SAfm

02032. Mark, how do parents reclaim authority over bad digital habits? I think the first thing is just owning their role in it. Being able to say to the family, listen, we didn't know what we were doing, and now we've learned more. So now let's take a step back. It's okay to take a few steps back to be able to go forward in a healthier way. If it comes from the parents as a kind of ownership, a relational value that that's going to add to the kids.

Kids buying into a new digital culture at home is far greater. If parents just come in and steamroll going, well, we're putting these protocols in place because I said so, and I'm going to pull my parent card out, generally you'll end up losing the kids' buy-in. So it's really important for children, especially if you're looking at your Gen Zs, they want to know why. If they know the why, they're more likely to buy into it. If they're just being told what to do, generally that doesn't come down all the way.

Well, especially in the teenage years, when parents are losing their authority and friends are gaining their authority in teenagers' lives. So, having conversations around how is this affecting us? What do you think could be a healthier way to do this? And actually, kind of use coaching type of questions with the kids, saying, Well, we're noticing the following things. What do you think we can do to improve this? Kind of using a conversation rather than a didactic approach will help them to get to a point of.

Realizing that they can find the solutions as a family together. And then set up standards: go, right, we're going to have this amount of screen time. How would you like to use that screen time? So it becomes a conversation. And also, just parents need to realize that our kids are going to educate us a lot in terms of what's going on online. But we mustn't undervalue the kind of wisdom that we can bring from our life experiences to the kids. So that's where it's really important for parents to be present with their kids.

Engage with them in conversations across the board. What are you doing online? Who are the people that you're engaging with? What are the conversations you're having? Who are the influences that are affecting you? And without any judgment, and you might disagree with what your kids are doing, but without any judgment, start having those questioning kind of conversations and draw them into a way of critical thinking around what they're doing. And then only do you start putting the protocols in place.