Managing your kid's technology use during COVID-19

A lot of parents having been asking me lately how to manage technology use during quarantine. After all, many kids are not attending school in person and consequently cell phones and computers have become their primary means of connecting with peers. Even more concerning to parents is that, for some kids, “connecting” means playing games with their friends (right now, Among Us is super popular), as kids can chat with each other and collaborate on teams during these games, instead of face to face chatting.

This means though, that parents have kids who are often online for at least 6 or more hours every day during the week. They are online for school, and then several hours more during evenings and weekends for social interaction. Parents who try to restrict cell phone usage report that their kids are resentful and angry, as they feel isolated from their peers. How should one best balance the need to reduce tech usage with their child’s need for social interaction?

While the exact rules of tech usage limits varies from family to family, here are my general thoughts:

1. First, talk to kids about tech usage and safety. Engage child in conversation about what behaviors they think might not be safe, as well as why they think using too much tech can backfire. I often find that kids admit that too much screen time leaves them feeling irritable or tired when invited, but argue against this when told why less tech is necessary. In general, any time you invite your child to generate reasons or points in a conversation, it tends to go better.

2. Clearly outline what is allowed and not allowed in terms of tech usage. Some parents are not ok with Snapchat, while others don’t allow games like Among Us. I encourage parents to set their rules around their comfort, but to have clear discussions with their kids about what apps are allowed, and what are not. I invite parents to create their own account and add their children in order to test out what the apps are like, and to have a better idea of each app’s purpose.

3. Relax limits during social distancing/remote learning, particularly if the child is completing school work/household chores and is still engaging in other interests/activities. While COVID-19 has many parents understandably worried about learning and academics, in my practice, I’ve been more focused on children’s social emotional wellbeing. Kids are not used to being isolated from one another, nor are they meant to be learning through screens. I worry about what the lack of social engagement does, so I have been advocating for kids to have more tech liberties than usual, particularly for families who are observing very strict social distancing measures. That being said, I think that this relaxation of limits needs to be balanced against parents still maintaining basic expectations; if child is meeting parents’ expectations for the day (i.e., this varies from family to family but may include turning in all assignments, getting exercise, completing chores, etc.), I would be in favor of more screen time. Just as long as the additional screen time is not having negative ramifications on their activities of daily living, I think children can benefit from more peer contact. A big red flag for me is when children forgo all other interests in pursuit of tech usage, or start lying for more screen time.

4. If possible, encourage other forms of (safe) social engagement. Some families have been open to podding, or having outdoor masked playdates. Others have set up online “reading” dates for their kids.

5. Invite kids to generate solutions on how their tech usage can be better managed and balanced. Parents often hate this suggestion because they feel that their children will come up with unbalanced solutions. In some cases, yes. But sometimes they’ll offer up something totally reasonable, or if not, at least you are making them feel more engaged in the resolution process, as opposed to handing down a rule. I find this to be particularly salient as kids get older; they want to feel that they have some say. An immediate “No” is one sure way to frustrate and complicate communication with your teen.

6. Finally, establish that tech usage is a privilege, not a right. I often seen kids assume that a cell phone being purchased by their parents is theirs, and this often results in a lot of difficulty limit setting with the kids. I encourage parents to try to find ways to establish early on that cell phones are a form of freedom and responsibility, and that necessitates wise and careful usage.

7. Have a family tech-free time everyday. Some parents declare this to be bedtime hours, or declare no tech in bedrooms after a certain hour. Some parents have a moratorium on tech during the dinner hours. I think that an imposed break can be helpful not only for kids but their parents as well! Research has shown that getting a text message activates the same neural networks as winning at the slot machines - it’s so easy to get addicted and highly reinforced to check our phones. If we want our kids to take a break from tech, shouldn’t parents/adults be the ones to model what this looks like?

Another parenting principle: It's not just what you say that matters, but HOW you say it.

When providing parent coaching, I often find that many parents already know what to say when their children are upset or distressed. Many of them provide thoughtful emotion coaching (i.e., helping their child identify the emotion they feel or giving words to what their child is feeling), and many also express appropriate empathy (i.e., "You must be so upset about that - I’m so sorry you’re sad!”). Some praise when they see their children respond to difficult emotions in a positive and effective manner (this makes me especially happy to see!).

While I definitely focus on the content of a message, I also spend a lot of time helping parents evaluate how they talk to their children. When I say how, I mean specifically the tone, feel, and emotional delivery of what they are saying.

It’s important, especially for little ones, that the intensity of or emotion in your voice matches what they are feeling. Can you imagine if you were seriously upset about something and were talking to a friend about it who responded in a totally flat and blase voice “Oh, I’m so sorry. That’s so terrible.” The content would be totally spot on, but the emotional intensity and meaning behind it would leave you feeling totally unsatisfied, if not dismissed. It’s the same for children - when they are upset, it’s important that you match their intensity and tenor, as this helps them feel heard and validated.

It can be difficult doing this when your child is upset about something that feels unreasonable (some parents tell me they feel like their kids’ requests are outright insane). I’m not asking you to agree to their demands, I’m asking you to acknowledge and agree to how upset or distressed they are when they don’t get what they want. Validating their emotions doesn’t mean you have to agree to what they want. This can be hard for parents, as many have asked, “Well, if I say that it’s okay for her to feel upset, doesn’t that mean I need to give into what she wants?”

Not necessarily. As adults, we often encounter disappointments. The important thing isn’t that we can always change circumstances to be in our favor, it’s that we learn to deal with feelings of sadness, disappointment, anger, etc. that arise as a result of these trials and tribulations. By holding the line and validating our children’s emotions, we are starting to teach the early lessons of facing the realities of life while being able to manage difficult emotions.

I’ve run into the effects of incongruence between message and delivery with kids who tell me that their parents don’t “get” that they are sad, anxious, or upset despite the fact that the parents saying all the right things. Sometimes it’s just a matter of parents tweaking how they speak to their kids - lowering their pitch, softening their tone, slowing their speech, adding a bit of sadness - for kids to really feel heard and understood.

I recently came across a research study by Weinstein and colleagues (2019) in the journal Developmental Psychology, titled Listen to your mother: Motivating tones of voice predict adolescents’ reactions to mothers. As I discussed above, tone matters early in childhood when validating and emotion coaching, but it also continues to matter in adolescence, and in positive interactions. In this study, mothers of teens provided motivational instructions (e.g., “Do well in the play) in a variety of tones - supportive, neutral, and controlling. Unsurprisingly, the teens who had mothers provide the instructions in a supportive voice tended to report having more positive emotions, more closeness with their mothers, and were also more engaged than the teens whose mothers used a controlling voice.

Taken together, this study (and many before it) tells us that it’s not just how parents talk when dealing with difficult situations that matters, but also how they express provide encouragement and support that matters. Parents sometimes ask me how they will know they get it right - I ask them to practice with me in session (role playing helps A LOT!), and to practice with each other and give each other feedback. I’ve had parents come back to tell me that it not only helps how they relate to their kids, but how they relate to each other - that doesn’t surprise me. At the core, all people, children and adults alike, want to feel like our emotions are reasonable, acceptable, and understandable. Having that message delivered in a way that resonates goes a long way to help achieve that.

Teens and Suicide

During my residency and post-doctoral fellowship, a significant part of my training involved treating suicidal teens and kids. Like many mental illnesses, suicidality does not discriminate -I treated patients from all ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and genders and some who were elementary school-aged. The scariest part for me was that there was nothing consistent across all of those cases that could have predicted who, when, or why, or how. The article below resonated with me and is a thoughtful discussion of what suicidality looks like in youth today:

Article: I treat teens who attempted suicide. Here’s what they told me.