Helping your child grow and tech use: Experts answer your parenting questions

Tania Johnson and Tammy Schamuhn, the founders of the Institute of Child Psychology, joined CTV Morning Live’s Kent Morrison to answer parenting questions.

 

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

 

Kent Morrison: For the last month or so, we've been asking you to send us your parenting questions as we seek to help you connect with your kids and help them manage their thoughts and feelings, and frankly, help ourselves do the same thing.

Tammy, let's start with you. We had this one come in from Amy. She says, “My kids are three and five. They fight all the time. I don't like to intervene because I think they should learn to sort it out themselves. But will this fighting ever end?”

Tammy Schamuhn: Sibling fighting is completely normal, and I agree, to an extent, of letting your kids work it out. We don't want to rescue our kids all the time, right? But I would say to have a zero-tolerance policy towards unkindness, so the second they start physically hurting each other or using really nasty words, that's when we have to intervene, separate, and put them in their own corner. That's where we're going to use some problem solving and co-regulation and name their feelings and make sure we hear both sides of it..

The number one thing I want to tell parents who are listening is when siblings are fighting a lot, chances are they're perceiving something is unfair, or their emotional cups are empty. Our kids are excellent observers, but poor interpreters. So do they feel that one kiddo is getting more attention and more connection than the other one? Maybe because one kid's been sick, or they’re colicky or something like that. We just have to say, “Are our kids perceiving our interactions as being more favorable towards one sibling more than the other?” Even if we don't mean to, they may be interpreting in that way, and that's why they're fighting so much.

Kent: Tania, let's take this one from Julie. She says, “When my sons come home from school, all they want to do is go on their iPads and play Fortnite. How can I get them outside without being a mean mom?”

Tania Johnson: I think this is a struggle that many parents have right now. The issue that I often see with kids that come into clinics is that they feel as if the spotlight is just on their tech use. What they'll often say to me is, “What about mom? What about dad? This isn't fair.” When we get on the same team as our kids, and we sit down and we say, “Okay, let's talk about everybody's tech use. Let's talk about mom's tech use. Let's talk about dad's tech use. Let's talk about the family's tech use.” It changes the conversation altogether, because now we're a team. We're together, and then we start having these conversations, “So what are our rules? Where do we use tech? When do we use tech? How do we use tech together?”

Everybody might have different parameters, but getting something like a family media plan where we write it down, we all agree to it, and then we hold each other accountable, is huge. At the institute, if people are interested, we actually have a family media plan, which walks parents through this conversation with their kids, so they can contact us if they want that family media plan.

The other thing that I often like to explain to kids when they come in for therapy, is we want to think of it like a jar. We have our sand, which is the things that we like to do, like watch Netflix, play Fortnite. Then we have our little pebbles, which are the things that we have to do, like appointments, homework. Then we have our big rocks, which are the important things in the world, like sleep, movement, relationships. First, we put the sand in the jar, and we say, “Fill up that jar with all of the sand, like lots of Netflix, there's no space for the important things that help us grow.” We dump the sand out, and then we put the rocks in, and we say, “Always put the rocks first. Sleep, movement, nutrition, relationships, that's what helps us grow.” Then we put the pebbles in. We say, “These are the extra things that help us learn,” and if there's space, then we put the sprinkle of sand on top, and kids love it. They really get it when it’s explained to them that way.

 

 

Send your questions for Tania and Tammy via text message to 10-400.