Episode 124: Digital Dilemmas: Strategies for Modern Parents with Meredith DePaolo

Children  0:00  
We think you should know that Imperfect Heroes podcast is a production of Little Hearts Academy USA.

DJ Stutz  0:09  
Welcome heroes and heroines to episode 124 of Imperfect Heroes, Insights Into Parenting, the perfect podcast for imperfect parents looking to find joy in their experience of raising children in an imperfect world. And I'm your host, DJ Stutz.

Welcome back to another episode of Imperfect Heroes. And on today's episode, I have a truly remarkable guest, Meredith DePaolo. Meredith is not only a distinguished TV journalist, and a proud Yale graduate, but most importantly, she is the loving mother of two little girls. And our conversation dives into a topic that is familiar with so many parents out there, managing screen time with our kids, Meredith and her husband found themselves facing a forceful attraction to screens by their daughters, which became exacerbated by the additional screen time brought on by the whole remote learning mandated by COVID. And I'm sure many of you can relate to that scenario, where the more you try to limit screen time, the more resistance and the more angry responses you get from your children. And it's a challenge that is becoming increasingly difficult to handle. Well, in response to this dilemma, Meredith and her husband embarked on a mission to tackle this issue in a groundbreaking kind of way. They partnered with educators and scientists and child psychologists, and they created an app called carrots and cake. But here's the crucial point that Meredith will shed light on. It's not just a battle against our kids with screentime. The real fight is with Silicon Valley and the tech giants who are vying for the attention and the hearts of our children to further their profit and their influence. So join us in this conversation, as Meredith and I discuss how to empower families to gain a deeper understanding, self discipline that will enable them to inform decisions about their engagement with technology. And we're also going to explore the powerful forces at play, seeking to influence and even addict our children as they navigate the metaverse right. And it's a conversation you won't want to miss. 

But before we get started, you know, it's getting to be that time of year. And you might just be in the market for an amazing holiday gift, or perfect classroom edition. Well, I've got you covered. Meet my new book, Roman is Bigger. And it's a heartwarming tale that offers some essential life lessons. And in this book, Roman discovers the profound impact of words, on our emotions and on our relationships. And Roman learns that the right words, not only make him feel better, but also helps others to understand him better. And this lesson in communication and empathy is invaluable for both children and parents. It's perfect for Christmas, or Hanukkah, or just for fun. It's available now on Amazon, and the link is in the show notes. 

Well, now let's move on to my conversation with Meredith DePaolo. There's so much to learn. So let's get started. 

Welcome, everyone, and thanks for joining us again, on Imperfect Heroes - Insights Into Parenting. And I just want to remind everybody that if you're watching on Rumble, or on YouTube, to be sure to subscribe, leave a comment. We'd love to hear what you have to think. And if you're listening on the podcast, we would love for you to rate review. Again, leave a comment. And we have so much information down in the show notes that you're gonna want to check that out for sure. I am very excited to have my guest today and we are talking about a topic that is so important to us and Meredith, why don't you go ahead and just give us a little insight into what you're doing and we'll get started.

Meredith DePaolo  4:38  
Yes, it's so great to be here. Thanks for inviting me on your show. I'm Meredith DePaolo. I was a political science major in college. I went to Yale University and I was a journalist for a number of years I worked for CBS News and HBO, Bloomberg a whole bunch of places. I also worked in Hollywood writing screenplays, but First and foremost, as I am a mother, I and I have two little girls who are now eight years old and 10 years old. And ever since they were in diapers, I've been very concerned about screen time. And I know it's absolutely a necessity. Technology is a part of all of our lives. But I wanted to really figure out a way a productive way to introduce it to them, and to keep it really healthy and balanced. So several years ago, my husband and I started talking about what's a way that we can keep things really positive in terms of technology. And we tried some parental controls, we tried Apple screen time limits. And we were just finding that nothing was really striking us at the level we wanted it to, we found that it would either make our kids mad, it would, they could easily break out of these things. And we wanted to come up with a solution that was good for parents and good for kids also, and once the pandemic hit, and suddenly, it wasn't just one hour of screen time, it was a minimum of eight hours of screen time because that was where the schooling was happening. And not only the schooling, but also socialization if they wanted to chat with their friends, if they wanted to play games, my daughter was in brownies, the brownie meetings were online, everything became online. So we really wanted carrots and cake which we made to not only help kids with learning, but also with developing screentime habits that would teach them self regulation and allow kids and families to stay in control of technology rather than having that feeling that technology is in control of us.

DJ Stutz  6:37  
And that is so important. And I truly love the concept of carrots and cake. And we'll talk about it in just a little bit. But it's so interesting that I just talked with another guest about something called virtual autism, and how kids are not learning a lot of those main skills because they're on the screen so much, and COVID didn't help any. And we saw such an increase. As a teacher, I went through watching my kids, and we did have this increase of autism diagnoses, and even something called educational autism, which isn't the same as a medical diagnosis. And part of it is that because they're on the screen and stuff, they're showing some of those signs of autism in that they're not making eye contact when they're talking to someone in person, that the look off kind of to the side, or they're looking around. Because of all the hand movements that are on with the screen, they're starting to show repetitive hand movements, which is another sign of autism. And so some of those repeat, but it's just habit from screen things. And so it was just a really interesting conversation, how too much screentime is really affecting our kids in ways that we don't even really think of yet. And we're surprised with how these things are showing up. And some of these diagnoses of autism is wrong. It's just they need to resocialize they need to get back into playing outside and making up rules and problem solving and arguing with their friends over, you know whose turn it is and all the things that we did when we were kids. But those things can't happen virtually. It just can't. It's just not part of the nature of it. And so I love what you're bringing to the table here.

Meredith DePaolo  8:33  
I think you're exactly right. And I think the repercussions of what we went through when we were all homeschooling during the pandemic, there's really think we're not going to see the if until years down the line. And what teachers and parents, you know, we were all trying to do our best. And when we switched to this on screen learning, we still approached it as if we were in a classroom, but really the interaction is very different when you're watching a screen. Like at the time I girls were sort of four, or five and six ish. And it's really difficult to get a five year old to engage with a video where the person is really just talking to you. So while there are some amazing learning apps that I've discovered that you can put on your iPad, that computer that kids really actively engage in, and they kind of learned with the child. So they're always a little bit ahead of your child and pushing them a little bit more like these are these are the kinds of learning apps that we really love people to use with carrots and cake. And what carrots and cake does is it allows the parents to you download our app. And then as you're setting it up, we cue you to choose two or three learning apps. They can be something you already own. They could be anything in the app store. And also don't have to think it doesn't have to just be math or just be reading. It can be a violin lesson homework. It can be a logic game. It could be test anything that has a high cognitive load that gets your child to think more. Um, so you choose those things you choose how long you want them to do the learning apps for, then you choose how much time you want them to have that will be free time and playtime. And then essentially what happens is, say your child has their own iPad, when they turn that iPad on, everything on that iPad is locked down, the only thing your kids can access are those learning apps that you selected. So that means when they go into those apps, they're learning completely distraction free, their attentions, not diverted by advertisements, or pop up ads, they're not getting any text messages or emails, and it's really a gift to be able to focus. When you're young like that. I think there's a statistic. Not too long ago, a study came out saying for grownups like you and me, our attention span online is only 47 seconds long. So to give your kids this gift of being able to focus, and then when they are finished doing those learning apps, then the rest of their device unlocks, they can access their other apps, their games, their streaming, and they have whatever free time the parent selected for their child that's appropriate. So they still have their agency, they still have their freedom. You know, it's more of a partnership between the parents and the kids, rather than a one sided agreement where the parent is making all the decisions, and then the child gets resentful. So what we're really trying to do is find a good balance that families can benefit from.

DJ Stutz  11:27  
And I really appreciate that, that the parents are in charge, that it's something that is visual for the kids, they can see the time, and how much time they're spending, you have control over which apps they're using. And I love that you're able to look at a certain app and include that. It's not a preset group of apps that you chose, the parents are choosing. Exactly. And one of the things that I did when I was teaching virtually during COVID was telling the kids that you need to go outside, this is recess time. And you need to be outside. And not just on a game on the App during the break, I want you to go and do something that is moving around. And I encourage them when they came back, tell me about what you saw. Tell me about what you did outside. And so encouraging that time just trying to get them some of that physical movement. Oh, that is so important.

Meredith DePaolo  12:33  
Sure. 100%. Once again, like that all comes into having a healthy upbringing, you have to be outside you have to be playing. And what studies show is kids who are spending too much time online, and not only are they gaining weight, they're eating unintentionally, like they're just shoving food in their face while they're playing games. They're experiencing anxiety, they're experiencing depression, and this is looking at kids. But as young as 678 years old, I'm not talking about teenagers on social media. I'm talking about our little one having this effect. Another thing that we do with carrots and cake is when that free time to cake time is coming up is we we send a little notification saying okay, time is up, your device is going to turn off now, here's some ideas of things you could do in your free time. Like, why don't you go outside and play kickball or pick some flowers for your mother? Or why don't you go see if you can help with dinner or so we try to direct the kids attention into other useful activities. So we give them warnings we prepare them that their time online is coming off because we really want to avoid tantrums. I think a lot of parents know when you set your timer and you say, Okay, you're one hours up, you're gonna hear first negotiation, five more minutes, five more minutes, which really means 10 minutes, 30 minutes, another hour, right. And then if the negotiation on their part fails, the tears come the tantrums, the slamming of doors. It's enough to leave a parent tearing their hair out, which is largely what I felt during COVID. But in this way, you know, carrots and cake can be the gap bad guy. And mom can just say, Oh, no, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Your game wasn't over. But you know, the rules. We already talked about it. We have carrots and cake setup. There's nothing I can do on that carrots and cake. Well, we'll take the blame.

DJ Stutz  14:15  
Right. And I think too, it's really important. And I love what the way that you presented it just now and that you don't need to be upset with them, even though they may be upset and they may throw a tantrum, especially at the beginning as they're learning. Oh, wait, these boundaries are real, right? They made throw tantrums as they're getting used to these new rules. But the calm voice that you used, oh geez, Yeah, too bad. It's not working right now. And they may say take it off. I want it. Yeah, that's not gonna happen. So we've got other things we can do and you come up with some ideas, but the calmer you are The quicker things are going to get into position so that you have that happier, calmer atmosphere within your home, the kids will generally match your energy. So if you're really mad and angry about it, they'll match that energy. Whereas if you're calm, and they may think, Oh, this has worked for me in the past, my little got me 10 more minutes or half an hour or whatever. And so this has worked for me in the past. And so they are going to want to try to do those things that worked for them in the past. And so if you're expecting it, and so it's no big deal. Oh, yeah. They told me you were going to do this. I mean, you're not going to say that. But in your head, you're going to say that? Oh, yeah, this is working, because you're doing exactly what? And as I calmly say, Yeah, with the keratin cake, it turned off. Yeah. So let's go do something different. And I think too, especially at the beginning, if you're doing things with them, so let's go play a board game together, let's go make dinner, I loved that idea. Let's go outside and play kickball together, as they see that they get to spend time with you, especially at the beginning as you're getting used to these changes. And then gradually you

Meredith DePaolo  16:19  
are trying to do is change behavior. And like I said, teaching kids the self regulation rules. The number one thing I tell parents, first and foremost is to always remember, you know, when your child is throwing those tantrums, when they're not getting off when you tell them to they're not misbehaving, they're actually acting just like a kid should, and will, because that's what they're programmed to do. Our kids their prefrontal cortex is still developing. And that's the front part of the brain that is in charge of the executive skills of the impulse control of the decision making. So it's so easy to influence a child with these games and these persuasive design and convince Oh, no, just another minute, oh, if you stay on two more minutes, you're gonna get this prize, oh, if you stay on three more minutes, your friend Bobby is going to come on. And then you're going to be able to see what Bobby's doing all of these things that tech companies are throwing at our kids, our program to get them to ask mom for those five more minutes. So you have to remember your battles, never with your little kids, the battles actually with Silicon Valley. And just understanding how that works. That puts a lot of tools in the parents chest in order to work with

DJ Stutz  17:32  
you, right. And you bring up such an important point, that understanding who the real villain is. So I talk a lot about setting our kids up to succeed, and how we often will sabotage ourselves as adults, we sabotage the whole situation, because we're not understanding that, oh, they haven't eaten in a while, oh, I just picked them up from school and they're tired, and then we go to the store. We set them up in ways that is counterproductive. And so if we're looking at who's the real culprit here, we know that just like the tobacco companies, we're setting up people to be addicted to cigarettes, right? Silicon Valley is setting people up to be addicted as well. And they're hitting our children at such a young age. And they do we all become addicted. How often are we just checking our phone when we're in line? Instead of looking at the people who are around us or what's going on around us? We're all kind of addicted at some level to that technology piece. And if someone isn't addicted, we think they're weird.

Meredith DePaolo  18:46  
You're right, you're right. No, yeah, we all we all share some level of addiction with these devices. It makes sense Silicon Valley, the longer they can hold our attention, the more money they're able to make and bite sharing with parents that the other guy isn't your kid. It's tech and in Silicon Valley, it can help three parents of this guilt that we all all feel in a way. And really you're not you know, you just need to you just need to be knowledgeable. And then you know, especially with carrots and cake, we try to do our best to give parents the tools to parent around technology. So if you visit our website, you'll see so much advice from experts. We have webisodes we have like short one minute videos, everything about trying to support parents and support families with technology. We even will sit like if you sign up, we'll send you an email saying, Okay, well, thanks so much for signing up, Roberto. And we see these are the apps that he's doing. Here's some questions you could ask at the dinner table to engage Roberto to ask him like maybe you don't know about these games he's playing but we do and here Here are some in depth questions that you can really seem engaged with your child and enjoy Joy, their interest too. So we try to give you some shortcuts that way.

DJ Stutz  20:04  
That is so cool. And it's just so important. I think we've talked a lot lately on my podcast about the importance of that family dinner time, right? And how kids learn to hold a conference, though those are skills they learned at the dinner table, how to hold the conversation, how to even use a knife and a fork and not just eat out of a bag, and with our fingers, how to sit and be a part of things. And one of the things that we've talked about is having questions available for our kids. And so maybe standard questions we've talked about a lot, but getting that kind of information in an email or whatever. And it says Susie was playing with this game, and she achieved this level or whatever. That's right, because they're

Meredith DePaolo  20:54  
right. And then you've to build off that. That's yeah,

DJ Stutz  20:57  
yeah, they are interested in, they're interested in those games. So

Meredith DePaolo  21:02  
they love it when they do what they're doing. I'm sorry, if I'm talking over you, because sometimes you're freezing and then I'm freezing,

DJ Stutz  21:11  
glitchy thing going on right now. So if people are watching, we are kind of in a way talking over each other a bit. It's we've got a glitchy thing going on. And so I hope everyone will be patient. But absolutely. And I think too, it's important for kids to not leave the table as soon as they're done, but to sit and to still be part of a conversation. And so when you're talking and you're asking them about the gains they're playing and the things that they're doing, they're going to be more likely to not give you a hard time about remaining at the table, even after they're done eating, because it's a conversation they don't want to miss out on.

Meredith DePaolo  21:49  
That's right, they don't want to miss out on it. And they also feel like you're you're taking an interest in what they're interested in. And then also they don't have to have that defense mechanism, you're telling them Oh, it's time to come off, it's time to do that. They don't have to say, well, you just don't understand. Now they see that you are trying to understand you are trying to come together and have a common interest as a family. Another thing that we really tried to do is when a person wants to sign up for carrots and cake, we give them what we call a digital cheat sheet that gives parents clues on how they can come up with this sort of screen time plan together. So if it's a mom and a dad doing together, if it's grandparents, or if it's a primary caregiver, whoever whoever's taking care of the kids, it's really important that everybody's on the same page, because kids really need that consistency. And when it's coming in, when the authority figure is being consistent in terms of what screen time, things in our family, while our family values are, maybe it's we don't have devices at the table, we don't have devices in our bedroom, we have a central charging area that we all mom, dad, the kids, everybody charges their devices in this one area. So every like the lines of communication stay open, and stay consistent, we find that's one of the biggest useful tools to building a positive experience around screen time and technology inside the family.

DJ Stutz  23:07  
Absolutely. And you bring up again, such a great point in that when you have these rules, the rules are for parents as well as kids. So if we're not charging in our bedroom, we have a central charging station, the kids see you modeling that behavior and modeling following that rule. And so they are going to be more likely to follow in as well. Another thing that I really believe in is not having that technology in the bedroom, not having a TV in the kid's bedroom. I'd rather have them in the living room or the family room or wherever you've got it. But I'd rather have them in there arguing and negotiating and problem solving and compromising and all those things over what they're going to watch. And when they're going to watch it and getting it all timed out. I'd rather have them doing that together than isolating themselves further, even more than we're seeing to in with today's society and with all of the crap that's going on, that they're not isolating themselves again, further in their bedroom, right? We want them out with the family as much as possible.

Meredith DePaolo  24:21  
Yeah, the more you guys can be together, you know, the better off everybody is. And I will say also, I totally get it parents like sometimes you do need to be on your devices because a lot of times way work life balances now is we do have to do work on our computers or on our phones while we're home. And I always espouse modeling good behavior. I'm putting the devices down if you can, but it's totally fine to do your work and to remind your kids and this is my job. I have different rules because we have different responsibilities as a parent and as a child, and kids get that because no there are different rules at home. There are different rules at Sally's house. There are different Will's at school, they're different roles at basketball practice. So kids totally get that you don't have to feel guilty or apologetic if you do also have to spend some time on screen. And another thing that I always like to mention to parents with carrots and cake is, if you download our app and you set it up, the one great thing about it is now you're really in a situation where you can hand over a device and not feel guilty about it, you can do that guilt free, you know, if you're at the office, and you're not there, and you can stand over your child's shoulder and see everything that they do online. At least you know that while you're at work, if they get off that school bus and they come inside, grab a snack, and the first thing they want to do is open up their iPad, you know that you've set it up. So they're doing those learning apps, or they're doing the homework app, you can rest assure that they're getting that quality time before they play Roblox or go on YouTube. And then when that time is up, that time is up. So you don't even have to be there. You know, it's always great to know what your kids are doing. And we'll send you updates, letting you know, they've been doing their carrots and cake or you know, if you have to give them a nudge or something, you know, but you don't have to feel the worry. And the guilt again, like I feel so much comes back to guilt as parents or certainly for me as a mom.

DJ Stutz  26:15  
And it's so true that we kind of tend to be either too hard or too easy, I think, on ourselves as parents and were everything that goes wrong. What did I do wrong? What did I How did I not see this or see something coming? And trust me, your kids are little when they become adults. It's even more so like, what is it.

And so we tend to be hard on ourselves often as parents. But yeah, at the same time, things are easier when we do take control. And they see that I can count on mom and dad to have certain rules, certain boundaries. And it doesn't matter if they've had a bad day at work, or if they're tired, or if they're not feeling well, the rules or the rules, they remain the same. And kids actually find so much comfort in that because now they're not think of the emotion, when you've had to work with someone or you have someone in your family that they will just explode out and you and so you're always gauging how are they doing today? Are they doing okay? Are they not? And we do that to our kids all the time when they're having to gauge what rules we're gonna have today? How was mommy and daddy walking through the door at any day? And what does that do emotionally, inside, psychologically, get that word out, when our little kids are having to come up with that and they're uncertain. But think of the confidence then and the security and the safety that they're going to have when they know when I walk in the door. This is how it's going to be. And you brought up another amazing, great point that I love to talk about is rules are different in different environments. And so people think, oh, it's not fair. And when there's those unfortunate situations where mom and dad are not together, and they go to a different home. And there are different rules. And I hear a lot of criticism. You know, they're too easy. They're the they're the Disney dad or the Disney mom or whatever. And well, you know, if you guys agreed on all of that, you'd probably still be together.

Meredith DePaolo  28:31  
Right? Good point. Yeah, it's just consistency and routines. And you're right, we work with divorced parents, and lots of times they are on completely different pages, different books, different libraries when it comes to screen time. So again, it's just important to say, when you're at your dad's house, those these are the rules when you're at my house, these are the rules. And they should be understanding that Yeah,

DJ Stutz  28:55  
well, and to if mom is consistent with her roles, dad is consistent with his roles, then you're gonna be fine with them having different roles in different areas. Or even if just one of them's consistent, sometimes you get one that's more dependable than the other. That's just life. That's just how it goes. But if you have at least one parent that is strong in their boundaries, kind in their enforcement, you're not screaming and yelling at your kid. You're just saying I can say upset looks like you need to cry for a little bit. When you're ready to talk. I'm happy to talk with you. Do you want me to sit with you while you cry? Or do you want to go sit on the couch or give them some choices? And there's no bad answer there. And then when you're ready, let's talk about it. But I can see you're not ready to talk right now.

Meredith DePaolo  29:42  
I love that. That's definitely one of the reasons why we would say when you're coming up with what screentime routine works for your family, you know, you don't want to do it in the height of like kids being online and like playing a game. You know, you do that during your quiet time. You and your partner can do it, then do it. Another quiet time discuss it with the kids ask them what's important for them to do online? What do they enjoy? Why is it important? Just get everybody on the same page. So then when you do find yourself, and there's dramatic moments where you do want to raise your voice or pull your hair out, and nobody's listening, and everybody's crying, and you want to cry more than all, you can be calm and level headed, like you just described, and you can really be the parent, you can be intentional with your words, remind your child, do you remember when we when we talked about this, and we've decided this was important to us as a family? Maybe you don't feel that way right now? Take a minute, and you can maintain that consistency makes it a lot easier.

DJ Stutz  30:37  
And I really strongly, strongly believe in having weekly gatherings whether it's a family meeting, you call family night family activity. I don't care. But you're doing it at least weekly, where everyone's calm. Maybe you've got a favorite dessert, or something. You know, our family was jello popcorn. I had a popcorn. Oh, yeah, they, to this day calories make it when they come visit. Yeah. And we talked about these things. This was where we had those discussions, or we would practice, oh, you're on your iPad, and oh, time's up. So how are we going to handle that. And so when you do some role playing, and you can do this worth sharing and disagreements within the family, or what to do if your sister doesn't want to play with you. And so you, we do a lot of role playing during that time, so that when it actually comes up, the more role playing you do, the higher chances you have of success with them, managing it and learning how to manage it in a productive way.

Meredith DePaolo  31:45  
Wow, I love that. That's, that's terrific advice. I'm going to I'm gonna try that this week with my family with my little girls. Yeah,

DJ Stutz  31:52  
it's fun. And your little girls are at the age where they're totally into dress up and fantasy play and role play and let them be the mom and maybe find some clothes.

Meredith DePaolo  32:03  
No, I don't even want to see that they would want to imitate me now. I'm sure he would love the opportunity to therapy.

DJ Stutz  32:13  
Oh, Wouldn't it be funny? And then you're the kid. Right? And how am I supposed to act? And how do you think mommies should act? Not? How do I actually act sometimes. But if you were the mommy, what would you want me to do? I want you to show me that. And it's so much fun. And it's so strengthens relationships when you've got that. And then you've got that to refer back to. And you're learning so much when you see a child and say, Well, if you was Mommy, what would you want me to do? And then we talk about the three questions, which I think can go with the technology thing as well. Number one, what's the best thing that could happen? If I get all this time on my screen? What's the worst thing that could happen? And then the third question is, how does this affect the people that are around me? So whether it's my classroom, whether it's my friends, whether it's my family? So if I'm spending too much time on my screen? How does this affect my family? How does this affect when mom needs help? And I don't want to help because I'm on the screen, or whatever, you can have those conversations surrounding those three questions. And so those are kind of the three that those are

Meredith DePaolo  33:25  
those are great, not too difficult questions that can really get kids to think at a deeper level about it. Yeah, I love

DJ Stutz  33:33  
your carrots and cake, really bring a lot to the table with enabling someone to really talk about those questions relating to technology, right. And it's easy when you have a kid that's very rule based, and their kids.

Meredith DePaolo  33:48  
Well, I mean, there's all different kids, and there's all different kids inside your own family, I think we'll all agree on that, inside the same family react very, very differently. And I've always find like screen time is such a challenge. When you have older kids who get more screen time, the little kids, they want that same screen time, you know, everybody wants to be treated equal. So you have unique challenges as as a parent, as you're on your that parental journey. If you have more than one kids, a blended family, you know, you're constantly checking things that are going to challenge you. So like with parents and cake if you if you buy a membership, that's good for everybody in your family. So you can set up a different schedule for all the different kids using different apps and different times of the day you want them to do it. We have a scheduler that makes it pretty easy. So if say you want the kids to have a little bit more free time on the weekends than they do during the week, you can set that ahead of time. If you want different apps on different days, you can do that. You know, I come in, I come across parents who will say to me, I didn't know you could use a iPad to learn from some parents have no idea of what some good learning apps are. So we have a whole bunch of apps that we also recommend. You can go to our website and see that for free if you want to figure out like, okay, apps that don't advertise or the most important to me or apps that are free, or apps that only cost $5, or apps that focus on math, stem, or creative learning, or special education, we try to have different apps at home. So a lot of different categories. We evaluate these with our team, we're not getting any money from these apps. These are just apps that we think really benefit kids that they have a high cognitive load that they don't overstimulate children, but really get kids to learn at the level that is age appropriate for them.

DJ Stutz  35:35  
I love it. And it's so funny to when you talked about how kids react so differently within the same family.

Meredith DePaolo  35:42  
No, you bring up a good point is when a parent says okay, we will I want you to do the learning apps for I'm going to set the timer on the stove for one hour, do your learning apps, and then you can have some free time. It's so difficult to police that because once again, one of the reasons we call it carrots and cake is because we're going back to the like the oldest parenting technique. Eat your vegetables before your dessert, do your carrots do what you have to do before you do what you want to do. And of course, if you hand your child a device and ask them to like police themselves, and they have Instagram or they have Roblox and they have YouTube, and then they have my favorite boss app, what are they going to do there? Again, that prefrontal cortex takes control and their decision making goes to what's fun, and you can't blame. You know, it's so hard to compete for learning how to ever compete with these multimillion dollar behemoths that just persuasively designed to get the kids attention. So that's where Carson kick tries to level the playing field. So all those great apps that you've bought in the past and your kids are not doing them, well, you can program it now. So they have to do it because they're gonna get that free time on the other apps and less they complete those learning apps that you as a parent want them to do.

DJ Stutz  36:57  
So good. Such a great technique. I love it. I really do. So how do our parents find out more about carrots and cake.

Meredith DePaolo  37:06  
So the number one place to find out everything, find out our story, find out the science behind it and all the experts that we conferred with to build this app, go to our website, which is www.carrotsandcake.com. You can also learn about us in the app store, the Apple App Stores, we're going to download it and I have a special code for your listeners. All listeners of Imperfect Heroes, if they download Carrots and Cake, there'll be a special code line and you want to enter Heroes. And that will give you a 60 day free trial. So that's really plenty of time to get on there and get your hands dirty and figure out if it's something that works for your family. And love it. You know if you guys will if your listeners if you do try it out, reach out to us, email us, you'll see our webs our email address on the website. Sorry, I should know that offhand. It's would be something at carrotsandcake.com. But anyway, email us let us know what you like, let us know what you don't like, let us know features that you think maybe the app would benefit from because we're still in an early stage with the company. And we are able to make these changes that our users are looking for.

DJ Stutz  38:17  
Love it. And thank you for that added bonus for my listeners. That's just so kind and wonderful. totally appreciate it. I always ask my guests the same question. And we know that there are no perfect parents, we know that that's how it works. And so how would you though describe a successful parent,

Meredith DePaolo  38:36  
I think a successful parent is somebody who strives for intention. So you take take a minute a day, just a little bit of time to think things through in a calm place where you have a level head. And then hopefully you figure out your ideas how you want to parent. And then you can bring that level headedness to your kids, when you're explaining the rules. And you know, what works for your family, what works for your kids, what works for you as a parent. And I just find it really freeing from that guilt that I was talking about earlier. And like you said, we're all doing the best that we can. That's all we can do.

DJ Stutz  39:13  
That's right. That's right. And I just so believe that just do the best you can continue learning. And so we can make little improvements here and there and give yourself some grace. Absolutely. Thank you so much for spending some time with us. And I'm so excited for your new program. And so what I'd like to do is actually, on my website, www.littleheartsacademyusa. I have a resources section. And so I would love to include this in our resources section for parents to

Meredith DePaolo  39:53  
be terrific. We'd love we'd love to for you to put it on your website. Absolutely.

DJ Stutz  39:57  
Yeah, we'll go ahead and get that done. So by the time this airs, it will already be on the websites for any of my listeners who want to jump in and and check it out. So another place that they can find you. So yeah, thank you so much for spending this time with us. And I hope that we'll be able to collaborate and work together some more in the future.

Meredith DePaolo  40:20  
I'd love that. Yeah, it was great to meet you, DJ.

DJ Stutz  40:26  
And if you want to learn more about Meredith, the app and the website, just click on the links in the show notes. And remember that wonderful offer that she gave towards the end of our conversation, for a free trial period on the app, it's a great app. And it's a great way to help you not be the bad guy with the kids and their screen time. And I love it. I also love that it gives kids choices. Once they're done with what they need to do, then they get to have fun. What a great life lesson for our kids to have. So I hope you'll check it out. And if you liked what you heard on today's podcast, be sure to rate review and blaze tell a friend. 

So before we wrap up, I want to share just an exciting opportunity with you. It's coming up very quickly. It's starting on November 13, just a few days from now, and I am hosting the 5 Days of Service challenge. You know, the holidays aren't just about decorations and parties. It's about reaching out to others, teaching our children about the joys of giving and creating those meaningful experiences as a family, this challenge is going to be a little different than our other ones. Each day, we're going to work together to plan a service event that truly matters to your family. And then on Thursday, we're going to put our plans into action. And then that's going to be followed by this reflective session on Friday where we get to share what we did and how exciting or how fun it was or how hard it was some of the things that went really well and was fun, and maybe some changes that you might make next time you want to do something like this. So join us in spreading kindness, and joy this holiday season. You know, it's a chance to be someone's superhero or maybe their special Christmas angel. So keep an eye on your email. And we can't wait to embark on this heartwarming journey with you and your loved ones. And you can register now and guess what the link is in the show notes. And of course, you can always find the link on my website, which is www.littleheartsacademyusa.com. So don't forget, you can also check us out on YouTube and Rumble and see the videos of us. So next week, my guests are Joe and Mel Hashey and they have their own podcast and it's called The Strong Family Project. And we are starting our holiday conversations for this season. And they're kicking us off and they are totally amazing. So check it out and see and until next time, let's find joy in parenting.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai