Together, Elaine & Diane sit down to overview what stood out at the 2022 International Conference on ADHD in Dallas, Texas — including a few conversations about our children’s growing dependence on technology and gaming, and how it may be affecting their development. New technology is incredible and continues to push the limits of mankind, but it comes with some very real impacts — like addiction or over-reliance, and it can affect us all, but especially those of us with ADHD and other neurodiversity.

Pay Attention To Your ADHD Kid’s Reliance On Technology

What to expect in this episode: 

• The correlation between screen use, excessive gaming, and severe ADHD.
• Understanding the four types of screen use and the three types of gamers.
• The risks and benefits of gaming, and how to collaborate with kids on a gaming agreement.

Our Discussion This Week

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Welcome back, everybody, to another conversation on the Parenting with Impact podcast. You’ve got Diana and Elaine here today, and we’re going to continue our conversation that we started after the International Conference on ADHD in November or December.

Diane Dempster: I believe it was back in November. Isn’t that crazy? And now it’s already January! When we’re recording this, I’m like, my head is spinning.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: So, the last podcast we did on this, I think it was episode 88, where we talked about emotional conversations that we learned about at the conference. Today, we’re going to talk about technology-related issues that we discussed at the conference.

Diane Dempster: I think what we said was that there were a couple of big buckets of things that really caught our attention. One was emotional regulation, which we talked about last time, and this time we’re going to talk about the other one, which is technology. 

There are so many different lenses to look at this from, so you’re going to walk us through some notes.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Diane Dempster: And then we’ll talk generally.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Because I wouldn’t have learned it if I hadn’t taken notes. Okay?

Diane Dempster: And I can’t find my notes. Total transparency.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I went to two presentations on this topic, and just full disclosure, part of the reason I did is because this is one of the number one issues that parents come to us with all the time.

Diane Dempster: All the time, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I was just talking to a couple this morning, and it’s like the only issue they have is screen use for their twelve-year-old. 

So, it’s really common. We’re going to talk about some strategies and suggestions we have for managing it later. But I want to set the stage by sharing some of what I learned at the conference. The first presentation I went to was by Jeremy Edge. 

It was called Helping Those Stuck in the Web: Understanding and Treating Those with Problematic Gaming, Social Media, Pornography, and General Screen Use. So, already a lot! What was really interesting is that he talked about the impact screens have on people with ADHD and related issues. 

We all know that technology gives us dopamine hits-most of us have learned this by now. Part of what’s happening when people are using screens is that all of these games and apps, everything, is designed to leave us wanting more and coming back for more. 

So there’s a tendency for those of us with complex issues to seek input from screens because we get positive reinforcement, we get dopamine, and it feels good, right? So that’s the foundation for all of this.

Diane Dempster: And it’s the perpetuation of it, right? It’s this sort of…

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right, it has you wanting more, right?

Diane Dempster: It has you wanting more, and it’s designed-this is the other thing I remember from that workshop. It’s designed to keep you going. I remember distinctly in the gaming world there was this shift-I don’t remember when it was-but it went from levels, where kids used to say, “Okay, I’m on level 43,” to removing all the levels because that meant the kids kept going. 

There was no natural stop when they reached the end of a level, right? So, there’s this perpetuation that has gone on as gaming technology companies have gotten smarter about how to keep you engaged and keep you playing.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, I was reading a book recently that has these long chapters, and there’s kind of no end. At some point at night, I’m like, “I want this chapter to stop so I can go to bed.”

Diane Dempster: Right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right? So it’s kind of the same thing. Okay, so I’m going to give you a little information from Jeremy Edge about screens and ADHD. First of all, he said there is a correlation between screen use, excessive gaming, and severe ADHD. 

He didn’t say there’s a causation, just a correlation. He talked a little bit about what qualifies as a behavioral addiction, and he said it’s a constant craving where you really can’t stop. What we experience a lot is that parents will come to us and say, “My kid’s addicted.” 

And very often, our kids are not actually addicted. In fact, more often than not, they’re not addicted. It just feels like it because there’s that craving for it, and they struggle with stopping. But the definition of a behavioral addiction here is that you really can’t stop.

Diane Dempster: Well, I think the other piece of it is that, a lot of times, if you go back to addiction models, they’ll say that people are making choices where it becomes the most important thing in their life. 

It’s like they’d rather do that than anything else. And this is the challenge because, if you look at the behavior on the surface, it looks like it matches that definition. But we also know that with the right support and the right parental collaboration, you can move these kids off of it effectively. 

It’s just that we don’t know what to do to help them, which makes it look like they’re stuck. It feels like it’s the only thing they want to do, and the only thing they can do, and it feels like an addiction.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. So, most of you should know that 90% of the time, your kids are not struggling with a real, full-blown addiction. It feels that way, and we understand why. So, we’re going to address some of that.

Diane Dempster: What we’re going to teach you is what to do about it, regardless of whether it’s an addiction, and we’ll help you with it. Right? I think the thing I would say about addiction, Elaine, is that it’s really a perspective shift. If I look at my child’s gaming as an addiction, I’m going to handle it very differently than if I see my kid as having a really hard time balancing life and transitioning off technology. 

The thing is that we want to change, I’m going to look at it very differently, and I’m likely to get really scared, freak out, and become controlling if I think my kid is addicted. I might even want to send them off to some treatment program, which may or may not be a good solution.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Again, for most of you, it will not be.

Diane Dempster: Most of you do not need to send your kid to a treatment program for technology addiction.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Technology addiction, anyway. Okay, so the next thing he went through-and this was probably the most useful information for me-was that there are four types of screen use. He identified one as productive screen use. That’s school, research, YouTube, talking to your grandparents on FaceTime, right? 

Productive screen use. And we have to remember that, when we have the tendency to demonize technology, there is a use for it that’s been really productive in our lives. You’re listening to this because of technology. We have the ability to support parents all over the globe because of technology. 

So there is a productive aspect to it, and we don’t want to forget that. So that’s the first one. The second is entertainment, and that’s games, streaming, and again, YouTube-but a different kind of YouTube, right? That’s for entertainment purposes. The third is social, and that’s Snapchat, Discord, Instagram. 

I would add texting in there, too-group chats, that kind of thing. And then the fourth is erotic, which includes porn and sexting. We’re not going to talk about that a lot today. He didn’t talk about that a lot either. 

But when we’re talking about kids, we’ll assume that if your child is dealing with some of those issues, and I think it’s fair to say that with access to the internet, a lot of our kids have had more exposure to it at a younger age than we did.

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: But that is not today’s conversation. And if it feels like there’s a real need to talk about it, let us know, and we’ll try to.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, we’ll absolutely talk about it. We’re going to do an episode about that.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right? Okay. So, productive, entertainment, social, and erotic. We’re really going to focus on entertainment and social today. Then he got into a discussion of the three types of gamers, and this was also super interesting. He said there’s the escaper, the achiever, and the hardcore gamer. Okay? 

The escaper is the kid who’s looking for a storyline. It’s often very visual, with a lot of impulsive actions to take. This is a tendency for kids with lower self-esteem to lean toward escapist activities in video games. 

And also, I would say, creative kids who like that storyline. Kids who enjoy Minecraft would fall under a creator.

Diane Dempster: Yeah. I was just going to say, the other thing about an escaper is that an escaper might be someone with a social skills issue. I think you kind of alluded to this-if I can hide behind an avatar when I’m playing, I can be more of myself. 

I remember my kiddo having all these special wraps, costumes, and things like that for his game characters. And it was part of how he…

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: A persona.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, a persona he created for himself.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It’s an online version of cosplay, right?

Diane Dempster: Yeah.

Here’s the transcription with grammar corrections, while maintaining the original intent:

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Like, we used to call it make-believe, right? Or dress-up. They’re still doing that-they’re just doing it virtually in a different way, sometimes at conferences and that kind of thing. So, the escaper is one kind of gamer. 

The achiever is another. The achiever is out there to win. They’re trying to hit the next level, beat their friends’ best, be the best, get their personal best. These kids are more likely to have higher self-esteem than low self-esteem. Interesting. And then there are the hardcore gamers, who are a combination of escapers and achievers. 

It becomes an impediment or problem when there are cognitive distortions. This is what Diane was alluding to earlier-broken relationships, impulse control issues. When it becomes a financial burden, when we get a call from a parent that says, “My kid’s just charged thousands of dollars. 

They’ve got my credit card and charged thousands of dollars.” A one-time concern about that wouldn’t set off huge alarm bells, but multiple instances of it? That’s a problem. So, the hardcore gamers are more likely to move into that addiction realm and have a harder time. It starts impacting their regular life in terms of how they see things, in terms of their impact on relationships, finances, etc. 

One thing-Diane, we’ll have to get the link to this-he played a piece by a big gamer named Tyler “Ninja” Blevins. He’s a podcaster who’s made millions with his online social media presence in gaming. He games, and people watch. 

I know our generation can’t understand that, but their generation loves it. And he has a message for kids about staying in school and how important it is to stay in school.

Diane Dempster: And I think that this is a whole other segue-gosh, we could talk about so many different things here. But one of the things I loved about Tyler’s message was that-and the challenge-is that kids will watch somebody like Tyler, who literally makes millions of dollars gaming.

And we’re tapping into the human desire to have your vocation match your interests, right? I mean, everybody-who wouldn’t want to make a huge amount of money doing something you love to do, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: That’s right.

Diane Dempster: So, you watch kids, and they look at people like Tyler or others, and it’s like, “My gosh, it’s the same thing.” I remember one of my unnamed kids when they were in middle school, wanting to be Britney, right? 

They were convinced they were going to be a pop star. Right? And this is really kind of no different, but there are two parts to it. One is magical thinking, which our kids tend to have more of. Two is this idea I just introduced, which is, “Who wouldn’t want to make a living doing something they’re passionate about?” 

And three is this sort of thing we do when we hear our kids say stuff like that: we squelch them down and say, “You can’t do that. Nobody can make money from that.” We tend to try to flip them because none of us really want our kids to be professional gamers. So, we want to try to point them in a different direction, or we don’t think they can be, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And it’s such a good point because, on the other hand, in our realm of complex kids, we’re always saying, “Play to their strengths.”

Diane Dempster: Right.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Motivate their interests, cultivate them. Like, who would have thought my kid would be a professional?

Diane Dempster: I was just going to say, you have a kid who’s a professional actor, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Not encouraging them in that direction, but on the one hand, all these kids who think they’re going to be the next Ninja aren’t. But on the other hand, my child has friends all the time who are getting jobs doing cartooning for Disney or for online stuff.

Diane Dempster: Somebody has to get those jobs.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right? There are industries out there, but most of these people are prepared. They’ve been trained. They’ve done something other than just playing video games. So, we want to create that whole well-rounded person.

Diane Dempster: Well, which takes us to one of our tips: early intervention. But it’s about knowing what it is about your kid. Which kind of gamer are they? What do they love about gaming? That can help you say, “Okay, my kid really loves competition. 

My kid really loves creating.” You can look and see what their strength is, instead of just looking at it and saying, “My kid loves gaming,” and throwing that into the “no” bucket and moving on.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Diane Dempster: Instead of trying to figure out what it is-where’s our kid’s strength in this, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah. Getting curious is so important because my kids are all strategy kids. They love the games because of the strategy. And you know what? That’s a good critical thinking skill to cultivate.

Diane Dempster: Right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right? I have a kid who’s now a studio art major. He was totally into Minecraft when he was eight and ten years old. He was creating worlds. He’s still creating worlds; he’s just doing it in a different format. And he’s used lots of different formats over the years. 

So, not demonizing is one of the things we wanted to talk about. We’re coming back to that. But also, really playing to their strengths, getting curious about what it is about the technology, the game, the activity they’re doing that they’re into. 

So, if they’re doing social stuff, are they talking to their friends? Are they interested in fashion? What’s going on for them? Get curious. And I know it’s hard, but sometimes it’s like brain-numbing, and you don’t want to do it. 

But if you can lean into really getting openly curious-not judgy curious, but real curious-kind of like staying calm with your kids about what’s in it for them, what do they love about it? That will change your ability to be in conversation with them. What do you think?

Diane Dempster: And sometimes, it’s just about listening to them. It’s funny because my gamer was over for dinner the other night, and it was just them and me, and we had this conversation about some new release. 

They had to walk me through the entire game, how it worked, why it was the way it was, and whether it was good or not. I got 15 minutes about some game I don’t even remember the name of. I’m sorry, honey.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Find out. We’ll put it in the show notes. Right? Okay. So, one other presentation I went to-and I went to it because I spent some time in the halls talking to this woman long enough that I was like, “Okay, I’m curious what she has to say.” 

So, I went to a presentation. She’s a professor at Baylor. I’m going to mess up her name, but it’s Edore Onigu-Otite, I think is how you pronounce it. I’m not sure. She did a presentation on ADHD and electronics-the game-life balance, okay? Which is what we all want, right? She started off talking about Internet gaming disorder. 

She gave a lot of statistics, which I won’t be able to capture all of here. She explained that in the DSM in 2013-2014, they started changing how we talk about gaming disorder. It was the first time it became a disorder, so similar to what we heard from Jeremy Edge. 

When there’s a preoccupation with it, loss of other interests, escaping negative moods by going there excessively, tolerance withdrawal, like not being able to tolerate other things, when it’s beginning to interfere with relationships-again, the same thing we heard from Jeremy Edge. 

And when it’s hard to control, maybe that could also look like deceiving others about the amount of time spent on the game, like family members.

Diane Dempster: Well, that sounds like all of our people. But you said this earlier: our kids don’t all have Internet gaming disorder, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: No, those are the extreme examples, right? So, I guess it has to do with whether a diagnosing provider can tell you if it’s crossing a threshold of disorder.

Diane Dempster: Or, I’ve got to be really careful here because this is a new diagnosis, and I’m really confident that not all diagnosing providers have the details on what is or isn’t a problem here to accurately diagnose.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: That may be true. It’s so new that there’s not a lot of education-kind of like ADHD. I mean, we’re decades into it, and most providers don’t know a lot about it. Then there’s something about impaired control over gaming, significant impairment. 

So, she talked about mild, moderate, and severe. And to be sure, we tend to lump everything into severe, and that’s pretty rare, considerably. She does say that with e-games, there’s a lot of problems because it’s so lucrative-the industry is so powerful-and it’s like 30% of the market. 

A lot of kids are now getting jobs in this industry, so it’s distracting from school. So, that was one of the concerns. She did say-everybody hear this, because it’s really important-gaming offers more good than bad. Everybody hear that? Gaming offers more good than bad. It’s a form of cognitive exercise. 

I believe she’s a psychologist or a psychiatrist. It’s a form of cognitive exercise, but some games are better than others. And she said some games are actually better than no games. So that notion that we should just eliminate it from a kid’s diet-electronic diet, technology diet, whatever you want to call it-is actually not what she’s recommending. 

She’s saying you want to have some games because it’s really good for cognitive development, and you want them to be on par with their peers. It’s when it becomes too much that it’s a problem.

Diane Dempster: Well, not only that, but just like the flashback I just had, I think I’ve told this story before-I’m not sure if it was on another podcast. The story is, when my dad, who’s a dentist, and my mom wouldn’t let me have candy, I would sneak off to the five-and-dime on Saturdays with every penny I could get because there was no candy in the house. Right? It’s just sort of…

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: There you go.

Diane Dempster: If you shut something down, the desire changes, rather than if you… Ultimately, what we really want is…

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Help them learn.

Diane Dempster: We want these kids to have healthy relationships with technology because, look, Elaine, you’re using your phone, I’m using my phone, we’re using the computer. We’ve got to figure out how to be healthy about this eventually. It’s not going away, guys. Sorry.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: No, it’s not. This is our entire business.

Diane Dempster: And tying these two together, one of the things-just going back to the first guy because I wasn’t in the…

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: One, I want to get through some more data.

Diane Dempster: Okay. Yes, go ahead.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Okay, a few more things. She did talk about the importance of being aware of gaming in vulnerable populations. She said that 10% or lower actually have a gaming disorder. She said in the U.S., it’s about 2 to 5% of those are kids. So that’s pretty low, right?

Diane Dempster: The 2% over.

 

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Two to five percent in the U.S. are kids of the 10% who actually have a gaming disorder. The diagnosis happens when there’s a lag between problematic gaming behavior and other problematic behavior. I didn’t quite get that. 

Sorry. She showed this long video of a five-year-old with video game addiction and how much time he was spending, and what the impact was. There was a conversation with him and his mom. It was interesting to see how a kid had insight after treatment. 

But this is a kid who was spending literally 10 hours a day on the game, 9 hours of sleep, and 5 hours with his family. He said, “I can’t function.” When he reached the point where he said, “I can’t function without some type of electronics, I just shut down without my phone,” that was his insight once he was in treatment.

A couple of other quick things. She cautioned against the sudden removal of technology and played some song lyrics that were kind of funny. For those of you in our generation, you may remember UB40’s song Red Red Wine, but there have been situations where people have had violent reactions to having technology taken away. 

If you’re concerned that there’s a person in your midst, especially an adult, with gaming disorder or an electronic disorder, you don’t want to just summarily remove the technology. You want to guide them through the process of learning how to manage it. 

Otherwise, it’s almost like if you take alcohol away from a serious alcoholic, they’re going to go into withdrawal. You can get a similar kind of reaction with technology, so you definitely want to be cautious. She recommends that you not just eliminate technology. 

If you have concerns, seek out conversation with a provider, especially if there’s any propensity towards aggression in a child when removing technology. And I’ll stop with that. That was a good summary.

Diane Dempster: Well, it is funny.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It’s a funny conversation.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, a couple of things. But the place I want to go first is the first workshop, and I think she did as well. When we’re talking about what to do about it, the thing he said was that the suggestions he gave were solutions that require executive function skills, right? 

Like managing your time, being aware of your… It’s all this sort of stuff that I was like, “Huh.” I actually stood up in the workshop…

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: You were a little annoyed.

Diane Dempster: Yeah, I stood up in the workshop, and I was like, “Okay, so we’re talking about people with ADHD here. They don’t have the executive function skills. You can’t just tell them to do it.” But the important thing for me when we’re talking about kids is that it takes us back to the fact that these kids don’t have the skills yet. 

Expecting them to just get off their technology or know how long they’ve been on, or manage all these things that require executive function, especially when they’re hyper-focused on something-it’s unrealistic. 

This brings us back to, Elaine, the role we have as parents: either we accommodate the executive function skills they don’t have, or we teach those skills. We have to play a role in the process. We can’t just expect our kids to do it on their own. 

A lot of the time, as parents, we think, “Well, he can’t self-manage, so until he can, he doesn’t get to do it at all.”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: And that’s not effective.

Diane Dempster: And it’s not realistic.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I think she talked about it, maybe not, but I can’t remember anymore. But the idea is that when we give our kids these technologies-and often we are giving them these technologies-it’s a ripe opportunity to have some conscious conversation and collaboration with them around what’s expected, what’s not, what the consequences are going to be, and what the accountabilities are. 

I mean, I’m going back years when my kids were young, like 20 years ago, but we had an agreement with a timer by the computer, and they had a certain amount of time. I remember the deal was, if I came by and the timer wasn’t on, you were off the computer. 

And I’m sorry, but because we had a system we all agreed to, I got to be compassionate with my kid and say, “I’m so sorry. What will help you remember to turn the timer on next time?”

Diane Dempster: Well, and that’s the important piece of it, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yes, instead of saying, “See, you should have turned the timer on,” right? That’s not going to be constructive. 

But if we can enroll them in collaborating with us, I think that’s the key we really want to hit here.

Diane Dempster: Well, it’s that-and go listen to our podcast on effective agreements. I see parents do this all the time, where they’ll say, “Okay, the deal is 1 hour,” and then 2 hours later, the parent comes in and the kid is still on the computer. 

They say, “Okay, you’re off the computer for the rest of the month because you didn’t stick to the agreement.”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right.

Diane Dempster: And we’ve got to set our kids up. Part of this is getting them to agree in the first place and really partnering with them. Elaine, you said this.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah.

Diane Dempster: Partnering with them to set the agreement because your perspective of how much time they should have and their perspective of how much time they should have may be really far apart. 

And if that’s the case, you’re going to eliminate conflict by actually acknowledging, “Wow, you think you should be able to do it for 20 hours a week? 

I think you should only be able to use it for an hour.” How do we find a number that’s closer to each other, rather than just saying, “No, you can only have an hour,” right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: What can we agree to, and then when are we going to check back in, and how are we going to handle it when they…

Diane Dempster: And what do you need to be successful? The thing you were discussing wasn’t about your rule being about them being off; your rule was about them using the timer to help facilitate that. I’m sure that…

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: The accountability was to the process, not the outcome, which we talk about all the time. Because I could come in and tell them to get off the computer, but that wasn’t going to help them. 

But if I helped set the expectation that they have a time limit, that they set the timer, if I could get them into that process, that was going to do more to help them long term, self-manage-or at least I hoped it would. Maybe it will.

Diane Dempster: And you said you used that language. Yeah, you used the language, “Learn to self-manage.” We need to set our kids up for success and not just expect that they’re going to have the skills to self-manage or even adhere to an agreement that they’ve agreed to.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: If they don’t adhere to an agreement they’ve agreed to, right? So, we said we wanted to talk about boundaries and the need to focus on collaboration, right?

Diane Dempster: Right.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: If they’re struggling with adhering to an agreement, let’s look at it. First of all, that piece they’re struggling with-it’s not that they won’t, or they didn’t, or they’re being rude or disrespectful. 

If they’re having a hard time getting themselves off the screen when they agreed to, we’re going to use this example, then that’s an opportunity to fail forward. What part worked? What part didn’t work? How are we going to do it differently? 

So, you’re problem-solving with them and holding them accountable to how they can get themselves off, instead of just holding them accountable to the outcome: “You didn’t hit the metric, so you’re out of here.”

Diane Dempster: Well, and I think that “you’re out of here” is part of it. I think the other thing we wanted to talk about is that a lot of times with things like this, because it’s so charged and because it’s not easy, technology often seems to be one of those areas where parents tend to go into director mode. 

I see parents all the time who say, “My kids aren’t allowed to have technology on weeknights,” or “My kids can only have one device.” It’s like there’s boundary-setting or rule-setting happening. I’m going to use that language instead of agreement-setting because we don’t know how to fix it. 

We think, “Okay, I know I can’t demonize it, but I’m going to control it as tightly as I can because I don’t like it.” And then, when our kids aren’t successful, we use that as an excuse to say, “Great, now I don’t have to worry about it. I can just take it away for the week.”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I was talking with a couple this morning, and I wrote this down because it was so accurate. They said, “We don’t really want to be top-down, but we tend to be kind of top-down directors because we don’t have a better way to do it.”

Diane Dempster: Right.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: We don’t have another way to do it yet. And I would add the word “yet,” right? This was somebody I was meeting for the first time. And so, there are a lot of things that we teach that help you learn how to put these boundaries in place collaboratively, but it takes a little time.

Diane Dempster: Well, that’s the thing I was going to say, Elaine. A lot of times, we don’t have the patience. Right? If I told you that if you worked on this for a month, you could come to an effective agreement, you might approach this very differently than if you’re like, “We had an agreement, and it didn’t work, so I’m going back to directing.”

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Right. Exactly.

Diane Dempster: Which is what we tend to do because we’re afraid. We think, “Okay, I can’t spend a month with my kid not doing their homework and spending time on technology instead.” The idea that it might take a while gets scary for us, and rightfully so.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah. All right, so it’s been about half an hour. Let’s wrap up this conversation.

Diane Dempster: We discussed addiction a bit, the tendency to focus on collaboration, and the importance of not demonizing. We covered everything on our list, right?

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: I think we did pretty well.

Diane Dempster: Right.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: The other thing I’d like to add is that I want to normalize technology use. If you see your kid on the phone, treat it the same way you would if you saw clothes or a towel on the floor, or if they didn’t brush their teeth-any other challenging behavior related to self-management that you’re trying to help them improve. 

Take away the fear of “Oh my God, technology” and just treat it as another matter-of-fact issue. It’s just one of those things you’re trying to help them learn to manage, especially when it comes to collaborating with your kid.

Diane Dempster: Well, I’m laughing because I can just imagine my kid being addicted to not hanging up their towel.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: My kid is definitely addicted to not putting his clothes in the hamper. No question.

Diane Dempster: Sorry.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: No, go ahead.

Diane Dempster: What I was going to say is that there are a lot of great resources on our website. We’ve put together some tips around technology use and getting your kids off technology. There’s some really cool stuff out there.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: We’ll get links for you, for sure.

Diane Dempster: And this is probably one of those areas where, if you’re struggling between directing and getting your kid to do something they actually agree to, this is a great place to get more personalized support. 

It’s about how to get your kid into collaboration, how to set an effective agreement. All of these things are areas where most of us could use a little more hand-holding, because if it were easy, we would have figured it out a long time ago.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Well, what I said to this couple this morning, and occasionally I’ll say something and think, “That was good,” this was a good one. I told them we’re staring down the barrel of an opportunity.

Diane Dempster: I like that.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: The thing about technology, and I think this is good, is that we often have this fear, like we’re staring down the barrel of something bad, right? But there’s actually a huge opportunity. 

The other thing about technology is our kids really do want it. And when they have something they really want, parents often say, “I didn’t want anything other than his phone.” Well, that’s fine. Let’s figure it out.

Diane Dempster: That’s great, it’s motivating.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: It’s motivating to help him learn to do all kinds of other things, right? Awesome. Anything else?

Diane Dempster: No, we could talk about this all day. We kind of already have. Thanks for being with us.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: One more thing, and I’ll put a link to it. We did a digital summit a couple of years ago, so if you want to dive deeper into this, we did an amazing series of interviews at the beginning of COVID with leading experts on this topic. We created this extraordinary resource guide. I’ll share the link.

Diane Dempster: There’s a bundle we have with our tips, the guide, and the recordings. It’s a great bundle.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, I’ll put it in there.

Diane Dempster: Alright, everybody.

Elaine Taylor-Klaus: Yeah, I’ll put it in there. Have a great week. We’ll see you next time.

Diane Dempster: Thanks for everything you’re doing for yourself and your kids. At the end of the day, you make a difference.