DEEP DIVE: Catherine Pearlman on Kids and Phones

0:00Heidi Hayes:Monday.com AI agents took over my work and I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. I stay in the loop only when it matters. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Fresh Take from What Fresh Hell? Laughing in the face of motherhood. This is Margaret. And this is Amy. And today we're talking to Dr. Catherine Pearlman. She is the founder of The Family Coach and a licensed clinical social worker who has been working with children and families for more than 25 years. Catherine is regularly called upon to provide expert opinion for newspaper and magazine articles, speaking engagements, radio, and TV.

0:42Heidi Hayes:She lives in California with her husband and two kids, and her new book is First Phone, A Child's Guide to Digital Responsibility, Safety, and Etiquette. Welcome, Catherine. Thanks for having me. So let's start with the big question. which everyone has, and I have my own fairly faulty opinion on. What is the right age for a kid to get their first phone? Magic question. So I used to think the best age was to wait as long as possible. So that would be 13, 14. I have really changed my mind on this. I think that's actually way too late. First of all, by 13, 14, most kids have already had access. Either they They have an iPad that's not fully clamped down or their friends have smartphones.

1:28So then you're really not even in control of anything. They can do whatever they want and they have no training either. So I actually think 11 or 12 is a great age. I would say earlier, depending on the need. So some kids have an actual need. Maybe they're walking home from school. They might have divorced parents. They might have a medical condition that requires them to have a smartphone. So there are some reasons to get a child a phone earlier. But the thing that's good about the 10, 11, 12 age, your kids are still connected to you. They're still happy to hear from you. They're happy for you to be in their phone to educate them.

1:59By the time they're 14, you're out and their friends are in. So even if you're talking, they're not listening and they don't want you in their phone. They don't want you in their room. So you've kind of missed the boat a little bit. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it's a good point. I started with the idea of as late as possible. And then it's just the pickups. We don't have busing in my town. So then the pickups became like, have you seen my kid? Have you seen my kid? And it just so my first kid, seventh grade or maybe halfway through sixth grade. And then I got my nine year old a phone at a certain point because it just became such an issue of the convenience and the safety of the phone outweighed.

2:37And then I was like, I'm going to get the watch where you can just track them and text. It just all fell apart. My system of like, we're going to wait as long as possible. I could not believe how fast it crumbled. Is that something that you see in researching the book? Like people, the line moves backwards for people? Oh, 100%. Exactly what happened to you is what happens to most people. The average age for getting a phone these days is between 8 and 11. And I think for some families, you know, the really simple phones are great. But I think people progress pretty quickly. And again, kids already have access to iPads, which can do almost everything anyway.

3:12So I kind of like the idea of, you know, do it at 9 if that makes sense for you. But start the home training then too.

3:18Heidi Hayes:Yeah. And that's an important part. My method was to go with what my friend and this is her idea. Actually, she called it the StarTAC 3000 that your kids first phone should be a StarTAC 3000. In other words, like a flip phone that just stinks and can play like cadiddle caduncle or something and text. But that's all that they don't have access to the Internet in their pockets. But this is the kid that we were discussing is now 19. Has that even changed over the last decade that you believe kids should just get all the bells and whistles when they get the first phone? You know, they don't need all the bells and whistles, but I really don't think a flip phone is the right way to go.

3:52Because the truth is, in a lot of communities, kids are communicating and socializing through their phones, through texting, through gaming apps, through Roblox, which a lot of little kids are playing, but they're doing it with their friends. And so if your kid doesn't have access to that, and especially if they are socially awkward or have any kind of social issues, they're really set behind. So depending on your community and that whole, all the other kids are doing it may actually apply in this case. Again, the younger the kid, the more supervision they may need. But I think that that's a reasonable explanation for why a kid might just, you know, you might decide to get a phone for a younger kid.

4:27Now, this, your book, First Phone, is written for kids. It's a kid-facing book. What made you decide, when I first picked up the book, most of the books we read are like, okay, adult, here is your role and how you're going to do this. What made you make this book kid-facing? So there are books for parents about managing your kids' technology. The problem is then it leaves the parent to the implementation, which is the hard part. The reading the book is the easy part. So I wanted something that all parents could use as a way of communicating all the important topics to their kids. There was nothing for kids.

5:02There was a book just for girls that was a little bit outdated. I wanted something for all kids that was very inclusive and that was almost like a gift for parents, which was like, you don't have to implement. You have to give in the book. I hope the parents read it too. And then it's just a jumping off point for starting with conversations that will continue. But I wanted something that was for kids because, again, parents are not with their kids when they're encountering these problems. Kids are on their own. So they have to learn to make good choices. And if they could read it in their own language and hear from other kids that sound like them, maybe it will sink in more.

5:35Heidi Hayes:What's one of the problems that you talk about in the book that you think kids kind of aren't expecting when they get that first phone for their pimp birthday? I don't think they think about etiquette at all. You know, parents do a really good job of teaching their kids please and thank you and manners in person. But kids don't do well without social cues. You know, they're still learning in their social environment. And without social cues of seeing if somebody's laughing or happy or sad or upset, they are clueless. I don't know if you've experienced this with your kids, but, you know, even with my own daughter, I would when she started Instagram, I was like, OK, you can't say that.

6:07That's going to be misread or that's mean. But she didn't mean it mean I know her. She did not mean it mean, but she had no clue about how to communicate in a digital world in a way that might be, you know, kind and not misread, even not intentionally. And then also kids don't know when to put their phone down. They just are looking at the adults around them. And we have our phones out all the time. And they don't know that when grandma's there, you put it down. Or they don't know when a friend's on a play date, maybe they don't have their phone out. You know, they don't know these things. So I think that's why I started with that.

6:37And I think that's, you know, kids have no clue. What do you think from the other point of view that parents, what are their central fears about their kids having a phone? I mean, obviously, I was like, as late as possible. We don't want phones in our lives. I know what my fears were. But what do you hear from parents about their fears? And are they accurate? Is that what we should be worrying about? I think most parents are afraid of scamming and predators, and they're really afraid of social media. I mean, I think that there's a lot of good research that's being released and good news reporting about some of the dangers of social media for young kids in terms of how it affects their self-esteem.

7:17anxiety and depression is on the rise for kids. And so I think that a lot of families are very, very concerned about how that's going to affect their kids. And they feel somewhat powerless. They feel like, I don't even know how to tackle this gigantic thing. And so I think from a parental perspective, that's really the concern. Yeah, I think that's right. But what I've found now, my oldest is 13, and then I have a 10-year-old who's been on a phone, obviously, for at least a you now. I found that like, that's what I was worried about is the sort of predator stuff or the social media stuff. My kids don't have social media accounts.

7:54But what I find really fascinating that I was not expecting is like the group texting dynamic that there's a text chain at any point going on that's like almost every kid in the grade. And I don't know, I obviously didn't have that as a kid. But the fact that there's this kind of what do you call it recess playground going on at all times on the phone that seems to me to be a complete free-for-all. I did not see that coming at all. Yeah, I actually agree with that. That was something researching the book that I hadn't thought of at all that really struck me is how kids don't have a social break from their friends ever.

8:31We used to go home from school, and for better or worse, we could disconnect from our social world. We could just focus on ourselves, our hobbies, our interests, watch television. like there was just downtime. Nowadays, kids, even younger kids are constantly connected. They're constantly on. That is so hard. And also not everyone is of the maturity level in those giant group chats to know how to deal with people. And it can very easily go in a very wrong direction. I hear my son constantly. He's 15. He's moderating his friend group all the time. This one said something that hurt this one's feelings.

9:12These are boys. This one destroyed somebody's thing in Minecraft. And that was very upsetting. And this is all through texting and all through chatting online, not in person. So I think that these big chats are difficult for kids because they don't know how to get out of them. They feel if they're not involved in it, that they're missing out somehow socially. And it can go very wrong very quickly.

9:32Heidi Hayes:We're talking to Catherine Perlman. Her new book is First Phone, A Child's Guide to Digital Responsibility, Safety and Etiquette. And we'll be right back. Listen, Amy and I talk about it all the time, how the world of cash has turned into just beeps and boops on your phone, and it makes it really hard to teach kids to be smart about money. That's why Cash App now offers managed accounts for kids ages 6 to 12. Your kid gets a customizable Cash App Visa card that you manage with no subscription fees because it shouldn't cost you to help your kid build good habits with money. And then Cash App grows with your kids.

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13:45Heidi Hayes:That's code FRESH at OSEAMalibu.com. Katherine, I want to ask you about the sort of known unknowns. We don't know what our kids are doing online and that's going to be scary. And what if there are predators, right? Those are the known unknowns when we give our kids their phones. What are some of the unknown unknowns? the things that are risky to kids, either to their mental health or to their safety, that we're not even understanding when we give them a first phone. I feel like in the first section, we were sort of like, well, we worry about this, and then we give them a phone. But that doesn't mean these fears were all unfounded, or were they?

14:21No, I mean, I think obviously predators and scammers is very real. It's real for adults, as well as for kids. But you know, we don't think as parents about Google at all. We think Google is this wonderful resource, let our kids add it. Even YouTube, a lot of kids have been using YouTube long before they get social media, but that is a social media. There are likes and shares and comments. And we think of it as just something that's educational, you know, look it up, Google it. But there is a lot on the internet that is not appropriate for our kids that they can get onto super quickly by Googling something very innocuous.

14:56And oops, they've seen something that they shouldn't, or they've seen something disturbing. Like it may not be pornography, but it could be just something violent or something upsetting that they didn't know about. It could be even like something like 9-11, you know, it just thinks that our kids might not be ready for or didn't know. And we are not with them. And they don't necessarily know to say, Hey, I saw something that's upsetting me. You know, they just might be up in the middle of the night saying they had a bad dream and you have no idea what it was about. So I think that's one of the unknowns that we don't really think about.

15:25And the other thing about Google that I know parents aren't really thinking about is the misinformation that's on there. And how does a young kid in fourth or fifth or sixth grade determine, okay, this is a fact, this is opinion, this is made up misinformation and propaganda. You know, how do they distinguish between those things? That's a learned skill and we have to help them with that. And we've had guests on, we had Dr. Ibram Kendi on, he was talking about how people are targeting kids. It's not just like, oops, I might have seen something. I had my kids very young. I can't remember what they were doing, Minecraft something.

16:00And it was about like blowing things up. And they were like, oh, let's Google like blowing people up. They said something like that. And I was standing across the room and I remember leaping across the room like, do not go Google blowing people up. Like you will immediately be seeing horrific images. They were thinking about it in a very specific cartoonish context. And Google was going to take them somewhere very different than that. That's one fear. But one thing I didn't really realize before talking to some experts about this is that there really are people on the Internet trying to recruit kids into mindsets, into either white supremacy, into all sorts of mindsets, political mindsets.

16:41Johnny Depp is awesome and Amber Heard is terrible. Yeah, right. I mean, that's the example I was using with him, right? That my kid came in there. Oh, Amber Heard is the worst and poor Johnny Depp. And I thought, where are you even hearing this information? And you're not ready to understand the complexities of that relationship at 11. And so I think it's very interesting and something to think about. how do you protect kids from not just seeing scary imagery, but kind of getting sucked into idea spaces that they're not ready for, but they think they're ready for because they're 13 and they're going to come and be like, Mom, you don't understand.

17:19I heard, you know, extreme one, two, three, who told me that Johnny Depp is a hero, you know?

17:25Heidi Hayes:Exactly. Right. You're wrong that they're targeting me because actually the information is 100 % correct. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's very upsetting. And at least in that case, your kid mentioned it to you. But the part that worries me is our kids are getting information. It used to be like, we would think, should I tell my kid there was a school shooting? How should I tell my kid? We had time to think about it. Now, by the time the kid's coming home from school, they already know. And they're bombarded with information all the time about pop culture, about what's going on in the news around the world.

17:54And so one of the things I like to tell parents to do is you have to be proactive. If you heard it on the radio or you heard it on the news, is, hey, bring it up during dinner. I heard this really interesting thing. And talk about it with your kids, even on a basic level at a young age. That's about relationships. What's violence in a relationship? How can we know what's the truth in a relationship? We can't, we weren't there. So there's so many conversations. It's like a wealth of opportunity with our kids. And so we shouldn't just wait until they come to us. Whenever there's something on the news, boom, I'm in it with my kids.

18:25Just to say, oh, what are your thoughts? Ask open-ended questions. You can find out a little bit more where they're coming from, what they heard. And then instead of coming in like hot with that, that is wrong, think about it a little bit differently and kind of make it a discussion instead of a lecture.

18:40Heidi Hayes:How do you separate the right age to get Instagram and TikTok, things like that? I think we sometimes kind of fold those in, like get a phone and have at it, right? Do you separate out that? What is the right age for a phone versus what is the right age to get some of the things you can do with your phone? So obviously, all the social media companies recommend 13. And I would agree. However, kids are on it earlier. So they're on it, we have to educate them about it. I recommend parents pick one type of social media when they get the phone to download on the phone and to do it with their kids. So for us, at the time, it was Instagram, it may be something else for you.

19:17You know, my son is on discord, he doesn't care about Instagram, for him, it's discord. So I had to learn about what discord is and what he's doing on it and explain that to him. So but do it with your kids. That is the thing. It's like, it's a learning opportunity for you for what are they seeing? What's in the for you recommendations that is so important for parents to see and be able to discuss. And then to see what is your kid posting? What is your kid commenting? What are your kids friends commenting? And again, not in a punitive way, but in a let's learn about this together. And then you can expand.

19:46But the truth is, social media has is also increasingly available just through the internet. Your kid doesn't necessarily even need it on an app anymore. And if their friend has an account and they don't have an account, again, you're not having that opportunity to educate them. So I'm moving towards give them a social media, but give them the education at the same time. And I think there are things like, what is an influencer? And how is that the same as a commercial on television is really important. And our kids don't see that. And to really explain to them that social media is not real life.

20:16Like we say that, but we have to show them. Like even when I am posting, I can show my kids. I took 17 pictures. I took 17 pictures and then I use a filter on it. And then I posted it cropped, you know, and why I did that is because I look a little bit better. But when you're in puberty and you're not feeling so great about your changing body and you see all these perfect things on social media and then you look in the mirror, it's pretty hard to feel good about yourself and your life, you know, but we have to talk about these things. Then they can see behind the curtain. And then hopefully those effects aren't as strong.

20:49One thing I want to drill down on that I'm dealing with right now in my house that you said is you don't need a social media account to be exposed to a tremendous amount of social media. So I don't want my kids on TikTok, but my kids are on YouTube and YouTube now has a YouTube shorts that's just people's TikTok. It's the same thing as scrolling through a TikTok timeline. That's where they're seeing a lot of this like Amber Heard, Johnny Depp stuff. That's where they're seeing a lot of the like takes on the news. That's where a lot of our panic resulted from Russia is about to bomb us any day now.