Growing Up in Public with Devorah Heitner (Screen Series #2 of 3)

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Speaker 1: Hi.

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Speaker 2: This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker.

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Speaker 3: And this is Sarah hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families.

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Speaker 4: Welcome to best of both worlds.

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Speaker 2: Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. In today's episode, I am going to be interviewing Devora Heidner, who is the author of two fascinating books. First the book screen Wise, which is out and everyone should go check out about how we interact with screens these days and particularly young people. And the second book, which will actually be out this fall, is called Growing Up in Public, and it's about how young people are now navigating this world where everything you do can exist forever, can be shared broadly with the universe, and how that affects both how they navigate the transition to adulthood and how we as parents can help them with this. So Growing Up in Public is not out until September. I got an early glance at it, which I was really grateful for.

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Speaker 4: Thank you so much, de Vora.

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Speaker 5: We'll mention it again in September so everyone can go out and get it, though obviously you can put in a pre order if you would like right now, because you are going to definitely want to read this when it comes out if you have teens or young adults in your life, tweens who are about to become teens that are dealing with this phenomenon.

00:01:43
Speaker 4: So, Sarah, I was kind of grateful that I did not grow up in public. I grew up in some pretty reasonable obscurity and you know Nowhere'sville, Indiana.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just very interesting to think about the role that like photographs kind of took in our lives and how much that has changed. You could get ready for the school dance and get those pictures taken, but there was no expectation that anybody else was going to see them. Probably allowed kids to maybe be a little bit less curated or more uninhibited around the camera, perhaps because they felt like that was just going to be for family consumption. And I have to admit I'm glad my awkward middle school years are not like posted everywhere, although people curate their own images, right, So had I been in middle schooler, I would have probably only chose the most flattering shot.

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Speaker 1: I had taken little.

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Speaker 5: To choose the flattering ones back then, and there were no filters to make you look better either. I mean, it's just sort of I remember there were like businesses at the mall where you could go take the glamour shots, right, because you didn't have the ability to do this on your own.

00:02:49
Speaker 4: It's sort of funny.

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Speaker 5: This came up for me recently because a Facebook friend was posting some photos from our high school experience and there was a really funny one of me from the flag team. But I remember that photo being taken in the same way I remember a lot of the photos that exist from high school being taken because they just weren't that many taken, right. It was only certain occasions you were definitely posing for them. Somebody had to get out the camera. It was a different sort of thing. And so when I see that, it's not like one of a million, it's one of a handful that we're taken and would have lasted.

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Speaker 4: So yeah, it's a very different experience. It really is our kids.

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Speaker 3: It's a challenge for them, but they do have again, perhaps more tools at their disposal as well.

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Speaker 4: Super interesting, super interesting, and it's an interesting interview. So I really hope people listen to it.

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Speaker 5: And yeah, so here's Devorah Heidner talking about being screenwise and about growing up in public. Well, Sarah and I are delighted to welcome Devora Heightner to the program. So Devora, can you introduce yourself to our listeners?

00:03:59
Speaker 4: Sure? I am Heightener and I wrote a book called Screenwise, helping kids thrive and survive in their digital world, and recently finished a book called Growing Up in Public, which will be out soon. And both books are about helping kids thrive in the digital age. And growing up in public is kind of like in response to the question people would always ask when I speak about kids and screens, which is like, Devora, this is great, this is so empowering, this is awesome. But I'm so glad my middle school years and my high school years and my college years are not public and shared. And every thought, every hairdow, every dumb thought that I had, everything that I tried isn't like out in the world. So how am I supposed to help my kid with that? Devora? Like I hear you on balance and all that. That's great, but like, how am I supposed to deal with this digital footprint stuff? Because this is ridiculous?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, Well, maybe you could talk a little bit that. I mean, what does it mean to grow up in public? I mean, how is life fundamentally different for you know, kids now, for teens, tweens, young adults versus when you know, you and I were kids.

00:05:05
Speaker 4: It's really a lot to manage. I mean, one of the things that kids can do now is quantify their following. You know, you can see how many YouTube or TikTok followers or how many people are you're connected to you on Snapchat or Instagram. And I think as parents we want to help kids think about the quality of their relationships and not just the quantity. So that's a big difference. Obviously, when I was a nerdy middle schooler, I could see that my lunch table wasn't the most popular lunch table. And I could see that I had three friends, and I knew I wasn't going to parties every weekend, but I didn't have to actually walk around with that number like emblazoned on my shirt, you know, like three to Foura. How many friends does she have? Three? Oh? Really? How many friends? Was that? Oh? Yeah? Three? Right? And so I think now kids are really in this place of like even your nine or ten year old can see like, oh, this this YouTube or that I follow, you know, has this many followers, or this street gaming streamer or this TikToker right, or this twitch person on Twitch. And I think that's a lot to navigate for kids. And I also think the idea that they're publicly searchable and we use that, I think in unfortunate ways. I mean, one of the biggest things I learned in writing growing up in public and I was already kind of on my way in this direction, but is that we should be focusing on character and not consequences, and not threatening our kids like, oh, you won't get into Princeton or Stanford if you post that, but really talking with them about who are you and what does that look like in your digital interactions, and not talking about again, if you post that, you know you won't get into Princeton, because when we say that to kids, we're actually saying to them, don't get caught, which is not the message we really want to be giving kids. It's not we don't want to tell them don't get caught with the xenophobic meme or the offensive tweet, right. We actually want to be saying, think about who you are and how your online presence reflects that. And that's a very different conversation than don't get caught right. And So I think when we emphasize the consequences of what might happen as opposed to the harm can cause when we share things that are harmful, that we're moving in the wrong direction with our kids. But I think that we're so scared, and I think parents and educators are truly having those fear based conversations with kids about reputation out of fear and out of what we've seen happen with adults, and maybe even in our own workplace, like maybe you work in a position where you hire and you've seen someone get danged for something in their digital profile and it can terrify us. So I do think our kids are growing up in public and we have to level with them about that. But I also think we can do things, as both parents and people in the workplace to push back on some of those things, and especially as we're hiring you know, college grads, recognizing that everyone's going to have a digital footprint and it's often going to be one that they created without the foresight into their career, especially when we think about college or pre college, and that we have to recognize our common humanity in that and not look for things necessarily that are about you know, out there to be out there to take people down. And we have to talk to our kids about again being good people and good human beings and thinking in that way as opposed to worrying about getting caught, because I think once we go to the consequences, we're already talking about the wrong things.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, that's funny to ponder how many people probably have college experiences that just wouldn't have survived the advent of constant photography and the ability to share stuff with the world pretty much instantly. Probably many people who did go to those colleges that you are mentioning in there. But a lot of people who are listening to this are parents, And I'm curious a couple of things, like how do children wind up behaving differently because they know they are growing up in public?

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Speaker 4: Right?

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Speaker 5: Like what are you seeings sort of some of the changes in how children behave in this universe.

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Speaker 4: Well, one of the things that's happening is kids. Some kids will ask to be posted on your social media and we'll want to see how many likes they have. And that might happen because you post something and then you show them, look how many people like your gymnastics routine, you know, and then you show that to them, and then they get excited about it, and then there's other responses too. Some kids are become much more private. I'm not allowed to share my kid on social When you go to my Instagram, you might be like, wait, she has a kid, because I'm not allowed to share him. So it's been a long time since I've been allowed to do that. And he knows I've been writing a book about privacy and reputation, so I'd be very busted if I shared without permission. So the things we want to do in regard to that when our kids are little is start asking before we share their picture and really be good about observing that boundary with them, because that teaches them that it's something we do. We ask people before we share their image or their stories or news about them, and that it teaches them it's okay to say no to a share. The flip side is the kid who wants to be shared on your social I would be mindful of doing that too often. I think it could be fun. You know, maybe like you could do it for the holidays, or you know, if you're a digital holiday card person versus a card in the mail person or something. But I wouldn't go overboard with like the like ca because we know that some kids are going to be really vulnerable in that direction and they're going to want and seek that feedback. And truly, the like button gets us where we're the most humans. So we want to make sure that I'm not throwing kids under the bus and saying, oh, they want likes like I want likes two and I post I want that response as well. We all, I think, want to be regarded and noticed when we share things, whether it's online or in person. But I think we don't want to set our kids up to be counting their likes when they're seven or nine or eleven, because then when they get on social that's going to become a measure that maybe we're communicating to them is important. Instead, I think we want to communicate. What's important is reciprocity and relationships showing up for friends, right, The number of friends is less important than how do you feel when you're with them? Having one really good friend is worth way more than having a bunch of shallow, weak ties with people who have just essentially hit a button, which is all liking someone has to do. So. Another thing I would ask kids is if they notice someone has a lot of following, like again, they come to you like, oh, that TikToker, that YouTuber there, you know, they have so much influence. There's is to say to them, well, what would you do if you had one hundred thousand followers? Like what would that mean to you? And what would you want to say to one hundred thousand people? You also could ask your child do you think it would ever be stressful to have one hundred thousand people or ten thousand people, or six thousand people or six million people following you? And what what do you think that's like? And what about especially kid influencers, because we can get into these really interesting questions with kids, Like if you have, say a twelve year old, you can ask them what was really their jam? You know, what they loved the most in the world when they're nine, and then think about, well, when you're sixteen, do you think that's still you know, what, do you think you'll still love the things you love now from being twelve? Like or do you think if when you were eight or nine, you know, you got super known for your love of Pokemon, and now that you're in six or seventh grade, maybe that isn't the thing you want to be known for. In the same way, do you think when you're fifteen or sixteen you might feel that way about what you love now in seventh grade. Not that there's anything wrong with the things you love, and by the way, not that there's anything wrong with loving Pokemon when you're sixteen or thirty seven or fifty, just that you may find that your interests do shift over time and the things that you would want to be known for in the world. So we can talk to kids about that. What I wouldn't do is just put down their desires, like say, your kid really wants to be famous. Maybe your kid is going to be famous, maybe they're going to be a performer, maybe they're going to be a politician. And just like if your kids said they wanted to be a professional athlete. We all know that the actual odds of any one of us having that as our career are low. But we wouldn't just dismiss that. We'd be like, Wow, you're going to have to practice really hard to be a professional tennis player. Wow, you know, do you want to go to like a tennis class this summer? Like what are you doing toward that goal? I think we wouldn't say that's a stupid idea, that's crazy whatever. We wouldn't just like put down their idea. We would kind of find a way to support their idea within the bounds of what was realistic. And I think the younger kids are especially, you know, a little kid saying I want to be a streamer for a living, Like, wow, you must really love games. What do you like about that streamer? If it's your seventeen year old saying I want to be a streamer, I don't want to go to college, I think we can have a different, maybe a little bit more of a tough chat with that kid. But even there, I mean, what if you have a kid who's seventeen and they've designed sixty Minecraft mods and they're making a living, they have a pretty good argument to make that online entrepreneurship is happening for them. I wouldn't totally dismiss it. I might still fight hard for college or some kind of broader education or trade preparation for the world. But at that point you have a kid who has something to stand on, Right, They're not just saying I want this and I have no idea what it would take. Yeah, I think it's really important to kind of help kids moderate what they think about fame, and also to think gently about the downsides of fame without sort of hitting them over the head with like that's silly, or being an influencer as vapid or whatever. I mean. I've certainly talked to teenagers who really have strong desires around this stuff, and it is interesting to think about are they capable of thinking about some of the downsides, Because, of course, someone who's living their life you tube and like getting paid to like wake up in their messy bed or whatever, put on close and go skateboarding, Like, of course that's going to look more appealing than getting a job. Job.

00:14:09
Speaker 5: Yes, Well, it's funny because you know, I've talked with my kids about what the business model is of all this you know, at various points people wanted to be YouTubers and say, well, okay, what would tell me what your first four or five episodes would be about? Right, and you know it's hard to sustain, and we you know, get a good conversation about entrepreneurship in that regard. We are going to take a quick ad break and we will be back with more with Devora Heidner about growing up in Public. So let's talk a little bit about the conversations we should be having with kids about what they share online. A lot of your book Growing Up in Public talk about, you know, the conversations you want to have that you want to communicate before anything is a crisis, before things just that being a parent who talks.

00:15:11
Speaker 4: About these things is a good approach to all that. So what are the conversations we should be having about what people share online once they start getting their own access to the internet and to social media. I think we should talk about the fact that what a lot of people share is a bit of a performance. That's why maybe be Real, which was out lest Yer didn't do as well. Right, Nobody actually wants to see us unloading the dishwasher or doing our homework or doing the boring things that constitute frankly, a ton of our lives, right, Like much of our lives are sort of the routines that we have to get through so that we can have those moments at the top of the mountain with our family in the sunrise or that, so we can have, you know, those picturesque moments in you know, celebrating a holiday or at a party. So it's good to remind kids that those peak moments that people tend to share in the more visual formats like you know in Instagram type space a performative, and that if someone's really meeting like the love of their life or their new best friend or the person they're going to tour the world in a bandwidth at that party, they're so busy in that moment that they're not taking up pictures by the punch bowl. So if they're taking pictures by the punch bowl and you're at home on a Saturday night, it's easy to feel like I'm lonely, I'm a loser, I don't have friends, Like look at this other person, they have such a great life. But we have to remember they're probably taking pictures because they feel awkward and bored at that party. That's why they're taking pictures, and they want you to think they have a life. So we have to kind of remind kids that it's a performance and that they don't want to be sort of sucked into that, and really help kids if they're getting involved in, you know, looking at other people's locations or posts and it's making them feel left out, then I would really work with them on having strategies to figure out how to ground in the present, how to feel better, which could include turning off your phone and putting it away, or turning to some other kind of content, or maybe following new people who are more inclusive of you. You know, there's a bunch of things you can do in terms of your own posts. A lot of kids, we do want to talk to them about what to share and who to share it with, and that also follow their lead. One of the things I'm most excited about that I really learned from the teenagers I interviewed for growing up in public was that kids are sharing in new ways about LGBT plus issues, about sexuality in general, about gender identity, and about mental health, and about neurodiversity right and things that we were literally all of those things were things that many of us who are parents today were taught to never talk about, never ask about, not bring up in public. These were very stigmatized things. I was in therapy in high school, and I didn't even need to be told by my parents, don't tell anyone you're in therapy. I just figured it out from thosegeist. I just knew to be like, I haven't orthy do one disappointment, I have whatever, I'm busy, I have to go places right. I never told my friends I was in therapy. Even my closest friends probably didn't know I was in therapy. And again, my parents never even explicitly said that. Now kids talk about that stuff, they talk about mental health, and I think as adults we should celebrate that the flips it is. I wouldn't want my kid finding their primary mental health support on the internet. I would not want my kid going on a discord, you know, for people with ADHD or neurodiversity or whatever, and having that be their primary support. If it's an affinity group and it feels good and it's supportive, and it's in addition to being in a social group or being in therapy or having other support in their real life great, but I wouldn't want that to be where they go to self diagnose, nor where they would find their primary support and community. So I think that's really important we want to balance that out. But if your kid is expressing themselves and expressing their identity in this place, it can make us really nervous. And this is where as adults in the workplace, we might have seen people be discriminated against for these exact things or for these identities. And I think we have to recognize that the kids are changing the world and by the time they are in the workplace, sharing about neurodiversity or LGBT identity is going to be a more typical choice and that your kid, truly, if they fall into one of those identityiesed categories, will not want to go work somewhere where that's going to be a stigmatized, problematized identity. And so yes, it might be self limiting, But also I am in favor of the ways the kids are all right here and the ways kids are changing the world. I do think kids need to protect themselves in their privacy. So if you're worried about a kid over sharing in a way that makes them too vulnerable to too many peers. I would absolutely work with them on limiting their shares or talking about sharing more in person. So that would be a kid who maybe is just coming home from like I don't know, like a hospitalization or something really serious. But if a kid wants to shout from the rooftops about their pan identity or you know, identifying as having dyslexia or something, I would recognize that it's a different world than we live in.

00:19:41
Speaker 5: Well, that's definitely true, yeah, that it's a totally different world on stuff like that. But I wonder if there are like specific rules that are helpful for people like who are going you know, you giving a kid access to this whole thing. I mean, you know, what are there practical things that sound like, you know, don't post where you live. I don't know, is there some sort of yeah, well, like what are the roles that wait?

00:20:02
Speaker 4: And it starts even younger, like it could be even before your kid is posting on social that they're like on roadblocks or whatever and not you know, someone could ask your second or third grade or on roadblocks where they live. And so a lot of times kids are playing games on public servers at a young age, and that's the first time we need to kind of talk about internet strangers versus in person strangers. I actually think both in person and internet strangers can be okay. But that's a nuanced message, you know, Like you don't want your third grader afraid to ask the librarian and the children's room for help. That's a friendly stranger, right. So we want to teach kids like, yes, sometimes it is okay to talk to people we don't know, and on the Internet, it might be okay to play a game with someone we don't know, but if they start asking personal questions, or if they start dropping hateful speech or splurs, you can just leave. And we need to teach our kids that it's okay. You don't even have to be nice about it. You don't even have to be like I don't like what you can just go if it's the internet, right, and that's a very different you know, whereas if it's your in person, like say it's your friend, say you're on the sixth grade group chat, and someone starts talking in a mean way about a teacher another kid, then you may want to upstand. You may want to go, for example, individually to the person who's saying something mean. You may want to go individually to person who's been targeted, You may want to call someone out in front of everyone, or you may just want to leave the chat. What we want to do at every agent stage, whether it's roadblocks the early years of group texting, which for a lot of kids is fifth and sixth grade, whether it's the early years of social media, which is often middle school can be sometimes earlier, or whether it's kids are even older and thinking about what's my digital reputation toward applying to college. At every agent stage, you want to rethink, like who am I connected to? What are the boundaries? What's safe for me? Your fifteen year old could meet a friend on discord that they might want to meet in real life, but there's some safer ways to do that, right And certainly if your kid wants to travel to do that, like you would go with them, you know, like I, But I've talked to adults who have driven their kid to us Starbucks in the next town over to meet another kid that they met playing a game, And especially if your kid has social struggles, you might be open to helping them find a real, like minded peer that they met in a space like discord, but that's definitely a yellow light situation that's not just to like here's a bus ticket can have fun situation. So I think at every age we want to be thinking about who our kids are connected to and also the time that it's taking from other pursuits. Like there's no real right amount of screen time, but we certainly wouldn't want our kids doing screens instead of sleeping, which is huge, right. A lot of kids are cutting into sleep, which we know is well really not good from physical and mental health. And we want to make sure that they're having opportunities to do other things and that in some cases, their screen based interests may lead us to help them. Especially after these last three years, they may have forgotten how to find any novelty off the screen, so we may need to nudge them like, hey, you're watching those cooking videos. You know what we can do in the kitchen that needs to happen, Like three times a day we could cook, I know, and like there's a lot of people around here who'll be really happy if you do that, and you're going to get a lot of love and appreciation, Like you see you you're watching them make those cupcakes down there. Guess what you know, like we and your you know, your siblings or your friends or whoever, Like you'll be the most popular kid on your college dorm. And all of our kids can be doing more around the house. And I know you've talked about that on the show, and I think it's so important that we think about, like as busy working parents, like what can we do so that our kids can be helpful? Like something your kid could do to be helpful is make dinner one night a week. And if your kids watching cooking shows, like like I see an aptitude and an interest. If your kid's watching stuff that's, you know, maybe less useful, like slim or whatever, at least have them make this lime, Like I want to see them get off YouTube and go make this lime. Get off TikTok and go make the dance, like do the thing, like don't only watch the thing. And that even includes gaming videos, Like if you're going to watch all these how to videos on gaming, at least tell me what you learned and show me how you're doing it in the game game, Like I want to see that you're taking this knowledge that you're getting. Because so much of YouTube and TikTok is like how to knowledge and applying it.

00:23:49
Speaker 5: Yeah, and in terms of what they talk about and say, I mean, one of the conversations I've been trying to have with my kids, I mean, based on some things that have happened in our community, not with my children, but broad in the community, like not to say anything like the digital world is still the world and there's still real people, and that you wouldn't want to say anything in the digital world that you wouldn't say to somebody and say if people knew who you were, right, one hundred percent. We never want to be on apps that allow us to be anonymous because the temptation to be mean in those spaces or to experience meanness, Like a lot of kids will be like, I want to go on this anonymous app to find out what people really think.

00:24:28
Speaker 4: Well, you don't. You don't want to know you did not and be those are cesspools. People are going there to be mean, So you're basically like going in with a kick me sign on your back. If you go into those spaces, it's not a good place. It's nothing. Nobody comes out unscathed. And yeah, we want to always remember there's other human beings on the other end of every digital interaction, whether you're posting on a famous person's YouTube, like a comment, whether you're liking somebody's Instagram post, and if you that includes if you like a post or a comment that someone makes on a group text, that's mean. If you like a comment, not even say anything where you agree with it, but if you just hit that little thumbs up on a comment that's mean about someone else or on a meme, you are voting for that, and you are on record as saying like, I thumbs up that. And I've seen kids be stunned that they're in trouble, like if there's bullying or whatever, and they just liked it, and they're like, well, I just liked it. I barely looked at it, and it's like, well, don't like something you've barely looked at. Yeah, Because when someone sees that, like the target say of that mean comment, sees that you liked it, they're not going to feel like, well, they just liked it. They probably didn't even really read it. They're going to be like, oh my gosh, I thought that person was okay. I thought I could be safe with that person, And now I've seen they've liked this really cruel comment, right, So we just have to really think that through and it is very hard to remember, but that there are other human beings on the other end of all these interactions. When we have these interactions, we're alone, and a lot of what we do as parents, we're summing out our interactions. We're not modeling as much as our parents did because our parents were on the phone and we could overhear. So one of the things we need to do as adults and mentors to our kids and frankly mentors to younger people in the workplace is actually communicate explicitly about the communication choices we're making because our kids don't know so to even say out loud this is very heavy news. I'm going to wait to talk about this in person, or I'm having a lot of conflict with this person on text, so I'm going to try to work it out with them face to face or on the phone, because it's not going to get better and really teaching kids, guess what if you get into a back and forth with someone on text and it's getting worse and worse, it's not going to get better on text. You have to call them up and work it out.

00:26:34
Speaker 5: Yes, exactly, We're going to take one more quick ad break and we'll be right back.

00:26:51
Speaker 4: All right, I am back with Devaara Height. Now we're talking about growing up.

00:26:54
Speaker 5: In public, how kids and parents can deal with the fact that everything we do is out there. And I wanted to sort of you know, obviously there's great things that happen online. We could make great friends online. Sarah and I connected through our blogs many years ago. That's how this podcast even came to be.

00:27:10
Speaker 4: But obviously the potential for when things.

00:27:12
Speaker 5: Go wrong, they can go very wrong, and all we've all seen that with certain people saying. So, let's say you are in a situation where your kid does something you know, stupid and it's out.

00:27:23
Speaker 4: There and now you got to deal with it. How do you deal with it? Right? So you want to find out as much as possible, and I actually I can give you for the show notes. I have an SOS guide, like literally, like for that situation, like my kid or a peer has shared something and it's either going on in the community. I mean, the first thing we want to do is if it's a peer, say it's not your kid, do not circulate it, do not share it, even if you're horrified by it, like it doesn't make it any better. And if they've said something harmful that targets a group of people or individuals, you're actually amplifying and exacerbating that harm by sharing it. If it's your own kid, you want to find out who's seen it, And I'm going to give you like two different category. So say your kid has shared something that, out of context maybe sounds really mean or problematically, maybe they said something about a teacher in a group text and someone's like sharing it all the way around the community. They need to make restitution for that. They need to go to the person that they've spoken about badly. They need to apologize, They need to graciously and gracefully accept whatever consequences come down. And then they do need to move forward. And they have a right to move forward because and all of us do. None of us should be forever paying for past mistakes, but especially children and teenagers should get even more grace from the community. So if someone asks you about it, you can say, my kid has made amends for that and we're moving forward and close the door to the conversation. And same thing with your child. If you know people who are still sharing it and amplifying it. You can go to them or go to their parents and ask them to stop sharing and again let them know that it's causing more harm, not just to your child who messed up, or to the kid who messed up, but to the person who was targeted. Right, we don't want to keep amplifying that. And I think as parents, sometimes it's someone else's kid. Like say a picture goes around of another kid, you know, vaping or drinking or making another kind of mistake, and someone has videotaped that. We have to remember that picture may have been taken very out of contact. We don't know the story. We don't know what our kid was doing. If our kid's not in the picture, we don't know what our kid is doing like two feet to the left of that picture, or what pictures might exist of them. And so I would be very very careful before taking the moral high ground in that situation, and I would really focus on what the concern really should be. So, if someone was harmed, the concern should be on the person who was harmed. If a group was targeted, the concern should be how do we raise up that group in our community? And make sure that we're doing Say it was a racist incident, like, how are we doing anti racist work in this community? Right? If it was anti Semitic, how are we dealing with that? If it was islamophobic, if it was homophobic, like, how are we supporting queer kids in this community? How are we supporting Muslim kids in this community? Like very directly, we want to focus on the targeted community and not as much on the effect like this, Let the school or the community deal with the consequences. But it shouldn't be like a bunch of parent vigilantes going around to try to shame the offender. The focus should be on the target group. If it's more like you're a kid was behaving poorly, like say vaping or smoking cigarettes, doing drugs, whatever, I would focus on, Does my kid know the stats on addiction? Is my you know? Have I read books like Addiction and Aculation by my friend Jessica Lakey? Have I prepared myself? Have I had the talk? Right? Most of us have had the talk with our kids about sex and sexuality or drunk driving, but like, have we had to talk about vaping? You know? Is my kid really prepared? Asking kids the hard questions like have you been offered this stuff hit at a party or in a social situation, and not again focusing on making an example of the one kid, but just really saying, okay, well, this is evidence to me. This is the canary and the coal mine that it's in the community, which we already knew because it's everywhere. All this stuff is everywhere. So how do we have the tough conversation if a nude image of your kid is going around an explicit image. I have a whole chapter on sexting, and by the way, help to parents. No kid in the world calls sexting sexting. It is not talked about that way. They talk about sending or sending nudes just f way. If your kid has shared a picture of themselves stay topless or in they're underpants or no clothes, or just like a naughty text even and it's gotten out there, I think we want to make sure that we communicate to our child that I have so much respect for you. I'm sorry this got out without your control. Nothing you could do would make me lose that respect for you. I'm concerned for your safety and your emotional well being right now, And let's talk about the steps we can take to try to rain this in. Like, if someone has violated your trust and shared this picture without your consent, that's a really big deal. It's against the law. You have rights in this situation. And then you know, the specifics are really going to vary depending on like how widely it's circulated, was it circulated with malicious intent or by mistake and all these kinds of things. But it's very important that we communicate to a kid who's a right in an incredibly embarrassing situation that's super stigmatized by our society, particularly even in twenty twenty three because of the double standard for girls, it's super stigmatized, and so we need to make sure that we're talking to kids not in a double standard way, in a respectful way, and just to say, like wanting to information on sexuality, including wanting to know that someone thinks you're attractive, is normal and Okay, we just don't live in a world where this is a safe way for young people or really any of us because of digital lack of privacy to express our sexuality. So you know, legally they may have made a mistake, but morally, if they shared consensually with someone else. Your kid is not the one who made the big mistake. The person who made the big mistake is the person who shared without consent. Legally, all everyone's in a mess, right so I can't and that's true in most states, in most countries, so where you're listening to this, If your kid is a minor and they've shared a new that's a whole separate problem. But morally and ethically, I would really focus on, you know, if your kid hasn't violated content, if your kid like harassed someone else or shared without that person's consent, then that's a whole other level and that's a different conversation. But if your kid's picture is out there, I would focus on trying to get it back, trying to help them feel safe at school, making sure the school counselor knows so they have a safe way to return to school, and also making sure that people in the community have a raised awareness of how widespread this is. A lot of kids have done this, not the majority at this point, but enough that even if your kid never sends a picture like this, they will one hundred percent here about someone doing it in high school, if not middle school.

00:33:36
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's really something because yes, the advent of cameras where that can happen versus you know, like when we were growing up, I mean people took photos that had taken so many steps to share it around to the world that people would have sobered up long before they thought to do it. So, yeah, this is all very good food for thought for those of us who are raising kids and the various conversations we need to have with them. They have their online selves and as they grow up in public. So demorrow we always end with a love of the week, something that we are enjoying, so you know.

00:34:12
Speaker 4: It's it doesn't have to be tech related. It could be anything.

00:34:18
Speaker 5: But I have been actually enjoying One of my kids is on social media, but obviously we follow each other and I like just.

00:34:28
Speaker 4: To see what gets posted, because it's not negative.

00:34:32
Speaker 5: It's just a way to see what's going on in life, you know, and the things that are chosen to share.

00:34:36
Speaker 4: It's like, oh, yeah, that's what's on the mind right now.

00:34:39
Speaker 5: And I think that is an insight that we wouldn't have necessarily had in the past. And so, you know, it's just a different way of learning about kids.

00:34:49
Speaker 4: How about you I love that. I just put on my wet suit today for the first time. I live in Chicago and Lake Michigan is very cold, yes, and so I went in today for the first time of the season in the water was fifty five degrees, so only my face was really exposed to the fifty five degree water because I was in like my full like you know, insulated cap and all the things. It was wonderful and I have to say, it feels so much better. And you know, if you read Anna Lemki or other people that are talking about some of the benefits of cold water immersion on the mood, and I really was quite stressed out when I went in, and I feel a lot better now, So I'm very excited about that. That's great. Sounds kind of frigid to me, but to each the wet suit makes it possible. I would not be in that water with no wet suit, right exactly, die literally exactly exactly.

00:35:34
Speaker 5: Well, were maybe becauldn't Obviously your your book is coming out soon. Encourage our listeners to go buy it. Growing Up in Public. If you've got a kid, they are going to be growing up in public in a way that we did not. Unless you are you know, a much younger parent listening to this, which we have some but obviously our early twenty something parents probably did have this experience, but many of us are a little older than that, we did not, and so it's a.

00:35:58
Speaker 4: Lot of food for thought.

00:35:59
Speaker 5: Just you know how we approach, you know, even topics we didn't talk about, like using surveillance apps on your kids, which is a whole different Yeah.

00:36:07
Speaker 4: You could do a whole post sometimes like an Instagram live about life through c Yeah, exactly, and whether that's a good idea or not.

00:36:14
Speaker 5: And you know, I are on the side of not, but different people reach different conclusions. So you know, well you can let me know and the shore notes all that people can write about that, but please let our listeners know where they can find you and find more about you and your work.

00:36:30
Speaker 4: Absolutely so I'm at Devorah Heightener dot com and I'll share those soos guides with you which you can join, and Growing Up in Public is the newest latest book. And then I'm also on Instagram at Devora Hayner PhD. So those are a couple of good places to track me down and I share a lot of insights in all these places that I love hearing from parents about some of the things you've learned from your kids, mentoring experiences, et cetera.

00:36:56
Speaker 5: Wonderful Well, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you fascinating stuff. I've definitely been thinking about my interview with Devora for a while now and again, people can go pick.

00:37:07
Speaker 4: Up screen Wise now.

00:37:08
Speaker 5: You will be able to pick up Growing Up in Public in September, or you can pre order it now. We will talk about it again when it comes out in September, because it's a really important topic. So Sarah question this week, A listener writes in that I want to read more. So many of us trying to spend a little bit less time on screens, hopefully trying to read a little bit more. And this listener notes that both of us do in fact read a fair amount. So when do you find time to read?

00:37:34
Speaker 3: I typically read a little bit of nonfiction in the morning. That's just kind of part of my waking up routine. I drink coffee, I have the book there, and I typically read novels at night or perhaps like if I'm waiting in the car for a kid. They're kind of my like downtime books and wind down books and my number one tip for finding time to read is to choose books that you enjoy and to not be afraid of saying goodbye to a book if you are finding it a slog. There are so many great resources now to find book recommendations. Often you can find someone who's like almost like your book twin and you know if they love something, you're going to enjoy it as well. So I do feel like the books that I've selected have just gotten like, I don't know, I've picked a lot of winners, but I haven't picked them. I've been basing them off of what other people are raving about, and when it's someone's favorite book of the year, there's a decent chance that I'm at least going to find it somewhat compelling to read. It also means that I tend to stick to certain genres that I enjoy for the most part. I mean that's neither here nor there, But I honestly think some people who struggle to read are making it a chore. And it's the whole point now that we're adults, for the most part, is that it should be fun for you. So the book selection is a really big part of how I find time to read.

00:38:53
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, if there's something you want to read, it's just more compelling use of your leisure time. And in fact, if you're looking at your life and you're not sure where the pockets are that you might be able to read, you should try picking up something that's just I mean an absolute page turner. I don't know, people haven't read Harry Potter. You could do that, but it could be like a John Grisham novel or you know what the Da Vinci Code or something just you know, one of those books that's like known for being a page turner, because then you'll find yourself repurposing little pockets.

00:39:21
Speaker 4: Of time through your day.

00:39:23
Speaker 5: However else you're spending your various hours because you'll want to find out what happens next, So that can be one helpful thing there. I would say that I have two forms of reading. I mean, one is my structured reading projects that I've been doing for the past few years, where I'm trying to get through something that's bigger, more important. That is, you know, the books and stories I would have liked to have read right that I want to have on the list of things I have read. And so for that I take a very structured approach of reading a certain number of pages every single day so that over the long haul you can get through something big. And it's never that much at any given time, but I tend to do that in the morning. The leisure reading, it really is driven by what do I feel like reading, and I try.

00:40:08
Speaker 4: Not to have any sort of.

00:40:12
Speaker 3: How would I put this, like value judgment.

00:40:14
Speaker 4: Yeah, like no value judgment.

00:40:16
Speaker 5: Like if I want to read a stupid book on decluttering, like I can read it, you know, especially because this is stuff I'm often reading while I'm sitting in Henry's room waiting for him to go to bed, at it on my phone. It does not need to be Warren Piece. I already read Warren Piece, right. That is what the structured morning reading takes care of.

00:40:32
Speaker 4: So I feel like I've got this intellectually serious stuff that's happened.

00:40:37
Speaker 5: And so if I want to read, you know, the equivalent of brain candy at night, it is totally fine and not even like good story brain candy.

00:40:45
Speaker 4: I'm talking like the book equivalent of magazines is often what I am reading at night.

00:40:52
Speaker 5: So yeah, just if you don't like the book, don't read it. One quick tip here just to maybe save yourself some money. If you're like me and reading a lot on your phone, I have the Kindle app. I always do the free sample. Now Amazon allows you to download a free sample that's usually somewhere between eight and fifteen percent of the book, so it's not a small amount, like you'll be able to tell in that amount of time if you're going to want to read this book or not. And if you find in the first few pages that it is a terrible book and you want nothing to do with it, well, no money's gone, no harm, no foul, go find the next thing. But almost universally, if you liked the first eight to fifteen percent, you're going to like the rest of the book. There's very few people who put their you know, make a totally different book after the first eight to fifteen percent. So make sure you take that one extra little step and you'll probably find yourself with more books that you do, in fact wish to complete.

00:41:45
Speaker 4: Love it.

00:41:46
Speaker 3: And if anybody has book recks and they want to put them in the show notes of this episode of something they've read recently that was an amazing page turner that they think might help those who want to kind of get a jump on their reading journey. Please share that I recommend for summer anything Ellen Hildebrand. It's great summer genre, very beachy, very nantucket, a lot of fun.

00:42:08
Speaker 4: Right. I haven't actually read her sop yeats. Maybe I should do that. All right?

00:42:13
Speaker 5: Well, this has been the interview with Devora Heidner, author of Screenwise and Growing Up in Public. We will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together.

00:42:24
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.

00:42:31
Speaker 2: And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.

00:42:36
Speaker 1: This has been the best of both worlds podcasts.

00:42:39
Speaker 2: Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.