Dr. Delaney Ruston joins Dr. Sandie Morgan to discuss parenting strategies in the digital age, focusing on mental health, communication, and her book Parenting in the Screen Age.

Delaney Ruston, MD

Dr. Delaney Ruston is a physician and award-winning filmmaker renowned for her impactful documentaries, including the Screenagers series, which explores the intersection of technology and youth well-being. She has appeared on numerous media outlets discussing screen time, mental health, and parenting in the digital age. Dr. Ruston also hosts the Screenagers podcast and blog, offering practical advice to families navigating digital challenges. Her work is driven by a passion for fostering open conversations about mental health and technology’s role in our lives.

Key Points

• Dr. Ruston’s book, Parenting in the Screen Age, provides science-based strategies for calm and productive conversations about technology between parents and children.


• She emphasizes the importance of setting boundaries around screen time, citing its impact on mental health and sleep.


• Validation is a key parenting skill discussed in the book, helping children feel understood without necessarily condoning their behavior.


• The concept of a “Vulnerable Village” encourages collective action among parents and communities to delay smartphone and social media use for children.


• Dr. Ruston recommends “Tech Talk Tuesdays,” a family tradition of having short weekly conversations about technology to build understanding and establish boundaries.


• She highlights the importance of balancing screen time with other enriching activities like creative projects, in-person interactions, and outdoor play.


• The book provides guidance on creating collaborative family media plans that incorporate sleep time, family time, and study time rules.


• Dr. Ruston shares her experience with her daughter’s mental health struggles, offering insights into how open conversations and community support can make a difference.


• The Screenagers films and associated blogs provide additional resources for parents and communities to address digital challenges collectively.


• Dr. Ruston advocates for using science-based parenting techniques and communication strategies to navigate the complexities of raising children in the digital age.

Resources

• Screenagers Movie Website


• Parenting in the Screen Age: A Guide for Calm Conversations


• Screenagers Podcast

Transcript

[00:00:00 ] Sandie: Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast here at Vanguard University’s Global Center for Women and Justice in Orange County, California. This is episode number 337, Dr. Delaney Rustin and Parenting in the Screen Age. My name is Dr. Sandy Morgan, and this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking.

[00:00:33 ] Sandie: Dr. Delaney Rustin is a physician and award winning filmmaker renowned for her impactful documentaries, including the ScreenAgers series, now comprising four films that explore the intersection of technology and youth well being.

[00:00:53 ] Sandie: She has appeared on numerous media outlets discussing screen time, mental health, and parenting in the digital age. She is the voice behind the Screenagers podcast. and blog and offers practical advice to families navigating digital challenges. Her work is driven by a passion for fostering open conversations about mental health and technology’s role in our lives.

[00:01:26 ] Sandie: Today, we’re going to talk about her book, Parenting in the Screen Age, a guide for calm conversations.

[00:01:35 ] Sandie: I am so happy to have Dr. Delaney Rustin with us for this episode of Ending Human Trafficking. Welcome.

[00:01:45 ] Delaney: Oh, it’s wonderful, Sandy, to be here. Thank you.

[00:01:48 ] Sandie: We are, let me just tell everybody that in our next Insure Justice, March 7th and 8th, we’re going to be screening the movie Screenagers. And I’m excited now to have this interview to talk with Dr. Rustin about her book. And do you want to kind of give us a snapshot of the book and why you wrote it?

[00:02:18 ] Delaney: Oh, absolutely. I, 12 years ago, was really struggling at home with my two kids who wanted more and more screen time. And I had been doing documentaries on mental health issues. And I found that the mental health, if you could say that in our family, the stress was so high. And I felt completely confused on what to do.

[00:02:44 ] Delaney: I didn’t,

[00:02:48 ] Delaney: So I started to wonder as a doctor who takes care of teens and adults, what I could do to look for solutions. And I started to make the first Greenagers movie. which is called Screen Readers Growing Up in the Digital Age, which came out in 2016, although we just re released it, updated. Since then, there’s been three other documentaries.

[00:03:14 ] Delaney: During the time that I became much more knowledgeable, as I went on this journey to help my family, my kids, my patients, I In making these films, learned so much that I realized it would be really helpful to parents to have this information in a book. I did my residency at San Francisco and I stayed on for a couple years to do research on human to human communication.

[00:03:45 ] Delaney: The ways that we can more effectively use communication for good, as well as in your world, how communication can be manipulative and take advantage of people. Well, I want to be opposite. How do we as parents use techniques that understand the development of our children, understand our struggles to not be triggered by our intense emotions that we have in parenting this, and use that knowledge of communication science?

[00:04:15 ] Delaney: Along with everything I’ve been learning in making the documentaries and to put that in a book called Parenting in the Screen Age.

[00:04:24 ] Sandie: I would recommend highly listeners that you go and look for your closest bookstore, go on Amazon. and order this book. even if you’re not currently raising young people, it’s a great tool to share in, in your community. Grandparents would value this as well. So, because my community, I’m a grandparent.

[00:04:53 ] Sandie: And grandparents are really concerned about their grandchildren growing up in a digital age. So I’ve started recommending it to all the grandmas and grandpas. So let’s talk about the book. How did you lay it out? And can I say parenting in the screen age and the subtitle? I love a guide for calm conversations.

[00:05:16 ] Sandie: Because when I talk to parents who are intensely. In the middle of this right now and having flaming arguments about you can’t take that away. And, and I’ve talked to parents who have decided to shut down the internet at their house at eight o’clock at night. I’ve talked to parents who gave up and their kids don’t have any supervision.

[00:05:43 ] Sandie: And I often, correlate this with how we teach our kids to be safe on the streets. We started, we, when they were toddlers and could walk, and we held their hand and we said, you walk across the street when there is a crosswalk. So there’s, there’s boundaries, there’s guardrails for how you do this, and it’s not the same rule from the time you’re three years old until you’re 13.

[00:06:11 ] Sandie: When you’re 13, you’re walking across the crosswalk by yourself. So this book for calm conversation is really based on your experience in communication. So tell us how the book is broken down.

[00:06:27 ] Delaney: Yes, and I would say what’s really important is what you just mentioned. Having boundaries and limits on the, the most attention grabbing, devices ever created is incredibly important and part of our job as parents and yet there’s all this discussion in the media, how much time is okay, how much is not.

[00:06:50 ] Delaney: We’re not talking about the real how to. So let me give a context of first the number one thing that I say to parents which is in the book, which is there’s really no And I think it’s a better way to approach this than to have a calm conversation, whether it be once a week, which I recommend, or once every two weeks.

[00:07:15 ] Delaney: But you really, and I’m going to say how to do this. It’s the number one thing that is in the book and that I have still now on the stage and working in my clinic room, whatever the audience is, how valuable and vital this is. And the reason it is so important is that every day there is new things in the, in the internet age that is impacting all of us.

[00:07:45 ] Delaney: There are good things and there are hard things. And we get to work with our kids to have them be incredible, critical consumers of all that’s happening. And Work with them to make sure they have a very full life and it’s not overly consumed by the digital age. I made a lot of mistakes and I’m going to be telling you some of them in this interview.

[00:08:11 ] Delaney: I’m going to start by saying in, we call it in our home and now I have eight years of blog that helps a lot of parents, w