Kids & Cell Phones with Katherine Sellery from The Conscious Parenting Revolution — Episode 136

How do you navigate the tricky path of kids and cell phones. I’m grateful to have parenting expert Katherin Sellery with me today to talk about what to consider as you decide if a cell phone is right for YOUR child/teen.

Today’s guest is

Katherine Sellery, CEO and Founder of Conscious Parenting Revolution, helps individuals minimize misunderstandings and melt-downs in order to communicate with more collaboration, cooperation, and consideration.

A creator of the Guidance Approach to Parenting, a program that applies conflict resolution skills to communicating more effectively with children, Katherine has positively influenced relationships for generations and brought about healing and reconciliation in families that were suffering from disconnection. For over 20 years, she has taught and coached thousands of parents, educators, social workers, and medical professionals in half a dozen countries through her popular workshops, coaching programs, TEDx talks, and her books. Katherine is also a trained mediator, attended Law School, has certifications in different trauma models, teaches a breathing meditation modality with the Art of Living Foundation, and ran her own commodities-trading business in Hong Kong for 30 years.

Katherine is a 3x TEDx Speaker and has released a FREE ebook “7 Strategies to Keep Your Relationship With Your Kids from Hitting the Boiling Point.” For her expertise she has been featured on Good Morning Texas, Atlanta & Co, Fox31 Denver, 4CBS Denver, CBS8 San Diego, The Donny Walker Morning Show and has been a guest on over 20 podcasts.

Find her free e-book here.

This episode was inspired by my post on kids and cell phones.

Big thanks to our sponsor Family Routines — I actually have a whole section on making a routine around cell phones.

In this episode

What to consider before giving your child a cell phone.

What age is appropriate for a cell phone.

What needs a cell phone meets

What your options are

Teaching your kids to learn to “be” with it.

What the REAL issues with cell phones are (for you and your family).

Other things that might interest you

Consequences for Teens

Preventing porn addiction in teens

Getting teens to read

Producer: Drew Erickson

Check out my other parenting podcasts:

Transcript

[00:00:00.130] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, guys, welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today on episode 136, we are talking about the great mystery of life, kids and cell phones. Let’s untangle it.

[00:00:19.890] – Hilary Erickson

Hi, I’m Hilary Erickson, the curly head behind the Pulling Curls podcast where we untangle pregnancy, rending home, and even travel. We know there’s no right answer for every family, but hopefully we can spark some ideas that will work for yours. Life tangled just like my hair.

[00:00:41.530] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, guys, before we get started, a lot of you come to this podcast just looking for a good time. But what if you just subscribed? It might be fun. That could be really fun.

[00:00:51.020] – Hilary Erickson

Today’s guest is the founder of the Conscious Parenting Revolution. She is a three times TEDx speaker. One of my favorites was her seven strategies to keep your Relationship with your Kids from hitting the boiling point, which can totally happen with their teenagers. I want to introduce today’s guest, Katherine Sellery.

[00:01:14.630] – Hilary Erickson

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[00:01:51.510] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, Katherine, welcome to the Pulling Curls Podcast.

[00:01:54.280] – Katherine Sellery

I’m so happy to be here. Thank you, Hilary.

[00:01:57.290] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah, I pretty much am just having somebody here to talk over my life’s problems because my third and final one, we are trying to figure out how to get a cell phone. She’s had a super tiny flip phone that was like $3 a month, basically just for emergencies.

[00:02:10.170] – Katherine Sellery

Right.

[00:02:10.640] – Hilary Erickson

But I think it’s time to go for the big guns. Yeah. I literally cannot think of a single one of her friends that does not have a cell phone. Now at this point.

[00:02:20.500] – Katherine Sellery

What are you worried about?

[00:02:22.770] – Hilary Erickson

Well, she wants one. My worry is just fulfilling the need in her.

[00:02:27.220] – Katherine Sellery

Right.

[00:02:27.490] – Hilary Erickson

And the flip phone. The flip phone. This is the third kid that’s had it. So at some point it’s just going to pass down. How old is she? It’s rarely used.

[00:02:38.370] – Katherine Sellery

Right.

[00:02:39.510] – Hilary Erickson

Twelve. So she’s not super young. And I’ve known her friends have had cell phones forever. So let’s talk advice for moms and cell phones.

[00:02:47.590] – Katherine Sellery

Yeah. I think most people are worried that their kids are going to get addicted to the cell phone and that they’re just going to be on social media or they’re going to be on chat or they’re just going to like their whole life is going to be lost in the phone.

[00:03:00.170] – Hilary Erickson

I mean, let’s clarify. My boys, their life is lost in their phone.

[00:03:04.230] – Katherine Sellery

There you go. Right. So it’s that whole thing of the phone is there and it’s useful and we don’t want it to take over, like meal times. We don’t want it to take over all of your life. How are we going to be with the phone? Like, are you working around things like family time?

[00:03:22.420] – Hilary Erickson

Of course.

[00:03:22.910] – Katherine Sellery

We put our phones away.

[00:03:24.830] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. So my role for her is that most of the time when we’re home, unless you communicate it, I’d like it to stay in the charger. This phone is mostly for you to make plans, which you can do while it’s in the charger or when you’re outside of the home for people to get hold of you or whatever. Yeah.

[00:03:42.300] – Katherine Sellery

And everybody’s good with that.

[00:03:44.050] – Hilary Erickson

This one is obviously the older ones wouldn’t be right.

[00:03:47.860] – Katherine Sellery

So she’s okay with it. And she’s like, yeah, I can do that. So then it sounds like maybe the issue really isn’t even her. The issue is with the older ones who have the cell phones, and that is dominating the time inside the house as well.

[00:04:01.250] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. And I mean, one is a senior in high school. Yeah. Friends are everything. I get that. So I mean, what do you tell parents to do as they’re considering this? Because I think I’m actually on the older end of people giving their kids cell phones. I think most kids at school got them by junior high and she’s in 7th grade now. So what do you usually tell people if they’re wondering about cell phones?

[00:04:22.000] – Katherine Sellery

Well, I mean, let’s just kind of set a little bit of a context around cell phones and other types of behavior. So what we do want the audience to know is that we are all governed internally, so everybody’s really out there trying to meet their needs and behaviors are a reflection of that. So we know that if they’re using their cell phones, they’re meeting certain needs by doing it. It’s a behavior that meets needs, and that’s okay. We want people to meet their needs until it becomes an addiction or a problem.

[00:04:52.000] – Hilary Erickson

Right. And we have the same needs as a kid. And I try to remind myself that we had that 50 foot long cord that we could haul from our family room into another room so our mom couldn’t.

[00:05:00.310] – Katherine Sellery

I remember that. Yeah, absolutely. So the telephone, whether it’s that old one that was attached to a cord that we wrapped around the kitchen or it’s this new version, we use it as a mechanism to meet our underlying needs. It’s just a solution. It’s not actually a need. Nobody needs a phone. However, we do have needs for connection and belonging and community and friendship. And phones are a way that we meet our needs for connection and belonging and fun sometimes. And that’s why phones have become so important, especially during COVID, is that our ability to connect with our friends and feel as though we belong and all of those important underlying needs can be met through telephone. And we want all of our kids to meet their needs. The problem is when they are using the phone so much that the needs within the family for connection and belonging and all the rest of it are being pushed aside. So that’s where I think for most people that’s the tricky part is that when we sit down at the table, you see it in restaurants all the time and people will bring their phones out and you can look across the restaurant and there can be like a whole family and everybody’s on their phone and nobody’s actually connecting with each other.

[00:06:09.360] – Katherine Sellery

So this is where I think that it’s important for families to talk about. Great, you want to get a phone. I can see why you want a phone, and that makes sense to me. And I’m really worried that the phone is going to become so important to you and connecting with others is going to be so important to you that you’re not going to end up wanting to put it down and connect with us. So that’s one of the red flags, I think.

[00:06:31.160] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah, that is the red flag. What do you do? Because I’ve told her that I get the password to the phone. Like I have full access to the phone. Do you read your kids text messages or.

[00:06:41.540] – Katherine Sellery

I don’t ever. Yeah, I never have because I feel like it’s a matter of unless there’s a reason, I think it’s important to have the conversation and say, I’m not going to eavesdrop when you have friends over and sit outside your door, like, listening to every word you say, because I feel like that’s an invasion of your Privacy. And I feel like your phone is also for you. However, I also am going to be worried that the phone is abused or that there are types of conversations or that you have access to things that are dangerous. So let’s talk about all of that. And how would you feel about me making it so that you can’t surf the Internet for certain types of content?

[00:07:26.330] – Hilary Erickson

Right.

[00:07:26.890] – Katherine Sellery

I mean, it’s all about the conversation around all of the things that we’re worried about that I think we need to have there needs open.

[00:07:34.890] – Hilary Erickson

Yes. Talking about it in advance, for sure.

[00:07:37.670] – Katherine Sellery

Talk about it in advance.

[00:07:38.790] – Hilary Erickson

And she has had a phone with no number for a while because of COVID. And so most of my other kids didn’t get a phone until they were heading into high school. But because of COVID, I think a lot of kids I wanted her to talk to her friends because I didn’t want to talk to her 24 hours a day. She needed that. And so I think a lot of parents maybe are confronting this, maybe a little bit earlier than they thought they had. So I’m glad that we’re having this talk. So I always say that I have access to their phone, and I think my kids have thought that I’ve looked at their text. They know that it’s an option that’s always when they’ve gotten the phone. But I’ve never taken the time to scroll through.

[00:08:16.010] – Katherine Sellery

Right.

[00:08:16.440] – Hilary Erickson

I definitely follow them on social media. And I’ve definitely had conversations about maybe this wasn’t our best choice.

[00:08:22.270] – Katherine Sellery

Yeah. Well, I think that we want to set up the ecosystem for our kids to make good choices, and we want to flag the things that we’re worried about. Just as a FYI. These are some of the things that I’ve noticed that happened with other kids that I know as we enter into this world of you getting your own phone. These are some of the things that may start coming up for you. And I want us to be able to talk about them as they happen so that we can start to be with these potentially dangerous things that could result from having a phone. I mean, in my case, my kids went to a school where we had to drive to pick them up, and it was up a Hill, and it was a cul de sac, and everybody came back. And if I got stuck in that, it could take me 30 minutes just to get up the hill. So I wanted them to have phones at a really young age. So five, six year olds, they got that flip phone in their backpack. And our conversations were about, you got to turn that phone on at the end of the day, you got to turn that phone on because I’m parked at the bottom of the stairs, and I need you to be on the phone with me when you get out of school so that you can come down that staircase and we could be in communication so that I don’t have to go up and do that.

[00:09:30.610] – Katherine Sellery

And so my conversations were about getting them to turn the phone on because they had that phone from me.

[00:09:36.080] – Hilary Erickson

Right.

[00:09:36.690] – Katherine Sellery

And it could be for safety.

[00:09:38.190] – Hilary Erickson

And then did you have rules so they could only text you with that phone?

[00:09:41.790] – Katherine Sellery

There weren’t that many kids that had phones at five and six.

[00:09:44.640] – Hilary Erickson

Right.

[00:09:44.930] – Katherine Sellery

So it wasn’t like ever really a thing. Like none of their friends had anything. It wasn’t even in the realm of stuff. It was for me, and it was for me to be able to communicate with them. And you could say it was for safety. And so that was how come I needed them to have phones at young ages. But then later on, of course, the phone became popular. Other people had phones. They wanted something other than that really cheap flip phone. So also, like your daughter, it was about getting a real phone. And then how are we going to use the phone because phones and social media, I mean, that all happens through that phone. And the social media piece. Like, my daughter took herself off social media because she found that the FOMO stuff and that fear of missing out and some of the things that were happening if she could see a group of friends that got together and she wasn’t in the group and what that brought up for her feeling wise and how much energy was needed to keep herself centered with all of those activating events happening around her, it was just easier to get off.

[00:10:42.600] – Hilary Erickson

Oh, I love that she was smart enough to be like.

[00:10:45.040] – Katherine Sellery

It was her idea.

[00:10:45.900] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah.

[00:10:46.190] – Katherine Sellery

I’m just not going to do this anymore, mom. It’s too hard for me. It takes too much of my emotional bandwidth.

[00:10:50.980] – Hilary Erickson

And did she stay off?

[00:10:52.000] – Katherine Sellery

Never been on.

[00:10:52.720] – Hilary Erickson

Like, is she back on?

[00:10:53.730] – Katherine Sellery

Never been on.

[00:10:54.460] – Hilary Erickson

She’s never been back on.

[00:10:55.710] – Katherine Sellery

Never.

[00:10:56.070] – Hilary Erickson

Wow.

[00:10:56.330] – Katherine Sellery

She’s 22.

[00:10:57.240] – Hilary Erickson

Interesting. Is she not on anything? Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, none.

[00:11:01.310] – Katherine Sellery

None.

[00:11:01.770] – Hilary Erickson

Wow. Yeah.

[00:11:03.060] – Katherine Sellery

She’s probably one of the only people on the planet.

[00:11:06.010] – Hilary Erickson

She just texts with texting.

[00:11:08.230] – Katherine Sellery

She just texts.

[00:11:09.350] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah.

[00:11:09.940] – Katherine Sellery

She’s not a big phone person. She’s applying for a PhD in clinical psychology right now. So she’s fascinated by human behavior and recognizes we can try to there are all kinds of things that children are suffering, adolescents, young adults are suffering from in the realm of mental health. And a lot of it relates to social media. And so there are lots of ways that we can handle it. We can enforce people having more skills. We can also just change the environment. It’s the easiest thing we can do. Just take yourself off, stop getting triggered so that you’re just like, it’s like, wow, I didn’t even know they got together. How can I be upset about it?

[00:11:46.980] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah, I will say that because I work on social media. I’ve definitely especially this child has seen you point out things people did wrong or stuff that comes up for me. Of course, we all have that feeling where somebody is on Facebook and they’re like, oh, they went on that trip and they didn’t invite me. But of course, then you remind your adult self that not everyone can be invited to absolutely everything. And I probably wouldn’t want to be invited to everything.

[00:12:10.690] – Katherine Sellery

Yeah. I mean, we have the skills we can learn the skills to be just like, present to. Oh, wow. There is something in me that just got activated by that. I’m going to be with that part of me. I mean, we can learn the internal narrative and dialogue to be present to something in us that gets activated without being merged with it or letting it lead our own behavior or overwhelm us with feelings. Those are the internal structures that we create to be present to our feelings without being overwhelmed by them.

[00:12:38.790] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah.

[00:12:39.100] – Katherine Sellery

But frankly, a lot of people on the planet don’t have those skills.

[00:12:42.700] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. And what a great thing to give those skills either, because you’re always going to be like something comes up in conversation.

[00:12:47.870] – Katherine Sellery

Absolutely.

[00:12:48.570] – Hilary Erickson

Unless you live in a solitary jail cell, I guess.

[00:12:51.060] – Katherine Sellery

Absolutely. I have a lot of people talk about, like, TV, gaming, all of these other things, and that some people’s solution is to just get rid of it. And I’m like, well, that’s always an option. You can always just get rid of it. However, learning how I’m going to be with it is a sustainable skill. So that when they’re out of your family and they go to someone else’s house or they go to College or they just go on their own path, they’ve developed the muscle for self control.

[00:13:21.020] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. That’s a hard muscle to develop, especially if your mom it develops it for you by just throwing everything away.

[00:13:26.760] – Katherine Sellery

Well, and that’s the problem is that when everything is being controlled by someone else, then the self control within doesn’t develop for that individual.

[00:13:35.120] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. How old was your daughter in high school when she got off social media or was she in college?

[00:13:39.240] – Katherine Sellery

High school.

[00:13:39.990] – Hilary Erickson

Interesting. Because I feel like the draw is extra in high school, my one in College. I think he’s on social media, but he can pick to see his friends whenever he wants because he doesn’t live in my house.

[00:13:49.510] – Katherine Sellery

Yes, I do think that it’s a choice that a lot of people don’t even think of as a choice anymore, because social media has become so prevalent in our lives that it’s like, wow, how could I go without that? But actually, there’s still choice around it. How do I want to have it? How do I want to be included in it? If Privacy is important to you, then of course, it’s something that you probably aren’t going to want to see yourself blasted all over at my child’s school when she was both of them, they would have a whole thing in high school about the schools, the universities looking into your social media accounts, seeing what you’re up to. And we had kids at her school who had been given places at prestigious universities who had them revoked because of their social media accounts and what they were seen doing, man.

[00:14:35.940] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah.

[00:14:36.520] – Katherine Sellery

So I’ll just put it out there that is going on.

[00:14:39.090] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. Do you think they’re still doing that?

[00:14:41.300] – Katherine Sellery

I sure do.

[00:14:42.210] – Hilary Erickson

Good thing my kids are private.

[00:14:45.430] – Katherine Sellery

My kids went to private schools.

[00:14:46.970] – Hilary Erickson

But then no, I mean, social media is private, luckily. Yeah.

[00:14:51.110] – Katherine Sellery

Now that’s smart. Yes, exactly. Public, private. And if they keep that limited and what are other people doing with those images?

[00:14:59.890] – Hilary Erickson

Right. For sure. And with Snapchat, a lot of kids think things are so temporary. But my kids are very aware that everything lives there forever.

[00:15:07.400] – Katherine Sellery

Yeah. And that’s another thing to just have that education, because if you didn’t know that universities are looking at social media to get a profile of your child, then you might want to just start having those conversations.

[00:15:21.190] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. It’s tough because I wish that I wouldn’t want a lot of my choices from when I was 17 to be highlighted now on social media.

[00:15:31.270] – Katherine Sellery

Yeah. And it’s there forever.

[00:15:32.610] – Hilary Erickson

I mean, when people are canceled because of a tweet they made when they were 21, I’m like, come on, we’ve all done.

[00:15:39.410] – Katherine Sellery

It’s tragic, everybody. We’ve all had things we’ve said that we’ve regretted. We’ve also been immature. We have grown up theoretically, and we wouldn’t be seen saying those things now and may even have a sense of what was I thinking when that came out of my mouth? Like, Holy cow. So, yeah, I do think that the cancel culture is extremely interesting and intolerant. Not that some things I think that confrontation is important. I think it’s important that we say, wow, my feelings were hurt when or, Gee, the way you’re looking at this in the stance that you have, I have a problem with.

[00:16:15.750] – Hilary Erickson

Right.

[00:16:16.060] – Katherine Sellery

I’d like to talk about that. I mean, I want to have those conversations canceling I’m not so sure about.

[00:16:21.350] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. Well, it’s the same as, like, those self control muscles where if your mom just throws your switch away, are you able to control it when you leave her house? Because ultimately I want them all to leave.

[00:16:31.770] – Katherine Sellery

Yes, of course. And I can remember when my kids were little, I didn’t control how much or how often they got on TV. And what I found is that because there was the freedom to turn it back on later, it was easier to turn it off because there was that sense that, oh, I do want to go out and do something else. I know that when I come home, I can catch that show. There was the ability to come and go where the kids, who obviously came from a very controlling form family, had no self control, and they would come over and they would just want to sit in front of the TV and my kids would be like, oh, my God, that’s so boring. You can do that any time. Let’s go play tennis. Let’s go swim. Let’s go do something else. How about a hike? Let’s take the joke for a walk. And they were just, like, glued to it. Right.

[00:17:13.760] – Hilary Erickson

So interesting. And you see that a lot in kids whose parents have said no sugar. And then that first Halloween comes where they have just a little bit of an autonomy, and that kid is so sick.

[00:17:23.330] – Katherine Sellery

Yeah, exactly. They binge, they over indulge because there is no sense of. Rightness in relationship to all of those temptations, the things that we have to really, like, work with, and we learn how to work with it by working with it.

[00:17:36.720] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah, that’s awesome. I think having those conversations what I’m learning from this is having the conversations in advance and then thinking about what needs she’s filling with that phone. Right. Because I definitely want her to be a social little girl with lots of friends and feel very valued with her friends and stay connected, but also to stay connected with me. Right.

[00:17:54.860] – Katherine Sellery

Yeah. So, I mean, I think the question is, is it a problem or not? Right. If it’s not a problem, there’s nothing to do. They’re already handling it responsibly. They’re already handling it in ways in which it’s not causing other issues. If there are issues and you’re finding that there are problems with your child only wanting to stream YouTube videos on their phone or only wanting to engage in social media and following everybody under the sun and all of their life’s energy is out there somewhere through that thing called the phone, then where are they developing their own skills? Where are they developing their own legacies? Like, what is it that their passions are? And a friend of mine was saying to me the other day more around, like, gaming that she was concerned that it was too much. And so she was having those conversations about all we have is time. Time is it? So how we spend our time is going to determine what we develop. How capable and confident are you getting at your golf game, your tennis game, your reading, your writing? What are the things that really light you up? What do you want to become a master of?

[00:19:02.720] – Katherine Sellery

And all the time that you’re spending over here means you don’t have any time to develop these other aspects of yourself. So those kind of conversations are really good.

[00:19:11.010] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah, that is really good. What do you do when the room is a complete pigs and they just come home and they get on their switch or their phone?

[00:19:19.090] – Katherine Sellery

Yeah. Again, these are like self management skills. And so in our family, I really value tidy. And I talk about things as visual noise when things are just everywhere. Palmel. It’s like visual noise for me. It just irritates my nervous system. Not everybody’s like that. Other people can be around it and it doesn’t activate that for them. So we would have conversations about the common areas in the home needing to be a way that works for everyone. And that other areas of the home where it’s really they have some autonomy over that space. They can start to choose what works for them. So I can always close the door to a bedroom, but I can’t to the family room, the living room, the kitchen, the common areas. So those are really those aspects of self care where some kids really do like neat and tidy also. And they might not be able to start doing it for themselves, but when they experience the other rooms, they’re like, wow, that does feel better. I can take a deeper breath. Maybe I do have some visual noise issues as well. And then there can be some ideas around self started behavioral change again, the river is going from outer behavioral change where it happens because somebody’s quote, unquote, making it happen to the land of teaching your children about their values, supporting them at being more connected to their sense of like, what is it that I like?

[00:20:43.820] – Katherine Sellery

Do I enjoy this or do I enjoy that rather than shaming them or using rewards and punishments or an external locus of causality to create behavioral change?

[00:20:54.190] – Hilary Erickson

Like, what do they like? What feels good to them? And by giving them lots of experiences, like a clean living room, they can decide which works for them.

[00:21:01.110] – Katherine Sellery

Yeah.

[00:21:01.760] – Hilary Erickson

I have one who just likes to have everything out. She likes to see all of her things. Mine is always like, in an emergency, I am unable to get to your bed. So we just have to have a clear path. That’s what I’m looking for here.

[00:21:18.190] – Katherine Sellery

Yeah. I mean, we like to share our values and we hope that our children will experience our values because we live them. So if I want to talk to my children about how I value that everything has a place and everything in its place, that perspective, which is really for me, true to me, then I do that by having a home that looks that way.

[00:21:39.120] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah, I like that. All right.

[00:21:40.940] – Katherine Sellery

So we live by example.

[00:21:42.300] – Hilary Erickson

And I hate that. And I love that.

[00:21:45.550] – Katherine Sellery

I know, right. I mean, a lot of people live in the land of do as I say, not as I do. And I say to them.

[00:21:51.520] – Hilary Erickson

It’S never going to be that way, especially with kids.

[00:21:54.100] – Katherine Sellery

It’s always going to be that they use you as their model and they see what you’re doing and they see the hypocrisy when you tell them to live a certain way that you’re not living that’s rough.

[00:22:03.640] – Hilary Erickson

Like put down your phone. That’s my problem, too. Yeah, exactly.

[00:22:08.490] – Katherine Sellery

And there’s mom texting away on the phone with friends, whatever it is. Right.

[00:22:13.890] – Hilary Erickson

I think it’s all teaching them how to move out and be productive. That’s what I try and always remind myself. And a phone is definitely going to be part of that scenario.

[00:22:22.610] – Katherine Sellery

Absolutely. It’s crucial. I think it’s one of those things where if you trust your kids and recognize that they also want to do what’s best for them, that what’s in their best need. If their behaviors that are worrying you, then it really is still back to this idea that, yes, these behaviors are concerning and they’re also still needing some kind of need. And we’re not really sure what that need is. But all behaviors are in service to meeting in a need, an attempt to meet our needs. So if that behavior, whatever it is, even though we’re concerned about it, wasn’t at least partially meeting that need, it would stop.

[00:23:03.840] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah.

[00:23:04.320] – Katherine Sellery

So that’s where it always has to be that we’re wondering about. So what is this behavior that we’re worried about? What need is that behavior meeting.

[00:23:13.190] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah. And how can we either meet that in a more sustainable way or I guess that’s the big question. Right. How do we meet that need?

[00:23:20.010] – Katherine Sellery

That is the question. So that leads us into those conversations of well, there are lots of ways to meet needs. This is one of the ways.

[00:23:26.210] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah.

[00:23:26.750] – Katherine Sellery

And there are some advantages and disadvantages to this way compared to some of the other ways. And so then we kind of move into conversations where dispassionately we are assessing like, okay, well, let’s do a spreadsheet like here. Let’s get the family whiteboard out. I can see it’s meeting these needs, but not these. And that what are alternatives. What are some of the other ways? Because sometimes people go about meeting their needs in ways that are almost guaranteed not to meet their needs.

[00:23:52.950] – Hilary Erickson

Yeah, but we think they will. We do that’s easy for kids because they see other people doing whatever.

[00:23:58.360] – Katherine Sellery

Yes, exactly. And so we think they will or they think they will. And so they keep at it, even though you can see there’s going to be a bigger and bigger divide between that approach and actually sustainably meeting the need that they’re trying to by using that approach.

[00:24:14.590] – Hilary Erickson

That’s me on TikTok for sure. I keep hoping there will be a funny one.

[00:24:22.010] – Katherine Sellery

That’s hilarious.

[00:24:23.050] – Hilary Erickson

All right. This is awesome. So think about what needs your kids are looking for and what they’re trying to meet. Katherine, I’m going to put all your tech talks down below. I really enjoyed watching them. I think she has a lot of good information. And you have a free ebook that people can sign up for, too, right. On your website.

[00:24:37.300] – Katherine Sellery

We do.

[00:24:37.900] – Hilary Erickson

So I will put that information in the show notes. Or do you have a website you just want to tell people here?

[00:24:43.500] – Katherine Sellery

Yeah. Come to Katherine Sellery.com. Sellery is spelled S-E-L-L-E-R-Y. Like selling things, not the vegetable.

[00:24:51.310] – Hilary Erickson

Okay. Yeah. All right.

[00:24:52.460] – Katherine Sellery

Love that.

[00:24:52.940] – Hilary Erickson

Thanks for coming on, Katherine. I appreciate it.

[00:24:54.760] – Katherine Sellery

Thanks so much, Hilary. Really appreciated it. Okay.

[00:24:58.110] – Hilary Erickson

I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. I am going through this right now. We’re actually recording this before the holidays. It’s coming out later, but we’re just trying to figure out what works for her. And I think COVID has maybe sped up the pace for a lot of parents on some of this computer based stuff. So it’s a little faster than we’ve done in the past. But again, I’m loving the tools that Katherine has given me to discuss the things in advance and then also figure out once it’s a problem or if there’s a problem, how to maybe change it or show them a different way. So I really enjoyed that. Thanks for coming on, Katherine. And definitely check out her information in the show notes.

[00:25:32.530] – Hilary Erickson

And do not miss next week episode. We are talking about what is normal in our postpartum world so many people are caught off guard by things that are super normal and then the next week if you’re looking for one that’s not about pregnancy, we are answering your organization questions. So many good questions came into me and I cannot wait to give my input on those.

[00:25:51.120] – Hilary Erickson

Thanks so much for joining us on today’s episode. We know you have lots of options for your ears and we are glad that you chose us. We drop episode weekly and until next time, we hope you have a tangle free day.