aware of around Yeah. Around screen use. And I've, um, I mean, I've had several conversations with people who live a neurodiverse life as well as, you know, teachers who work within that field mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and they do find that the kids that, um, maybe process differently do have a harder time disengaging and Yes.

Katie Sterbenz (24:55):

Uh, and kind of having that like impulse control, if impulse control is a, is a hardship, um, than it can be trickier to have those transitions from away from screens to the next activity. Or I think that there are definitely sensitivities to consider.

Hillary Wilkinson (25:10):

Are there any other studies that you have?

Katie Sterbenz (25:13):

Yeah, there's another one that looked at low income homes and they saw that with lower income homes, they tended to have higher levels of screen time use, the average being about three and a half hours per day. And that more screen time use was associated with poorer expressive language abilities at 36 months of age, but not necessarily receptive language abilities. And one suggested reason for this is that, um, exposure to media can take the place of what we talked about before, of that caregiver language interaction that we know is so important for language development.

Hillary Wilkinson (25:48):

Yeah. And I know from, um, teaching second language learners that the receptive vocabulary tends to be acquired quicker mm-hmm. <affirmative> than the productive mm-hmm. <affirmative> productive vocabulary.

Katie Sterbenz (26:01):

Yeah. And that's true for monolingual and bilingual.

Hillary Wilkinson (26:05):

 And yeah. I think it's important that people recognize the level of frustration that comes from having a low productive vocabulary. That is a low, low way of being able to communicate your words, wants,  feelings, mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, that can lead to more behavioral problems. Sure. You know? Sure. So I'm sure you guys see that all the time where you see kids who are, you know, acting out and becoming physical and all of this stuff mm-hmm. <affirmative> and it's, uh, it's simply because they're having, they, they can't express themselves what they want. Right. So that's that. 

Katie Sterbenz (26:40):

There's that gap between what they're, what they're able, what they want to express, what they know they want to express versus what they're actually able to, and that causes quite a bit of frustration.

Hillary Wilkinson (26:49):

At times. Sure, sure, sure. So it turns out that the productive, the productive vocabulary, yes, it's great to be able to understand what's being said, but it's equally important to be able to produce what you, you know, to tell people what you need.

Carly Tulloch (27:02):

And it, and it's, can I just say one more thing on this, Hillary? Sure. Like, I, I love that we're having these conversations and that hopefully we can share this on our social media and things too. Like in terms of, um, like I feel like there's marketing that kind of encourages families too. Like this is learning, right? Like I saw once a mother holding a phone with a nursery rhyme in front of her maybe nine month old baby while she's feeding her a bottle. And this mom might be thinking, this is learning, right. This for her child to be watching these cartoon nursery rhymes. Whereas from a developmental, like speech and language or, you know, cognitive, like looking at the skills, we would rather have that baby just staring into that mom's eyes and chatting a bit or having a quiet moment for her singing it. Sure. Right. I'm just going basic, like even just having the quiet moment is gonna be better than stimulating her brain in that way with the fast moving, um, cartoon.

Hillary Wilkinson (28:04):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Right. Well, that is a beautiful segue, <laugh>, because there is all of this discussion in the early childhood development world about slow tech versus fast tech. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and We Talkers has recommended programming as well as songs. You have this great songs and stories membership to help people achieve their healthiest screen habit goals when choosing programming for your littles. Do you wanna talk about that a little bit?

Carly Tulloch (28:33):

Yeah, sure. So, um, we, we love just in terms of what families can be doing with kids at home, we love just thinking of a variety of activities throughout the day. Learning activities for little ones are even their morning routine, getting them dressed like mealtime, like these are learning opportunities for kids. So we don't want parents to think of that as just nothing. Like on our Instagram we share a lot about how to incorporate language learning into these, um, times as well. And if they are choosing, um, to do screen time with their little one, we love, um, encouraging co-viewing. So sitting with your child, helping them make connections of what is on the screen to just help them understand and make it part of their world. And then our other recommendation is turning off your tech notifications when you're having playtime with your child, kind of like putting that phone in another room so you can really focus on responding and engaging with them during that intentional time.

Carly Tulloch (29:36):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. And as far as our songs and stories membership, we, we, um, think that the content that kids are exposed to is really important. Like, not all screen time is created equally. And during the pandemic, we knew families weren't able to go to library story time or any kind of like toddler activities. And so we started filming ourselves reading, um, books on our phones. Um, we just filmed ourselves and posted those online and also singing simple songs and rhymes. And since then we now have it like professionally filmed. So it's really high quality. You can play it on your tv, um, but it's a whole library of, of, um, videos for your child to watch.

Hillary Wilkinson (30:19):

Right. So it's a, so it's a screen alternative and it would be, yeah. And it would qualify as for people who don't understand what the slow tech versus fast tech movement is all about. So, um, it refers to the number of angles of screenshots and the hyper stimulation. So what you guys focus on is much more like, like you said, like a reading of a story and it's just, it's very much mm-hmm. <affirmative> more, um, kind of an imitation of real life. Exactly. And real time.

Carly Tulloch (30:52):

Yes.

Katie Sterbenz (30:53):

Yeah. It's like what you would see at  a library story time, but with speech therapists on their TV!

Hillary Wilkinson (30:59):

<laugh>. Yeah. Uh, and good stories <laugh>. Yeah.

Carly Tulloch (31:03):

And then, yeah. And no ads, you know, no YouTube rabbit hole. Like we love that it's ad free, it's really calming. We, our families tell us. So we love that about it. Mm-hmm.

Hillary Wilkinson (31:13):

<affirmative>. Yeah. And you also have a, um, is it a Spotify playlist? 

Katie Sterbenz (31:21):

<laugh> Spotify and Apple Music! Um, we have a couple playlists on there because we love listening to music with our kids, but, um, a lot of the recommendations kind of make us wanna pull our hair out <laugh>, and there's really good kid music out there that doesn't make you wanna do that. Yeah. And so it's a good jumping off point for you to kind of figure out what you like with your family and what your kid likes, and you can search for more from there. But yeah, that's dancing and listening to music, um, has definitely been one of our favorite screen time alternatives.

Hillary Wilkinson (31:54):

I feel like you guys have so much like knowledge, collective knowledge, wisdom, et cetera. I don't wanna miss out on anything. Like what are, like any big thing that you wish parents knew about tech and speech development, language development? Um, I do you like, what do you, if you could create like a Billboard <laugh> or like a, a psa, what do you wish every parent knew about screen time and fostering healthy language development?

Katie Sterbenz (32:26):

I mean, we've touched on it a bit, but just, you know, not to be fooled by the marketing professionals that are selling you that, um, this product is gonna be what helps your child learn and grow and develop. Like don't sell yourself short. Your connection with your child and your modeling of language and your interest in what they are interested in is invaluable and builds those language skills. Um, and we live in a society that, uh, it's really believable. Like even as a speech therapist who has this knowledge, sometimes I'm like, oh, should I be doing that for my kid? Should my kid be reading by now? Should my, you know, like, all these tech platforms can help your kid jump all these hoops, but, but really like playing and singing and reading and just talking about what they're interested in that is, there's no substitute for

Hillary Wilkinson (33:19):

That. Right, right. The areas of true growth and development are, are not marketable. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, so it's mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's hard, it's hard to advertise them as well as the products that are being sold. You don't have a team of expert marketers who are saying, “You know…. eye contact! It's really important.” <laugh>. 

So we have to take a short break, but when we come back, I'm going to ask the Wee Talkers for their Healthy Screen Habits.

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My guests today are Carly Turlock and Katie STKs, the founders of We Talkers. They're advocates for early intervention, and as said earlier, they have six kids between the two of them. So they definitely are in the field, they know what they're speaking of. They are moms on a mission to encourage families to sing, read, and talk more. So ladies, on every episode of the Healthy Screen Habits podcast, I want to give listeners something for their time. And this comes in the form of a healthy screen habit, which is a tip or take away that can be put into practice nearly immediately. Do you have a healthy screen habit to share?

Katie Sterbenz (35:36):

Yes,

Carly Tulloch (35:37):

We do. So we think, you know, first of all, thanks so much for listening. And as you're listening, if some of this resonated with you and you're thinking like, yeah, we could do more of that or less of that, we would encourage you to come up with basically a family screen time plan. And it doesn't have to be complicated, it's just more you taking the time or you and your partner to say, what's important to us as a family when it comes to screens? What type of content, um, do we want our child watching? What are our rules for ourselves gonna be around tech time, you know, whether it's like no phones at meals, you know, um, no kids not viewing iPads at meals, whatever it is for you. Um, spending a little bit of time to find an intentional way to go about screen time and then just knowing that can change in different seasons as your child grows. It doesn't have to be set in stone, but it's just something you can kind of reevaluate. And we think families that do that are gonna be just right on track.

Hillary Wilkinson (36:40):

I love that tip. And just so our listeners are reminded on Healthy Screen Habits, we have a free downloadable resource called the Family Tech Plan, which can help you set up for what Carly is talking about. But, um, even if you don't want to do that five step plan, I I highly, highly recommend that just kind of taking the time to get clear on what your family philosophy is, your family values are around mm-hmm. <affirmative>, intentional screen use.

Katie Sterbenz (37:13):

And I'm sure you talk about this, Hillary, but I think that just being clear about those values takes the guesswork out of it when you're like, should I turn this on? Should you watch this show? Like it just makes you feel more confident about your decisions and the, and your kids pick up on that confidence.

Hillary Wilkinson (37:29):

Yeah. As always, links to weetalkers.com and any items referenced as well as a complete transcript of this conversation can be found in today's episode. Show notes, you can get there by going to healthy screen habits.org. Click on the podcast button at the top of the page and scroll down to find this episode. Katie, Carly, this has been great. Thank you so much for all that you do for the wee ones out there, <laugh>, and, and thank you for being here today.

Carly Tulloch (38:01):

Thanks so much. It's our pleasure. Thank you.