Ash (00:00:00):

Fear and guilt are not empowering, right? I’m not going to make my best decisions if I’m reacting out of guilt. And if my goal is to raise kids who can balance this in their own lives, then getting into that messiness and that trial and error and that figuring stuff out is I think going to be really helpful to them as they grow up into young adults.

Dr. Sarah (00:00:30):

Today we are diving into a topic. I know so many parents wrestle with screens from video games to phones to tablets. Technology is woven into our kids’ lives and figuring out how to handle it without constant guilt or power struggles can feel overwhelming. Joining me today is Ash Brandin, a classroom educator, speaker and author of Power On: Managing Screen Time to Benefit the Whole Family. You may also know them as The Gamer Educator on Instagram, where they share incredibly practical and non-judgmental guidance for families navigating technology.

(00:01:05):

In this conversation, Ash and I explore a more realistic and respectful approach to scream time. One that goes beyond just set limits and instead focuses on teaching kids how to build lifelong skills, regulate their emotions, and develop a healthy relationship with technology. We’ll talk about how to use screens with intention, how to involve kids in the process so they feel respected and empowered, and why gaming is actually a powerful form of play that can strengthen connection and resilience. So if you’ve ever found yourself worrying about how much is too much or wondering how to move from rules and restriction to balance and collaboration, this episode is for you.

(00:01:46):

Hi, I’m Dr. Sarah Bren, a clinical psychologist and mom of two. In this podcast, I’ve taken all of my clinical experience, current research on brain science and child psychology, and the insights I’ve gained on my own parenting journey and distilled everything down into easy to understand and actionable parenting insights. So you can tune out the noise and tune into your own authentic parenting voice with confidence and calm. This is Securely Attached.

(00:02:23):

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(00:03:10):

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(00:04:31):

Hello, welcome back to the show everyone. We are really lucky we have Ash Brandon here today. Thank you so much for coming on. I would love to start with your story, what led you to study and teach about screen time in this super unique and nonjudgmental way that you do?

Ash (00:04:51):

Yeah, thank you. Well, I’m so happy to be here and talking with you. My background is I’m a classroom educator and I’m a career educator. This is still my day job and I grew up as a kid who just enjoyed things like video games and they were part of my life, but they were just another part of my life and I didn’t really think about that as being unique. And then I grew up into an adult who still liked to play video games and they were still just one part of my life, and so I would often reference them or pull from them or talk to kids about them the same way I would talk to a kid about their soccer practice and began to realize that that was sometimes a bit more unique from my colleagues. And I really was interested in how games are so motivating.

(00:05:47):

I think we often think that they are addicting, but often what they really are is motivating. And I thought, how do I bring in those elements into my classroom structure and my teaching? So not making it gamified like, oh, you did your assignment, here’s a star, but how do I make it feel as compelling as games? And so I did that for a while and tried some stuff and really liked how it kind of transformed some of my teaching. And I kind of presented that in game friendly spaces, mostly like conventions and video game spaces. And then once the pandemic happened, I had been waiting for some sort of push to put me online to make me pull the trigger. And then when I realized I wouldn’t be going to any in-person events anytime soon, I was like, well, I guess it’s time. And my initial community buy-in was from a lot of homeschool communities, which had a very different definition in 2021. Many many people were homeschool communities in 2021, but that was when I realized, oh, I’m not talking to just an educator audience. I’m actually talking to a much bigger audience. I’m talking to caregivers in general. And that was when I realized that I could bring in the techniques of education that I looked at every day in terms of management and behavioral management and scaffolding and executive function, and tie that in with my knowledge of games and technology. And that kind of just organically led to where we are today. Here we are.

Dr. Sarah (00:07:18):

Here we are, and where are we? I know where we are. I know incredible platform called The Gamer Educator. And if parents aren’t familiar with that, first of all, you should go follow Ash on Instagram. Your content’s really great. Oh, thank you. But you explain this stuff in a way that is like, oh yeah, it very much clicks for me and it’s stretched my perspective because too have come, I have been, and I’m sure we’ll get into this today, but I came probably starting out into this conversation about phones and games. And before I had, when my son was a baby, I was like, no games, no, no screens, no video games. Now the reality of having an 8-year-old boy, almost 8-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl, she’s not as into video games, but she’s into lots of other things related to screens, was like, because I didn’t understand video games, I didn’t play them when I was a kid. And then hearing the way you talk about it as having so much utility, I’m like, oh yeah, that makes actually a lot. It’s, it was a foreign world to me that I didn’t have a lot of insight into.

Ash (00:08:38):

Totally. Yeah, I think a lot of my page is sort of reframing things for folks in ways that will help them think about it in a way that feels more, I dunno, relatable or just kind of puts it into context in a way they haven’t really thought about before. I think silo a lot of parts of parenting and think of them as being very separate or very different from each other. But honestly, so many parts of parenting really are the same in terms of thinking about how we might handle something and it’s really just applying it to different media or parts of kids’ lives. And I think if we are not really familiar with something, we think that we’re kind of onboarded and dunno what to do, but most of the time we actually really do, we have a set of skills to fall back on that can be really, really useful. And sometimes it’s just putting all that into the context and helping folks realize, oh, actually I do know how to handle this. And giving them permission to handle it in a way that would already maybe feel comfortable with.

Dr. Sarah (00:09:41):

Yeah, and you talk a lot about, okay, if you have kids, a lot of parents struggle with this. I mean, I get asked this question, I know you get asked this question a lot of like, okay, how do I sell limits around screen time use and what’s the stuff I should allow and what’s the stuff that I shouldn’t allow? And what age is okay to start? And I think your answer to most of these questions, I think is that’s the wrong question to be asking, or let’s flip that on its head a little bit and look at it from a different angle. Is there a paradigm shift that we can think about? And I like the way you talk about it, so I’m just wondering if when people ask you those questions, how do you reframe it for them or what’s a way to think of it from a different angle?

Ash (00:10:26):

I’m trying to think of how to do that really generally. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, on the one hand, I know that if I were the person desperately seeking an answer, because I have been that parent, we’re all that parent or caregiver at different parts of our parenting journey, but when I have been that parent, the last thing I want is for someone to give me a non-answer answer and I’m like, how dare you? I wanted a number. Just give me a concrete number. And we also often learn through parenting that there is no very, very rarely a actual right answer. And so often it’s being comfortable with and giving ourselves permission to experiment, to try things, to see how things are going to go. So when people are like, what’s the right amount? Instead of saying like, oh, it’s X number of minutes. My common reframe is something like the right amount is an amount that is beneficial to everybody in your family.

(00:11:34):

And some people will hear that and go like, well, but my kid would want to play for three hours. And I’m like, right, but is that beneficial to you? Because probably it’s not. Of course they want to play for the three hours. That’s not my question. My question is what would benefit all of you? Because if you are clock watching and obsessed with a number of minutes and you’re like, oh, because my pediatrician said it should be an hour, whatever you’re hearing don’t exceed X number of minutes, if that’s what you are myopically focused on, then I think it deprives us of agency and being able to problem solve other things because if we’re not exceeding the number of minutes, but our kid is having a hard time, then we’re like, but it’s not the wrong number of minutes. Why are they struggling? And now we’ve kind of lost the thread.

(00:12:21):

And the other side of that is if I’m going to go over the number of minutes I’m aiming for, but means that we’re going to eat a meal I wouldn’t be able to make otherwise, or I’m going to be able to have all of my mental load done so that I can be present and regulated and a better caregiver, then that is probably better for my whole family, including my children, than if I am sacrificing of myself to try and minimize because I’ve decided that the only metric I should care about is time or shot length or content or delivery, insert any of those varying things here. And it’s a lot harder to have those conversations. It’s much easier to do that more simple binary, do this and not that. And a big part of why I do the work I do is to help people feel empowered. Fear and guilt are not empowering. I’m not going to make my best decisions if I’m reacting out of guilt. And if my goal is to raise kids who can balance this in their own lives, then getting into that messiness and that trial and error and that figuring stuff out is I think going to be really helpful to them as they grow up into young adults.

Dr. Sarah (00:13:43):

Yeah. Yeah, that’s beautifully said. I feel like there’s this very, like you said, super understandable need, frankly need for some sort of core guidelines and also a very strong realistic also need for this flexibility and personalization of it fitting in your family. When you were saying, does it benefit all people in the family? And it was like the example was like, but the kid might want to play for three hours. I was like, I won’t want my kid to play for three hours so that I can get all my stuff done and my kid’s fine with that, but is it beneficial to him to play for three hours? It might actually be beneficial for me, but we have to make sure it’s beneficial for everybody. And so it’s like this balance of sometimes, and there’s two different extremes we can go on, and I find myself in both ends of these spectrums of, on the one hand it’s like I want to really limit screen time, and if they go over that, I have anxiety about what’s that going to do to my child’s wellbeing and what is it displacing from a skill development or a brain functioning standpoint, and they get more dysregulated and they’re whatever.

(00:14:57):

But on the other end of the spectrum, it’s like I really have to check myself sometimes and say I have totally just, I’ve checked out on how much screen time’s been happening because I’m in the weeds in my own stuff and I am using it as an auxiliary parent, which I definitely do because I’m a human and I just have too much. And so sometimes it’s me actually saying I’ve dialed it too far out and I have to come back in. And that means I have to be more intentional and I have to do more work sometimes in the parenting sphere. And that’s hard. It’s hard on both ends.

Ash (00:15:37):

Absolutely. Something that I dig into in the book that I wrote that came out recently is setting up these frameworks and the things to kind of consider, and the thing I recommend starting with is considering what your need is. What is the need that might be necessitating a use of a screen? And sometimes the need might just be leisure. It doesn’t have to be through the lens of productivity, but it often is because of things that you’re talking about. So if my need is like we’re in a busy season and I have less capacity than I typically do, and my need is like, you know what? Right now we’re going to be on screens more and I’m just sort of resigning myself to that, but I still want to maybe not just open Pandora’s box entirely, then if my need is I need more time, I’m going to need more time, and therefore they’re going to be on a screen more, well, that might also help me decide what kind of screen that I say yes to. Another part of the book, I talk about what I call the ABCs of screen time, which are the big components to consider, but they’re also often the pain points.

(00:16:52):

The underlying causes of a lot of the pain points that people have with screens and they stand for access, behavior and content access being time, time on a screen, how they get a screen, how they get access to it. And if I know, okay, my need right now is actually I need an hour, I need an hour and a half, I need a pretty big chunk of time, but I also want it to be time where maybe I’m not having to intervene a lot or I know my child will not get too dysregulated or be successful, then that kind of tells me what the content might be. If I know that a certain app or a certain show or a certain movie is really activating for my kid, or they have a really hard time with certain kinds of content and they need a lot of intervention, or we can only play that game if we’ve run around and done some big regulatory movement first.

Dr. Sarah (00:17:43):

Or it’s super hard to turn it off for them.

Ash (00:17:45):

Right? Right. Then I’m not going to have that be the content. And that’s a lot easier to do when we’re able to think of it with neutrality because then I’m able to think of it as data and as information and how am I going to do this to meet all of our needs? Because exactly as you said, sure, I might need three hours sometimes and my kid would probably not technically have a problem with that. And if it is then making it so that they’re dysregulated or other members of the family aren’t getting their needs met or it makes the whole rest of our day really difficult, then actually that isn’t really benefiting us. We’re paying for it on the other end. So that is also not an indictment of us. If that happens, it doesn’t need to be like, oh, I failed. It’s because I am a bad parent. That’s not going to help us. So instead thinking of what can I control? Maybe I can’t control that I need an hour, but maybe I can control what we do before or after. Maybe I can control what I say yes to. Maybe I control other parts of our day to feel like we’re kind of getting a more well-rounded experience if that’s really important to me. So it’s just thinking about, again, coming back to what’s the need for all of us and then how do I work around that? Factoring that in.

Dr. Sarah (00:19:01):

Yeah, I think that’s really helpful and it kind of bumps me to this other thought I have, which is that I wanted to ask you about, which is like, okay, we as parents have this responsibility of setting the boundaries around screens, but our kids, it’s in their lives whether they’re really little and they’re just observing us using them or they’re older and they’re starting to engage with screens, whether it’s TV or tablets or games or when they get older, they’re getting phones and smartwatches and group chats and social media. It goes fast to, I had this episode that I did with one of my mentors, his name’s Elay Duarte, and he, I’ll link it, it was a really good episode on screen use, but he uses this metaphor of a river with different currents. And so there’s the warm waters, there’s the adventure stream where it feels really good and we get lost in time, but we lose track of time, but there’s no gravity.

(00:20:06):

I can be an NBA basketball star, but it’s not like throwing basketball, shooting hoops in my backyard. I miss sometimes. And then there’s the stressful waters and then there’s the dangerous vortex of current. So it’s like he talks a lot about teaching kids how to notice where they are in the water. The river is tech and the banks are real life, and where are you in the water? How do you know when you’re moving into an adventure stream, how do you know when you are ready to get out? How do you know when you’re moving from the adventure dream to stressful waters? How do you know if something dangerous feels like it’s happening? So helping, and I feel like you do a lot of talking around helping kids become educated consumers of this tech, educated about their own, how it feels to use it, and I think there’s a lot of alignment in the way he talks about it and the way you talk about itm. Just curious what you think about that metaphor, but also just how do we support kids to become players in this?

Ash (00:21:16):

Yeah, I love that it was a water metaphor because my go-to metaphor lately is also a water metaphor. So perfect. We’re really well aligned. The metaphor I’ve been going to a lot lately is to talk about pools.

(00:21:31):

Because a lot of times if I were to say to families like, Hey, yes, sometimes kids have a hard time stopping or they don’t want to go do something else, or they have feelings about a boundary. And sometimes I’ll reframe by saying, okay, but how would we feel if they were having a hard time leaving the playground or leaving the pool or getting out of the bathtub? We probably wouldn’t blame the playground or the pool or the bathtub. And sometimes the response I get is like, okay, but those things aren’t designed the same way as screens. Well, for one, if we talk about food, yes, they are, right? If we talk about certain kinds of food, more engineered snack foods, they are absolutely designed to make you want to eat more of them. That is truly how they are designed. And we also know that if we ban those things entirely, that we are making them feel really special and probably doing the opposite of what we want.

(00:22:33):

So actually we can talk about those things and not ban them completely, but also not allow them completely. But we also, because certain things have inherent danger, we do prepare our kids accordingly. And so when I think about something like a pool pools or bodies of water are inherently dangerous to humans because we don’t know how to swim. We don’t know how to keep ourselves safe in water from birth, and that doesn’t mean that we wait until our kid is 14 and then go, oh, okay, you’re in the eighth grade apparently, now you’re fine to swim, go. Instead, we actually intentionally expose them to the thing that is potentially dangerous in a way that is age and developmentally appropriate, while we also build the skill for them to navigate that thing while we keep them safe from the parts they’re not ready for. So I put my baby in the pool with water wings on and I’m holding them most of the time and letting go. On occasion, they’re getting exposure, I’m still keeping them safe, and then we scaffold this endlessly. And even when one day my kid is a pretty independent swimmer and I’m still going to keep an eye on them, I am still going to make sure that we’re somewhere with a lifeguard. And if we’re in the ocean and my kid, were an Olympic level swimmer, they’re still going to need to care about and be wary of riptide and currents and undertow. Those are always going to be dangerous.

Dr. Sarah (00:24:13):

Like, there might be a lifeguard at the beach.

Ash (00:24:14):

Right? Some of those inherent dangers are never going to go away. And so we prepare our kids by giving them education and by giving them a set of skills so that they can assess that risk and know when it’s something they can handle when it’s something that they can’t. And I think that the more we can think about how those skills cross over again, I think is really, really helpful. So if a kid is struggling with stopping at the end of playing a game, okay, well, is that a skill that they also struggle with in other parts of their lives? Because if they also struggle when it’s time to wrap up and they’re in the middle of a book or they’re doing a big project at school and they struggle to wrap up or they struggle and anything else, well then that sounds like the skill is the thing that is actually needed to be addressed, and we can address that across all of these different areas of their lives.

(00:25:17):

And the more that we are able to see that skill transfer, the more then we can help them see that skill transfer so that the message they’re getting is not, oh, yeah, I can’t play that game because I’m bad at stopping playing that game, but instead I am working on the skill of wrapping up or stopping in the middle of something that’s hard no matter what. And I think that again, helps us be more neutral because if I’m like, oh yeah, it’s hard to stop then yeah, I mean, it’s hard to stop. That’s pretty easy to empathize with. But if I go to a place of blaming the screen or blaming the tech or blaming the video game, that’s not going to really create connection with me and my kid. It’s going kind of put a division between us and also that’s not going to help us tomorrow, especially if we’re using it out of necessity. It’s like, well, tomorrow I’m still going to need help, so what am I going to do differently tomorrow? I’m just going to feel bad. So I think there’s a lot of that skill transfer and the neutrality really go together, and I think what I love about the analogy you mentioned with the river also is that kids are involved in that they’re not being done to, we’re bringing them along and we’re seeing them as worthy of including in that, so that they’re getting that agency from the very beginning.

Dr. Sarah (00:26:32):

And you talk about skill building, the skills we build in our kids when we help them navigate tech are not exclusive to tech as your point was just illustrated. And so these are lifelong skills that can be used inside of tech use and outside of tech use and being aware of our sensory experience, being aware of our emotional experience, being aware of our, how much are the backs of my eyes hurting? Do I need to stretch my body? Am I feeling kind of stressed out saying some mean stuff online and I don’t really like the way this feels. One of the risks of tech is that it has a really unfortunate byproduct of pulling us out of our body, such an immersive experience. And so being able to learn the skill of staying turned on while you are engaged in tech, it’s a challenge, but it’s doable.

(00:27:35):

And sometimes you have to flicker on and off if you’re in the middle of a game, if you’re in a flow state inside of some fun game, you’re in that adventure stream, you aren’t going to notice, oh man, I’m really hungry and it’s probably time for dinner and maybe I should stop and take a break or, Ooh, I got to stretch out a little bit or whatever, fill in the blanks. We kind of leave our bodies and move into this world, but if we can help our kids learn that skill of taking a pause and checking in and being sort of toggling between virtual life and real life and being interested in the internal experience, that’s a really useful skill in lots of places, way outside of tech.

Ash (00:28:17):

Absolutely. And frankly, especially if you’re in more of that sort of really focused flow state, also not exclusive to technology, how many times am I hunched over doing something that is not actually on a screen and then realizing like, oh, I’m tight or need to move, or Oh my gosh, I haven’t had a break in an hour and a half and I’m suddenly feeling really out of it and being able to then find those parallels, I think like you’re saying, can even make it helpful so that if that’s then coming up when they are on a screen, it’s not like, oh, well you’re like this because you’re on a screen and instead it’s like, Hey, you’re really in the zone and it can be really hard to break away when you’re really in the zone and just like when you are building Lego and you’re super into it and then you realize you haven’t moved in a while, it can be the same thing.

(00:29:21):

So let’s build in breaks. One of the things I mentioned in the middle of my book and the screen time, ABCs is a word that I really love for things like this, which is notice because the word notice is very neutral and it doesn’t ascribe any sort of morality to what’s happening because I think a big part of what you’re talking about is if we want our kids to notice those things, that’s a scale in and of itself, especially if it’s something they’re really interested in, and so often we might have to help them notice those things, which means we might have to be explicitly telling them those things, and that can be really hard to do without it feeling kind of weighted or moral, especially if it’s things that maybe don’t feel super helpful if we are sensing sort of dysregulation, we don’t want to be like, you’re getting dysregulate, we’re getting dysregulated.

Dr. Sarah (00:30:17):

How do we give feedback without a feeling like criticism?

Ash (00:30:20):

Right? Exactly. So hard. So hard and notice I feel like can be really helpful because it also puts, at least for myself, it puts me in a position of having to speak really objectively. Instead of you’re being rude, I don’t like your tone. It’s like I notice now I have to really describe what I’m noticing, what I’m seeing or observing, and then helping them take that information and do something about it like, oh, I notice that you’re squirming around a lot. Okay, that’s what we notice. It’s not good, bad, or anything else. You’re squirming around. And then maybe it’s, do you need a break? Maybe it’s do you want to sit on a wobble chair? Maybe it’s do you want to balance on one leg? Right? And then did that help? Did it not? Did it make any difference in my household? When we have done that noticing for my kiddo, what was really interesting is that when we addressed that and they had a way of processing some of that movement, particularly during screen time, they got much better at the screen time. They were better in the video game they were playing, and so that actually made it more positive. Then if we did notice it, we could say, oh, remember when you give your body a way to move when you’re trying to focus, actually you were more successful in the game. And that’s great feedback and also keeps it more positive.

Dr. Sarah (00:31:50):

And again in their range of interest, right? You were saying at the very beginning, gaming is actually really motivating. And you had said something and I’m trying to think, I had a thought it was like, okay, gaming, we were kind talking a difference between gaming versus gamification of things and using gamification as a carrot and stick kind of thing versus a behavioral manipulation tactic versus gaming as in play. And I’m like, for me, immediately like, oh, a light bulb went off of thinking about it in terms of, well, Doug gaming, I talk all the time about how play is a connector, it’s a relational experience. Using playfulness in our parenting strategies can open up a whole world of building skills and setting boundaries and holding limits inside of play. It’s just a vehicle by which to do so much, and gaming is a different type of play. It’s why not think of it from that lens of how do we build skills through something playful and fun? We accept this as a reality in so many places, but perhaps it’s harder for some of us to say it still is true for games, even if they’re on a screen. It’s very true for games.

Ash (00:33:19):

Absolutely. Well, yeah, because I do find it very paradoxical that the conversation at large is often kind of critical of games and screens as if they’re a waste of time, and then there’s a lot of push to then do that sort of gamification in parts of their lives. But the gamification in big air quotes there that often ends up happening is what you say. It becomes like sticker charts and carrot and stick, and those are the moments where I’m like, I need you all to please go play a video game because that’s not how they work. If you were to give a player a version of a Mario game, I mean any game, if you give them a version of a game where in order to do the level you had to go through these kind of arbitrary roadblocks and then the game was like, hooray, you did it and over rewarding you and flickering things on the screen, you would feel so infantalized by that and very quickly be like, I’m not doing this.

(00:34:32):

This isn’t fun. And then somehow we turn around and then we do a lot of that in the name of gamification and a lot of educational spaces, and it ends up undercutting us because like you said, the thing that a lot of people enjoy about video games is the immersive play and the motivation that comes from that because it gives us a sense of autonomy and control. It gives us a sense of competence and self-assuredness in many cases. It also gives us a sense of relatedness because we’re able to somehow relate to other people, and especially for kids, especially for school age kids, they go the majority of their day and therefore their lives having very little autonomy all day. They are being told where to go and what to do and how to sit and when you can leave and when you can go to the bathroom and they don’t get a lot of autonomy.

(00:35:28):

And so then they can come home and they can easily tap into a digital world in which no one is saying that they’re doing things right or wrong. Maybe they do technically do something wrong, but the game isn’t going to admonish them. It’s just going to not let them do something a certain way and give them a chance to try again.

Dr. Sarah (00:35:45):

Right, you’re going to keep walking into the wall and you keep bouncing back and it just doesn’t let you go.

Ash (00:35:49):

Right? And yeah, it’s going to enforce the boundary, but with neutrality, it’s not going to be like, why are you doing that? Why are you doing that? How many times do I have to tell you? Right? Because we wouldn’t play a game that did that. It just doesn’t let you do it, and then you figure out a different way. Exactly. And it’s going to let you figure it out, and it’s going to let you do that on your own terms while keeping its boundaries in place. And that is something that a lot of kids really don’t have in other parts of their lives and want to get somewhere else. And I think that’s why sometimes we see kids want to turn to these digital spaces because yes, that is an easier way to get that feeling than diving deep into imaginative play or doing strategic thinking. In a sports team, it is a lot more accessible and immediately satisfying to do it through a video game, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. We don’t want that to be the only way they do that thing because if it is the only way they do that thing, as I’m sure you know better than I do, then anytime they want to feel whatever the thing is that they’re missing, they’re going to turn to the video game.

(00:37:02):

Right, it’s got lower, it’s no gravity zone. It’s like that. Well, in that just for example, if I play FIFA soccer versus I go and play soccer in my backyard with some friends, there’s a lot more gravity in real life soccer. I’m going to miss the ball more. I’m going to, and it’s not to say that you don’t get frustrated and have to learn distress tolerance and frustration tolerance and problem solving skills when you’re playing the video games. It’s just to your point, if I exclusively did that, if I only ever played FIFA soccer on my whatever, I dunno if I, that’s what it’s called, but if I only played it on my video game and I never really did any outside play, when I go and do that at recess, I just might not have the grit. I might not have. I might want to give up a little faster. I might say, this is boring. I just want to go back to the video game because it’s easier. And so again, it’s like we need to build distress tolerance. We need to build frustration tolerance, we need to build problem solving. You can do that in video games.

(00:38:17):

That’s definitely a part of it. And it’s doing it in a sort of sub gravity zone. It’s it’s got a different weight to it, but I’m really curious what it was.

(00:38:30):

Yes, I agree. Yes, absolutely. Often video games or those kinds of activities can become sort of the lowest hanging fruit because I know that’s how I’m going to get that psychological need met. If I am coming off a whole day of being told what to do and where to go and how to act and I’m like, oh my God, I just want to be in control and have people leave me alone, and I can do that in a way that is very dense in its need satisfaction, then yeah, I am going to turn to the video game. And that does not mean that the experience of doing that is necessarily going to be always puppies and rainbows and super fun and easy. But like you said, we don’t want a kid turning to that every single time. Sometimes we do need the lowest hanging fruit. I talked about this with Alyssa Blast Campbell, who I know you had. I love her so much. The show where I used an example from my own life where I said, if I’m in a really bad place with an anxious churning brain, I can’t put on a comfort show because my brain is like, cool, we can keep spiraling. We’ll just keep spiraling while the calm show is on in the background. That’s fine. We’ll just keep spiraling. If I am really struggling, the thing that I need to do is I watch jackass movies. This is my, if things are pretty bad, we’re watching jackass and I only need to do it for 30 minutes maybe. Maybe more if I feel like it, but I don’t need it for very long and I have to engage with it enough and it gets me out of my spiral, and then I’m able to transfer and go over to an actual coping strategy.

Dr. Sarah (00:40:41):

But you can, you probably hone that skill over a lot of practice and self-reflection an adult. But kids can do that, but we have to help teach them how.

Ash (00:40:52):

Yes. And I think a huge part of it, frankly, is modeling. We do so much modeling when our kids are babies, we script all the time. We know that’s how they learn language and then they learn language and we kind of are like, alright, we’re done. And so much of emotional regulation, but also executive function and especially with things like regulating our relationship to technology, so much of it is invisible to kids if they often will see us looking at our phones perhaps more than we would like them to. But I think a big part of that is too also just naming what I’m doing because so much domestic and invisible labor has moved on to phones.

Dr. Sarah (00:41:41):

Mhmm.

Ash (00:41:42):

And I think that we become very demonizing of parents being on their phones in a way where it’s like they can’t win if they’re looking at their phone at the park, people are like, they should be watching their kid. And it’s like if I were watching every move my kid did at the park, people would tell me I was being a helicopter parent. And also 30 years ago my mom would’ve been reading the newspaper and nobody would’ve been yelling at her about that. She would’ve been making the grocery list and cutting coupons. Well, that’s what I’m doing. I’m just doing it on a phone. So sometimes it’s just naming like, Hey, I am literally, you just said that you grabbed the last granola bar from the pantry. I am putting it on the grocery list and then I will come back to doing whatever we were doing.

(00:42:23):

Just sometimes naming those things. But with the emotional intelligence piece and the introspection piece, naming how you’re feeling and what you’re trying and what you notice, I’ve done that before where I’ve had a day where I was like, I’m just in a funk. I’m sad and I kind of want to distract myself and see if that does anything because who knows? And I played some Zelda for a while and then after 25 minutes I paused and said, I’m having fun, but I can already feel my mood creeping back in so I can tell that this is only going to distract me as long as I’m doing it. It’s not actually helping me regulate. So I’m going to pause and I’m going to quit for today because it was a nice distraction, but it’s not actually helping me. And so I think instead, I’m going to try going for a walk. Let’s go for a walk. Right. I love that. No good, bad or anything. Just naming.

Dr. Sarah (00:43:23):

Just making it loud.

Ash (00:43:26):

Just saying it out loud seriously goes such a long way because then we’re also giving our kids that sort of implicit permission that they can experiment with this and we might then feel more comfortable asking them of did it help? Did it not help? What else can we try? Sometimes we do need the lowest hanging fruit. My jackass example is if you came up to me in the moment where I’m in my peak anxiety spiral and you were like, how about you do a box breath and think about the worst possible outcome, I would be get out of my face, I’d be flipping a table and being get out because I’m not capable of engaging with that.

Dr. Sarah (00:44:09):

Right. You don’t have the bandwidth. We have to have matching bandwidth for what we’re asking ourselves to do or our kids to do.

Ash (00:44:18):

And if I’m on a day where I’ve had a really rough night and I’ve had three hours of sleep, I might know, okay, the long-term strategy to this is I need to go to bed early tonight, but that is not going to mean that I’m not going to pick up an extra latte. I’m going to probably still need the low hanging fruit of the short-term solution in order to be able to access the longer term thing that might be more sustainable. And we all have those moments in our parenting where you look at your kid and you’re like, oh my gosh, I’ve misjudged something and I thought we were going to be fine and we are not going to be fine, and we’re in public and we’re risking a meltdown or a hanger or whatever. And I had one of those instances with my kiddo and I literally handed them my phone with an app I knew would be regulating would help bring them down because we had a 45 minute train ride and I was like, this is not going to go well. And handed that to them and they pretty much listened to music and had a very calm experience on the way back and we made it back and everybody benefited from that, right? My kid did. I did. Everybody else on the train did. But if instead I’ve been like, well, I don’t want strangers to see my kid on my phone, judge me. It’s like, well, for one thing, the opposite situation, if I hadn’t given my kid a phone, they would’ve been judging me, believe me, because it would’ve been a rough day.

Dr. Sarah (00:45:46):

Okay. I don’t want to put you on the spot too much, but are there particular apps that you prefer to share with your kid or that you recommend parents try out that you like better? That you find more?

Ash (00:45:58):

Yeah, friendly. We were talking about how video games are often digital play opportunities. And so the apps I really love, particularly for young kids are open-ended play opportunities. Sometimes we assume that for an app to be beneficial, it needs to be academic or educational, but what we forget is that the audience that gets marketed to for educational games and apps is not kids, it’s adults because they’re the ones doing the purchasing. So they design them to have activities that look educational to an adult. And those are not necessarily the kinds of actual hands-on more integrated learning experiences that we really want kids to have, which are often play-based, especially in young childhood. So one that I recommend all the time that I love is called PokPok.

Dr. Sarah (00:46:55):

I love PokPok. That was one that I was going to say. Because I think that one is so good.

Ash (00:47:00):

hat’s the one I handed my kid on the train and they opened up the radio and just listened to the radio forever. But I mean, I’m not joking. There are times where I will open up PokPok and play the Marble Run where I’m like, I need to…

Dr. Sarah (00:47:16):

My kids ask for PokPok all the time. Probably because it’s one of the only apps. I will let them play on my phone.

Ash (00:47:22):

But I’m so glad that you love it as well. It truly is so lovely and it’s so funny to hear adults kind of try to interact with it, be like, well, but it doesn’t say what to do. And I’m like, yes, that’s the point. It doesn’t tell you what to do, but believe me, they will figure it out. They’ll play.

Dr. Sarah (00:47:40):

They do. I’m like, they get it better than I do. I still am like, I don’t understand exactly what to do, but they figure it out and it’s really cool.

Ash (00:47:48):

It’s a bunch of, in case people are unfamiliar, it’s a bunch of little digital sort of toys. I like to call it Montessori work in your pocket. It’s a bunch of very hands-on as much as you can be in a digital environment kind of tactile. It’s like digital blocks or digital marble run and a digital busy board, and you’re just sort of toggling switches. Or you can make little custom avatars. They have a space module that’s very adorable. My kiddo loves taking people to space and going around and in the town, there’s a little town I am in it, which this is one of my things I am most proud of probably in my life. They made a little version of me and I live in the bookstore.

Dr. Sarah (00:48:33):

Oh my gosh, wait, okay. PokPok is in full disclosure. I have an affiliate link with them. Me too. Hear it drsarahbren.com/pokpok. I never talk about it though because I’m always like, how do I fit this into my content? I just kind of like, I enjoy it. I tell people about it in one-to-one, but they gave me a little avatar too. I dunno if it’s in there. They gave me a little postcard with my avatar. I was like, yes, I have it. Yes. Oh, that makes me so happy. Yes. For me in there, I don’t know.

Ash (00:49:04):

Yes, you should look. Yes, because when I first found out that I was in it after I got done crying, then I told followers, I was like, if your kiddo finds me, then tell me what adventure I go on. And that’s lovely. People were like, oh, my kid took you to get a pizza. They took you on a boat. You want them in it. I just know I got level up for me, perhaps it’s a goal. One of the things that I love most about that though, I don’t know about your kid, is that my kiddo is so descriptive and laugh. They talk constantly when they play that game much more so than others. So they’ll be narrating what they’re doing or where they’re going or what they’re thinking about. And I mean, talk about seeing the learning going on. It makes it really easy for us to talk about what’s going on. Anyway, that is a real long tangent about PokPok.

Dr. Sarah (00:49:56):

I know, I know. But it’s one thing I’ll just add. I think it’s important. My son is about to turn eight and he does play video games. He plays “real video games”. And he likes PokPok too.

Ash (00:50:09):

Same. Yes.

Dr. Sarah (00:50:10):

So it’s not like, oh, my kid’s not going to like that. They’ve already kind of tasted the real thing. No, it’s fun. It’s just a different vibe.

Ash (00:50:20):

Yes, it is a different thing, but it is still great. And every time I mention or recommend it, I say it is great for ages and then I will still get people who are like, okay, but really what age is it good for? I have a kid who’s 7, 8, 10, and I’m like, no, it really is great for all ages. I’m really not exaggerating. It is.

Dr. Sarah (00:50:41):

Everybody can enjoy it. I’d rather play it than Candy Crush. I also have a rule for myself. I have ADHD and we didn’t even get into this. You have to come back and we got to talk about addictions and screen stuff.

Ash (00:50:52):

Neurodivergence in screens. Yes.

Dr. Sarah (00:50:54):

Really we should do If you are down, I would love to do that.

Ash (00:50:58):

Please would love it.

Dr. Sarah (00:51:00):

Okay, done. I’m making, I’m booking it in my head. Amazing. But I have a hard time turning off things, and so I have this personal rule. I don’t know, I used to just lose time in games that I couldn’t, I just don’t allow any games on my phone for myself. I can’t just, for me, it’s a no go because it’s already hard enough for me to turn off things like social media or my email. I probably compulsively check my email 400 times a day. I don’t need to add any more phone gluey things that I can get stuck in. But I feel like I would much rather play PokPok than Candy Crush or whatever. Some of those sort of mindless, very hypnotic games that just get you stuck.

Ash (00:51:58):

And for all the games that are open-ended and difficult to stop because Puck is very, it doesn’t tell you what to do. There’s not really a sense of time there. It is shockingly easy to stop. I find, at least in my experience with my family, it’s pretty easy. And certain things like save and persist, so then we can say like, oh, okay, we’ll be back. We’ll come back to the town. And pretty much everything stays the same. So yeah. PokPok is a fantastic one.

Dr. Sarah (00:52:28):

Yeah. I didn’t intend for this to turn into a commercial for PokPok, but it’s basically just did.

Ash (00:52:31):

I don’t think they’ll complain.

Dr. Sarah (00:52:32):

Sorry. Sorry not sorry.

Ash (00:52:36):

But yeah, especially for young kids, that one is a real winner.

Dr. Sarah (00:52:42):

Yeah, totally. And this is just a perfect example of the fact that it’s not this all or nothing. I’m one of the people in the world who says, try not to use screens for regulation purposes. And also that’s not a blanket rule. It’s in the optimal moments when you have the bandwidth to co-regulate and your child has the bandwidth to be co-regulate, and we can try to create a learning, a corrective emotional experience here. Sure, do it.

(00:53:12):

That’s the time to do it. And frankly, if you do do that every once in a while, it will go very, very, very far in teaching motion regulation skills. And if there are times where you don’t have the bandwidth or your kid doesn’t have the bandwidth or the environment is not conducive to the work that has to be done, you don’t have to follow the quote rule each time. It’s like this is aggregate parenting happens in the aggregate. All of this stuff is in the aggregate. And so I think that just goes full circle back to what your original statement was at the beginning of the show, which was like, what is going to benefit everyone the most in this particular moment, not forever and always. You’re not carving into a slate stone what the rules are. You’re just reacting to now.

Ash (00:54:03):

And then it’s okay to react to now. And if I’m making this judgment call right now because this is what is going to be best in this moment, right? Because we’re in a situation where I can’t do the best practice that I would love to do in isolation in a vacuum.

(00:54:20):

And it’s probably good for our kids to see us be flexible and adaptive and not just be demanding that of them. Because I think we demand flexibility from kids a lot. And sometimes the flexibility that we’re really asking for is compliance, right? It’s not really flexibility. It’s more like, I would like you to do what I’m asking you to do without complaining and being able to model that flexibility back to show, yes, I have a goal I’m trying to meet and I’m still going to be cognizant of you child’s role in our family and your needs as well. And factor that in, especially as kids get older, being able to involve them in some of that decision. If we already know, if we’re already in the place where we’re like, actually, yeah, probably I just need to say yes to this. In this particular case, it’s going to work out better for everyone.

(00:55:14):

But instead of issuing it as a blanket decision, if we have a kid who we think can be involved in that, saying like, Hey, so how are you right now? In my kid’s case, it was like we had been out all day doing really fun stuff at a giant outdoor park area. So I knew they were tired and hungry and hot. All these kind of sensory things going on and being able to build in that introspection and go, how are you seem spent? Are you tired? Are you hungry? Do you need a snack? And then, okay, so what would you like to do right now on this train ride? What are you feeling? And if they’re suddenly like, well, actually I’d really like to watch a bluey episode, then we can come in and be like, you know what? I think that sounds great. You take one of these air pods, I’m going to take the other one. How about we watch two? You choose the first, I’ll choose the second, and then after that, we will play ice buy. Then we can build in the transfer out of it. And if we have the capacity, we can stop and talk about how we feel before and after that. And if it made a difference, and then we’re able to do something different. Now we’re going to play Ipy on this train and we’re going to read a book, or we’re going to do what have you. We can even talk about, Hey, do you think you could have done that before we watched the Bluey? Do you think watching the Bluey helped? Why do you think that is?

Dr. Sarah (00:56:47):

Oh, I love that. That’s really building those reflective, functioning muscles.

Ash (00:56:52):

Right? Because then we’re also talking about like, okay, well what if we had instead watched something very different? Choose something that would be very different for your kid.

Dr. Sarah (00:57:02):

Think we would shorten quick and fun and maybe if we got into, I don’t know, K-pop Demon Hunters and I had to stop it halfway through because we weren’t, then they would be like, ahhhh.

Ash (00:57:13):

Right, right. That is my life. Yes, exactly. Well, and how would it have felt? Do you think that would’ve been easier or harder? Huh? Okay, so when we have a short amount of time, do you like to watch things that fit in that amount of time or do you like to watch the thing you’re more interested in? Even if you have to stop all of the, I mean, it’s so much transference to so many parts of their lives. So many important things.

Dr. Sarah (00:57:35):

Yeah. I love this collaborative problem solving that you’re doing. I also recognize that whole thing has to live inside of, we’re talking about bandwidth, right? That’s not going to be accessible if our kids are at that 8, 9, 10, on a scale of one to 10, but 5, 6, 7, oh yes, this is, there’s room for this.

Ash (00:57:53):

And if we do grab that lowest hanging fruit and we watch ’em bluey, or we watch ’em K-pop demon hunters, or they play a little bit of an app and then 20, 30 minutes later, now they’re at a five, now I can do a quick like, oh wow.

Dr. Sarah (00:58:09):

Right? And all of this is unavailable if we go from sort of very black and white abstinence model. We don’t do this until this age. So it’s like there’s so much richness that happens inside of the screen use when we’re doing it intentionally, and we’re helping share our experience as we navigate it. And then inviting our children in age appropriate ways to participate as well with lots of scaffolding with the floaties and the lifeguard and scaffolding, right? So that they eventually trust themselves. Yes. Because again, talking about transferable skills, if you have a child who trusts their experience and trust their capacity to solve problems and keep themselves in alignment what their values are, you’ve won the game.

Ash (00:59:06):

Yeah, you’ve nailed it. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

Dr. Sarah (00:59:11):

Yes. I love talking with you about this.

Ash (00:59:14):

This was wonderful.

Dr. Sarah (00:59:16):

Yeah. So fun. If people want to get your book called Power On, or if they want to follow you on Instagram or just stay plugged into what you are doing, where should we send them? What links? We’ll put it all in the show notes.

Ash (00:59:31):

Thank you. Yes. So on Instagram, I am @thegamereducator, and I also, I cross post everything from my Instagram to Substack. So if you want all of those things without being in Instagram, they can just be sent directly to your email. So I’m substack.com/thegamereducator. And my book, Power On: Managing Screen Time to Benefit the Whole Family is out wherever you buy books. If you really enjoy or do not enjoy the sound of my voice, I am the narrator of my audiobook. So that might influence that purchasing decision if you really, really like or dislike it. So yeah, audiobook read by ,e, and it’s also available in digital ebook and paperback, wherever you buy books.

Dr. Sarah (01:00:20):

Oh my gosh. Well get it. It’s great. And thank you so much. I’ve just had the best time talking with you.

Ash (01:00:26):

Yes, it was lovely. Thank you so much.

Dr. Sarah (01:00:34):

Thank you so much for listening to today’s conversation. I know that navigating screens and technology can feel overwhelming at times, but I really hope this episode gave you some fresh perspective and practical tools to make things feel a little more manageable. And if you want to download ppo, the app that you just heard Ash and me talking about, you can go to drsarahbren.com/pokpok. It’s that beautifully designed, open-ended digital play app that we both use with our own kids and truly love. PokPok gives kids a chance to explore, create, and play in ways that are engaging and developmentally supportive. So once again, that’s drsarahbren.com/pokpok, and when you use that link, you’ll also get 25% off plus a seven day free trial so you can see how it works for your family. So I will see you back here on Thursday for our Q&A segment of the podcast. And until then, don’t be a stranger.