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Every parent has wondered: Am I doing this right?
In a world full of parenting advice, strong opinions, and endless information online, it can be hard to know who to trust. Hosted by clinical psychologists, researchers, and moms, Dr. Leslie Roos and Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen, You're Doing It Right is a podcast for parents who want trustworthy information without the judgment. As parents of young children themselves, Leslie and Lianne understand the joys, challenges, and total chaos that come with parenting, bringing both professional expertise and humor to every conversation.
Each episode features conversations with experts about the questions families are actually asking, from sleep and screen time to behaviour, emotions, relationships, and family wellbeing. Together, they explore what the research really says, what it means for everyday family life, and how to cope when things don’t go exactly to plan.
This podcast is not about perfect parenting. It is about helping families feel more confident, more supported, and a little less alone. The are so many wonderful ways to parent and chances are, you're doing an amazing job.
Narration
Welcome to You're Doing It Right, a podcast for navigating parenting. On today's episode, we tackle one of the biggest parenting stress points right now: screen time. Phones, tablets, gaming, television, and social media are everywhere. From guilt and power struggles to practical strategies that can help, this conversation is all about navigating the digital world with a little more confidence and a little less fear.
Dr. Leslie Roos
Hi, and welcome to the podcast that's here to remind you you're not messing it all up. You're not a terrible parent, even when it feels like you have had a really hard day. I'm Dr. Leslie Roos, a clinical psychologist, researcher, and someone who spent many years studying how to support kids and families, mental health, in the real world, not just on paper.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
And I'm
Dr. Leanne Tomfer Matson, also a psychologist focused on parent and child mental health, with a particular interest in sleep and stress, and how we actually make support accessible for the families who need it most.
Dr. Leslie Roos
Between us, we've developed multiple digital mental health programs, worked with families across the country from diverse communities, and we have seen just how hard and complex parenting can be for all sorts of reasons.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
But this podcast is not about perfection. It's about giving you practical, usable tools that you can actually try in your own home. Backed by science and delivered with a whole lot of compassion.
Dr. Leslie Roos
At the end of the day, what we hope is that you can feel a little bit more confident in what you're doing. This is you're doing it right.
Parents are constantly asking, how much is too much? Am I being too strict, not strict enough? Is this gonna affect my children? Are they gonna be exiled from their friends groups, socially? What's going on?
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
This isn't just a kid issue. Adults are also struggling with screen use too. It's so complex, and there are so many different things competing for our attention.
Dr. Leslie Roos
What we know is it's not just how much time kids spend on screens, it's also how they're using them. So what things are they replacing with screen time? Are they using screens safely? Is there a balance with sleep, social interaction, real world activities?
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
There isn't just one simple number that we can give to every family. Unfortunately, there isn't a clear cutoff that suddenly makes something harmful or helpful. And the research consistently shows that parent screen habits influence children's habits, often more than rules alone.
Dr. Leslie Roos
I personally could definitely do better with like putting my phone away, but we are where we are and we're all doing our best in trying to figure this out. And so with that in mind, our goal today is to reduce some of the fear and replace it with clarity about what the research actually says.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
And we're really excited to bring in today's guest to help us guide this conversation. Today we're joined by Dr. Joanne Unger. She's a registered clinical psychologist and a researcher based in Winnipeg. She's an assistant professor in clinical health psychology at the University of Manitoba.
Dr. Leslie Roos
There is some evidence to show that there can be an addictive quality to screen use over time. And so one of the things that we really want to think about is how hard is it to stop.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
Joanne works closely with children, adolescents, and families, and her research really sits at the intersection of mental health, parenting, and digital life, especially how technology is shaping kids' emotional and social well-being.
Dr. Leslie Roos
And a big part of her work focuses on making mental health supports more accessible. So looking at things like online or low intensity interventions that can reach more families in a practical way.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
When it comes to screens, we're not gonna be talking just about limits or time. Really thinking more about how family dynamics, emotion regulation, and digital habits all interact, specific to your kid, which is exactly the conversation that we know so many parents are trying to navigate right now.
Dr. Leslie Roos
And she's also involved in several different research initiatives supporting parents and kids from emotional regulation to virtual mental health programs. So she brings a clinical and a research lens to this topic.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
Welcome Dr. Unger. So before we get started, I like to ask people a little bit about their sort of story and how they came to this line of work.
Dr. Jo Ann Unger
Well, ever since I was very young, I always really enjoyed children. And I think that there's a way that they move through the world and see the world that is really wonderful. I also think working with kids is super important in the area of health and mental health because the earlier we can help families, the earlier we can help kids with some of the struggles that they may be having, the more helpful we can be in the long run. We can change some trajectories, we can
Help make problems not be so big as people get older. And then families I really enjoy working with because, like as you just mentioned, you know, there's so many great ways to be a parent, to be a caregiver, to be a family. And we all live with other people. And so one of the best ways to help kids is to help whole families relate to each other and support each other using all the strengths that they come with.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
We learn so much from our own experiences. How has being a parent reframed some of the tools that you might use or change how you work with families?
Dr. Jo Ann Unger
I think it's really given me a perspective of how moving through parenting and moving through that role of taking care of small people in your life is a bumpy one. And it's got lots of twists and turns, and you have to adapt and flex, and that we're all human, doing the best that we can, and often using it to normalize some of the challenges parents come with. I think sometimes we
pathologize or we think something's very, very wrong when a lot of things are just the road of a growing human that is hard sometimes to help them move along that developmental journey that they're on. So I certainly think and try to convey that with my families so that they're gentler on themselves and it's holding that both.
Right. Like we we're all doing the best we can and we all have something that we can learn to do a little bit better and that's okay.
Dr. Leslie Roos
You've done research on children's mental health and well-being and screen use. When did you really start to see this becoming an issue for families?
Dr. Jo Ann Unger
You
know, I think it's been a slow creep. I've been in this profession around 15 years, and it's just slowly been creeping up. And I think as you know, devices became smaller, cheaper, more accessible to children and families, we've just been seeing that impact and that question from parents around how do I handle this? How do I manage this? Then the research often comes out later. So sometimes parents are coming to us and going, Hey, I'm worried about this. And we're like, Well
We think it might be this, but we're not sure. And I would say today, probably a hundred percent of the time that I'm working with family, we're gonna talk about screens and screen use at some point in our work together.
Dr. Leslie Roos
There's a lot of fearmongering that I see on social media for people who, you know, selling books about how children are destined to become, you know, screen dependent little critters. What's your take on that?
Dr. Jo Ann Unger
There's a lot of things that we know that works well to support kids that we can do. And you know, the research is showing too that there are benefits and it's how we use screens. You can have too much of a of a good thing. There's lots of reasons to think that we can manage this. There are some signs that some tech companies and some programs design them to keep us engaged and it's problematic.
Something that gives me hope is some families and individuals that are standing up to hold tech companies accountable, to hold governments accountable, to start understanding. And that's a bit of that piece where it's sometimes hard because the science comes a little bit later and we're already engaged in this thing, and then we kind of have to play catch-up
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
So I want to zoom out for a moment because something pretty significant has happened recently in a US court case, which ruled in favor of families with damages awarded, holding tech companies accountable for designing platforms with addictive features. Yesterday, ⁓ Meta and YouTube were found lost social media addiction.
Excerpt
Will the government take action to protect children?
Right, so this was potentially a hugely significant court case in the States yesterday and for those of you not fully aware of the details, ⁓ 20 year old woman was awarded $6 million in damages. She successfully sued Meta, which has Facebook and other things, and YouTube over her childhood addiction to social media and the jurors found that Meta, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Google who own YouTube, built addictive social media platforms that harmed the 20 year old's mental health.
Dr. Leslie Roos
This matters a lot and it really shifts the narrative around what we can expect in the future in terms of how technology companies might be responsible for supporting, you know, less harmful content for our kids.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
What's striking
is that internal documents suggested these companies knew that the potential for harm was there all along, especially when it came to kids. It feels like a turning point and it's a moment where responsibility's starting to land where it should have been a long time ago.
Dr. Leslie Roos
I know in Manitoba, the premier just announced that social media and AI use is going to be banned for children and youth. And that's a really big deal and it changes the conversation for many parents. But I think as we're seeing these decisions and this authority at a government level, that's actually a really good thing because it helps create more guardrails in terms of safety and what we can expect and ask for from our kids.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
It doesn't solve everything, but I think it's an important milestone and it opens the door to change behaviors so that there's like a safer, healthier digital space for our kids moving forward.
Dr. Leslie Roos
And when it becomes a policy, you know, like it might in Manitoba, as it has across Australia, which instituted a sweeping social media ban for kids under 16, experts agree that these platforms aren't actually helping improve your well-being. They're short term, but they carry a lot of risks and harm. They don't make people feel good about themselves or really connect to friends in ways that we know matter. Let's go back to Dr. Unger now and visit how to guide our children through healthy use of screens, because it can't be all bad.
Dr. Jo Ann Unger
There's some programs, apps, shows that really have children in mind that are designed to kind of foster reading or speaking or numeracy and educational focused programs and applications. And when kids view with their parents, particularly when they're little.
So when you have that co-viewing, when you have an educational purpose in mind, when you're being very planful and mindful about what you're doing online, you can see some of those benefits. There's some with relationships. So if you're looking at some of the communication tools that we use, like say you have grandparents that are far away and you're able to keep in touch through video and those sorts of things.
And then as kids get older, there's some some social benefits, right? Of staying connected or if you feel particularly isolated in your community and reaching out to others who are more similar to you and getting that support. Those are some of the benefits that we have seen.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
Now, what about things like video games, TV shows, YouTube? How do we know if something is developmentally positive or not?
Dr. Jo Ann Unger
I think one thing to look at is was this designed for my kid's brain? Is this the intended audience? And if it's not the intended audience for your child, then to think about is it neutral? Is it is it okay? It sometimes is tricky because kids can look very, very engaged in something and parents will interpret that as it's okay. So one of the pieces around that too is making sure that we are doing supervision.
So we should know what our kids are doing online. We should be watching what they're watching so that we can use our adult brains to say, hey, is this something that a kid should be watching or looking at? So if you think about child development, you have to think about we're guiding them through these different stages. But we are actively growing up adults in one way. And so we need to help them experience and have lots of
different types of activities that help them grow in all their different areas of development, like motor development, social development, cognitive development. So that's play, physical activity, being outside, pretend play. What I like to talk about is being bored. It's really useful for children to be bored sometimes. And I think they have lost that tolerance. And so only if you're going to implement a boredom routine, make it small to start because they won't like it and it'll be very versatile.
But it is where we are sometimes able to get some creativity. That passive watching can be tricky, one because of what it replaces in terms of other activities that are good to development. And the other is around mood. I used to call it with my kids TV Head. They had just watched too much and they were super grumpy and irritable. And it's like, ⁓ shoot, we got TV head with my teens who I'm working with. I get them to think about, so how do you feel after you're done? Do you feel better or do you feel worse in your mood?
And often the answer is I feel worse. So then how how is this helpful for you in your life and your goals? Is there something you want to change here? And sometimes it's even about who they're watching or who they're following. It's like that person makes you feel worse about yourself. Okay, so maybe that's the person that we don't follow anymore, right? Because we want people in your life who help you feel better about yourself.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
Well, I really liked one of the things that you said of building kids sort of awareness about how they feel after doing, you know, screen time, whether that's video games or watching a show, are they able to turn it off and pause it off to the limit, move on with their day?
Dr. Jo Ann Unger
One of the best strategies is actually role modeling. So parents role modeling how they're engaging with their screens and how they feel is one really neat way to teach kids to do that as well. This is part of social emotional development in all activities that we do with our kids, is helping them learn how to name their feelings. And we start by naming it for them and say, hey, it looks like you might be feeling a little bit grumpy or you might be feeling tired or you might be feeling hungry. And then we can do that.
you watched a lot of videos today. You're feeling a little grumpy. And then they might tell you, no, it's because you maybe stop. And that's why I feel grumpy. That is an indication, right? It's like, okay, so you know, maybe we need a little bit of a break if we're having trouble stopping when when it's time to stop.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
We've talked about the idea of healthy relationships with screens. What do you view as a healthy relationship in today's world for kids and families to have with their devices?
Dr. Jo Ann Unger
So answer's a a little bit theoretical, but I think and takes a bit of self-awareness to figuring out. There is some evidence to show that there can be an addictive quality to screen use over time. And so one of the things that we really want to think about is how hard is it to stop? And if we feel like we can't and we can't put it down and we can't put away and we can't choose.
then that's another indication that we may be on that path to an unhealthy response or an unhealthy relationship.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
Let's dive into some practical strategies. How would you want to approach getting started with setting realistic boundaries?
Dr. Jo Ann Unger
I think it starts with having a bit of a plan. So sometimes we call it a family media plan, but thinking about how our screens gonna be used in our house. So an example of a plan, some families what they do is they don't do recreational screen during the week. They just they say it's saved for weekends, two hours on Saturday and two hours on Sunday. So if a kid comes to you on Wednesday night and said, I want to go on screen, well, no, it's the weekday. You know what the rule is, and that's what we're gonna do. So having those plans, having them
Clearly communicated is also really important. If you have older kids, getting their input on it can really help with buy-in and can help with having that good and clear communication process. Having them written down can be really helpful because we have all been in this situation was like, that's not what I remember we said. If it's a challenge, having some rewards ⁓ built in place for for following the plan and following the rules in a calm and respectful way.
Dr. Leslie Roos
Let's say I have a plan, just have recreational screen time on the weekend. And then it is Wednesday night. I'm really tired. One of the siblings is out with a friend. My other kid is bored and sort of bummed that they're at home, don't have anyone to play with. They're whining. How do we cope with that?
Dr. Jo Ann Unger
So we make mistakes and we beat ourselves up and then we go, okay, beating myself up doesn't help. We all are working at this, right? So we're all gonna be working at this and you press the reset button. We went off the plan, what we said we were gonna do, it was an exception. There is times for exceptions, whether that exception or that flexibility will take you down a path that is hard to recover from, or if you can go, okay, family, we're hitting the reset button.
Something I also recommend with family plans is revisiting them and kind of regularly. Because kids grow up and change. And also the plan that we set may have not been realistic for our family. It may not have been the right one. And we can change it. And as the adults in the home, that's how we're figuring this adulting thing and parenting thing out. And so we're gonna revisit and try it again. When we make a change, I often say try it for a while. Things do need to change as kids get older. That's very reasonable.
So we we do need to keep adjusting for the growing brains, both for responsibilities and for privileges. When we get stuck in there's one way, I think we box ourselves in corners that are always helpful. And psychology brings a lot of very helpful strategies and very good ways of understanding human nature. One of the things I found in in working with people over time is just how unique and wonderful they are. And so that's why.
There can be so many good ways to be a parent. And we're trying to do education for ourselves as parents, but I think we can get caught up in that should be doing it this way or should be doing that way. And I think through this conversation, one of the things I think we're reflecting on is that self-reflective parenting. So being aware of how we are and how we're doing as parents, and then how our kids are doing, and using that as one of our main data.
Collection points, right? Is how is this working for me, for my kids, and for my family's values?
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
I think where we can be challenged is when we have set things up in our household, but then our kid goes elsewhere. So what about the challenge of other people's kids having things like a game console or an iPad or a phone before you're ready for your kids to have access to those things?
Dr. Jo Ann Unger
Yeah, that's super tricky. Again, I don't think there's one path here, one right way. We can say it's okay to be different and it's okay to have different rules. And these are the reasons why we're doing these rules if they're older and and can understand some of those things. It's very interesting to hear about some young adults reporting back and saying, I wish my parents had had more screen limits with me when I was a teen. Right? We're hearing that.
Coming to us now as we're moving through the generations. It's always that balance of you don't want your kid to miss out on what other kids are doing, but at the same time, you want to do what's healthy for them, even if other families aren't doing it. And I think that's where the flexibility comes in a little bit, like if they're going over to someone's house and you know, you know that place to be a good place for your kid, and you know that to be a good friendship, and they're doing something you wouldn't normally do, right? To have flexibility around that.
So that your kid can participate and have a good time. And then you have a conversation about we're not gonna do that at our house now. You know, that's that's not something and debriefing with them about it, about how that was for them, if it wasn't something that they normally do. I think that's another piece around the safety part. I know we haven't talked about, but sometimes kids get accidentally exposed to things that are not meant for their child's brain and their understanding of it. And so
The supervision piece is very key when they're little for that reason. And then the other piece is, you know, checking in if you weren't able to supervise or you weren't present for something on what they saw, how they engaged and how they feel about that and how they're thinking about that to make sure that they stay safe.
Excerpt
New data from Statistics Canada is outlining the impact screen time is having on our kids. Researchers studied the same cohort of kids in 2019 and 2023. They found a little more than one in ten met the Canadian Pediatric Society's screen time guidelines in both years, while almost half followed the guidelines in one of the two years. The guidelines call for two hours for kids between the ages of five and seventeen, one hour for kids between two and five years old.
and no screen time for kids under two. Those who followed the guidelines were less likely to have anxiety, wear glasses, or have difficulty learning, remembering, and making friends.
Dr. Leslie Roos
So I want to take a moment just to talk to you here, Leanne, about one of the things that comes up over and over again is just how complicated screen use feels. It's, you know, a constant battle. And it's not because parents don't care, but it's because there's so many moving pieces day to day. And also just because of the amount of content available. How do you think these conversations should be approached?
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
I think
I'm trying to approach it in a lot of the ways that are consistent with what Dr. Ungar said, which is like, what are you getting out of this screen time? How does it make you feel? I always think like, how does it make you feel when we turn it off? Figuring out how do you talk about how somebody else's screen time roles align with the screen time roles in your house can be challenging.
Dr. Leslie Roos
find that one too
bad because I feel like it's we we like always have different rules. The parents have different rules, houses have different rules. For my kids, their dad actually has different rules about screen time than I do because I don't like dealing with the aftermath of video games. So they don't play video games when I'm at home. The one other thing that I wanted to mention that I actually find to be very helpful with any sort of screen use is before the screens go on to talk to your kids about what they're doing next. So are they gonna play outside? Are they gonna get a snack from me? Like what's the thing to transition?
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
That's a really
good advice. We don't do that. We often set the rule of like, okay, this is gonna turn off in an hour. And we have to be really clear about when that hour is gonna end, knowing that you're gonna have a snack or knowing you're gonna jump on the trampoline is a nice way to transition.
Dr. Leslie Roos
I also think that it's important to be honest with families as clinicians about like what's a realistic expectation.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
I think this is where we have to give parents some permission just to be human. So there's gonna be moments when you're exhausted and you need a break and the screen becomes the safest solution.
Dr. Leslie Roos
And building that trust, that open communication helps children learn about their world, about the world online, and to tune into what's helpful, what's not, how do we use social media safely.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
And from a mental health perspective, for us to remember as parents and for kids, those moments don't undo everything. If you watch three hours of movies on a Saturday or you do that while your kids are homesick, that's probably gonna be just fine. What matters most is the overall pattern and your relationships around it.
Dr. Leslie Roos
It's that broader context. Family dynamics, connection, what are your values? What else are you doing? And really how kids are making sense of their digital world.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
Because technology isn't separate from their lives anymore. It's embedded in how they socialize. They're using it at school. It's part of how they relax. It's how they cope with and connect with their peers and their social groups.
Dr. Leslie Roos
So instead
of trying to control every moment, it's more so about guiding, supporting, staying in the conversation so that when kids encounter tough stuff, they know who to talk to. Let's go back to our conversation with Dr. Unger and explore this a bit further.
Dr. Jo Ann Unger
It's really hard to figure this stuff out. And there's always ways we wish we would have done it differently. I have ways I wish I would have done it differently. And I didn't. And it's okay. And my kids are gonna be okay. And we just keep working at it.
Dr. Leslie Roos
One of the things that I hear a lot and I also experience as a parent is it's actually not my fear of my child's screen use like right now. If if I don't have this figured out, then when they become a teenager that can't regulate their screen time and they're not gonna have other passions and meaningful connections and relationships and like that's where the fear lives. That's the spiral. I think it's that like confidence that I can figure it out in the future. Yeah.
Dr. Jo Ann Unger
Absolutely can. It's one step at a time, right? And that's why I like the revisiting. How is this working? Reflecting on how are we doing with what we wanted and what we're actually doing with our values and how we're living and and watching for that and and being just a a reflexive person, right? And and parent for our own screen use, for our kids' screen use. There's always hope. There's always hope for tweaking.
Right? Tweaking what we're doing and shifting what we're doing and taking screen breaks, hitting the reset button, trying something differently, doing something gradually. Yeah, one foot in front of the other is really the best way. And and to think about it's back to that active parenting, right? So the folks that we worry about are people who aren't thinking about it at all. I really do believe it takes a village to raise a child and doing that with each other, with other parents. So people who know you.
Right. That's what I mean by community. Yes.
Dr. Leslie Roos
those people who have a vested interest in your well-being and your kids' well-being. One other thing that came across in this conversation that's important and probably comes across in all of our conversations is that when you think about the future, the single most protective factor for kids is a strong relationship with their parents and the other adults in their life.
Dr. Jo Ann Unger
It's the foundation for all parenting, right? It's it's an old theory, but it's well tested by time is the authoritative parenting, which is warmth, compassion, caring with rules and structure, and believing in our kids that they can do these things. And so that really helps us to have that foundation. It's a conversation. Now, when they're little, we have to be more in charge, right? Their brains aren't such that they can have those conversations in a meaningful way yet.
But as they get older, the more and more we can involve them in talking about this, in thinking about it. It is something about like developing the skills that they need to engage with screens, developing this as with everything in life, right? So all of these teaching pieces start with a foundation of that positive relationship where we listen, we hear when kids have big feelings, we connect with them first, we help them settle before we teach.
I say that one out loud because I struggle with that one, right? I like to jump to the teaching, but you know, we really try to help kids with their emotions. And then as they get older, that collaborative piece where we involve them. And we involve them collaboratively both as a relationship piece, but it's also a teaching moment. So this is how we're teaching them how to think. When we do collaborative problem solving, collaborative media plan building, we're teaching them how
To manage themselves. So having them involved in this process of what the rules are, what the rewards and consequences are, helps them think about okay, how do I want to do that when I'm an adult? How are you gonna put your phone down? How are you gonna reward yourself for doing your university homework? So we use those same principles for ourselves. And if we can help teach them those as they grow up, then hopefully they can maintain that and continue that growth.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
And think we continue to grow and hopefully get better as parents too, because we're always learning. We know that kids don't come with a manual. And we have so many pressures and changes that occur along the parenting journey. And we can be really hard on ourselves.
Dr. Jo Ann Unger
I think one of the things I really want families to think about is using the strengths and the parenting skills that they have in other areas and that they can apply those to parenting around screens. I think sometimes we feel like it's a qualitatively different thing. And I think part of it is that pull of the technology is very strong and so it feels harder. And the emotions can be very big around it sometimes. And so that's understandable, but
If we can use some of those same skills and strategies that parents have that they've used for managing junk food or making sure their kids have hygiene or making sure that they go to bed, right? We can use those same principles that have worked well for us with our kids around screen news too, and that that's okay.
Dr. Leslie Roos
Some of those things would be like having routines, having collaborative discussions, clear expectations, rewards when things go as scheduled, all that.
Dr. Jo Ann Unger
You summarized that so well for me. Thanks, Joe. Thank you.
Music transition, as we move away from the interview into the close
Dr. Leslie Roos
You know, when I step back and sort of think about everything we've talked about today, one of the biggest takeaways for me is that parenting around screens is actually not a completely different kind of parenting. One analogy that I always find really helpful is, you know, if you wouldn't leave your 12-year-old child alone for hours in the evening with a group of total strangers, you shouldn't be leaving your 12-year-old child alone with a group of total strangers on the internet.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
And I think what we heard today is that the research continues to show us, like across all topics, is that boundaries paired with close connection is a lot more powerful than having a fear-based reaction or panicking about this new parenting challenge.
Dr. Leslie Roos
Absolutely. It's sort of what Dr. Unger talked about. It's not about, you know, having the perfect rule or getting it right. It's about that sort of staying engaged and letting your kids earn that trust. So having your eyes on and then gradually eyes off and making sure those conversations are still happening so that they could be learning responsibility over time.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
And it doesn't have to be all or nothing. And we don't have to change everything overnight. I'm thinking about people who are trying to shift screen time roles in their house, like just little shifts matter over time. And little shifts in conversations with kids, I think about family values can be really helpful in giving your kids that opportunity to be a part of the conversation.
Dr. Leslie Roos
I also think it can be a real challenge for parents to think, you know, I've already let this kid go too far, or look, my kid already has a device, or they have their own iPad, and I don't really know what kind of games they have on it. That's actually a common experience. And it's okay to change boundaries and to change your mind as a parent. And to have those conversations. That's also okay learning and it's okay to be fallible as a parent. I always want people to know like they don't have to get it right the first time. It's okay to
Sort of feel like maybe you got it wrong and you need to change your plans, and that's super reasonable.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
Yeah, it's okay to adjust as you can.
Dr. Leslie Roos
Because when we understand the why behind what our kids are doing, when we can have those conversations with them, get curious, things can really start to change and it can allow us to feel like we are actually doing it right as parents.
Dr. Lianne Tomfohr-Madsen
On the next episode, we'll talk about why sleep can be so challenging, what healthy sleep can actually look like, and give some gentle, practical ways to support better sleep without it feeling like a constant battle. Until next time, get some sleep, and this is you're doing it right.
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