019: Raising your Child in a Digital World: Interview with Dr. Kristy Goodwin

  Did your child receive a digital device as a gift over the holidays? Have you been able to prise it out of his/her hands yet? Regular listeners might recall that we did an episode recently called “Really, how bad is screen time for my child?” where we went into the American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidelines on screen time for very young children, so if you haven’t listened to that one yet you might want to go and do it before you listen to this episode, because this one really builds on that one. Yes, we know we’re not supposed to give our babies under 18 months old access to screens. But at some point our children are going to start using screens – and we as parents need tools to manage that process, whether we’ve limited screens until now or whether we’ve been using them as a bit of a crutch. (If you’re in a third category of parents who is totally happy with the amount and type of screen time your children are getting and feel confident about managing this in the future then click along to the next episode, because there’s nothing for you here!) So all of this is what today’s guest is going to help us to figure out. Dr Kristy Goodwin is one of Australia’s leading digital parenting experts (and mum who also has to deal with her kids’ techno-tantrums!). She’s the author of the brand new book Raising Your Child in a Digital World (Affiliate link).  Dr Kristy arms parents, educators and health professionals with research-based information about what today’s young, digital kids really need to thrive online and offline. Kristy takes the guesswork and guilt out of raising kids in the digital age by arming parents and educators with facts, not fears about how screens are impacting on children’s health, wellbeing and development.   References Brewer, J. (2016). Digital Nutrition (website/blog). Retrieved from: http://www.digitalnutrition.com.au/blog Christakis, D., Zimmerman, F.J., DiGuiseppe, D.L., & McCarty, C.A. (2004). Early television exposure and subsequent attentional problems in children. Pediatrics 113(4), 708-713. Common Sense Media website: www.commonsensemedia.org (Also check your app store for their app) Goodwin, K. (2016). Raising your child in a digital world: What you need to know!. Warriewood, NSW: Finch. (Affiliate link) Kindertown website: http://www.kindertown.com/ (Also check your app store for their app)   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen:    [00:30] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of Your Parenting Mojo, which is called Raising Your Child in a Digital World. Now, regular listeners might recall that we did an episode recently called really how bad his screen time for my child and we went into the American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidelines on screen time for very young children. So if you haven’t listened to that one already, you might want to go back and do that before you listen to this episode because this one really builds on that one. So we all know that we’re not supposed to give her a babies under 18 months old access to screens, but at some point our children are going to start using screens and we as parents need tools to manage that process, whether we have limited screens until now or whether we’ve been using them as a bit of a crutch. Jen: [01:10] And l say that if you find yourself in a third category of parents who’s totally happy with the amount and type of screen time that your children are getting and you feel confident about managing this in the future, then you should just click along to the next episode because there’s nothing for you here, but for the rest of us who are still trying to figure all this out that’s what today’s guest is going to help us do. So Dr. Kristy Goodwin is one of Australia’s leading digital parenting experts and she’s also a mom who has to deal with her kids techno tantrums. She’s the author of the brand new book, Raising Your Child in a Digital World, and Dr Christie arms parents, educators, and health professionals with research based information about what today’s young digital kids really need to thrive online and offline. Christy takes the guesswork and guilt out of raising kids in the digital age by arming parents and educators with facts and not fears about how screens are impacting children’s health, wellbeing, and development. Welcome Dr. Goodwin, thanks so much for joining us. Dr. Goodwin:  [02:05] My pleasure. It’s great to be here. Jen:    [02:08] So your book outlines seven building blocks for young children’s development. Can you tell us a little bit about what those are? Dr. Goodwin:    [02:15] Sure. So I draw on the neuroscience and the developmental science research and they have consistently identified that children have basic, unchanging developmental needs or priorities. And it doesn’t matter where the children were born in 2012 or whether they were born in 1950. Their developmental needs are fairly, pretty consistently the same. So I identified the seven basic developmental needs or as I refer to in the book as the building blocks. And kids need basic things like relationships and attachments. They need language exposure to as much language as possible, both hearing and using. They need sleep, they need opportunities for play, they need opportunities for physical movements, they need good quality nutrition. And the final one is a relatively new one that I’m looking at executive function skills and these are basically children’s higher order thinking skills at the part of the brain that’s responsible for executive function skills is sometimes referred to as the air traffic control system or CEO of the brain. So I draw on what the research because we’ve got a very robust, consistent body of research that says these are the basic needs that children have in order to thrive. And then what I do is look at how technology is intersecting with those basic needs. Jen:   [03:36] So I know we’ve, we’ve talked a lot already in the previous episode about how researchers are concerned with children’s screen time. So I, I want to spend a little bit of time on this just to make sure that we’re acknowledging it before we move into some of the more positive attributes. So can you tell us that some of the ways that screen time can hinder children’s development? Dr. Goodwin: [03:55] We do some preliminary research that tells us that excessive or inappropriate use of technology with children can have some adverse effects. In particular, the research has consistently identified but excessive or inappropriately used technology can have implications on children’s sleep. It’s also associated with obesity levels and some research, although not yet consistent, tells us that it has been correlated with attentional issues. This doesn’t necessarily mean that screens cause attentional issues, but there’s definitely a link there. More recently we’re seeing, and again, these are still in the preliminary stages because we need to remember, you know, the ipad is only six years old, and as a researcher in this field, I have to admit, we’re really hopeless at keeping up with the technology. The technology is growing exponentially by the time we conduct, publish, and then disseminate research, the technology is often been superseded. So we don’t yet have, you know, I’m often asked what’s the longterm impact of preschoolers and toddlers on the iPad. Dr. Goodwin:    [05:00] I hate to say we really don’t yet know. And in some regards we are conducting a bit of a living experiment. So that’s why I always fall back on what do we know, what does the science tell us? It’s those seven basic things. So we’re seeing with screens in particular, there’s a displacement effect, so when...