Episode 47: Managing Your Kids' Screen Time While Working At Home with Drew Vernon
Chad:
In today's conversation, I’m chatting with Drew Vernon who is a childhood development expert. He's had a lot of different careers, but right now he's really involved in creating opportunities for children to develop their creativity. And so today’s conversion is especially relevant for any homeschooling parents out there. We're going to discuss the impacts of screen time on your children's development, as well as some really good tips for how to help your child develop their own creative process. We're also going to talk about how to help facilitate more interactive, creative play for your children.
During his career, Drew worked for Lego, which is really cool, because my son absolutely loves Legos. And I love Legos now because of him.
When you are a freelancing dad and your family is homeschooling especially, the things that Drew talks about are really important. Drew’s the person to talk to when your kids are home and you're trying to figure out how to reduce the screen time and how to give them more productive, creative play. So we're going to talk about some tips and advice for that today.
Chad:
Welcome Drew Vernon!
Drew:
Thanks so much for having me, Chad.
Chad:
I'm excited to talk to Drew today about his entrepreneurial journey since he has had some experience with freelancing and starting businesses. He's currently involved in something with childhood development that he'll get into more details about. So for all of you who have children - especially if you're homeschooling and you deal with screen time, and you're trying to figure out what to do with that - Drew's going to have some tips on that as well. So Drew, please introduce us to your story, your career journey, and what brought you to where you are today, so that we can get to know a little bit more about you.
Drew:
I've been interested in business and marketing for a long time. I went to college for business, and I started out as a stock broker, which wasn't my thing. So I went back to school to get an MBA in Branding and Product Management from the University of Wisconsin and then started my marketing career at Proctor and Gamble.
I worked on a variety of big brands for them, looking at new business creation particularly, which was not just looking at the new line extension, but what new technology we could turn into a new brand. And that's kind of where I cut my teeth. So I started there, and later I ended up taking a job for Juergen's body lotion where I launched a brand called Juergen's Wet Skin Moisturizer.
I learned a lot about marketing, but after about five years in beauty and consumer packaged goods, I just wasn't naturally curious or naturally enthusiastic about selling mascara and lotion. So that's when I took kind of an industry pivot and went into the toy industry. I took a job at Lego, where I managed the preschool business for them. I had been a fan of Lego since I was a child, and I kind of rediscovered my passion for building, and my passion for the brand.
During that time I also started my own daycare in Connecticut. It was a drop-in daycare, and we had some good experiences there. Then most recently, about two and a half years ago, I moved to a company called Tony's, which is originally from Germany. I helped them launch their product in the United States, and that's currently where most of my attention is.
Chad:
That's really cool. My son absolutely loves Legos. So I have two boys, three and six, and the three year old is just starting to get interested in Legos. He's following his brother's lead. There's a table literally behind me that has a Jurassic world set up that my son's been building for weeks. So we're super enthusiastic about Legos in this house and it's exciting what it can do for creative development.
What are some insights and tips you have especially for parents who are homeschooling and more involved in their kids' education to help them develop their child’s creativity?
How can parents teach kids how to understand their creative process and how should they go about getting started, especially as their kids start to get to an age where they're searching for that?
Drew:
Yeah, I think based on my experience, it's helpful to take a look at the creative process and to understand that kids are naturally curious. We need to do everything that we can as parents and as educators to help foster that curiosity. I like to give a little bit of an analogy, based on my time at Lego, because there are different types of play and different types of play patterns that can help kids learn and grow.
Lego is most known for selling Lego kits. You buy a box and you dump it out and you have an instruction booklet that tells you what step one is, what step two is, and if you follow all the instructions, you're going to end up with a rocket ship or a castle or whatever the set is meant to be. And that's one type of play that's important. Learning how to follow instructions and how to look at a picture and to match the picture. That's one type of play.
Another type of play is like, well, what if you just buy a big yellow bucket of bricks and you dump it out and there's no instruction booklet and you just go crazy and build. Like free-building or whatever. And that's another type of play that's very unstructured. For most kids, it's going to take some time to turn that rocket ship or that castle into something big and complex. Otherwise, it's probably going to be a much simpler, more basic version of the instruction-based set.
So my passion is outlining the gap between the two experiences. So we have a huge gap between the structured instruction-based play and the complete freeform play.
What I like to mention is what I call the “guided masterpiece,” which is not giving them all of the instructions, not giving all of the rules, but giving them guidelines and giving them creative prompts that help you get to that master build experience without being completely unstructured.
I think a combination of using all of those types can translate to other types of play experiences as well, but the idea of removing some of the parameters and offering guidelines is something that I think is a good technique for fostering creativity.
Chad:
That's really great, and helpful because I've noticed there are times when my son just wants to grab random Legos and start building something. And what he's been working on with this whole Jurassic Park thing is, it started out with a Lego set, but then he has been adding all these different things to it from just random bricks that he's had.
And that there are those times where it's almost like he's searching for some starting point of like, “Oh, there's all these different legos, like what do I build?” And then there are times when he just gets right into it. It's almost like there are just days when his brain's in a different space where he just has an idea of what he wants to build and other times when he needs some guidance.
When that happens, we’ve gone through instruction booklets and he sometimes likes to just build to that. But then it's like he seems to be more attracted towards just being able to build that once he's built that thing or once he's gone through some instruction booklet. He's good at looking at the visuals, but then he tends to sometimes want to skip steps as well.
Do you feel like there are different types of kids and how they go about the creative process? Are the approaches different for one kid versus another or are there some things that are more universal?
Drew:
Yeah, I think it's kind of both of those things. So obviously, different kids have different styles. Some are visual learners, some are tactile learners, and I think you need to adapt based on the style of the child. But I think a few elements are universal, one of which is just practice. The more you do something, the better you get at it. I think the need to be constantly challenged is another universal. So if something is too easy or too simple, then try to remove one of the elements of support or try to remove one of the instructions and put an increasing reliance upon the creativity of the child. That's going to keep them challenged and keep them learning.
Chad:
So tell me a little bit more about what you're doing with Tony's. Explain that a little bit.
Drew:
Yeah, the Tony box is a really magical little device that was actually started over in Germany by a couple of dads. They met on the board of preschool together and they noticed that their children's teacher was using a CD player to play songs and stories in the classroom. And they thought to themselves, gosh, CDs have been around for 30 years or more. They scratch and they break and most importantly, little kids can't use them without the teacher.
So what they decided to do was to create a little speaker box that's based on a figure system. So we have these little figures called Tony's. They have a magnet inside, so they stay on top of the box and they have an RFID chip inside. When you place a figure on the box, it will download content. Different songs, different stories, and it will play it on demand for the child
It removes the need for adult supervision and puts the control into their hands to be able to have immediate access to an on-demand audio library. It's a fantastic device. It grew in Germany, they sold a couple million of these things, and expanded to the United Kingdom and then they set their sites on the U.S.
So I helped launch the brand in the United States about 2.5 years ago. And now we're going strong. We've got over a hundred characters. We're releasing more characters every week and just trying to tell more people about this amazing screen-free device for their kids.
Chad:
Wow, I’d love to get a hold of that and I encourage my readers to go check that out because that's a very creative approach. We need more things like that to help a kid to operate something screen-free. Do you want to talk a little bit more about how screens impact childhood development? Is there a positive side to it? Is there a time and place for it? I’d love to know how you see screen time. Obviously, in 2022, we can't completely avoid screens, but to what extent can we and should we allow our kids to use them at different ages?
Drew:
The guidance in the United States is that we don't allow any screen time for kids under two and that we limit screen time to an hour a day for kids 2-5. And you know, when I tell that to people, they kind of chuckle, especially coming off of Covid, where the world changed and we picked up some really bad habits.
Not too long ago, back in 2020, our schools shut down, and our childcare solutions shut down. People started working from home and it was during that time that parents across the country started handing their kids smartphones and giving them Netflix shows. And now that the pandemic has subsided, our bad habits remain. So kids have been exposed to screens earlier than ever before and for longer periods of time than ever before. So to answer your question, there is a time and a place for screens.
There's a lot of great educational content but, let's face it, not everything has to be educational. Some entertaining content as well is fine, but it really needs to come in moderation and needs to come with an understanding of the negative effects of too much screen time, which are an overdependence and the inability to focus and draw attention. That's something that we're seeing more and more of.
I talk to a lot of teachers as part of our education initiative, and one thing I hear time and time again is that kids are increasingly unable to focus, and their social anxiety is going through the roof. I think a lot of this can be attributed to an over-reliance on screens at home and in the classroom.
So the great thing about the Tony Box is that it's a screen-free alternative. You can confidently, and happily give your child a Tony box, and give them the same opportunity to expose them to the world of stories and songs, but without them having their eyes glued onto a screen.
Chad:
I think that is a really great solution. I've noticed that when we've gone through different phases of having babies and toddlers, there’s definitely been times when we needed to have our kids watch something so we can get stuff done. But we've always been against them having too much screen time. We've noticed that when it slips and our toddler has too much screen time, it massively affects him more than my older child.
My six year old doesn't even search for a screen when he's engaged enough in various activities. Screen time ends up being an occasional recreational movie, and my kids don't have their own devices. Although there are times when we let them have screens like when we’re traveling or something like that.
But I've just noticed the effect that it has on my three year old. It really affects his behavior and it's almost like they become more out of control with themself. And then when he is having some emotions, he asks to watch something. Almost like, “Oh, I need to just be brought out of this moment rather than allowing the emotion to go through.” So yeah, it can have a detrimental effect.
Is it literally the screen itself, regardless of what they're watching, that has a certain type of effect, or can sometimes the content produce different effects over others? Because I've noticed that when my kids watch a show that is kind of endless, like it goes from one episode to the next, it puts them in a very mindless kind of state where they could end up just watching episode after episode.
It's almost like after a time they get really bored of it, but they don't want to stop watching. Whereas when they get engaged in a movie that has an hour time limit and they can get absorbed into a story, I notice it has a different effect on them. Talk about that a little bit.
Drew:
Yeah, I think there are a couple of factors at play here, and I should mention I'm not a scientist. I'm a marketer, a dad, and a childhood advocate. I'm not a scientist.
There are probably more technical ways to describe it, but I think one element is just staring at the screen, and that's giving your children a dopamine hit that's engaging them. So there's an intoxicating element just from looking at the blue light.
But I also think a lot of the content that's being developed is being developed to grab a child's attention. There are a lot of very punchy movements, and a lot of frenetic things going on. So it is different for an eight minute episode of something than it might be for a full length feature film.
The other thing that I like to draw attention to is that when you're looking at a screen, you're being given the entire experience. It's a very passive experience where you are a consumer of the content. When you remove the screen, you remove the visual stimulus. And when you hear a story without a screen, there's an active element, which is that you as the listener have the creative responsibility to imagine, to use your brain to think of what's going on.
Some people will say, “Hey, I read Harry Potter, and then when I saw the movie, it wasn't like what I imagined it to be.” Well, that's because when you read the book, you drew up in your mind how you thought it came together. And so that's an additional benefit of removing the screen, is that it's a more active experience. It trains your focus on not only paying more attention but actually contributing to the story that you're enjoying by visualizing it in your own mind.
Chad:
Gotcha. That's a really good distinction, thanks for explaining that further. That's really helpful. I wanted to conclude our conversation by discussing a couple of tips on how a parent can adjust screen time habits if they've fallen into bad habits with it?
Now that their kids are used to a certain cadence or a certain rhythm with how much screen time they have, but they know they want to change, what would you say is a great way to help transition that child?
I've noticed in the past when we just say, “No more screen time,” but we don't have anything to replace it with, it's much more difficult. What are some strategies you have for helping a parent who wants to change things but has gotten into bad habits? How do they make this transition?
Drew:
Yeah. I like to think about it in a couple of ways, which is to distinguish between the passive experience or the consumer experience from an active experience or a creative experience.
Apart from the Tony box, which is a great resource that has an increasing library of stories that you can expose them to, books and other activities are great to give them something to take in, and then turn that into an active experience or creative experience.
You want to give them a chance to say, “What's your spin on this? What's your take?” So if you're listening to a story, for example, every good story can be boiled down into a pretty common framework known as the “Hero's Journey,” which for kids can really be summarized as “There's a hero who has a challenge to overcome so that they can get to a goal or a reward.”
So you give your child a story, give them the exposure to the hero, tell them about how they overcame their challenge, and then try to pivot that into, “Okay, now you're the hero of your story. What's your challenge going to be?” So now they can write their own story, they can come up with their own challenge and they can use their creative thinking to add different elements.
And then hopefully there's going to be a reward at the end. So whether you're telling a story or you're drawing a picture or you're building with Lego bricks, that's the framework that I like to choose. Give them a stimulus, give them something, and then have them put their spin on it.
Chad:
That's great. I never thought about how some of it is their brain searching for a story. That's really good advice even for myself when I’m working with them in those situations. Sometimes when they want to watch something, really underneath it all their brain just wants a story.
So if I can find other ways of giving them this story to help take them on this journey, that really activates their brain a lot more. So yeah, that's really helpful. Was there anything else that you wanted to share with us today?
Drew:
I think kind of my overarching thesis is that childhood matters. Obviously, we're all busy people. We have our jobs. We have responsibilities, and we’re wearing a lot of hats. But I don't think we should undervalue or underappreciate the fact that this is an impressionable time as part of the human experience.
We all have a childhood, we all have one childhood, it goes away and the things that we learn or don't learn have an impact on how we grow as adolescents and adults. So that's not really a tip, that's just an awareness that as a parent of a child, you are in a unique position to help shape and enable that child's potential and growth. And most parents know that, it's just something that we have to re-remind ourselves of every day.
I don't mention that to put a lot of pressure on parents or to tell them that they're doing anything wrong, it's just to help you keep that in mind. If you can remember that every day and maybe if you can do one more thing or one little extra thing to help your child, it's going to make a big difference.
Chad:
Yeah. Thanks for sharing that perspective. It's a theme that comes up a lot here. Our children’s lives go by very quickly, and they are so important. And that's why I like to teach dads how to start businesses at home and be able to be more involved in their child's life and for parents to be able to have more time with their children to facilitate that kind of development. I'm really glad that you are involved in this space and doing a lot of good in helping the next generation to be the future leaders of this world. So thanks for all you do and thanks for your time today.
Drew:
Pleasures’ mine. Thanks again, Chad. It's been great to have a chat with you.
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