Episode 179

Kyle And Sara Wester (32:30.778)Stop taking your kids phone. I mean, seriously, don't we have other tools in our tool belt? I mean, all too often, this is becoming such a go to such a like step one, take their phone and then that will get your kid to do whatever you want them to do. And I'm telling you, it's undermining your relationship. So today we want to talk about why parents do this. Like, yeah, it's.Sometimes we think about it too. We want to do it as well. It is an easy go to. And then two, ⁓ we want to talk about how it actually can cause a lot of damage in your relationship with your kid ⁓ and your kid's relationship with their phone and with themselves. I'm telling you, you're missing a lot of really good opportunities, but then the very last part of the podcast, we're going to give you six ⁓ steps to take instead of threatening to take away the phone or rewarding them by giving it back. I'm telling you, there's so many more options.you can do than that that are actually gonna help your kids not only have a better relationship with their phone and with you, but also actually learn the skill ⁓ to do the thing you're wanting them to do. So hope you'll take a moment to listen to this conversation. We'd love to hear your feedback. Maybe the successes you've had in taking away the phone or ways in which you have noticed that this kind of actually is like shooting yourself in your own foot. Okay. So take a moment and please ⁓ pause the podcast review.⁓ Rate put leave some great comments. We love five-star reviews. We love your feedback ⁓ We just want to help you have a different perspective ⁓ on this common ⁓ Discipline technique, so I hope you enjoy the episode

Kyle And Sara Wester (0:1.550)
Hello and welcome to the Art of Raising Humans. I'm Kyle. Hi there, I'm Sarah. And Sarah, know, something that pops up a lot in talking to parents is ⁓ in our culture today is there's kind of a go-to ⁓ method parents will use to try to change kids' behavior, you know? ⁓ Sometimes all the way down in the elementary years, but definitely in the teenage years. ⁓ And that is taking away the phone, ⁓ right? And that's something that we really ⁓ want to guide parents ⁓ to doing more creative things.
than just leaning on that. ⁓ But I know it's a typical reaction ⁓ that happens a lot. ⁓ A kid is quote unquote being disrespectful, or a kid breaks curfew, or a kid is ⁓ not doing their chores, or getting bad grades in school. And it seems like the only thing I hear that's a go-to every time is take away the phone. Yeah, because they care a lot about it. ⁓ So it feels like the thing you can grab and know that they care because you're
struggling for that control of the situation. Feels like really good leverage. Yeah. Right. And so we definitely can understand why that would be an easy go to. And a lot of parents will say, even what you said, it's the only thing they care about. Right. And we'll get into why that when you do take away the phone, especially in these reaction reactive moments, when you're getting upset, ⁓ how then we as parents actually feed that narrative, we actually make it more likely the kid cares about the phone even more than they already did. Right.
Yeah, we're going to talk about how this will backfire. I'm sure many parents already can tell that ⁓ it's growing tension and there's all kinds of downsides to using this, but then you also feel like what do I do instead? Yeah. And then it kind of brings up this question. ⁓ Is it actually teaching the lesson that the parents wanting to teach or is it just creating more fear, anxiety and more power struggles? You know, I mean, I actually, in some cases when the parent will give the kids certain
phone times, you know, I'll talk to the kids and the kids will say, man, if I just get two hours on my phone or two hours on my device, ⁓ then I'm going to anxiously use all two hours. ⁓ Whereas if I didn't have that fear that it was going to be taken away, I probably wouldn't be drawn to it as much, you know? And so ⁓ I think all of us would find that if we thought for only two hours, I get to eat the snack I like, or get to, we would make sure every day we ate that. ⁓ Yeah, it actually draws more.

Kyle And Sara Wester (2:24.704)
It builds the relation of the phone stronger, but not in great ways. So that's a very, very true. If something feels like now you've made it extra special, then how much more does that?
create that, you said, anxiety and tension around it. And then obviously hurt the relationship too. Well, let's talk about why parents do this. Like, why is this a go-to? They're not doing it for no reason. ⁓ There are several reasons why parents use this as a way to motivate or, you know, guide their kids. And they'll say, fine, you're going to lose your phone if you don't do X, Y, and Z. It's kind of a reward or punishment. So what's, what's some reasons you think parents use? think you just listed several. think
I think one, ⁓ like your...
there's a piece of it, let's just throw out there some genuine concern, right? About their time on the phone, use of the phone, what they're getting into on the phone. there's some of that. connecting with on the phone. Right, right. Okay, so there's some of that. And then I think, though I think when I talk to parents or when even in the moments where I thought, that's it, I'm gonna take your phone, it is feeling kind of out of control of the moment and feeling like ⁓ this is all I know to do right now is to take this thing from you. I know you care.
I don't know what to do. I'm not sure about these parameters or what's happening in this moment. So I'll just take the thing ⁓ and ⁓ I'll feel better. Well, I think if you sum that up, it's a simple way to say, this will get your attention. ⁓ This will ⁓ make the kid listen and care about what I'm saying. You know? And if I don't do that too often, it seems like their attention is just drawn to the device or whatever else that maybe just, I mean, need a device. if I take the phone ⁓ now, they're

Kyle And Sara Wester (4:8.112)
like what? What's happening? Okay, tell me what do I need to do to get that phone back? And really, I think for most parents, that just happens once and they're like, dang, that was pretty effective. Yeah, it feels like that leverage and, and I remember back thinking a long time ago, before I kind of changed my parenting thoughts, but I thought, yeah, you're supposed to find the thing that really care the kid cares about. That's my I'm trying to find the thing the kid really cares about.
to use that to guide them, right? Because they need to do their homework. They need to be backed by curfew. They need to whatever the list might be, they need to do those things. Those are important things in their life. And this is the leverage I have to make sure they do those things. Yeah. And they don't seem to be prioritizing those things. ⁓ seem to, ⁓ like I said, lots of times prioritizing their phone use, prioritizing being on social media, prioritizing texting their friends or whatever. ⁓ I'm going to take that thing that continues.
in some parents' minds, they justify it by saying it's distracting them from doing those other things. And then I, a parent, feel somewhat complicit in providing this thing, this tool that is causing them to be less likely to follow through with the stuff I ask. So it makes common sense. It makes logical sense to say, let's just take that away. If we now remove that thing, then you have no excuses. And especially if you're seeing a lot of, you know...
Parents are seeing behavioral changes. The kid is withdrawing more. ⁓ The kid is much more like annoyed and irritated with siblings, less engaging. And it seems like they're just always prioritizing getting on that phone. They're getting in the car, going to, so you, there's all these reasons when we talk to parents, it seems really justifiable to say, just take the phone away.
I've even heard parents come in Sarah and say, we met with the kids psychiatrists and they said, unless they take their medicine or unless they do their homework or unless they just take their phone away, The pediatricians will say that too. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I going to say. I thought that too for a long time is that's that piece of leverage. You find the thing and you leverage it.

Kyle And Sara Wester (6:10.284)
to get them to do ⁓ A, B, and C. Yeah. ⁓ And we do want to say, and we kind of implied this at the beginning, there are really times where really scary things are happening, right? And things like the kid is connecting to somebody who's dangerous, ⁓ or the kid is.
overly anxious or suicidal or the kid isn't even wanting to go to school or these kinds of things that can be ⁓ really worrying for a parent. And you can see that their phone usage is like astronomical. The actual use of the phone, the relationship with the phone has taken over everything else. ⁓ All other human relationships or you know, yes, very important things are falling aside and especially mental health. Yeah.
That's obviously a big one. know this. There's all kinds of articles and research being done about, you know, kids, teenagers and their, their forming brain and all that. And so we're not saying there's never a time that a parent needs to step in and say, Hey, we need to put that phone away. You know, we need to get rid of it for awhile. You know, sometimes we'll even encourage parents to do like a reset, you know, do, do a two to three week.
kind of reset of the brain by getting off the phone and Sarah, almost every time parents have said they've done that, they've seen phenomenal results. Like they really have the kid is coming out more and being more talkative and seems to be. So, so when we're, not saying there's never a time that things might become unsafe and you need to go, okay, let's, let's take the phone, but. ⁓
That's not the vast majority of times. Well, that's not what we're speaking to. not. So there are definitely times, even as adults, we have an unhealthy relationship with social media. We're comparing our lives to other people's lives. We're, you know, increased depression, anxiety with increased social media use. There's all kinds of reasons to really, really create boundaries around us. So we are definitely advocating for boundaries. We've done podcasts on it. We definitely advocate.

Kyle And Sara Wester (8:0.238)
we're kind of talking about using it as a tool as like I was saying about leverage. We're saying that's a problem when you're using it as a tool of control or whatever you want to say. we're going to just kind of, we want to present this other side, other things to do. because that only makes the phone more important, which is makes creating healthy boundaries harder. So that's that direction leads all of us to more challenges. So we want to bring in this other picture.
Well, yeah, so you're kind of hitting at some of the negative outcomes of doing that. ⁓ The positive outcome, before we get to that, that I have seen and that why parents go to it, is because it does lead to quote unquote ⁓ short-term compliance, right? So in the moment, the kid then complies, maybe for a few days, maybe for a few weeks, they will then do what they're asked because of the phone. And what's funny about that is that's actually part of the problem.
is that now they're actually doing what they ever asked, but they're not doing it because you asked it. ⁓ They're doing because so, so one of the first things that we see happen.
really common ⁓ in families is now the phone becomes the center point for these power struggles. ⁓ It's like the parents are hyper vigilant about watching the phone, how much they're on the phone. The kid is hyper vigilant about hiding their usage, about minimizing their usage, justifying their usage. It's rarely the kid owning and taking responsibility for their relation with their phone because they know the mom or dad are taking care of that. So it ends up leading into
a bunch of us taking away, giving it back, taking away, giving it back. And it's really never solving the problem. It's always a temporary fix. Again, if you've listened to others, but it's that whole idea of when you keep things external instead of internal, the child, like you said, doesn't own it. It's always, I'm always going to have to be managed because I didn't build the skill myself.

Kyle And Sara Wester (9:54.644)
So you're always going to have to manage my phone usage. You're always going to have to have this thing. It's this thing I'm going to chase. It's the carrot or the stick, you know, type idea instead of this skill inside of our teenager that goes, huh, how am I using this? How is that relationship going? How is it helping me? How is it hurting me and having this sort of deeper inner work and insight into their lives and what this phone, what this device is doing to their lives and letting them own that.
and be able to take charge. So as they get older and more on their own, ⁓ still, they've got that skill inside of them to live from that place. Yeah. It's almost like what you're saying. It's like instant gratification rather than delayed gratification, which is I want my kid to have this healthy relationship with this phone, you know? So in this moment, I may be getting what I want, but I'm not really teaching the kid how to motivate themselves in a positive way. And so that leads to lots of times kids talk about ⁓ this feeling of like, you know, maybe they don't totally verbalize it this
web, you definitely can sense it that they feel this conditional love, ⁓ that if they are then compliant with the phone, and they're able to keep it because their parents think they're a good kid, that they're making good choices, and somehow they're more lovable, right? And then another kid who is making mistakes or not following through or not completing what they said they're going to be or getting bad grades, then their phone is gone. And that's a symbol of like
you need to get your crap together. And when you have your phone, means we love you again. And even though parents would never say that, you know, I hope, but kids definitely take that is, you know, when I'm being good, I get the phone. When I'm doing bad things, I get my phone taken away.
and that builds that internal voice of that conditional love. I deserve this, I don't deserve this. I'm lovable, I'm not lovable now. Instead of realizing we're all lovable, we're all who we are, we're in our messy, and ⁓ when we're not, we're still completely 100 % lovable and deserving, if you wanna use that, you know. ⁓ And so you don't wanna tie that, because then that voice builds inside of them and they're constantly going through with that.

Kyle And Sara Wester (11:57.666)
Do I deserve this or not? Am I good or am I bad in that dichotomous thinking? Well, then it also ties into what you said earlier, where it actually hurts ⁓ the intrinsic motivation, that meaning that we want the kids ⁓ to internally.
be able to recognize, I've been on the phone too much, you know, or I'm, ⁓ the phone right now, I don't think is like helping me get into a better mood. I actually think I'm in a worse mood. I've noticed I'm super cranky, right? I mean, this is actually insight, Sarah, that a lot of parents don't have, you know, they don't even notice how their phone you just usage is affecting them. And we don't want to ⁓ do that with the kids where they're always depending on us to do that for them, you know, eventually you want your kids. And this is where Sarah and I are actually trying to call something deeper out of kids. And we want them to go social media and doing
I'm gonna stop being on social media. I've actually heard kids routinely say, man, I think I need to be off my phone the whole weekend. And then I would say, are you gonna do that? No, I don't think I can. ⁓ And it's kind of like they think if they, partly if they say that to their parents, then that will give their parents even more leverage. Like, hey, do you remember what you told me before that you, X, Y, and so the kid doesn't want the parent to use that against them. So they feel like they have to hold on to the phone and not give that away. And so even there, it's like this intrinsic motivations lack.
that they're thinking when it gets bad enough, my parents will, they'll exert their external control and then make me put it away. So I'll just wait till it gets really bad and they do that. But up until then, I'm not gonna do that on my own. ⁓
And so then that leads to the fourth one, which it starts to damage trust between kids and parents. Kids learn to hide mistakes and sneak around rather than come to us. know, ⁓ just a few months back, Sarah, I was talking to a family and there was ⁓ some siblings, they were having some problems and part of that problem had to do with the phone. And so ⁓ one of the siblings was told, wait, when you have a problem with your sibling, just tell that, tell the parents, right? And so when the sibling told the parents the problem they were having, then the parents just said, just give me your phones.

Kyle And Sara Wester (13:54.606)
You know, just like, I'm enough of this. I'm sick of this. ⁓ And the kid was telling me like,
I'm not going to tell them anymore. Right? Like if the, the conflict was about my sibling, not respecting my boundaries or not listening, I asked them for help. And then the only help they gave me was you're going to shut down your phones and you'll get them today. So, so too often parents will do that and kids them when they're really in crisis, when they're really going through something like there, maybe they really did screw up a test. They know if they are honest about that, it's going to be, I'm losing my phone. And they're like,
I don't or even you'll see her sometimes I've had kids who ⁓ didn't you know that they're trying to help a friend and that friend is like super depressed or suicidal and so then something will happen between that kid and the parents and the parents will say you're gonna lose your phone and then that kid will freak out and the parent doesn't know why but it's because the kids like my gosh I need to help this friend and now you're taking on my phone so okay I can't tell them what's really going on because then they won't let me have the phone back or they're gonna get involved and they'll they'll try to intervene in ways I don't want them to and so it causes all this lack of trust with the
always having the second guess do I be honest with my mom or dad or not right right it's just human nature to if that comes back as a threat right it doesn't feel like the parents coming along and going ⁓ you messed this up or something's really wrong in your life okay you're having this conflict whatever it might be let me come along teach you the skills let's talk through it let's think about what you can do and instead when you come along that then it's just a threat to if I review ⁓
reveal this vulnerability, this mistake, you're going to come down to me, I'm going to lose this thing. And again, you know, it sort of goes, they didn't really learn a skill. They didn't learn what to do in those situations. They didn't actually fix, let's say they cheated or they, whatever. They didn't really get to fix that. They just lost their phone. And so what do you think, what are the chances that they, why would they want to come tell you something again?

Kyle And Sara Wester (15:49.938)
You know, not only one, yes, I don't want my phone taken away, but two, you actually didn't help me fix the problem too. ⁓ You know, whatever it be, I didn't learn from that and grow and come out feeling there's a way for kids to make huge mistakes and walk away from those mistakes going, okay, so I messed up and this is what I learned from it. This is what I can do next time. You know, we can.
We can't do that. And that's what we want our kids to learn, you know, versus just, well, now I've lost my phone. Yeah. Well, and there you go. You're talking about, and there's two things I want to add to that is it's definitely missing the root of the problem. Okay. So there's one aspect of that is when the parent thinks the kid cares more about the phone than anything else and you buy into that belief, ⁓ then you will start using the phone as leverage, right?
instead of believing that that kid cares more about you than they do the phone. Now, lots of times it's hard for a parent to believe because it seems like the kid will even maybe, maybe the kid even believes they care more about the phone, they do you, but that's what we can't buy into that. Cause that's not true. The kid would be just fine if they didn't have the phone for three or four weeks. But if, if they lost their parents, mean, that's devastating, right? That's going to really do it. And we have to trust that, that if the kid is
prioritizing the phone over you, that's just a sign to me that I need to reconnect. ⁓ I need to prioritize them maybe over my own phone or my own work or whatever I'm doing, right? We need to build up that relationship because this this happens in marriage a lot where spouses fight over these things, you know, where they think one spouse.
likes the phone more than them, right? And then what the if I, if that spouse starts to believe that, then they start making the whole relationship about the phone usage and trying to control that, right? ⁓ And then one spouse is afraid to be on the phone while the other spouse is around, you know, and it's the same kind of thing that happens with kids. So that's one and misses the point that the phone is not more important to them than you. But then two, like you said, it misses the skill. If they're doing poor in school, because they're not prioritizing the homework or whatever, ⁓ I want to get to the root of that. Like taking the phone away.

Kyle And Sara Wester (17:51.434)
Sure, it takes away a distraction, but it also doesn't help them learn how to be better organized, how to prioritize their time. mean, time management's a huge part of adults.
who fail at their work and things like that. It's a hard skill to learn, you know, even how to overcome and regulate the anxiety they're having about that school or maybe that belief that they can't succeed in that class ⁓ or, whatever it might be. None of those things are addressed. Yeah. Yeah. And just really the phone is a distraction and you take it away and you may see temporary success, but you haven't in the long-term taught the skill. Or if you came in with the relationship and
and talk through these that you would hope the child, the more rewarding thing would be the child to say, you know what? I think part of the problem is how much I'm on my Yeah, that's the only, yeah. It's too much of a distraction. I need to get, if I want, if I have these goals for class and I'm not, I need to get off the phone. Yeah.
but they have to feel so safe because if they, I'm not gonna say that even if I think it, I'm not saying it. If you're gonna come back, there's, thought you said this phone was two and now I see you on it. Yeah, so we have to be really careful as parents if our children come to that point where they're being vulnerable and saying that, let them own it, let them run with that.
And so now we want to move into what to do instead. Okay. Now, first of all, I also want to set the premise that before you're ever giving your kid a phone, right? We hope, and we've done podcasts on this too, that you have really guided that conversation over what those boundaries are going to be on that phone, right? A lot of these problems aren't going to happen if you have already been doing that in relationship with the kid. I'm not saying like where you made them up and then the kid just agreed to him to get the phone, but where you and the kid actually, so it's, have a whole podcast.

Kyle And Sara Wester (19:34.482)
guess on that, ⁓ how we did that with our teenagers ⁓ and how it's really made it to where we don't have a lot of conflicts around the phone because they set those boundaries themselves. But if you have not done that, right, and you're trying now to say, how do I parent and guide and disciple my kid with this tool? It's very powerful and could be used for a lot of good, but also used for a lot of bad, right? ⁓ How do we guide that? Well, first of all, step one is I got to make sure when we talk about the phone.
that we are in a calm, composed, regulated place. That we are not reacting to what's happening with the phone, but we instead are responding calmly to it. And we're coming in, setting, like you said, the space for them to feel safe, to have an honest conversation about the phone. ⁓ And number two is, then we want to get to explaining and understanding the why.
Like we really want to help our kids internalize the values ⁓ when they like understand the reasoning of why boundaries are important on phones. And many times I'm telling you kids these days, ⁓ they're really thoughtful about these things. Like we don't give them enough credit because honestly they're watching your phone use before they have a phone and they have a lot of ideas about it.
Yeah, well, they thought for a long time, you share too much, you're on it too much. You're not attentive enough to them. Like they have felt that a long time and they've explained that in sessions with me and talked to me about that. ⁓ Or even they've seen it, how it's impacted their friends. They've seen how ⁓ their friend is on social media way too much and they get more depressed and anxious when they're on it. ⁓ Or even they're on TikTok themselves looking at this information about how...
having too much phone usage at an early age is bad for their mental health. So they're talking about this with each other. They are. are. They have a lot of insight and we want to help them give language to that. And it'd be so it's better if it comes from them than us. I can say all that, but it's gonna be a lot more powerful if they actually are bringing it up and they know it just give them space to.

Kyle And Sara Wester (21:35.406)
say it. Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, they're, are aware of it, but lots of times they're afraid to talk about it with their parents because they think their parents will use it against them. Right. And so, so that brings into the third part. So once we're able to talk about kind of the values and what I mean by that is like, what does it look like to have a healthy relationship with your phone for us as parents first, Sarah and I, and we talk about that as spouses, but then also then what does it look like for a kid to have a healthy relationship with this tool? Um, and what does it look like to have an unhealthy, right? And when you can have that conversation,
Then you move into step three, where you start to collaborate with them in setting the guidelines, the boundaries for that phone usage. And ⁓ that simple stuff like how ⁓ much is a healthy amount to be on the phone per day? ⁓ Is social media helpful? Or maybe we don't want social media at all. Where should the phone be plugged in every night? Do you think having it your room is a problem? Or having it ⁓ downstairs would be helpful, right? ⁓
⁓ Is it causing issues in relationships around you? I do you see that that maybe your siblings are frustrated with how much you're on it or you're getting feedback from even friends who are saying you're on it way too much and you're kind of checking out from life on a regular basis? ⁓ and this isn't something where they this is this is a conversation and you're both
you're doing this together. You're doing this in relationship, not just whatever they want. They want to plug it in in their room and they want 10 hours a day. And this is, this is something where you're doing this together. You're collaborating together. So it's not just you making it up and saying, here's how it's going to go. And it's not them making it up telling you how it's going to go. it's something that you're building together and it's not hard and fast. We created something and then we do these check-ins and we adjust, you know, especially, you know,
as they get older, the, we first set up now we've tweaked it a bit because now we have an older teenager. And so it's also something where you hold it, you, you build it and then you go, okay, you know what? This isn't working. Let's switch that. Or now we need this. So let's add that. And what I love about that, Sarah is, is you're kind of moving ahead a little bit to this last point, but I want to, I'm going to move it to step four is keeping the relationship central. Right? So when you're collaborating, when you're co-creating the relationship is central. And so I see the fuck.

Kyle And Sara Wester (23:50.144)
⁓ I used to see the phone as something that at times I saw as something bad. Let's keep it away from our kids as long as possible. ⁓ Then I saw this something that was just kind of inconvenient and kind of annoying and ⁓ why do we have to deal with all this? Now I just see it as a tool to actually create.
in like closeness in our relationship, meaning that it gives us a lot of ways to talk about how our teenagers are using their phones, how we're using our phones. And it's like, it helps a lot of conversations about the values and the beliefs and the feelings we have around phone usage, right? And so I've seen it actually create ⁓ more closeness.
and more intimate conversations about who our kids are through the phone. ⁓ Yeah. And I like the piece about the values because
Kids that those are important things and kids will listen to that and and we do convey our values to our kids, right? And so that's an important it's just another way to be able to discuss values and share values and have conversations around that before they head out into the world. Yeah. And so the fifth step is also just talking about, you know, a word that we don't use a lot on the podcast is consequences. Okay. But we realize that there are consequences always happening. That's why we just don't talk about them they're always happening. Right.
So it is podcast on it. We do. We do. We do. want to go back and see. And there is a discussion with the kids, the kids about the kind of like when you do have a healthy relationship with the phone, what are those consequences? Like there's always constant. Yeah. What ways, what ways can the phone help your life in what ways? Like, I mean, there's so many cool things that kids use phones for today, even creative ways, but definitely ways they can connect and ways we couldn't when we were little. You know, when you just

Kyle And Sara Wester (25:34.700)
when your friend moved away, your friends just gone, right? But now there's so many cool ways to connect through that, right? Different ways of expressing themselves. ⁓ Learning, there's so much out there. And so if you're able, also even just the consequence of being able to have self control over the phone, the ability to say, I've been on the phone too much, I'm going to put it down. Like that's ⁓ an opportunity. The consequence is the kid learns that skill.
Right? So the phone is discipline there that they can build and practice. But then there are some consequences that happen of if you do stay up too late on your phone and doing something, then you're going to be exhausted the next day. Or if you are on it too much, it might start to cause your mood to change. You know, all these kinds of rights. So just kind of helping them when you're creating these boundaries is just helping have an openness. It's not like, well, you know what happened? You were on the thing too late. And that's why you're tired. Like, that's not going to help.
Instead, you're wanting the kid to be able to realize that themselves. ⁓ I'll never forget a kid that I was helping years and years ago who her parents would constantly take her phone away at night and it was causing a lot of conflict. And this kid would tell me how scared she was that her parents did that because...
She believed she couldn't handle having the phone all night. She believed if she did have it all night, she would end up staying up too late and she'd flunk out of school. And she would tell me, she's like, Kyle, I'm gonna go to college in a few years. Who's gonna take it from me then? ⁓
⁓ And if they keep doing this, I'm never gonna learn how to do that. And so to me, that was like mind blowing that that's so true. That's another consequence that the parents were thinking about the immediate consequence of her not doing well in school and high school. But she's thinking at some point, I need to learn how to do this ⁓ because when I go to college, I might oversleep and miss classes and all those kinds of, and I thought that was really good insight. ⁓ And then the last one, step six is, is model the behavior. And this is so important. ⁓ If you ask your kids, ⁓

Kyle And Sara Wester (27:30.568)
Do we, do we as your mom and dad, do we have a healthy relationship with the phone? And what does that look like? How are we modeling? Are we constantly disengaging and distracting our mind and our own feelings by being on the phone and then asking our kids to have like more boundaries than we put on ourselves, right? How are we modeling the very values we're trying to give to our kids? Yeah, this one's just really important. And I think we.
You know, especially a little kids will really bring attention to it. And the whole time we're, doing this, we're just, they're going to copy what we do and then we get upset when they do ⁓ in one of those situations, you know? So it's just really important to be aware of. and, ⁓ you know, I don't think we do it real perfect, but I do try to be very, very open. Okay. I'm doing the grocery list right now. So even if I'm on it, I want to be very open about my purpose. ⁓ know, cause we, we order, you know, our, our food or something like that. All of that is very.
this is what's happening, this is what we're doing, you know, ⁓ as well as maybe, now I'm look, look, I'm looking at so and so on social media or something, just so they can kind of see that open book of ⁓ how I'm using it, how much time I'm using it, you know, things like that. ⁓ You know, we're all just trying to do our best here, because we are a generation who doesn't have any model for this. Right? know. That's I love about this, though, Sarah, so many times, because we have kids, it causes me to be more mindful of what I'm on, like you're saying it
me to go, am I communicating what's happening here? Right? Because how could that be perceived? And then what am I expecting of our teenagers to do with their phones? Am I doing the same thing? Or am I being kind of a hypocrite? And so really, think allowing yourself to have that feedback from your kid is super helpful. Because then the kid can say, yeah, it doesn't seem like you're doing what you're asking me to do. And so I think that's where the phone can be another pathway towards keeping the relationship central.
but also helping us be better human beings because we're able to talk about this powerful tool and what kind of role we wanted to play in our family and in our relationships. So just some real practical takeaways ⁓ for you when you're rethinking this way of using the phone is ⁓ first of all, let's number one, use the limits, the boundaries on the phone as an opportunity to teach, to disciple, to grow closer together and not to punish.

Kyle And Sara Wester (29:49.696)
Two, like sit down with them, build some like agreements, some agreements around all technology, around all screens ⁓ before these conflicts arise. Like let's not be surprised by them. Like I think if you guys sit down as spouses or as just a single parent, you can foresee a lot of these conflicts. And so if you can sit down and agree upon some ⁓ boundaries beforehand, then these things aren't as big an issue. And then the third one is pair every boundary with connection. You know, basically it's like,
We're doing this boundary because I really love you.
and I care about you. ⁓ And really that is moving to the kid. ⁓ The kid really does want you to help them set healthy boundaries on their lives. They really don't want carte blanche, just the freedom to just have as much of the phone as they want. They really are asking and ⁓ begging for parents to disciple them through this, but so often it seem as an us against them type mentality when it's really, all on the same page. We have the same goal. ⁓
that fear or wanting to control the situation and the kids pick up on that real quick. They can tell when it's coming from a place of relationship and collaboration versus I'm gonna act like this but really I'm just trying to control it. You know I'm scared. Yeah they can read through the lines. ⁓ So I want to leave you this encouragement your child's phone isn't the enemy the real goal is raising kids who can manage the freedom with wisdom and who know your love doesn't depend ⁓ on perfect behavior.
All right, so I hope this helps you kind of expand the way you're seeing this ⁓ real common thing in our culture of just taking away the phone and gives you ⁓ other ways to approach your kids in these moments. Because this really is becoming a way too easy thing just to go.

Kyle And Sara Wester (31:37.192)
give me your phone, right? So we hope it gives you some other ideas and definitely share this episode with parents you know that are struggling with this or you hear this as just a go-to, ⁓ just to give them another possible perspective on it. So we hope this helps you and your kids today and their phone usage because it's such a pivotal part of our lives in the world in 2025. So thank you so much for listening.