On this episode of The Fresh Start Family show, Wendy chats with Randy Kulman, Ph.D., who is an author and the founder of LearningWorks for Kids, an educational technology company that specializes in using video games to teach executive-functioning and academic skills.
Our kids love video games. Many of us see them as a waste of time, and they absolutely can be very addictive when not part of a balanced Play Diet that includes physical, social, creative, unstructured and digital play.
This episode helps us learn how to use a platform like Minecraft, for example, for building relationships with us and friends and to help us teach our kids some pretty amazing Executive Function Skills (including planning, time management, organization, flexibility, social awareness, self-control and persistence!) when we engage and ask questions about the game and their strategies.
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Episode Highlights
- Executive Function is the skills you need to manage and direct yourself to get things done (organization, paying attention, planning skills and time management, getting started on a task, etc.)
- Many kids, including those with Autism, ADD, ADHD, etc, need help in this area
- Parents who didn’t grow up with video games don’t always see them as form of play and an opportunity to connect and teach
- Certain games can help our kids develop skills, especially when we mentor them about how/why they did something in the game
- Kids playing online with actual kids they know helps them build relationships and helps us control their exposure and influence of others
- We can help kids learn what to do when they encounter problems online in chat platforms
- We can help our kids create a balanced Play Diet that includes physical, social, creative, unstructured, and digital play. Modeling is key.
- Kids can use phones to help learn basic skills like setting alarms and timers and using calculators, calendars, etc.
- We can empower our kids/teens to understand addiction so they can be in control of their screen time so it is not in charge of them
Resources Mentioned:
Where to find Randy:
Randy’s Book: Train Your Brain for Success: A Teenager’s Guide to Executive Functions, Playing Smarter in a Digital World
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Here is the episode transcript!
This episode of the Fresh Start Family Show is brought to you by our Quick Start Learning bundle to raise strong-willed kids with integrity. This two pack learning bundle comes with a downloadable learning guide and also a free online workshop with me all about what to do when your kids say, no, I won’t. And you can’t make me in one way or another. Cuz we all know our beautiful, strong-willed kiddos resist in lots of different ways. Head to freshstartfamilyonline.com/free to grab your quick start bundle and get started learning with me today.
Wendy:
Well, hello listeners. I’m so happy you’re here for a new episode of the Fresh Start Family Show. I’m your host, Wendy Snyder, positive parenting educator and family life coach. And today on the show we have Randy Kulman, who is the founder of Learning Works for Kids. And we’re talking about how we can turn video game time into learning time. Yes, it is possible. But let me tell you a little bit about Randy before we kick off this episode. So, Randy, like I said, is the founder of Learning Works for Kids, which is an educational technology company that specializes in using video games to teach executive functioning and a academic skills. So he conducts neuropsychological evaluations of children with executive functioning and attention difficulties at South County Child and Family Consultants.
And his latest project at LW4K Live, a live online small group executive function tutoring program that uses games such as Minecraft and ROBLOX to practice and improve executive functions. So cool, right? But additionally, Dr. Kulman is the author of numerous essays and book chapters on the use of digital technologies for improving executive functioning skills in children. His current research projects include a study of the use of Minecraft for improving executive functioning skills and an investigation of the effectiveness of commercial neuro technologies for treating ADHD and emotion regulation disorders.
:
Again, how cool is he? He serves on ADVI advisory boards on the Boston Celtics and ADD Attitude magazine. He is now an occasional writer for Psychology Today, ADDitude Magazine, Autism Parenting Magazine, and commonsensemedia.org. Love Common Sense Media. Terry and I use that website all the time to check on stuff when we go to watch a movie or, or let our children buy a game or something. He’s the author of three books, train Your Brain For Success: A Teenager’s Guide to Executive Functions, Playing Smarter in a Digital World World, and the recently published The Gaming Overload Workbook for Teens.
So I know you guys are gonna love this episode. Randy was just such a delight to talk to. He was funny, he was just so intelligent and wise, yet relatable, and I just think his way of helping families and kids is so unique and I just, I just really loved this conversation. So without further ado, you guys help me welcome Randy to the show and enjoy this episode.
Stella:
Well, hey there, I’m Stella. Welcome to my mom and dad’s podcast, the Fresh Start Family Show. We’re so happy you’re here. We’re inspired by the ocean, Jesus, and rock and roll, and believe deeply in the true power of love and kindness. Together we hope to inspire you to expand your heart, learn new tools, and strengthen your family. Enjoy the show.
Wendy:
Well, hello there families and welcome to a new episode of The Fresh Start Family Show. I am really excited to be here today with Randy Kulman, who is the founder of Learning Works for Kids, an educational technology company that specializes in using video games to teach executive functioning and academic skills. Welcome to the show, Randy.
Randy:
Thank you, Wendy. I’m excited to be here.
Wendy:
Yes, I’m telling you, Randy, I get so many pitches to be on this show and most like 95% of them, I’m like, no, thanks. Yours when I saw it, I started digging into your work and I was like, oh my gosh, what is this world that you are leading and that you’re, you’re doing? And I’m just so excited for listeners to hear about it today, cuz this is really fascinating, what you’ve created and and your, your work and your research and how you support kids in this capacity. So listeners today we’re gonna be talking about how you can implement and balanced and healthy play diet for your kids that yes, may include some video games but also includes other things.
But first, before we get going, Randy, will you just tell us a little bit more about your story? How did you get here? Why are you so passionate about what you do? Tell us a little bit more about your company, your family, where you live. Tell it all to us please so listeners can get to know you a little bit.
Randy:
Oh boy. Okay, Wendy, you asked for it. So let me tell you how I got to my work piece, at least my passion that I think might be a, a good starting place. And then I’ll, I’ll include the other stuff along the way I guess. So your listeners can’t see me, so they don’t know how old I am. Maybe they think I have a young voice. Okay. But I’m not that young and I need to make a disclaimer cuz I’m gonna be spending a lot of time talking about video games. But I am not a gamer. But my interest in children’s gaming comes from all the way back to my undergraduate days back in the 1970s, if I can go back that far. And I worked with a, a brilliant psychologist, developmental psychologist by the name of David Elkind, who’s probably the foremost developmental psychologist in the country’s written dozens of books on children’s play.
And so I became really interested in kids play. I did a bunch of stuff there. My master’s thesis was about children’s play. I did some work as while getting my doctorate on children’s play. So I’ve always been interested in how do kids learn from, from their play. One of my studies was comparing, watching Mr. Rogers versus Sesame Street to see which of those might produce more creativity in children’s play. So when I started working as a professional, I started just kind of observing children’s play. I work with kids, this is my job. My, my my day job, if you will, is doing neuropsychological evaluations of kids with learning attention issues, social emotional difficulties, anxiety, autism spectrum disorders. And I’m really interested in their play.
One of the things I ask parents every single time when they bring a child in to see me is, what’s your kid love to do? What do, what do they, what do they have a passion for? What makes your child special? And invariably it’s all about their play. What do they love to do with play? So one thing that I learned many, many years ago was that children learn from their play. And so that’s sort of where the basis of this came from. And I’ll, I’ll let you kind of drag me along to, to to tell you a little bit more.
Wendy:
Yeah. That, I mean already I’m like, yes, yes, yes. So here we do a lot of behavioral coaching for families, right? Like how do you help a child to listen better, cooperate more relationship-based, connected parenting strategies, but play for example, even in discipline, right? Like play in discipline. We teach parents how to do replay or redos and role plays and how to use little toys and act out the situation, how they’re gonna do it differently tomorrow. So a hundred percent yes to the play. I love it. Okay, so keep telling, tell us more. So you developed this just curiosity and passion for understanding how play affects kids and where’d you go from there?
Randy:
So before I do that, can I, I wanna respond to something you just said, cuz I think you said something very powerful there, which is, you know, how you can use play in, in discipline, how you can use play in sort of relationship building. There is compelling data that parents who play with their kids not be their only play, but who play with their kids, who display an interest in their children’s play, have closer relationships, closer bonds. There’s some, there’s some great studies actually just specifically with video games. Dads who play video games with their doings have much closer relationships with their daughters. This is a way that parents connect with their kids and as a result their kids listen and communicate cuz the parents are listening and communicating in their play with kids.
So I, I think you, you’re saying something very powerful there about even a way to kind of implement discipline and structure with kids because you’re engaged with what they like to do. So back to this kind of interest and how did I get there? So, you know, I’d say sometime in the 1990s when I was really starting as a professional, I began seeing all these kids come to my office. I, I remember this one kid, kid, Ryan, he was about 10 years old at the time he came to the office as the parents, like I always do, you know, what’s he like to do? What’s he good at? Oh, well this is back in the nineties. Oh, he’s, he’s the one who could fix the VCR and get that going. Okay. Connect that up. Okay.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Randy:
This is, this is before really cell phones were even popular at that point. Okay.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Randy:
But he’s the one who likes the electronics and he’s the one he loves playing video games. And he, he, he, this is the, the Nintendo NES days way back there.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Randy:
He loves playing games and he can focus on these kinds of things and can do it for a long time. And, but the schools bring him telling me to bring him to see you because they think he has ADHD, but he couldn’t have ADHD because he can spend all this time and energy on video games, pays attention, loves it, is totally focused when it’s hard and he gets a little frustrated, he gets away from it and he comes right back and he learns and he, he, he beats the game. He does these things. And I said, how are we gonna use this to help these kids? How can we begin using this? And so that was sort of the, the germination of thinking about video games as a tool that might be something that we could use to help kids or leverage their interest in games to help them in some other ways.
We’ve already knew, at least Dr. Elkind taught me and I learned f from my other experiences that, that children learned primarily, especially younger children, primarily from their play. But older children learn from their play as well. So I already had that stuff in mind. So that’s where kind of, I, I began my journey, if you will.
Wendy:
That’s so cool. Well, and I’m just so excited to learn from you today because I realize as I was preparing for this interview, I have a tendency to judge video games as like, they’re just taking my kid away from surfing or skating or playing football or whatever. Like if kids should be in trees and exercising and all the things, right? And I’m already like, my heart’s so open by this because my little guy does love Minecraft, right? So when I saw that on your list of things we’re gonna talk about today is like program, like games that can be really helpful. I’m like, oh my gosh, I would love to just support him more and embrace it more because I, I know that I do have a little bit of a tone of like, oh my gosh, like get off the video games, let’s go enjoy life, right?
But I think this is such a beautiful reminder that what our kids love and take interest in is, is valuable. It’s valuable. Doesn’t mean that we have to be supporting them with like, murder games all day long. You know, like, but I mean, I’m really not into those. I hope that that’s not in your list. I do, I doubt it’s, but it’s just really, really important. This, this, everything that, that you’re talking about. So, so first off, have you ever gotten in touch with Ryan and thanked him for prompting your, your, like, cuz this really seemed to take you down a route of –
Randy:
Well, well, well, Ryan was really not unlike so many of the other kids that I have seen over the course of time. I see those kids a couple of times a week still. Yeah, yeah. All the time. So, and by the way, you know, and we’ll get to this too, I am maybe not quite as big a formal believer as you are in all those other kinds of things around being outdoors. And, and one of the things we’ll talk about is my construct of a play diet, which might be the thing I’m most proud of, of all the things that I’ve sort of thought about and put together, but, you know, all those things. Absolutely. They are so much more important than just sitting around in front of a screen all day. Okay. That’s just not the healthiest thing in the world, but in today’s world, this is a part of it.
It it, it just is a, is just a part of it. And, you know, my thinking behind this is we, you know, can just be pure fun, but we can can also leverage it for learning and we can also use it for as even when we were talking about earlier, building relationships between kids and parents, building relationships between kids, using it for learning specific academic skills. And my particular interest in expertise with this is using this in developing what I would call softer skills, executive functioning skills, social emotional learning skills. And I, and, you know, thinking about how can you take those kinds of skills that you need in video gameplay and, and, and technology use and apply those in other places in the world.
Wendy:
Yes, absolutely. So all of it. Yes, yes, yes. And where, where do you live now? And do you have kids? Randy?
Randy:
Okay, so let me give you that. Okay. You got, you got me over there. So, so yes. Where do I live now? I live in Rhode Island. I grew up in Rhode Island. Never expected to, to live here. I dunno if any of my accent has come through yet, but I’m certain it will moved back here after many, many years and raised my three sons here. And now I have two stepkids as well. And they’re all between 28 and 35. And I don’t know what I did wrong, but I have five children between 28 and 35. And you wanna know how many grandchildren I have?
Wendy:
How, how about zero? Aw!
Randy:
Zero. Okay. Maybe they’re coming. I, I, I’m, I’m offered a bounty to all of my kids, you know, for the, a grandchild, please, already. Okay. They all have partners, they’re all, I don’t know what’s going on because I, I’m gonna, pretty soon I’m gonna be too old to do some of the things I wanna do with them, which is to play with them.
Wendy:
Right?
Randy:
I, you know, I I I still play lots of sports. I, I, I want someone to play catch with them in the backyard. I want someone to go build a a tree house with me. I have a perfect place for doing it. I wanna, I wanna go play with my grandchildren, but my, my children are not cooperating. So you asked you and now you know. Okay. So, and if they, and if they hear this, I’m probably gonna get in trouble Okay. Because I can’t say anything to ’em directly. So
Wendy:
That’s so funny. I know that they’re coming. Well, that’s awesome. Rhode Island, three kids and two stepkids. So five kids. That’s amazing. So, very cool. All right, well let’s get into it. First off, what’s something I wanted to define, because many people probably may be asking the same question too, I had to look up and remind myself what executive functioning is. So can you remind us, all of our listeners are gonna be like, yes, social emotional literacy skills, but remind us what executive functioning is.
Randy:
Okay, good. Good question. I, I kind of hesitated just say that without kind of defining it for you. So thank you for asking. So first of all, psychologists love to have buzzwords. Okay? And I’m gonna give you my definition of executive functions that, but I like to say when I’m doing presentations, people get a hundred psychologists together, ask them to define executive functions. You’re probably gonna get about 98 different definitions. You might get a couple people to agree, but that’s about it. Okay? So I think about executive functions as the skills you need to manage and direct yourself to get things done. How do you manage your emotions? How do you manage your stuff and stay organized? How do you manage your behavior? How do you pay attention? How do you use planning skills?
How do you use time management skills? We, we, at LearningWorks for Kids, and, and at our other, at our sister say LW4k.com, we, we use a definition that was developed by a couple of school psychologists, Peg Dawson and Richard Guare, that has 11 different skills, the original conception around executive functions. What they were just brain-based sort of stable activities and, but, but really stable, you know, stable parts of the brain predator prefrontal cortex. And that when people had damage to their prefrontal cortex, they might have a lot of knowledge about things, but they couldn’t organize their life. They would like, they would know what they were doing. They just, they, they couldn’t, they couldn’t manage anything.
And so what we see for a lot of kids, particularly with, you know, autism spectrum disorders, A D H D, is that they really struggle with these skills as do plenty of other kids. There, there are lots of kids. I wouldn’t be surprised if we, if if we did a survey of parents, if we found that 30 to 40% of parents felt as if their kids don’t get their homework done efficiently, their kids struggle with paying attention and staying focused. They can’t follow multi-step directions. I’m sure you hear this all the time. And you’re
Wendy:
Self-control, right? Self-control self
Randy:
Probably in there. Yeah. Self-awareness, you know, those, you know, when I think about self-control, I’m thinking about kind of regulating emotion, regulating behavior. Yeah. I’m just using a different set of words for that. So we think about it really as a, a set of skills. And the nice thing about a set of skills is you can conceptualize those as something that you can work on and improve. It’s not like the static thing that this is as good as you can get. Okay. It’s not like I can’t make myself any taller. And even when I was 18 years old, I couldn’t make myself any taller. Okay. But I could make myself more organized, so, right. You know, because they’re skills. So that’s what we’re talking about when we talk about executive functions. And if you think about it, those are the skills that people need to get by in today’s world to really be successful.
It’s gonna be, it’s less about academics, it’s less about a specific expertise you need to be able to do because be able, you need to be able to negotiate working with people. You need to be able to adapt. Well, one of the skills that I didn’t mention is, is, is flexibility. Flexibility is really powerful executive function skills to be able to adapt and adjust and to, and, and the world is changing so fast. If if you are inflexible, you are gonna struggle.
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Wendy:
Absolutely. And I’m already like, as we’re going over all this, I can already like picture how like when, when Terrin’s playing Minecraft or when he is, we, we, we do Super Mario together. That’s the one game that I’m like, all right, I’m gonna play this with you now after I talk to you, I’m gonna be more open to playing other learning other more games. And there’s so much frustration that he works through that we work through. There’s so much problem solving and creative, like all these things, I can see how it’s gonna fit into the picture. So let’s just jump right into like the gaming part as far as the ones that you have on your list that you’re like, these are good for learning. Again, like, I think so many of us as parents, there’s like a lot of guilt we have probably around like, we’re letting our kids play video games.
But what a beautiful new way to look at this, that if we can help our, our kiddo understand that when they play these games as part of a healthy play diet, and you’ll talk to us about that too, but that they, they are learning, and I love on your website how you point out on certain games, like this is what your kid’s gonna learn and to be able to communicate that to them. Like, these are some of the things that you’re gonna learn. So look out for this to know that when you problem solve through Minecraft or whatever, that you’re actually developing the whatever. So talk to us about some of your favorites for kids to recommend.
Randy:
Certainly Minecraft is, is one. And, and I wanna talk about that extensively, but I also think that the, the key thing is, is that parents haven’t, especially parents who didn’t grow up playing many of these games themselves. So doing that much with video games, don’t necessarily think about those games as opportunities for teaching their kids. They’re not, they don’t seem as teaching opportunities. On the other hand, if, if your child is, if you’re playing checkers with your child and your child’s being really impulsive and they’re just kind of moving things around and not looking, you’re more apt to kind of say, well, you know, stop and think before you make that move. Because you might wanna see what I could do. I remember, yeah. You know, this goes back for my own childhood playing checkers with my grandmother.
I mean, this is a long time ago, but I was being taught some skills as I was playing that board game. You play Monopoly with your kids. You go, your child plays baseball or soccer and they play, have a game, and they lose and they’re frustrated. What do, what do parents do? Well, I’d say parents who care about the kids and engage with the kids, talk with them. They use it as a learning opportunity. They listen to them. They, they explain things to them. And I think un unfortunately what’s happened is with video games for the – until recently, most parents didn’t have the wherewithal of the knowledge to really do that. And also grew up with this sort of belief that, oh, they’re just not any good for the kids. It’s just a waste of time. And it’s, and and rather than kind of just recognizing as a different form of play, you know, now we’re at the point, by the way, we’re, we’re more concerned, not so much that it’s a different form of play, but it’s such an addictive kind of engaging form of play that it takes away from other things.
And that’s a real legitimate concern for a lot of reasons. And I’m sure we’ll talk about that. So anyway, I I, I think that when parents are more involved with their kids, regardless of, regardless of the game now, and I’m not talking about the violent games, but then even just asking questions about it. I mean, I’m gonna guess that if you ask, how old do you, does your son who plays,
Wendy:
My little guy’s 11. And then my daughter who’s almost 15, just last night I just making dinner. I’m like, are you doing your homework? And I look over and she’s playing this little, little who knows what little puzzle game. So she still plays a little game, you know? Oh yeah, yeah.
Randy:
All right. So, so your 11 year old, if you ask him about Minecraft, I’m gonna venture to tell, tell you that he might talk and talk some more and tell you some more and more and more. You might be learning about things like Redstone and Enderman and all these kinds of things that are going on there and saying, what is he talking about? But he’s gonna be engaged and, and telling you about that. It’s
Wendy:
Such a relationship builder.
Randy:
It’s, yeah, it’s a relationship. It’s also can be much more than that too. Imagine that you’re gonna have him teach you to play the game, and you’re gonna say to him, you need to be flexible. You need to take some, do some perspective taking and say, you know, think about me as I’m from Mars. I know nothing about this. How are you gonna teach me to play this game? How are you gonna kind of take some perspective, look at how I might look at this, and then go ahead and do that. So yeah, so let’s just, you know, just talk about Minecraft. Minecraft is really good at, and a lot of the sandbox games in which there’s really no particular goal you can do what you wanna do are are very good. These are games where they have a, you know, vast world that you can do different things in. So Minecraft is a good one.
Terraria is another one that, that’s like that. And it’s a really good game for planning. I mean, you just got this blank slate, think about Minecraft as Legos on steroids and, and somebody gave you a giant box of Legos, but they didn’t give you, you didn’t get one of those kits back when, back when I, back when my kids were younger, you got a kit of Legos, you know, just like a whole box from, and now they have a set for everything. Because what happens is the kids build the set with the Legos, they put it on their shelf. I need new Legos to build something else.
Wendy:
Oh a brilliant marketing, brilliant marketing,
Randy:
Oh, amazing, amazing. You know, and then, and then, and then let’s make sure that they have marketing strategies with the best movies and other kinds of things that kids like. And, and with Roblox, by the way, mine, you know, they’re, they’re Legos, Roblox, excuse me, Lego Legos, Minecraft. So, but, but anyway, I I think that, you know, Minecraft because it’s, it’s open-ended like that, it’s great. Kids have to plan, they have to think about what do they want to do? They have to organize, a lot of times if they’re building, it’s a, it’s a building game essentially. They’ve gotta gather materials. So they have to organize and gather certain kinds of materials. They oftentimes have to use time management skills when they’re playing in, in some of the styles, particularly the survival type of Minecraft, where they’ve got to know what time it is in the day so they can build a house so they can protect themselves.
So there’s all these skills that they have to use. I mean, I could, we could go through almost, almost every executive function skill is readily found in Minecraft.
Wendy:
Ah, so I can picture it being really cool. I don’t know, tell me what you think about this, but like, the idea of say, you know, your kiddo wants to play Minecraft for an hour or so, and, and, and like, I’m in my office right now where my little guy, by the way, is his space too, when he plays and whatever. And it’s also where the like five teenagers sleep. When they have sleepovers, it’s, oh my gosh. But my office gets taken apart, like all the time. And Terrin will bring in his little, his keyboard and he has his own mouse and he disconnects all my stuff and all my cameras and all my lighting, and he just sits there and plays Minecraft. But I can see, like, it be cool if we made a little agreement that beforehand, before he played, right, maybe right on my whiteboard, like, Hey, just want you to be on the lookout and maybe afterwards you could share with me how you like flex your creativity or your flexibility or your, tell me about like your planning, like planning muscles or all the things that you said, but to really allow them to, or empower them and challenge them to be on the lookout for those things as they play that.
I don’t know if, I’m trying to think if like kids would, I think that kids would respond well to that when you address it ahead of time. But like, do you advise like sharing that with kids, like, hey, as you’re learning, as you’re playing kiddo, remember that you are learning? Or are we just looking at this as like, oh, who kids are learning as as they’re playing and that’s good. Are you in, are you telling them what they’re learning?
Randy:
That’s a really good question because, and, and, and it, and, and it’s really multi-layered in, in, in, in many ways. First, let me say this: games are not enough. I am not gonna suggest to you that kids who play Minecraft all of a sudden get better at planning and organization skills.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Randy:
And flexibility. You know, I know that, I know that for a fact because they’re still coming to my office. I’m scheduling people in January who are coming to my office now. They’re, and, and many of ’em are playing Minecraft in all kinds of games. So it’s not, games are not enough. Okay. That’s not gonna gonna do it. Okay. It’s not gonna cut it. You know, our whole belief system at Learning Works for Kids and what we’re doing, what I’m trying to say is, is that we can leverage those games. We can, should think about them as teaching tools. And we can do that in a bunch of different ways. I mean, we could do it like kind of what you’re suggesting, having somebody put something up on a whiteboard, what, you know, okay, sure, you wanna go play Minecraft? Great. Have a good time. When you are done, I want you to tell me three places where you used some skills.
That would be one way to do it. What we, what we’ve done learning works for kids sometimes is what we’ve done is we say, here’s, here’s a set of talking points for parents. Ask these questions. So you can get the kid to, to think about that. Oftentimes, you don’t really need to ask too many questions, that’s what I’m saying, they’re just gonna tell you about this kind of stuff. And then you can sort of go from there. I mean, you’re obviously an expert interviewer. I’m sure you’re gonna have no problem pulling some of that out from your 11 year olds. Okay. The point I’m trying to make is games on enough. Okay? When we do groups, we’ve done, we do these teaching groups who will have a group of kids, we’ll have them do some stuff. They’ll come into a Minecraft map and the maps that we’ve developed require them to kind of walk through before they actually get to the game and they walk through these steps that we want to teach them about.
So we do that as well. So there’s lots of ways to do this. Basically, I think the best way, you know, for your audience to consider it is to think a little bit, how do they use other games as teaching tools? How do they use play a, a monopoly or life or chess or checkers or sports as opportunities for teaching their kids? They just need to know a little bit more, or at least watch and ask questions.
Wendy:
Yeah. And I think, you know, there’s, there’s also like to remind parents of the value of the opportunity to mentorship, right? Like the fact that we get to mentor our kids and, and I’m thinking of like the moments when they get really frustrated, right? Like there’s some really, I know parents listening can think of tons of times when they’re like, oh, they probably think to hell with video games, all my kid does is get really frustrated. Which I don’t think comes up as much in these type of games, right? It comes up, I don’t know where it comes up, but it comes up in other games. Hmm. But the fact that like, we get to mentor our kids through that, right? Like, I’ve interviewed some, some really amazing people who have lost their children and they’re like, Hey, I’m, I’d be, I’d love to have that opportunity to mentor my child through a moment of frustration.
So the fact that we get to, and they’re like, wanna throw the remote through the, the window to say like, Hey, no wonder you’re upset. This is, this is an opportunity to, to strengthen your ability to have flexible thinking, to have, to be able to process the emotion of frustration, anger, whatever it may be. But I can imagine that, that just keeping that on the forefront of our mind and looking for those opportunities because cuz I would think may, you know, and maybe just share this with me, Randy, instead of me assuming, like what are some of the biggest challenges that you’re, we, the kids that you see when they come to your office, I think we, we mentioned some of them, but it’s, it’s self-control, it’s focus, right?
Yeah. It’s regulation. Like what are some of the things that then you are using these video games to bring together and teach through
Randy:
In, in terms of what we’re looking at when we think about executive functions, we think of this, we, we, we, we’ve developed a set of 12 skills. I’m not sure if I can kind of name them. I’ll see how well my memory works. But we think about sustained attention, task initiation, these things are pretty, they mean pretty much what you, what you hear me saying, task persistence.
Wendy:
So, hold on, sorry, task initiation, is that like cleaning your room on your own,
Randy:
Being able to get started on something. So you have your homework
Wendy:
Homework,
Randy:
you gotta get started on it. Or cleaning your room, not so much cleaning your room on your own, but just getting started on knowing where to start, what’s the best way to get going on it and not avoiding it, that kind of thing. Task persistence is, you know, basically stick it stick to itness. Okay. That’s a, that’s an enormous, you know, issue. Then we think a, we think a little bit about self-awareness skills and by that we mean two things. One is kind of understanding yourself, and the second one is under having social thinking skills, being able to understand others. We think about self-control, being able to regulate your emotions and to regulate your behavior. So a lot of times we’ll see kids with ADHD and they’re very active and impulsive, so can they regulate their behavior?
Then we think about planning, organization, flexibility, working memory. And I think I got 11 out of 12. There’s another one out there someplace in the, in the Netherland I think
Wendy:
It’s amazing. Oh, and I just, I just thought of one more thing too that I, that I wanna ask you about. So when Terrin first asked me, he was like, we’re on Macs here. And I know like Macs and Minecraft is not the ideal situation and, but like he, he had, he had wanted to get this headset so he could actually like, talk to other people playing Minecraft. And at first I, you know, were like, oh my gosh, we don’t want you talking to strangers on the internet. But then I start to think of it in from your eyes a little bit more this creative context. And he’s my kiddo that one of his struggles is he’s a little introverted. And so he’ll have trouble where his sister will just be like, Hey, can I get a hotdog?
You know, and he’s like, mom, can you ask him for a hotdog for me? So now I’m thinking, is that a way to help children be able to develop relationships? Like, I was just walking with a friend yesterday who’s like my little guy. He’s in seventh grade. He’s really like struggling to, to have to make friends. Would the social aspect of Minecraft and Roblox aid in that?
Randy:
Absolutely. Absolutely. So your son’s probably want probably, I don’t know if he, he has it, but he probably wanted to get on Discord. Yeah, well, which
Wendy:
Scared the hell outta me, Randy, right? Because it was the shooter, the shooter out of Uvalde or something Texas was on that. And I was like, no, it’s all awful. But,
Randy:
And, and Discord is really the, I mean, this is where the kids talk to each other. They in fact a lot think about this, you know, years ago. I, I and I, I actually got a question for you. Okay. Yeah. Can I, can I, am I allowed to do that in this podcast? Just Okay.
Wendy:
Yes. I’m an open book. Absolutely.
Randy:
Okay, well it’s not really specific, but I’m kinda curious about your opinion. I, one of the things I’ve written about, one of the things that I, one of the reasons I think that kids spend so much time playing video games I blame parents for, and that is that parents, parents feel as if they need to be so protective of their kids, that they’re either not allowed to go outside, they’re not allowed to kind of wander in their neighborhoods. If they happen to have a neighborhood, they’re not allowed to like go for bike rides in places where maybe, you know, I’m not talking about with, there’s lots of traffic, but things like that, that they’re really restricted. And if you’re a parent who lets your kid like that, you look bad. You look like you don’t care.
You look like you’re being an awful parent. And I’m kind of curious as to what your opinions are about that, because, and so, and when that happens, guess what? Guess where the kids are, they’re home. If they wanna get together with their, with their friends, well, what’s the best way to do it nowadays? It used to be, you know, 30 years ago, you might call ’em on the telephone and talk to ’em for a little bit until your parent needed the telephone. Nowadays they’re texting, they’re doing social media, or, or more often than not, they’re playing, they’re playing video games and they’re on Discord where they’re all all talking to each other that way. So I’m kind of curious about Yeah, what you see and what your observations have been.
Wendy:
So our take really my own family and then I, what I recommend to students, which is always the same. Like, I always kind of mimic what, what I believe in through my own practices and then what I teach. But I, I have a tendency to wa wanna help parents kind of push their, not push their kids out, but I, I, I advocate for free range kids as much as possible. Like there’s a documentary that I saw that I was like, yes, this is amazing. It was like this Japanese documentary might have been on Apple tv, but it was like this practice I guess they have in Japan, which is wild, so different than America where they take two, two or three year olds and by the time they become three year olds, they set him out with a flag in the middle of Tokyo to go get bread and milk and like a few groceries and eggs.
And then they go out by themselves cross like, you know, how everybody roads and trains and everybody knows that when that kid has that vest on and that flag that he is learning to be out in the world and to navigate and to come home. And of course that’s like, that is extreme, but it’s also extremely inspiring that Japan has this culture where they actually do that. And I’m like, so yes, we ha we have children who happen to have a lot of freedom outside in the world here in southern California. We have e-bikes now, which is terrifying, but it also lights my heart up that my 15 year old has so much freedom in the world. So we happen to give our kids a lot of trust out in the world.
If we hear there’s a dangerous situation out in the world, we’re a little bit more likely to say, Hey, let’s talk about how you’re gonna be prepared and make the right choices. Versus a lot of Stella’s friends, we’ll just cut them off immediately and they’re never allowed to go out like that again. Now I will say we do have stricter limits than probably main society on the internet stuff. So things like discord, things like Snapchat, Instagram, even iPhones out the world. Were big advocates for not having kids have those devices out in the world until at least high school. So we, we are proud of wait till eighth pledge. So we have a lot of fr and that’s why I was so hesitant on the Discord thing, because I just always tell my kids I want them, I want them actually having conversations out in the world and learning how to create those friendships, like eye contact and those types of things.
And I was challenged by a mentor once to make sure I wasn’t too strict on it because she said, you know, and it was an article I think in the New York Times or something, but you know, technology is here to stay and you can’t just have your kids a hundred percent, you, you’re not allowed to do this and you’re not allowed to be on Discord or Snapchat. Like, we, we need to be teaching the regulation skills and how to be on it, not just you can’t be on it and then you turn 16 and all of a sudden like, go for it. Yeah. So that’s kind of a, if that answers your question at all, that’s a little bit of my take, but I’m more likely, like out in the world, I’m pretty free range and give my kids probably more freedom than others.
Randy:
Okay, interesting. Yeah, that’s, I mean, I, I think that that’s, and, and as, as a result, my guess is that your kids are less dependent upon being on a screen because they’re allowed to be other places and, and encouraged to do some of that. And that’s, and that is seen as being good, not scary. And I, and I, and unfortunately I think that far too many families that’s, that stuff is made scary and re that’s restricted. And so then the kids wanna do this, do this more. Yeah. So I think that’s it. Back to Discord and kind of the, you know, my, my philosophy around that with younger kids and, and, and being online, especially for younger kids, which is I think that parents should be insistent and they can’t really monitor this fully, but they can be more involved that if you’re gonna play online, you play online with your friends, real friends, right?
People, you know, people you’re gonna see in school tomorrow. Because one of the real benefits of your son playing Minecraft and talking to friends on Discord is to talk to friends that he’s gonna see in school tomorrow so that when he goes to school tomorrow, they’re talking about what they did, especially for a child who might be shy or, or somewhat anxious and reserved and doesn’t wanna approach other kids too much. Well now they got something in common. This is, you know, this is Johnny from your class and yes, you are allowed to go play Minecraft with Johnny from your class because I know who Johnny is, I know who Johnny’s parents are, and tomorrow you are gonna be talking to Johnny and hanging out with Johnny and we’re gonna, you’re gonna be building a relationship. So I think that that’s, that’s one of those kinds of things where it’s a little harder.
I mean, it’s, it’s easier for me to say than it is to actually happen because how much control you have, but I’m discord you, the way it’s structured is you can invite people and not invite people if you know enough about it, you can work with them so you know who’s coming and who can’t come. You know, there’s, you can only come if there’s an invite, an invite, and you could probably be the person that’s at least, you could always go look at that. I don’t know if you can actually do that right then and there all the time. But, but, so there are some tools for that. So I, especially for younger kids, I think that if they’re gonna be online, they’re gonna, that one of the things that parents can insist upon is that they’re playing with o with other kids and they can also restrict what they play. I mean, I can’t tell you how many six-year-olds I see whose parents come into my office and tell me that they love playing Fortnite.
And I go like this, I go,
Wendy:
Okay, good. I’m so glad to hear that because I was gonna ask that. Yeah,
Randy:
I don’t mind the older kids playing, don’t mind the kids when they get to be 12 or 13 even that’s young. But, but, but, but, but it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s really the, the vi it’s, it’s more cartoonish violence and it’s other kinds of stuff. But those real young kids, you know, when I hear kids, you know, who are playing GTA and Call of Duty and they’re 10, 11 years old and it’s like, I I, I did have one time when I had a kid come in to see me. He, his parents were divorced. He wasn’t getting to see his father very much. I can’t remember if his father had actually moved far, really far away, but there was stuff going on. So he wasn’t getting to see his father. But every Tuesday and Thursday night at six o’clock, he and his father got online.
Now they were playing Call of Duty, which I really did not like. Yeah. But I held bit my tongue cuz I don’t usually bite my tongue when I hear this from families. I tell ’em what I think about that. Yeah. But I bit my tongue because this was a reliable way for him to get together with his father. And you could see he was excited and his, you know,
Wendy:
Oh, that’s good. Yeah.
Randy:
You know, I had some misgivings about it. But, but yeah, that’s, I, I think, and, and that’s, that’s again, we’re, but parents need to be involved. My, my my my second book, which is called Playing Smarter in a Digital World, one of the things that I basically argue for is, I, I say to parents, I say, you gotta be more involved. You know, this is what your kids are doing. I mean, if your kids, if your kids are spending eight hours a day, which kids are spending on screens, if your kids are spending eight hours a day chewing gum, you’d wanna know, is chewing gum really okay for them? What, what kind of gum are they chewing? Where are they getting this gum, you know, whatever it is. Okay. I mean, if they, you know, spending eight hours a day doing yoga, you’d wanna know, well, what’s eight hours a day of yoga gonna do to your body when you get older?
You’d wanna really be involved and, and, and, and, and, and, and know that it’s hard for me to kind of understand that, that parents don’t really want to know more and be more involved and do that. And I, I think part of it is that it’s kind of the, the, it’s the kids’ domain. The parents don’t understand it. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of reasons for that, but
Wendy:
Yeah, and the, and they’re so busy, you know, it’s like becomes, you know, a little bit of the, the kids are entertained, but, and I, I tell me if you agree, Randy, but I, when I hear the like, Hey, you should be involved, I think a lot of parents take that to mean you should be checking. Like, you know, we, we here at Fresh Start Family really take the root that, not that there’s never a time to check your kid’s phone or their text or their discord cord thing, right? But we really would rather for say for this type of example of your kid’s playing six hours a day like you to get in there and really take an hour of your day and just learn how to play or play with them and just trust and teach them and mentor them on, if there is a conversation that goes awry in like the Discord channel, how to be someone who stands up to that and, and lets us know and will help you get out of it or whatever.
Versus we see a lot of parents who are in the habit of like, they check their kid’s stuff and then they punish ’em. If there’s stuff that’s found and it’s hidden, but there’s, it’s like they, it’s so, anyways, it’s like a, an interrogation, it’s like a, it’s almost like a break of trust in my opinion. And that that erodes at a relationship. So we’re kind of advocates for, hey, empower your kids, teach them important life skills. If they’re, if they’re, if they are hanging on, on a Discord channel or if they’re, I don’t know, I think Fortnite too, you can also play with other kids, right? If there’s language that starts to be like,
Randy:
You have to,
Wendy:
Here’s yeah, here’s what you do with that. Like, talk to me to me about it and I’ll, I’ll teach you about it. Versus like, Hey, if I catch you doing this and then I’m gonna, when you’re asleep at night, I’m gonna take your device and I’m gonna check it. So it’s not that it’s wrong to do that, it’s just I advocate for empowering and trusting your kids and then just checking in on them often, Hey, how’s the language going? Are people being respectful? Whatever it may be. So, alright. Well, we talked about so much good stuff here as far as the play diet. You know, we were gonna talk about just the importance of engaging in other activities, right? Like, how do you recommend proposing that to kids or, or plan doing this as a collaborative team, parents and children alike to make sure that they’re, they’re, I think one of the life skills you named was like the planning portion, right?
So you’re, you’re a kid, you’re looking at your day, we know that you’d love to play on the video games eight hours a day, but instead we’re gonna teach you how to allocate and make this diet, so to speak, where it’s, it’s balanced, right? How do you propose speaking to them about that?
Randy:
So let me, can I comment a little bit on what you were saying before about kind of monitoring and things like that? So
Wendy:
Yeah. Yeah.
Randy:
So there are those tools out there. There’s Apple Screen screen time, and there’s Google Family Link. One of the tools that I actually really enjoy, it’s really made, it, it’s, it, it’s being targeted towards kids with ADHD is they called Joon the, the Joon app. J o o n is really good because it’s kind of a behavior modification sort of thing around how much time kids can get to play, but doing their other activities and chores and things like that and sort of helps kinda structure the kids. So I think that those kinds of things are fine because they allow for communication about this. Yeah. So, you know, the parents and the kids have this, I think that’s kind of what you’re saying, that you want this to be an open book.
You know, you can use that in, you know, with Joon or with those other tools, you can say, okay, here’s expectations and you sit down with the kids, agree upon that, and then now you’ve got a tool that you’re gonna check it because you’ve agreed and you’re gonna, so you’re gonna do this. So I think that there’s some ways to do this without it being intrusive and displaying a lack of trust. That’s because you’re start from that perspective. So I think that’s a, a, a good way to put that.
Wendy:
So I love that. And, before you go on, Randy, I will add that if that’s the angle that you wanna take and you feel good about that and that makes sense the way you just did propose that then on the other side when there’s a mistake that’s made or not agreements not met, then there’s d there’s discipline, there’s firm and kind, compassionate discipline – not punishment – on the other side. That is what I would just recommend. If you’re gonna do that, then it just needs to be like, Hey, looks like you made a mistake last night, or, you know, didn’t stop at the time or there was language being used in this channel. So let’s, we’re gonna do some discipline around it so we can teach you more about the life skill and why it’s important and I’m gonna help you practice so you can make a different decision tomorrow. Okay. Sorry to interrupt.
Randy:
Oh, no, no, no, no. That’s okay. I, that’s a, that’s a, that, you know, cuz a a lot of these kinds of things we, I, you know, like I’ll, you know, we’ll throw out an idea, but it’s, it’s like, then how do you carry it out? So, you know, I think that you’re, that’s really helpful that what, what you’re described, it’s like, here’s how to carry this out. Let’s not, you know, monitor this and then how do you then carry this out so you can kind of progress with it?
Wendy:
Because the common thing, Randy, is just to yank it and it becomes a punishment. So these, these devices that these children fall in love with and they obviously enjoy and they find value in it gets yanked from them. And it’s just, it just creates so much disconnection in the family. And then it’s like they’re actually not being taught the skillset of how to develop the practice and learn from their mistakes. So
Randy:
You, you are a hundred percent correct. A actually that’s funny because my last book that I, I published about a year ago, it’s called the Gaming Overload Workbook, but it was written to teenagers for almost exactly what you’re describing, to help them develop some autonomy and some independence and some ways of thinking for self-control around their use of video games and technology. And my take in the book and it’s a, i I don’t know how many teenagers have bought this book. It’s, it’s, it’s got a great publisher, New Harbinger does all these things for teens with anxiety and depression, but I think it’s really parents and educators who are buying this book to kind of use it as a discussion for the kids.
But the premise of the book is I say to kids, Hey, listen, games and technology, they’re here, they’re fun, you like them, great, okay, but there’s lots of other things in life. Let’s think about how you could use those games and technology to help you. Let’s also think about how much time you’re spending doing that. And we’re also doing that. Let’s actually look at your parents too, by the way, because your parents may be you doing some of the same stuff. And then
Wendy:
Microphone drop.
Randy:
At the end of the day, I also say to them, let’s also look at why they’re so compelling and addictive.
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Because when you can get teenagers, and I think this is a, I think an interesting message for, for anybody with a teenager, if you could, one of one of the teenagers have done, at least throughout my lifetime, is they’ve always said, oh, don’t trust any adults. You know, it’s, remember, well you’re too young for this, but back when I was growing up, don’t trust anybody over 30 or 40 or whatever it was when you were a teenager. Okay. You know, but to be cynical about the motivations of adults. And when teenagers, if you stop talking to them, they will tell you they understand that the folks at Netflix, when they give you five seconds before the next show, that their goal is to keep you on watching forever.
They understand that when you’re playing a video game and there’s in-app purchases, that their goal is to keep you there as long as they can to make money. The longer you spend on screens, the more money these companies make. And they, by being cynical, begin to kind of talk about that. And actually the, the, the latest data that I saw, I think this was done through Common Sense media indicated I think 54% of teens said that they spent too much time on their screens. That’s a, that’s a,
Wendy:
They’re aware,
Randy:
they’re aware now getting them to change it. So part of the, getting them to change it, one of one things I was trying to appeal to in, in my book was to say to the kids in a, in a few of the chapters, Hey, you know, take a look at what’s going on here, why this is happening, and do you wanna be prey to that or do you wanna have some control over that? So I think that that’s, that’s a conversation that sometimes teens are willing to have with their parents as long as their parents are not modeling nine or 10 hours a day of, of screen time. So I think that that’s, that’s, that’s keeping, so let me, this actually leads to talking about a play diet if I, if I can,
Wendy:
Yeah.
Randy:
So probably 15 years ago, I, again, I took my interest in children’s play and I said, well, screen-based play video games, those kinds of things. When I first started writing about it, there was lot less of internet-based play. I mean, you know, on a cell phone and things like that. It just, you know, the, I think the iPhone was introduced 2007, 2008, something like that. And so this is when I started writing about, this was before that, but that children need to have a balance of play. This is how they learn every, you know, kids should be playing. And I, and, and the types of play that they should have include physical play, social play, creative play, and what I call free or unstructured play, where there’s really nothing, you know,
Wendy:
The beach.
Randy:
And then the last one is digital play. What screen-based play, but I call it digital play. And that all those are important. In my estimation, physical and social play are by far the most important types of play. One of the things I am proudest of, you, you asked me before about my family and kids, one of the things I’m proudest of as a dad is that all three of my sons and, and actually my, my stepkids as well, but they didn’t grow up with me. But all three of my sons are daily exercises, like the old man. Okay. Now, the old man is also a daily eater, so the belly is a little bit bigger than I would like it to be. But, you know, I went for a 20 mile bike ride earlier, just, you know, before we did this, I, you know, I, I exercise when I don’t exercise, it’s not a good day, okay.
I, you know, right. And my kids all, and they’re, they’re so fit. It’s like, oh my God. But they, but they love to exercise. They, they, they, they do that. And modeling these kinds of things is what’s important. So when I talk about creative play, I mean, you know, creative play could be writing or drawing. For me, creative play is actually gardening and things like that. But they see that, you know, I, you know, I just, I, I think that when parents model these kinds of things themselves and the social play, I mean, my middle son who’s getting married shortly, he’s only had like five bachelor parties because he has so many friends in so many places that he’s so close to because he’s been, he’s so social.
So, you know, he’s had those kinds of opportunities. So, so all these kinds of things are important, but that physical and social play are so important. But in today’s world, digital play is important because it’s gonna be part of social play. I sometimes talk about something like all whole play as well, where we combine forms of play. So like, being online with your friends and playing a game is, is both digital play and social play, if you will. So it’s kind of whole play, like whole grains, if you will. Think about it that way. It’s more, it’s more complex. But in today’s world, you, you need to use a computer, you need to use technology. It’s one of the ways that people communicate with each other. It’s one of the ways that they have fun with each other. It’s one of the ways that they share information with each other.
So all those things, and mind you, I’m not trying to say this, that it doesn’t have a lot of negativity and a lot of problems. I mean, some of the social media kinds of things that are going on now are just awful for teenagers. Especially what I noticed from, you know, when I, the kids I’m most concerned with are like the, the 10 to 13 year old girls who are on social media.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Randy:
And they’re, it’s horrible for them. I mean, it’s like the, you know, the drama that might have started when they were teenagers years ago was starting at age 10 because, and sometimes younger, because they have cell phones before that. I mean, I, I kind, I, I don’t know what your thought, I’m actually curious what’s, do you guys have some parameters around when kids should get smartphones,
Wendy:
Man, that you talk about? We are gnarly about it, and we are so passionate about it. We work with, we are affiliates here at Fresh Start Family for two companies. One’s called Gabb and one’s called Troomi. They look like an iPhone, but they just have text and, and voice and simple stuff. But we really try to put as much information as possible in front of parents to keep their kids off of smartphones for as long as possible. So I advocate for people to join the wait till eighth pledge, so it’s like eighth grade graduation. But even then, I mean, that’s doable. I feel like that’s doable. You’re gonna be the black sheep of your community. Like Stella just graduated, she just started her freshman year of high school. And so she finally, you know, graduated and, and got the, the iPhone that she wanted for years and years and years.
And I’m already seeing, right? Like now, I’m like, dang it, man. I wish we could have just, if we would’ve had courage just to wait a few more years. But for us, that was, that was a really good accomplishment because she was usually out of, let’s say a group of 10. She was the only child since probably about the age of nine or 10, I think it was really nine here in Southern California. Yeah. That did not have an iPhone attached to her hip everywhere. So volleyball teams, social, and I mean, there was umpteen conversations with tears and us just holding space and explaining again why we’re, we were so adamant about it. So yeah, we really advocate for that. But I just interviewed a woman named Arlene Pelicane, who does tremendous work. She has a book called, I think her book is called Screen Kids, I wanna say.
She basically has all her kids wait till eighth grade grad, or I’m sorry, till high school graduation. And it was such a beautiful interview because she’s like, they’re fine. They’re thriving in life. Their son was a valedictorian. And she’s like, they’re fine. They’re not like, bullied at school because they don’t have an iPhone. And I just, yeah. I love this conversation. Looking at Stella now with, with an iPhone, and, and she was able, we allowed her to get the, the apps this year. So Snapchat and Instagram, it’s already, it’s already heartbreaking. Just the, it does not seem like it adds any value to these teenagers lives.
Randy:
Yeah.
Wendy:
And it’s just another thing that they have to deal with, especially the girls, right? Because girls at that age can just be really, really catty if they’re, if they’re not mentored. And anyways, so yeah, that’s our take. We’re really, we really try to give parents the courage to be the black sheep and not do the iPhones out in the world.
Randy:
Okay. I, you know, I I, I can’t say that I disagree with that. I mean, I think that that’s, it’s, it’s a noble way to do this. I, it’s, I think it’s, it’s really difficult. I, I also, and you know, I, I’m not sure that I, I necessarily, I, I don’t know that it’s easy to say, well, it should be at the end of eighth grade or ninth grade or seventh grade. That, that’s, that’s a tricky thing. But I, I, I would say in general, I think kids are getting these things way too young and they have access to things in the world that they should not have access to. Absolutely. And I think that some of the social media piece is just awful for all of them. I mean, I, I just, I think it’s awful. Yeah. But, but that’s neither here nor I don’t, I, I talk a lot less about that than I talk about kind of the, the gaming piece.
Yeah. And the other part that we’re really interested in that in Learning Works for Kids, and, and actually we do a lot of interesting things at lw4k.com where we actually teach kids how to use apps as well as games and learn stuff. So one of you were asking before, how do you take a game and learn from it? So, you know, we talked before about the parent stuff. What we are doing at lw4k.com is we actually create these cool videos of like doing a project in Minecraft. And then we have the kid do that project in Minecraft post, something about that on our, just on our site that allows us to share that with other kids. And then they get some, we call ’em brain bucks, they earn some reward for, and they do another thing. So we’re basically having them think about a particular skill, do a project, watch videos, and the the videos are really cool.
We have some great video makers who, who are gamers who do this kind stuff.
Wendy:
Oh, cool.
Randy:
So it’s, that’s another way to do this. So it’s not the parent talking to the kid about the game. It’s kind of a video project to do those kinds of things. And we also do that with apps. And so apps there are, especially if we kids who have learning issues, there are so many apps that I, I feel like would really benefit kids if they could learn how to use them. So for example, I I, in working with kids with attention problems, and I’m sure you hear some of this from some of the families that you work, a lot of kids don’t like to write. They really, writing is an incredible source of frustration. So I’m a big advocate of teaching kids how do you dictate, how do you use dictation skills? Because some of these kids are great talkers.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Randy:
But you can’t just talk and expect it to be something that comes out in writing that looks good, that, that, that follows prose. That’s not, it’s not prose, it’s, it’s just communication. So teaching kids how to use some of these apps that are available, even just simple scheduling apps. Even just, you know, using Google Calendar, things like that can be
Wendy:
Heck yeah
Randy:
so powerful for kids who are disorganized. I mean, I, I think we’re, we’re missing the boat on, on some of that kind of stuff. You know, we get the kid, you know, sometimes these parents give ’em the cell phone. But to me, if I, if I were gonna give a kid who comes to my office who’s at, you know, say 10 or 11 years old, a cell phone who has problems with doing schoolwork and getting their homework done, say, you can have your cell phone if you use it for this, and I am gonna check this. I wanna see that your homework’s on here every day. You wanna use this, put your, get in the habit of doing this. Make this a habit. And there’s a real incentive to developing a habit on, on a cell phone that you want to have. Yeah. So there’s a lot of ways to leverage this.
Wendy:
Well, and that’s what’s cool about these new, these safe phone companies is you can, like, some of these, a lot of these apps are okay, right? So you can have scheduling apps, you can have music apps, you can have, it just doesn’t give kids the full blown internet and access to like these social apps. So it’s beautiful, the people that are starting to specialize in this, because you still have a kid that you can get ahold of when you’re late to pick him up from practice or he’s needs to call you and then, but you have these other, these other things that they can access. Well, Randy, we’re,
Randy:
Can you tell me the name of those apps? I wanna write those down.
Wendy:
Yep, yep. So Troomi Wireless and Gabb Wireless, they both make a Kid Safe Phone
Randy:
Troo me Like T, like, just like, it sounds true me,
Wendy:
T R O O M I -Troomi Wireless and listeners will make sure we put this all in the show notes too. And then Gabb Wireless, cuz we always have a super fun special deal we offer here at Fresh Starrt Family. But they’re just phenomenal and they just give the kids the basics and they don’t give ’em access to like, you know, look up whatever they want on the internet or, you know, download Minecraft or, or, you know, worse some stuff like that.
Randy:
Okay. Now we can share that on our website too. That’d be great. Because I think
Wendy:
Yes
Randy:
Parents need to know this about that stuff.
Wendy:
Yeah. Oh yes. Yeah. Reach out to them. I’m sure they would love to have you guys as an affiliate too. So we’re up against our hour here, Randy and I, I could talk to you all day, but will you just, we wanna hear, I want you to tell listeners everything about where they can find you and get involved with your work and get supported by you. But also, will you just hit real quick on the addiction piece. So I imagine you probably have a lot of kids come in who are battling an addiction where it’s like hard as heck to turn these devices off. How do you offer support there?
Randy:
So let me kind of respond to that by, by talking about addiction for a minute. So the DSM5, the diagnostics system that psychologists and psychiatrists use in, in 2014 came out with a diagnostic category called Internet Gaming Disorder. And there’s been a series of studies looking at that in terms of people in, in, in the u in the US but also in other parts of the world. In the US it looks like someplace between maybe five and 7% of people may kind of qualify for this diagnosis. It’s, it’s, you know, it’s, you know, and it’s pretty serious. It’s, it’s, it’s, you know, addictive kind of thing that, I mean, it’s similar to addiction, to, to drugs and to, you know, to alcohol.
I mean, it’s, it’s, you know, addictions are serious.
Wendy:
I bet you 80% of us qualify with our iPhones right. As adults.
Randy:
Well, but see that’s the thing that, that we, that, that probably don’t qualify as being addicted. That’s, that’s why I want put out that 5-7%. It does feel like that. And when we think about it from, from technology and video games. But I think it’s also important to look at, you know, we, I I, I would, I would kind of differentiate this into like addicted gamers, but also passionate gamers, engaged gamers that there are kids who really are gamers. They’re part of their identity is as a gamer. This is who they, who they are. But they do other things. And they’re not addicted in the sense that they’re not lying about it. They’re not staying up in the middle of the night to do that. They’re not giving up friendships to do that.
It’s not causing, you know, I see serious conflicts in the family. So there’s a lot of those kids. But the kids who have real addiction issues, I mean, sometimes they, they need to see specialized counselors for this. Those are the kids who probably need someone to say, I don’t have my cell phone here. Actually, this is interesting. My cell phone is not on my desk. 75% of us have our cell phones within arms reach all the time.
Wendy:
All the time.
Randy:
All the time. Mine is not on my desk. I don’t know why.
Wendy:
Way to go Randy. Way to go.
Randy:
I do, I do have 1, 2, 3, 4 computers on my desk. Okay. Two laptops and, and, and two desktops only one’s on. Okay. But I don’t have my cell phone. I don’t know where it is. Am I must have left it someplace else. I, I don’t like, actually, one of the things, as a psychologist, I keep my cell phone off during the day because I can’t have people calling me during my patients.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Randy:
So, so anyway, so yeah. So, so those really serious cases, they really need to see counselors who, this is what they do, or some of them need to be in facilities. Many of the, many of ’em will need to do the kinds of things that, that, that we do with people who have substance abuse issues. It’s like, you can’t have this stuff if you’re gonna function.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Randy:
You can’t have this stuff. You know, I think the rest of those folks, especially the ones who may be more passionate gamers who are spending a lot of time doing this, and it’s interfering a little bit so that they’re staying up a little bit too late at night. So that, doing these kinds of things is that, you know, that’s, that’s where you have to sort of work with these kids and have some real expectations for them. That’s where you may need to be, like I say, to control the controller or be in controller of the internet of the house or have the, the basket where your, your cell phone is put in at night and it stays in mom and dad’s bedroom so that there’s, you know, and make sure your kid doesn’t have a burner phone, by the way, I mean, kids are super good at getting around these things. They are,
Wendy:
Yeah. Especially if you have a disconnect in your relationship. Yeah. At high school, the other night, high school orientation, it was so nice to see the majority of the teachers now have a cell phone pocket little thingy at the, the beginning of class, and they each have their own number. And so kids are just expected they put their cell phone in and they get it at the end of class. Right. So it’s like taking the, the cocaine out of their pocket. I don’t know, not, not putting candy in their pocket and telling ’em not to use it. But that was like, it’s like assisting, right? So Yeah, that makes sense. So it’s like really coming in and, which is a lot of what we would teach parents, right? Actually how to, how do you influence your child, you know, to cooperate and all those types of things. Agreements, healthy, proactive agreements and follow through and, and firm boundaries.
Randy:
Yeah. And I would say, I’m go, going back to what I wrote about in my, my last book about this is that when you say to kids, we’re doing this because it’s not about you, it’s that that thing is so addictive, that thing is calling out to you. They’ve set this up to give you all these alerts. So you need to check, you hear a little buzz.
Wendy:
Yeah.
Randy:
You need to check. I mean, my wife can’t, my, oh, she’s still, she’s still going. Okay. So I can talk about her. Okay. She’s like on a, you know, it’s like the thing buzzes and it’s like, honey, I’m just talking to you. What are you looking at this old home? I mean, it’s not, it’s, it’s impolite. I say that to her sometimes. It’s like, yeah, you know, but it’s not, you know, it’s really not her. It’s, that’s, it’s, that’s how these things work. And I think,
Wendy:
Yeah,
Randy:
again, if we go back to that conversation with teens and say, you know what? You need to look at that thing and, and ask if you want that to be in control of you or you want to be in control of that. And I think that’s a really great starting point to start to talk about these kinds of things, because that way we’re not kind of like saying, oh, you bad person, you know, put your phone away. It’s like that phone is like, it’s, it’s, it’s in your pocket and it’s, and it’s crawling up to, to, to, to, you know, to be in front of your face.
Wendy:
Amazing. Randy, that is amazing. Just the, the empowerment element of that. I know, I know kids will respond so well to that. Especially we have a lot of families here who have strong-willed kids or kids in power surge changes of life. And I’m telling you, you present that to a child, do you wanna be in control of this or it con control you? And I guarantee you there’s gonna be a great response versus like, in this house, we, we have strong boundaries and we won’t let you do that. Like, no, you put that kid in charge of controlling that phone and I bet you they’re gonna respond a lot better. Randy, you have been so much fun to talk to. I just think you’re brilliant and I’m just so fascinating and, and fascinated and, and grateful for your work.
So thank you for spending the last hour with us. And will you tell us, how do families find you? How do they work with you? How do they experience, you know, the benefits of all these wonderful resources that have that you have? Just tell listeners where they can find you.
Randy:
Sure. Great. Thanks. So Wendy, I think the, the, the best place for them to get some information about, you know, having their kids use some of these games and be able to learn some of these skills, is that an lw4k.com site? Okay. That’s a place where lots of free videos, there’s a whole ton of resources for parents. We have this great set of resources around these different executive functioning skills and as well as videos around setting screen time limits and doing those kinds of things. So there’s that kind there, there’s that, you know, kids who love Minecraft, Roblox, we didn’t talk about Roblox, which is so popular with the, with the
Wendy:
Yeah.
Randy:
You know, the eight to 12 year old, you know, crew. Pokemon. We do a couple of the Mario games we’re doing something with,
Wendy:
I love Mario Games. That’s my favorite.
Randy:
Anyway. Yeah, we, so that’s one place Learningworksforkids.com is our other website that is really more informational for parents and educators about, you know, different games. You know, we review games that come out that there’s usually two, two or three new reviews of games and apps every week. And we talk about how those games and apps can be used to improve executive function and social emotional learning skills and what parents could know about that. You know, then there’s our, our our, we have, you know, people can find, find us on, on Facebook at learningworksforkids, on Twitter, Instagram. We’re not doing TikTok yet. So yeah, that’s, and then, you know, and then, and then, and my, my my my day-to-day work with patients is really less about this, although I talk about them, but that’s really more about doing evaluations with kids, doing neuropsychological evaluations and looking at kids who might have attention to have hyperactivity disorder or autism spectrum disorders.
Randy:
And we have, and we’ve developed a lot of expertise around how do you use games and technologies to help those kids, because if anything, those kids present more risk around that addiction issue, but also more engagement with these technologies in a way that we can leverage to help them learn and connect with others. So
Wendy:
That’s Oh, that’s awesome. And, and your, your practice is probably in person for Rhode Island. Yeah. Yeah. Because of like state laws and stuff, right? Oh, so yeah, if you guys are in Rhode Island, give Randy a call and maybe even go see him in person. But otherwise, you guys check out all of Randy’s incredible resources and every, just all the wonderful things that they’re doing over at Learning Works for Kids. Randy, thanks again for being here today and for all that you’re doing to help families and kids in the world.
Randy:
Well, Wendy, I really appreciate you inviting me to do so. This has been really a blast for me to do. I, I, I enjoy, I have enjoyed it thoroughly and, and I learned quite a bit of things too, so, which is really great. I I’ve learned an awful lot. So I, that’s one of the things that I love about my work is I learn from the people that I work with. I, I’m curious about things. I, I, I actually, I, I listen to one of your podcasts about curiosity recently, and it’s like, I just think that that’s one of those traits that if you can encourage in kids, you know, that actually gets around some of these kinds of things as well. So, but you know, so I, I just, anyway, I’ve enjoyed it a lot. Thank you for having me.
Wendy:
Thanks, Randy.
Families, I hope that you have loved this episode as much as I have loved recording it for you. Don’t forget to go grab your free Quick Start Learning Bundle so you can really step into learning with me. Head on over to freshstartfamilyonline.com/free and you’ll get your downloadable learning guide about how to raise strong-willed kids with integrity so you don’t lose your mind. And then also an invite to join me for my free Power Struggles online workshop. All right, go grab that now. Freshstartfamilyonline.com/free. As always, thanks for listening and I’ll see you in the next episode.
For links and more information about everything we talked about in today’s episode, head to freshstartfamilyonline.com/163.
Stella:
For more information, go to freshstartfamilyonline.com. Thanks for listening, families, have a great day.e
