The Opt-Out Family with Erin Loechner
Summary:
Ready to change your family’s tech habits? In this episode of the Show Me Homeschool podcast, host Erin chats with Erin Loechner, founder and author of the Opt-Out Family and Other Goose, a flexible, all-in-one program with 3 daily pillars for kids ages 2-7. Erin shares her journey from social media influencer to embracing a low-tech lifestyle, emphasizing authentic connections over screens.
Discover her family's "roots and wings" philosophy that fosters a balanced homeschooling environment. Erin offers practical strategies for setting tech boundaries and nurturing meaningful interactions, making this episode a must-listen for parents looking to strengthen family ties and create screen-free spaces.
Links & Resources:
Opt-Out Family website: optoutfamily.com
Other Goose: A screen-free activity program for kids, othergoose.com
Erin Lochner’s Book: The Opt-Out Family
Protect Young Eyes by Chris McKenna
"How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk" by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlis at Amazon
Connect with Erin & Joe at Show Me Homeschool:
On Instagram, @show.me.homeschool
On X, @ShowMeHomeSch
On Pinterest, @showmehomeschool
Be sure to leave a rating and review, and subscribe so you never miss an episode! For questions or comments email us: info@showmehomeschool.com
Transcript:
[0:00] Hello, and welcome back to the Show Me Homeschool podcast. Today,
[0:04] I have a lovely guest who I'm so excited to speak with. Her name is Erin Loechner. She is the founder of Global Tech Free Movement, the Opt Out Family, and intentional homeschool co-op, Other Goose. Erin Loechner is a former social media influencer who walked away from a million fans to live a low-tech lifestyle and is now teaching others how to do the same. Her cutting-edge work has been praised in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Huffington Post, as well as on the Today Show. When she's not scrawling on her trusty steno pad, Aaron and her husband and their three kids spend their days chasing Alpenglow, reading Kipling, and biking to town for more tortillas.
[0:51] I'm Erin. And I'm Joe. We're the hosts of the Show Me Homeschool podcast, where we guide parents through the wilderness of home education. Each weekly episode will focus on supporting and encouraging homeschool moms and dads through conversational interviews with like-minded Christian leaders in the homeschool community. In our experience, we've seen the lack of resources and support available for homeschool dads, so we want to address that by covering relevant topics concerning husbands and fathers as they lead their families through this lifestyle of home education. We understand the need for creating connections and building authentic relationships to sustain a healthy homeschool environment for yourself and your children. Our goal is not to show you how to replicate our homeschool, but to show you how you can create a home learning lifestyle that is sustainable for your family. Show Me Homeschool is here to come alongside you.
[1:47] I love that intro, Erin. How are you? I'm good, Erin. How are you? Erin show. We're going to have fun. I love it. So Erin and I connected through a mutual friend. We were both at the same conference. Erin was speaking and I was on the panel. And so we met and I feel like we talked about this, but I think we had met previously at a Bloom and Blossom conference several years ago. And I was just so excited to connect with you, Erin, especially when I heard you speak and learned a little bit more about your life and your homeschooling journey. And so do you want to tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, of course. So we live in the Midwest. My husband and I have been married for almost 20 years. We have three kids. They're just 12, 8, and 4. So we've been homeschooling the whole way through, really, from the get-go. But our homeschooling used to involve a lot of international travel. So it's shifted, you know, over the once you add children and then another one, it kind of does shift a bit. But we've had a lot of iterations of what our homeschool has looked like. But I would say kind of from the beginning, the focus was always on the roots and wings. We very much subscribe to the roots and wings idea. How do we protect without bubble wrapping? How do we encourage without demotivating? And then how do we let these kids, you know, find their place in the world, but their unique place in the world? And so we do try to center on some of those pillars.
[3:14] Excellent. So I know that you've had quite a career before you came into homeschooling. I have a lot of questions all the time from moms who were working moms and then transitioned to homeschooling. And I just feel like, how do you use your skill set in the corporate world as it pertains to homeschool?
[3:33] Oh, yeah, that's a great question. You know, I think moms and really any homeschooling parent would probably all agree that kind of the rhythm that we're creating in our own home, it's a bit as if, you know, we do have that skill set of corporate world that transfers over. I think my journey was a little different. It didn't really work in like a nine to five situation, but I did work for HGTV.com. And so a lot of the parallels were, you know, we had this renovation show. It was two years, 24 episodes. And so we really had to learn time management. You know, we were producing, directing and also doing the work on the house and then doing work on the filming of the house. So we were kind of working 24-7. So I think my husband and I thought homeschooling would be so much easier than that, right? Yeah. These are blood words, you know what I mean? Because, I mean, it's not that different. You're still, you're kind of project managing this ideal that certainly on paper looks fantastic, and yet you're working with actual humans. And then you realize that it's so much harder when you have that personality to be productive and to get things done because people aren't necessarily the most productive things. You know, just just parenting does not always feel productive, even though it is. I think while there are many parallels in terms of grit and long term planning and goal setting and kind of powering through some of those harder moments.
[5:00] Homeschooling is certainly the biggest challenge that I've encountered since just in kind of unlearning a lot of the plowing ahead and just really inviting and slowing down so that the little ones can keep up and plow ahead.
[5:12] In their direction, you know, and I kind of take a backseat and mentor them along the way. I love that. And that really feeds into what I really wanted to talk about on this podcast, which is your book, The Opt-Out Family. I picked it up at the conference, loved it. And I just, I had to talk to you about it because I feel like this is such a struggle. Do you want to talk through what is the Opt-Out Family? Because what you're talking about with homeschool is intentionality. And that is such a theme throughout this book is how you're intentionally raising your children in a way that is low tech, but with the intention of training and keeping them safe and secure. But like you said, not hovering and devaluing themselves as individuals and with the ability to make their own decisions. So do you want to talk about how you came by this Opt Out Family book and what it's done for your family?
[6:06] Yeah, of course. And you're right. And we're working from a place, not a sphere. You know, we say often in our home, it's not enough to say no to devices, whether it's iPads or phones or whatever, we have to say yes to something better. So it really came about, it was a lived message. You know, I, again, I was an influencer. And so I had over a million followers on different channels. And even from the beginning, I was pretty boundaried in terms of what I was sharing around my children. My husband works for Apple's ad agency. We kind of knew how the sausage was made. We knew that we didn't want to share their faces online. We didn't want to share their full names online. We wanted to be able to talk about parenting without talking about parenting our specific children. And so through that experience, even with that, I recognized as the algorithm kind of grew stickier and stickier, and as things kind of became more layered, I knew eventually this was not, meaning social media, was not going to be a place I would ever encourage my kids to go. And so, you know, as parents, we kind of take a step back and we think, okay, if I'm not using this product the way I want my kids to use it, what do I need to change about myself? And I recognized I would feel hypocritical in 10 years when my daughter says, well, you're on social media, why can't I be?
[7:21] And so I just wanted to experiment with, can I leave social media? Can I still have this career, meaning a writer, you know, that's my primary and primarily an author. And so can I still do that without social media? And the world will tell you no, you know, the world will tell you that's crazy. And I just wanted to try it and give it a go. And I found that, yeah, it is, it's harder in some ways, easier in others.
[7:43] But yeah, I just, I kind of stopped that world a bit. I just hit pause on that, knowing that if I were to continue my social media career, I would be parenting with my phone in my hand a lot more than not. And certainly as a homeschooling, you know, we're with our kids all the time. Well, I just didn't really want my kids to grow up with that kind of visual. And so our family motto became be more engaging than the algorithm. And we just really recognized that to know our kids better than an Instagram ad does would require a lot of work, you know, a lot of influence that was earned and not just sort of inherited. It would require really knowing our kids and letting them know us. It would require time and energy and investment in them, all of it. But not hard, you know, just the basics, eye contact and warmth and challenges and being outside of nature and a lot of the things that we can give our kids that tech can't. So we just wanted to jump in from that And, you know, we wanted to look at it not as we're going to take away the influence of smartphones and iPads in our home, which we for our kids never had to begin with. But instead of instead of removing that from the table, let's just add all of these wonderful experiences and hope that there's not room for any of the rest left over. And there wasn't and there hasn't been so far. So it's been a lovely experiment. I love that. I think it's important to you as moms.
[9:11] You know, when I started homeschooling 13 years ago, you know, Instagram was still very new.
[9:18] Most of us, I mean, I think I'm kind of an early adapter. I like to join those kinds of things. But so I was on there, but it was totally a different thing. At that point, you just had a handful of friends and you were sharing a couple of pictures. And, you know, as a stay-at-home mom who's just dabbling in homeschooling, I was like, oh, I'll share what the kids are doing today. But having that perspective to look at what your usage of the apps and the algorithms are, I think is a really good first step for any mom to take when she's addressing this stuff with her kids. So you're saying your kids have not ever had the experience of they're not on
[9:56] social media. They're not on they don't have phones. How do you manage that? Because part of your book talks about the way to make this successful with your family is the community aspect and homeschooling. I mean, community is, I think, the thing that will measure whether or not you can stick with it or not. So how do you encourage this in your circle? Or have you seen other moms jump alongside you and say, yeah, I really like what you're doing and this is beneficial?
[10:22] Yeah. You know, I totally agree. Community is the biggest thing. And, you know, my daughter is at the age where her friends all have smartphones, but she's known from the get go. Like, that's not going to be her path. And so I would say what one really interesting thing, and this is the beautiful part of homeschooling, is age doesn't matter when you homeschool. You know, we believe so firmly in mixed age play. And, you know, when you're thinking of the home as your classroom and as the environment that your kids are growing up in, you can't just stick to peers only. You know, there's a lot of different ages involved. And so one of the things that we noticed is having kids a couple ages older and a couple ages younger, meaning within like, oh gosh, within the 20 year, like a generational spread.
[11:03] And so beneficial because teens will come to our house. We have an open door policy. And I always say, like, don't worry about texting before you come. I'm better at answering my door than my phone. So teens will just come over sometimes and just chat and ask questions and we'll hear about their day and we'll really connect. And one of the benefits of that is our kids get to see that, first of all. You know, they get to see them kind of processing. Another thing is I used to keep this really kind of cheeky sign on my door that was like, this is a low-tech zone. So you're not going to be tracked. You're not going to be interrupted. You're not going to be asked to perform for TikTok. You're not going to be filmed. And sure consent, you know, I'm almost painting it with your, these are all the benefits you get. You get freedom here. You get a safe space here.
[11:47] And teens would just love it. They would love it. And they felt it. And they said, gosh, this house just feels differently because I don't feel like I have, I don't even have my phone here. I don't feel like I have to check in anywhere because I feel like I can be present and calm here. And our kids would hear that and they would sort of take note of that. And so that's kind of the benefit of having older kids. But younger kids, too, you know, don't discount the parents that are just a little bit behind you that are watching what you're doing and that are noticing, oh, their kids are different and look at all of the benefits that their kids are experiencing. Right.
[12:22] Their home doesn't feel tense and it doesn't feel like, you know, tech is a barrier or something that they're fighting over and there's no, you know, screen time regulation all the time. And so parents kind of coming along at the ranks, they see it too and they feel it and they're kind of training their kids and watching what you're doing. And so as a result, you get this really wide, varied circle of friends that are all learning to have this shared value of, Do we really have to document absolutely everything in our lives or, well, everything in the moment? Can we just handle not knowing who that famous actor was when we're talking around the dinner table, you know? So I would say just be open to a lot of different age and be open. I mean, it doesn't have to be all shared values, but if you can find people that this is their one shared value, you know, just have a regular meetup. Maybe it's at the park and you just bring a cooler of popsicles and have a pickup volleyball game or whatever. Or maybe it's a, you know, nature hike. Anything that sort of revolves around, you don't really need your phone to do this activity. It goes a really long way. And slowly but surely, other people come alongside you and they recognize this
[13:31] is kind of a cool thing you're doing.
[13:33] Yeah, I love that. You know, your book, the subtitle says, How to Give Your Kids What Technology Can't. And so, like you said, you're not punishing. It's not a punitive thing to say, you know what, we're not going to do social media. We're not going to do phones for you guys right now. Because a lot of us, you know, like I have older kids and that was the battle is, well, my friends are all on and that peer pressure from the teen perspective.
[13:59] But I think, like you said, rallying the parents and saying, how are we going to tackle this together as a community and not just, you know, be reactive. I like how you said that in your book, that you're just, this is not something to be reactive about, that it's more, how can we create the environment that is desirable and that these kids don't even.
[14:18] You know, like the little ones, they don't know what they're not missing, you know, what they're not getting. How did you put all of this to words when you were doing that? Did you and your husband have, we need to come up with a family plan or was this something that you were just seeing within your job or his job or how did that conversation start? Because a lot of parents... Are like, we're already in the middle of it. Our kids have phones, they have the apps. I don't even know what to do. So how can we draw that back to the beginning and maybe rethink? We did have a lot of ongoing conversations. I was certainly more weary of tech than he was in the beginning, which is funny. I think he saw some downfalls of the way that the product was created and some of those sort of more nefarious settings that Apple relies on sometimes. But for me, I was just looking at it from a social standpoint and the effect that being so public had on me as a person, I wouldn't wish it on anybody. I really wouldn't. And so to think of my kids in that setting or exposed to that kind of environment where, you know, you're welcoming the world into feedback of who you are as you're being shaped and know that voices are so important as your kid is growing and to be able to have, you know.
[15:29] A rich and free childhood was really important. So it was a really hard line for me that I wouldn't be exposing them to that. Now, I do recognize that it's changed so very much. I am so grateful that the research is there now because at the time, it was just kind of an inkling I had. Like, I don't really want my kid to have the same experience. And if they do, I would hate that for them. But it's a big if. Now it's just a when. You know, now it's a when. When are they going to experience that if they are involved in social media. And so I think where we started really was kind of being very open with our kids. They know what my job used to be. They know why I left. They know sort of what that struggle was like, how I had to change a lot of things about my day and work. I remember we took them all on a date just on a one-on-one thing when they were just very, all of them have kind of been through this when they're very, very young, four or five maybe. And we just asked them, what do you notice we took them out downtown to a little park and like what do you notice about the people all around you and every one of them was like they're all on their phones they're not really um talking to each other they're not really like playing with each other and one of my daughters is like there's there's a whole like family of ducks right here nobody's feeding them.
[16:45] This time very obvious to them that something wasn't quite right and so from that age you know we said, this is why we don't have smartphones around. Like, this is why we're really not going to do this as a family. And so as, you know, as they've grown, we've dispensed more age-appropriate information along the way. But the way that we formed our strategy is just, it evolves. You know, we look and see if there's a need. And that's an actual need, not a perceived need to incorporate any additional technology. But really, you know, our loose strategy is just that when they start driving, they're going to have a flip phone in the glove compartment. They'll have a map in there. They'll have some cash on hand. And then when they're ready, kind of to handle the financial and emotional cost of whatever phone they want to buy, like for their own phone number, that's kind of outside of the landline that we provide for them, then they'll be able to decide whatever they want. You know, I'm not going to lord their decision over them. This is my path, but I want them to make that decision. I don't want it to be a gift from us.
[17:52] It's just when you decide whatever phone you want and when you want it, when you have a job and elsewhere, do what you see needs done. But I don't want the reason that they choose to be because they don't know anybody else that doesn't have a smartphone. And so for me, that's why I like to go first. And I just decide, okay, I'm not going to have a smartphone be part of my daily life. Yeah, I love that. I love that you thought through that enough before your kids? Because I'm looking at it in hindsight, my oldest just turned 20. And so with her, you know, she was more apt to want to have all of the social media stuff. And we said no. But we did say you can have a phone. It has to stay in a central location. And my husband, he works in data. And so he was like, I'm going to lock this thing down. You know, a lot of people like the Gab phone, but he found a way even within that, you know, like in your book, you outlined some of these problems as you can't prevent everything. And, you know, Google looks at your kid at 12 as an adult, and all of those privileges are given at that time in parental settings. And like you said, like anytime there's an update, we found, you know, it's just like this ongoing learning curve with parents is no matter how much, how techie you are, how you understand how the system is built, it's built to kind of sidestep you. And I'm trying to remember the term in your book of what the parent is called. Oh, purchasing friction. Yes. You want to talk about how the tech community sees parents.
[19:18] Oh, yeah. This was enlightening to me. This is from Kim John Payne, who I interviewed. He's just a wonderful, just a wonderful parent educator. If you haven't read his books, read all of them. They're all fantastic. But he was attending a marketing conference about he kind of, you know, I think I think he the way that he worded it was that he sort of snuck in to see sort of what they were talking about and how they were marketing to children. And he they used the term purchasing friction enough times. And he was like purchasing friction, purchasing friction. What is that? And, you know, we think of it as consumers, that it's kind of the many, many steps it takes to get to buy a product. It's actually the parent. And they use that term interchangeably, purchasing friction versus parent. And the recognition and the awareness that most industries that are trying to reach children, certainly tech is not immune to this, but they just see us as in the way. They want to reach the kids. They have the buying power. They have the future brand loyalty. They want to reach the kids. And however they can do that without, you know, our faulty screen time regulations and such, without them getting in the way, the better. So that's a lot of why, you know, I don't last.
[20:27] And the reason that I wrote the book, I didn't like the way we were talking about technology. We talk about it a lot in moderation and balance and screen time. But it just, to me, blew past the greater issue, which is, you know, what, how many influences are we going to give to our kids while they're growing? And how many can they handle? And how many should they have to handle? How many different voices speaking into them? And 30 minutes a day, you know, that is exponentially more voices. And that's just, that's just in 30 minutes of screen time, you know? So I just don't, I don't love the way we talk about it as if we have just have to practice self-control. Will be fine or as if our kids have to practice self-control. There's a lot that Silicon Valley does to make it so that self-control isn't the issue at all. It's just...
[21:15] It's not about willpower. It's not about any of those things. It is just simply that these products are designed to be addictive and we're giving our kids. So, yeah. A couple years ago, I organized for our local homeschool group a trip to the local police department because they offered something called internet safety training. And you had to be 18 because the subject matter went south real quick as far as what our kids are exposed to. And I mean, graphic images and the officers were saying, you know, within three clicks, porn instantly, you know, and it's not even that these kids are seeking it out. It's if they're on Snapchat or Instagram or any of these things, these images just come. And he's like, 100% of the phones that we recover have porn on them. And that was just shocking to me and all of the things that they are dealing with, sexting and cyber bullying. And he said, you know, the thing that we don't understand is when we were growing up, this technology wasn't there. We didn't, If we had a bully at school, that bully would stay at school and they might live in the neighborhood, but you can go in your house and that bully can't reach you where the bully is in their back pocket all the time, 24 seven. So what's going to happen is these kids, they don't tell mom or dad that they're getting bullied because what's mom or dad going to do? We're going to take the phone. We're going to take them off social media. And so these kids are like silently battling chronic bullying. And unfortunately, so many of them succumb to suicide and mental health issues and anxiety and depression.
[22:42] And it's just kind of a silent thing that is not really addressed in a way like
[22:48] you're talking about, where it's proactive. It's saying, because we know how the tech industry is marketing to our children, because we know that kids' brains aren't fully developed, we're not going to put that onus of self-control and making the right decision on them. We're going to just, you know, have those open discussions. So how do you have those discussions with your kids about screens, about how we use technology?
[23:12] You know, a lot of it has to do with, you know, they will come home and they will say something like, we always ask them to share if they see someone's screen. Even ours, you know, we could be working in an open space on our laptop. We have an open desktop computer. So one of the family rules is share screens, but that means, yes, share the screen itself, but share what happens on the screen too. So if they're having a typing practice in a Word document, it's on our computer and it's open where we can see. Some of those conversations do happen naturally, but we have tried to be really proactive about what happens if you do see something that, you know, makes you uncomfortable. And we had a lot of training from Chris McKenna. A lot of that is in the book, but he's also an excellent resource in terms of porn and on specifically on devices.
[23:58] Highly recommend. It's called Protect Young, eyes. It's his organization. But yeah, so we kind of did get offered an overview, but really the most important thing is being available to their questions. And a lot of it is just parent availability and accessibility for the things that don't seem to matter.
[24:15] They're not going to come out and say, I saw this, if it's not that built-in trust of all of these other completely random, non-exciting things happen in a day. And let's talk about all those. So we're just really open to many, many conversations. My husband is actually far better at this than I am. He has like a fireside chat going every night with whoever's awake and willing to have it. But we chat a lot in our family about everything that we see and do and why we're doing it. And we talk a lot about how our family is going to look different and that that's okay. We made sure that part of our, you know, homeschooling involves reading a lot of memoirs about people that were different. So the people historically that made decisions that didn't make a lot of sense, maybe against the grain, we don't shy away from those. And we even encourage, I mean, I'm speaking to a bunch of homeschoolers now. We're all rebellious by nature. Not really that out of the question to be rebellious in this area either. But yeah, Yeah, we just, we try really hard just to be open communicators and I have to practice my non-shocked face a lot. I have to really talk myself down when I want to say like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that you've been close to this or whatever. Yeah.
[25:30] Yeah. It's just being as open as possible. And a lot of it is just following their lead. I'm not going to give them more information that they need. So I do a lot of active listening to make sure that I'm not reading between the lines something that they're not saying. So I just, yeah, a lot of those communication tools. Another great resource is how to listen so kids will talk books. And they help quite a bit.
[25:53] People that maybe didn't grow up in that kind of household. Yeah, that's excellent. I think at homeschool moms and dads, it's easy for us to like, you know, especially when they're little, just make decisions and not communicate why. So I love the open dialogue. And I think as they get older, as I've seen with my teens, I've got a 16 and an 18 year old as well as a seven year old. So it's even just different seeing how my middle two are embracing or rejecting technology and social media like they don't have social media. They both have cell phones to communicate with their friends.
[26:26] And like in the book, you talked about how a lot of organizations use apps and things to communicate. And one of the best pieces of advice I saw in there was email the coach and ask the coach, can you just email me this information instead of having my child log into an app? Because, oh my goodness, my kids are not like, we're not the family that's running over to tournaments every weekend and doing all that. We have very minimal, like more recreational sports is what we do. But even in that, sometimes there's that temptation to, oh, download this app and this is how we're going to track games and all of this stuff. And, you know, really that is putting the child in a position where there are chat functions a lot of times in those apps because the team's communicating. Well, how can they communicate? You know, I don't know all the parents on the team. I don't know the kids. So I think that's really, really wise. Another thing that you mentioned in the book was a quote from Mr. Rogers. And I really love that because he was talking about even way back in the day about viewing television and how when kids see things on screens, it stimulates their emotions, but it doesn't explain to the child or help that
[27:29] child through processing those emotions. Do you want to talk a little bit about that and how that changed your thinking?
[27:36] Yeah, yeah. It is 1983 or 1984. So way back when, and I remember researching a keynote about something else and his advice is so simple. And it's just that if you are going to ingest any sort of media, you know, on whatever screen is available, just do it with your kid. That's it. That's as simple as possible. And it could be, you know, if there's a sick day, we have had six hours of Mary Poppins before. We're not anti-screen, but it is just a matter of sitting with and next to your kid and processing it with them and it's it's one of those rules of thumb where like if you if you can't download with them don't let them download it at all you know because you don't really know what they're going to be processing at what age and at what maturity level and yeah it just it just adds to the experience when you're both kind of on the same page about what's going in i love that yeah as moms i feel like and i'm guilty of this myself is just put them in front of a screen for a while like while you're doing cleaning or doing something else and so reading this book has been really convicting to me and and.
[28:42] And not in a shaming way. It's not written like that at all. And so I just wanted to compliment you on how well this book is executed and how well it's written to present the ideas, but not in a way that's making parents feel bad for previous decisions. It's like, if you don't like what's happening in your home or with your children or your own energy being sucked away by being on screens, just take a look at it. Part of my advice always to homeschool parents is don't do it out of fear. Don't homeschool out of fear. Any fear-based decision, whenever it's hard, you're not going to look back on fear for your source of hope and for encouragement. You're going to just dig deeper into that fear of, I messed up. I didn't do this right. I have to start all over. But if we're looking at the things that we've made mistakes in before or just areas we want to grow, we're going to look at what could it look like instead. And we're going to find that hope in making better decisions now. It's never too late to change course. So I really love and appreciate how you wrote that out as here's some scenarios, here's how we've processed it, and here's some great advice.
[29:48] Let's talk to the mom maybe for a second who, like me, I would love to pull back on some screen time, especially with my youngest, because I do see her having more of that interest level and playing more online instead of just doing kid stuff. How would you talk to those moms who are like me, who are like, how do I pull back? How do I regather my thoughts and make some changes? Well, thank you for saying that, first of all. Yeah, I really, this is such a hard topic. I think people do feel very attacked. Or if, you know, in any parent that is out there with older kids, you know, don't blame yourself. Use that conviction to be angry at the tech companies.
[30:30] You got to put your anger somewhere. Don't point it at yourself because there was really a lot of terrible decision making in Silicon Valley. But I would just honestly, I would say, what's your what's the goal? You know, it because a lot of parents who have, you know, let's say older teens and they already have phones and they have social media because just really the research wasn't there yet. Or if they're parenting adults who can make their own decisions, you know, if the goal is more connection or influence than Instagram, but you can't control taking away Instagram, well, then what you can control is more influence and trust and connection. And so... You can do that any way, any way imaginable. You know, maybe it's that you go on an annual getaway with your family or and everybody, you encourage everybody to leave their phones behind. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. That's not up to you. But just make it that goal to, I always think it's a great goal to influence people more than their phone does. Now, we don't always have the capability, especially when they're not in your own house.
[31:39] But there are many ways that they're still in your own house. So the book talks about a lot of them that how you can kind of engage your kids in pretty delightful ways that maybe are new ideas for you.
[31:50] But I would say like, you know, if you've got littles and you're just thinking, gosh, I think I don't love the amount of screen time. You can always course correct.
[32:01] And instead of exactly like what your advice is, Erin, instead of moving from a place of fear, just start with a blank, clean slate. What would you add in your day together, not just for your child? What would you add in your day together? What would a perfect dream day look like? And can you recreate that? And if not, can you get close to recreating that, maybe inch by inch a little bit at a time? And let those experiences and those goals squeeze out any of the screen time you don't want. And maybe it is that you don't want to take away the screen time. You want to be available to use it with your child. And so how does that work? How do you make that fit into your day? It's going to look like some compromises for everybody, but just decide what's your goal and is it worth it and how do you want to get there? Yeah, I love that. In your book too, you also have a quote that talks about how influence is earned. And a lot of times we log in and you see people who are selling something or whatever else. And especially for kids, they don't always have the discernment to understand. And with AI now, you know, you can look at images and these things are real and they're not. And especially if it's hard for us, it's even harder for our kids. So I agree. I think it's so important to focus on that relationship part. And, you know, the influence that we have over our kids, that's really earned because the more that we invest in time with them.
[33:24] Sitting with them, watching the thing, I like your approach because, you know, it's easy for people to be just very black and white. Like, now you have screens, now you don't.
[33:35] Or to feel like you have to make this huge sweeping lifestyle change. And like you said, just taking it day by day is wonderful. What other thoughts do you have, On cultivating friendships that are like-minded, I know you talked about the park with your kids and one of your children making that observation, you know, when they're playing with the friend in the car and the little boy is like, Alexa, go get gas. And how that child was just playing like he was on his cell phone the whole time he was driving. Obviously, that's been modeled for him and seeing the difference between your child's response to that. So how do you gather people in your circle? Like just a one first step? Like, do you make an email request or a cry for help?
[34:21] You know what? Honestly, the best entry point to buy a circle is always.
[34:26] I think, in the tech world is generally a pain point. You know, so if, let's say you, like the example we were talking about earlier, if there's a group or a club or an extracurricular that's communicating on an app, I know you are not the only parent that doesn't love that for their kid. And so raising your hand to whether it's a director or a coach or a mentor or whatever, and saying, hey, can we take this on an email list? You know, I've got an opt-out kid or we just have a desktop computer at home. We don't do apps yet. And you can always say yet, you know, so you don't have to be a hard no person, but we're just up there yet, you know? And so raising your hand, most of the parents that did this that I interviewed, And there were many, many, many said, I received a thank you from that coach or a thank you from that director because there were other parents that had asked. And so the parent was like, totally understand if you don't, but can you share their name with me? Because we're looking for people that care about this like I do and would love to kind of rally the village a little bit. And nine times out of 10, they were like, yeah, let me ask them if that's OK. And then now you've got kind of these built in. And again, I would just say, you know, maybe you're not going to hit it off in every single aspect of life, you know, but that's not really what friendships are for anyway. So if you can just have some like-minded people in this area, and then again.
[35:51] Being the host family, being the low-tech hangout zone for the neighborhood or for the club or whatever, a lot of times, you know, when I feel like my kids' social needs aren't being met, And I'll just email.
[36:06] You know, just asking them, okay, who do you admire? Who do you want to hang out with? Who do you feel like you would like to get to know more? Or who, have you not seen in a long time that you'd like to, we have a Friday night slot open and Saturday afternoon is open for this kind of thing. Yeah. Just sending out those texts and calling those people and saying, can you come over? We'll feed you and just go from there. It is messy and it's not always super convenient to have people in and out of your house. But honestly, the other parents love it too because they know their kid's going to come over and they're not going to have to monitor their screen time.
[36:43] It's kind of a win-win for everybody. It is. Okay. So like even me growing up, my parents had a rule. If any movie was going to be watched. I had to call them before. And now I just see there's so many teens with their phones that even in the homeschool circles, that's why I wanted to bring that group mindset up again, because homeschool moms, there are others like you who want to take a step back from how much screens their kids have access to. There are parents who are putting parameters on usage, on timeframes. There are parents. So I just want to encourage any mom who's feeling very frustrated or maybe has had an incident. I've had so many friends after having high schoolers where it's like my child has accessed porn because they saw it on their friend's phone or the friend sent them an image or just they're looking at inappropriate things or their mental health is declining. This is not just a societal... It's everywhere. Homeschool, you can't just avoid it because you're in your homeschool bubble. But there are so many other parents like us who are saying, we've seen the damage it's done or could do or is doing.
[37:51] And we want to just take a step back. So before we close out, I want to ask what resources do you have available for parents to get more information or help rally people to come alongside and support this?
[38:06] Yeah. So we have a website. It's optoutfamily.com. There's no sales strategy or funnel or anything at all. It's just there to kind of house everything, all the questions that people have from the book. And so, you know, there are screen free swaps and there are lots of the latest research on what tech, what AI is doing. There are sort of scripts that you can use to email some teachers or coaches or parents, other parents to kind of, again, rally the village. Lots and lots and lots of different resources. I always say that if there's something that you're looking for that you can't find, just email me. I'm really slow to respond, but I will always respond. And so, yeah, just email me and we'll put something up so that other parents, chances are you're not the only one with that question or that problem. So we would love to be able to help in any way. It's just a big mission. And the more, you know, it's one of those rising tides, lift all boats. Is that what it is? That's where we go. It's just one of those, you know, the more information that we all have, then the better decision we can make and move from a place of hope. And I do have a lot of hope for this. I think, by goodness, the next generation, like the parents now and the kids now that are like, we don't really ever want a smartphone. It's just amazing.
[39:24] And there's just a lot of progress in, I think, the right direction. So just be encouraged that you're not on an island and that there are many, many people just like you, many weirdos, they're all out there. Yeah, just be bold and rebellious in the way that you want to.
[39:40] Create your family. Yeah. Another thing that you have is Other Goose. Do you want to talk about that a little bit too? Oh, yeah. Oh, it's so much fun. So Other Goose, I just started when my oldest was tiny, tiny because it's a kind of an international homeschooling co-op, but it's just a simple program where you can pop on and you get just a daily prompt of something to do with your child, something that's going to be, you know, quote unquote educational, but they're all screen free proms. So just, you know, whether it's build a rock sculpture or paint a stick or, you know, and they're all for kids ages two to seven and they're all matched for your child's age and developmental level. So I worked with a gal that has her master's in education just to kind of get background is that my parents were both public school teachers. So I kind of had this like curriculum mindset, but I wanted to make sure that it was actually legitimate in the eyes of kind of the educational world so um anyway yeah you just sign up your your child and um and it's it's lovely there's no data mining or anything but it's just a lovely place to get ideas for when you're kind of if you need to entertain a younger one while you're working with the olders or um you just really want something a little bit more engaging to do with your child and not at your child or for your child that um it is so much fun and then there's a recommended read aloud for every activity and generally some sort of.
[41:07] Weekly tidbit of advice for you the parent as well so it's just the yeah it's it's a blast so we have just an open community and you can sign up for the emails or you can join um as a member.
[41:22] However however but it's just fun so if you have kids ages two to seven it's it's worth a look yeah i love that thank you so much for sharing that um i think that that's the important thing is like you said not just setting them up with something but doing something with them And with so many people now homeschooling, I just, I always, my heart cry is that they'll, be that relationship piece first. You know, the learning stuff is secondary to the relationship that you're building. And the educational piece is the tool that you're using to build a relationship. So I think you've created a wonderful tool and highly recommend the Opt Out family, no matter how old your kids are. You know, like I said, my oldest is 20, my youngest is seven. And I'm still learning and navigating what the best practices are for our family. So I encourage any parents to check out that book and your website. So thank you so much, Erin, for coming on. I really appreciate this discussion. It's been so helpful. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Erin. Of course. And we will link everything that you've talked about on our show notes. So anyone can find that information pretty easily. So we'll talk to you next time.
[42:34] To learn more about booking one-on-one or group homeschool coaching sessions with us, upcoming events, see our speaking schedule, or to get access to more resources, be sure to check out our website, www.showmehomeschool.com, and sign up for our weekly newsletter. You can also follow us on Instagram at show.me.homeschool, on Pinterest at showmehomeschool, or email us at info at showmehomeschool.com. This episode was sponsored by Podcasts with Faith, our favorite Christian podcast production company.