An Army of Normal FolksFor "Shop Talk", Coach Bill reflects on an Army member's email about cell phones and young kids.
Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courting. Welcome to shop Talk number thirty four. Welcome into the shop. Actually thirty five, it's thirty five. Everybody, Welcome to shop Talk number thirty five. Welcome into the shop. Welcome in, Alex. How are you doing today? Good? This finger? You know? Yeah, well you shouldn't be falling down, breaking fingers or whatever it is that you did with that finger. Everybody, Alex has a broken finger. Today's shop Talk number thirty five is Don't let your Babies be Bots. That's the title of it title. I'll take it you like that.
I'm actually going to listen to you this time and use.
That I just just came up off the top of my head. Don't let your baby be bots by giving them cell phones and having them use them all over the place like a bunch of robots. Right after these brief messages from our general sponsors, everybody, welcome back Shop Talk number thirty five. Don't let your babies be Bots? Inspired by Sandy Groger Groger or Groger What do you think, Sandy Grogerger Groger, Hey, Sandy, thanks for sending this an email she sent another shop Talk idea.
Actually read the whole thing it's so good.
Okay, Dear Bill, I wanted to first take this opportunity to thank you for your podcast. I first learned of you while listening to an episode of Microse the way I heard it when he induced you in your movie. I was fascinated. So the first thing I did was rent Undefeated. Great movie, by the way. I then went and followed your podcast on Spotify. You can follow our podcast on many things including Spotify, iHeart Apple, and wherever you get your podcasts. I can honestly admit to being current and up to date with all of your released episodes, which is a great testament to the engaging and informative nature of your podcast. Seriously, Sandy, thank you. That's really kind of you to say. While all the stories are inspiring, some of them hit me in my heart a little bit more. I've begun volunteering for the local chapter of Sleeping Heavenly Peace. I'm looking into other volunteer options. That made my day. I have an idea for one of your shop talks. Can we please tell parents stop letting their kids have devices at a young age. There are times that prudent and judicious use of an electronics device can be beneficial or at least not harmful to a child's development. But this should be rare, not the norm. Oh Sandy, you're starting to speak to me girl. I see so many kids addicted to phones and iPads. Their parents are so very proud of how smart they think they are because they can quickly scroll through and find their favorite app or video. They can navigate the screen like an IT expert, and can build elaborate structures on apps like Minecraft. Yet these smart kids in her kidnergarten, many of whom have never held a crayon, opened a book, or stopped a physical block. Kids who grow up with advice always are often in their hands, don't know how to handle boredom, don't have a sense of environmental curiosity, don't play with manipulative toys, and don't get outside and get dirty. As a pediatric occupational therapist, I see the ramifications when they enter school. There are so many more pherrals for delays and find motor skills and handwriting that before the days of electronic devices. Kids not only don't hold their crayons or pencils well, they can't even hold them at all. They have not developed the foundation and find motor skills and they also have not learned patience and delayed gratification that has significant sensors processing issues since they haven't experienced the world with all of their senses to be able to interact with and integrate. Their parents are also seemingly addicted to their own device. At least these parents grew up before the widespread use of these phones slash tablets and learned at a young age the foundation of fine motor skills. Kids today are not getting the building blocks and will continue to struggle with not only academics but also daily life skills. While I could go on and on about how technology dependents is putting our children behind, I'll leave it at this. One young kindergartener was handed a book on the first day of school. His teacher tells me that he tried to quote open it by tapping on a picture on the cover, likely thinking it was an icon. This is truly sad. Thanks for your time, thanks for your podcast, Sandy, thank you for your letter, and I now am going to talk about don't make your baby a bot man. Do. I have a lot of thoughts about this one. The first is I am really tired. As a side note of being in a restaurant and looking at a family of four sitting there ordering food together, and then all four of them looking down at their stuff. Lisa and I didn't buy cell phones for our children until they reached eighth grade, and I'm not even sure if that was too early or not, but that's when we decided to do it. But we had a rule. Whenever we got to dinner time, we said, stack them and mine and Lisa's and all four kids phones got stacked in the middle of the table, right next to the mashed potatoes or green beans or whatever, and were not to be touched until supper was over. Because while Sandy's points are really well taken, I don't think the social interaction that she's talking about in school in her letter. I don't think it's just a school looks like it's in families and everywhere else. So as I read this, I started goofing around trying to find any content relative to this, and ironically enough, I did find something. It's a story about what school system is this Marina del Rey, Where Marina del Rey, California. I'll be damn, the people that make the phones are now banon them. That's great.
Well, yeah, I'm sure you heard this before. People like Tim Cook and Steve Jobs and other people in Silicon Valley would not allow their kids to have phones either. So the extual makers of all the social media companies, everybody.
In the shop needs to hear what Alex just said. The very people who made and designed these phones won't even let their own children have.
And social media, the founders of social media companies do so.
In the school system, the kids when they show up have to put at their phone in like a gray pouch, right, isn't that right, Alex? That's right? All right? Now, who keeps the pouches? The pouch stay with the school or how's it worked? You know, I don't know. You just that it doesn't matter. They basically the kids can't have their schools their phones. They're put in a pouch and they're unusable. And this is Marina del Ray, California, all right. So six months after this has been going on for two years, I think of Marina del right, So six months after they started the absolutely no phones in school, Principal Dudley says, the entire school culture has changed. Bullying has decreased, and fewer kids are being referred to the office Dudley ads that students are improving academically. You know the smart kids that Susan talks about, they're improving academically. Their scores on State Standardized test improved from the beginning of last school before the band was in place, to the end of the school year when the campus was phone free. Teacher Asha Nash says she's no longer using valuable class time to hound students about their phones. Says they're even checking themselves out in the mirror less. It's beautiful. I feel like the kids are actually engaged and they seem this is crazy happier. The other thing I read is the hallway in between classes. Check this out, Alex. The hallway when classes are switching is exponentially louder because the kids are actually talking to each other. Is that not interesting social interaction because you're headed and buried in a screen. Guys, if you're listening to me, Susan is clearly more than just a person writing a letter. She is far too much documentation. And my guess is she's some type of educator administrator. I don't know.
She's it says in there she said she's I a psychologist in the schools it's in there.
Oh. Oh, she's a pediatric occupational therapist. She's a lot more than a teacher and everything.
She's like, just to be fair to you, we took a like a twenty minute break there to talk about your work.
We did between whenever it's you to go in between when I read the letter and right now I had a disaster happened at work, and now I'm getting back to it. But yes, she's Susan's a pediatric occupational therapist, and she sees fine motor skill delay. She sings people tapping on the front of books to quote open it. And then these folks and Marina del Rey once they ban sees happier, more engaged, smarter, better tested, and kids more engaged with less bullying. What else do we need to hear? Folks? Your children don't need cell phones at an early age. It is prohibiting their growth. It is prohibiting their ability to interact. It is prohibiting their ability to grow. Not long ago, I did a shop talk on let your kids skin their knees. You know what, They're never going to skin their knees if they're at home on a phone. They don't have a phone they're going to go outside interact with kids, and then they're going to skin their knees, and then that shop talk makes sense. So Susan asked that I did a shop talk on the danger of making your baby's bots, and it really is detrimental. And what happens to the future of the quote army of normal folks engaging in community if they don't know how to engage unless it's through ast screen, develop into personal relationships. How do you have the patience to invest time when you are so used to having immediate gratification provided by a phone. How do you fail? How do you learn from the failing? Babies are not supposed to be bots. Babies are supposed to be nurtured, learn how to interact, have interpersonal relationships, talk, smile, and not be buried in a phone. I'll be honest with you, I don't know what the right age is to give your kids phones, but I know it's not kindergarten. I think Lisa and I would probably have delayed the phone to sophomores now if we had to do over again when our kids were coming through. They're twenty nine, eight, seven and six now, So the whole phone thing was kind of new when they were coming through. But I'm pretty sure I wouldn't do eighth grade anymore. I'm pretty sure I would. You know, driving age maybe, and if you're concerned about their safety and how do they get in touch with you and and all of that. Well, the school has answered that as well. They have.
You call the front office. It's not that hard.
They have Yeah. I was about to say, they have this thing called a hard line. Yeah, it's interesting. And when you doll a seven digit combination, it picks right on up.
A couple of things. This is usually you on shop Talk mostly, but a lot of listeners may know about Jonathan Hite is big on this topic, and I wasn't aware of this. I'm just reading this article that he mentions about wait until eighth So there's a whole parent movement out there of getting people to wait at least until eighth grade.
Well, I guess we did that right.
Yeah, yeah, I did high school and I thought that was good. But he Jonathan often talks about like parents needing to have a pact together because one of the big arguments is like the kids are left out if they don't have a cell phone, but all their other friends do, and so you need to have a pact with a couple other families and that's all you need. I mean, it's really like creating an army of normal folks who are joining together and saying, hey, together, we are going to do this that their kids are not going to have cell phones until eighth grade or high school.
And you know what, if kids can't have their phone in school and they're used to not being able to use it in school, like these kids at Marina del right, then not getting it to lighth grade won't be that big a deal because they're not like ostracized for not having a phone at school. I mean, it all works together, this idea of this pat of parents. I love it.
You just need a couple of good friends.
Right.
If you just have a couple other families in with you on this pact, you're good.
That understand what they're doing to their kids with these things. Yeah, well, everybody shop talk number thirty five. Don't make your baby's bots. There's tons of information on internet. There's a great story from Sandy or a great letter from Sandy to support what we're saying. If your grandparent talk to your children about what they're doing with your grandchildren, if your parent, think about what we're saying. And if you're young and listening to me and you have that phone, think about putting it up every once in a while. Just having a conversation with a human being, witnessing facial expressions and hearing laughter rather than emojis. You might experience some sensations that that phone can't give you. It just won't vibrate that into your brain. That's shop Talk number thirty five. Don't make your baby's pots. Guys. If you have any ideas for shop Talk, you can write me anytime at Bill at normal folks dot us and I will respond. If I think we have something to add or to offer or to comment on like we have, I'll do it. If not, I'll just respond and thank you for the idea and tell you I don't really feel comfortable talking about it because I will sound more like an idiot than I normally do. If you like this thing, y'all, please rate us, review us, subscribe to the podcast, tell folks about us, share us, share us with friends and on social and all that stuff. This is Bill Courtney at shop Talk number thirty five. Don't make your Baby's bots.
That's kind of a weak ring, was it. Yeah, I think you're tired at the end of the day.
Yeah, we're leaving. It's end of the day, y'all. We'll see you next week.
