I helped Hanna to overcome her son’s screen addiction from all day long to 2 hours per day as a parenting coach!

I wanted to share this huge win and celebrate with you all!

This is how I did it.

Before I explain the details below, I want to share the backstory of Hanna.

When Hanna came to me, her son was addicted to his iPad. The moment his son wakes up, the first thing he will look for is the iPad.

His son installed about 25 games on his iPad and spend the entire day gaming and watching YouTube.

He refused to allow Hanna access to his iPad.

Hanna was not tech-savvy and find it is challenging to set parental control on his iPad.

Hanna described that in the past before the iPad, her boy was sweet and polite. After the iPad came, her boy was obsessed as if he was possessed by the iPad demon.

Hanna has tried everything, yell, snatch back the iPad or even beg his son to In the past, Hanna has to yell, snatch or even beg to take away the iPad from his son.

Her son would be cried and tried to snatch back his iPad, displaying symptoms of addiction.

After working with us, Hanna’s son’s iPad has changed from all day long to 2 hours per day after working with us for 2 months.

Through our help, Hanna was trained to be more tech-savvy and was able to parental control his son’s iPad.

Through collaboration discussion, her son agrees to have only 5 games on his iPad.

Now he can enjoy his time playing with his brother and cousin and even spend time with his grandparents walking to a nearby park daily.

Not only did Hanna has changed from being helpless, guilty, and feeling like a bad mom, now she felt more confident as a mother and has even become a more tech-savvy “digital mom”.

She has a deeper connection with her children, and his son has returned from “being possessed by iPad demon” to his old self, a sweet and polite boy.

Ever since I discovered personal development gurus like Tony Robbins, Dean Graziosi, Lewis Howes, Brendon Burchard, I knew there is something I can do to fulfill my full potential.

It wasn’t easy.

And it didn’t come without a lot of self-doubts, failure, and trial and error.

If I could hand you a blueprint of what it took to create this impossible result in my life and my client’s life, I would give you what I have written below.

I’ve created 6 steps that helped me and other parents to overcome their child’s screen addiction, reduce screen time, or to nurture good screen habits.

That’s how my students have gone on to have a better relationship with their children while empowering them to use screens responsibly and safely, after working with me.

Here are the 6 steps that helped Hanna to overcome her son’s screen addiction.

1. Having a direction and vision of your parenting journey

Most of the common problems I have seen in parents are they are not sure how much time to allow, what are things they can do online, and what is the right balance for them to enjoy their screen and their physical world.

These parents aren’t sure about their parenting style and directions. They do not have a vision of what they want out of their parenting life.

This doesn’t come easy to me too. It took me a long while for me to discover this.

I discovered this when my good friend, Lee passed away in March 2019.

And I asked myself if this is my last day, what do I want most out of my parenting life.

I discovered what I wanted most, the connection with my children.

When I shifted from controlling to connecting, my relationship with children has changed drastically.

Now we are a much-connected family, and we have a better vision of what we want to achieve in life, for myself and my children.

I made a decision to discover my vision of my parenting journey.

It is quite ironic, that we were thought to set a vision in our career and financial area. Like how much you need to have by age 60, or how fast you can achieve the promotion.

But no one sat to discover our vision in our parenting journey.

And today, I would like to invite you to discover your vision in your parenting journey.

Without a vision, it is like a headless chicken, running the ship with no direction. Without vision and what you want and what you don’t want in your parenting domain, it is hard to steer the right direction for your family.

2. Set Boundaries with the Screen as a family

Boundaries. It’s something I talk about a lot.

Contrary to popular belief, parents felt by imposing boundaries, they would be less connected to their children.

You are afraid that your children will be less connected, fear that you would not be the “cool parent” and fear that your children will be missing out.

Boundaries help us to understand each other better and respect our own and others’ boundaries. This in turn creates a connected and respected relationship.

In anything in our life, be it wealth, health, or relationship, we need to set healthy boundaries too.

For example, in the domain of health, if we don’t set boundaries with our food, what would happen?

We will start to only take food that we really like, for example, fries, coke, junk food, oily food.

What happens once we have taken it for long? Our health will start to deteriorate.

What about in the domain of wealth?

If we don’t set boundaries with our money like how much we can spend and how much we should save and invest? What would happen?

You earn $4 but spend $5.

You will always have to worry about the food on the table the next day.

So, we need to set boundaries with our screens.

There are 4 ways we can set boundaries with our screen:

1. Time
2. Usage
3. Purpose
4. Values

We can set boundaries by deciding upfront how much we can spend on our screens.

If you do not decide, someone else will decide for you. All these apps, social media, and gaming are habit-forming products. If you do not set the intention, you will find yourself mindlessly wasting your time on these apps.

We can also set boundaries by deciding what usage to use on the screen or devices.

For example, I have decided to only do my coaching work on my MacBook and I have dedicated time for it.

We can also set boundaries by deciding what purpose we want to use the screen.

For example, my eldest daughter like to watch a Chinese influencer on YouTube which is more to humor and joke. It helps her to feel happy and de-stress after a long day at school.

Finally, we can also set boundaries with the screen based on value.

When we encounter any content, we need to pause and think.

Whatever the content that is showing to me, what is it trying to tell me?

Is it in line with my values?

What can I learn from it?

3. Set Agreement with Your Child on Screen Use.

Instead of rules, I choose to set an agreement with my children.

If we set rules, we are forcing them on our children. This in turn will create more resistance, cheating and hiding, and a lack of transparency.

I know this is a problem many of you face.

We are so used to our generational parenting style that there are a lot of rules that you need to follow. You need to follow what I say.

I totally understand, I used to that kind of parenting too. I felt that I wasn’t allowed to voice out and I don’t feel I have a voice when I was a child.

Looking back, I do not wish to silence or condemn my children’s voices.

I wanted them to flourish in their own unique way.

By setting an agreement, it allows our children to participate in our family’s routine and allow them to have some self-decision making.

Children need 3 things for them to flourish: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

Autonomy refers to an individual being the source of their own choices. It relates to the expression of free will. Those who exhibit autonomy make choices as an expression of themselves, not because of outside pressure or control.

How many of you, growing up, are not able to express your true self?

How many of you felt that you don’t have many choices when you were a child?

In fact, many of us grew up carrying these limited mindsets and “self-image”.

Our second fundamental need is that of relatedness. This, of course, refers to our need for connection and a sense of belonging. Feeling cared for by others, as well as caring for them in return, provides us with a sense of security and well-being.

By having an agreement, it fosters discussion and connection with our children.

4. How To Shape Your Child’s Screen Habits And so that they would not be addicted to the screen.

I always quote “If you don’t shape your children’s screen habits, someone else will”.

Apps developers, gaming companies, and advertisements are finding ways to hook us into using their apps more. This is to shape their desired habits of their consumer. However, these are not the desired habits for ourselves and our children.

Therefore, we can also use the habit model to shape our children’s habits.

40 to 95 percent of human behavior — how we think, what we say, and our overall actions — falls into the habit category. If we select a conservative 50 percent, we are on automatic pilot half the time.

Our habits with our smartphones and gadgets are often in autopilot mode.

We have to set the intention of our use with smartphones, when we can use them and how long we can use them.

If we don’t decide, someone else will decide. Remember our apps developer and gaming companies.

How many times that you thought you just want to have a 5-minute break from your work to scroll down YouTube or Facebook and when times pass, realized that you have spent 1 hour plus scrolling aimlessly?

5. Set The Secure Devices or Apps environment for your child so that they would not be exposed to Internet Dangers

This is probably one of the most overlooked but important steps in reducing the Internet Dangers exposure to our children.

Most parents thought this is the hardest step. However, I cannot tell you this is the easiest and simplest step of all.

When I decided to focus on this niche, I have done quite a lot of research and spoke to more than 40 parents who have children who were addicted to electronic devices.

I have identified that there are 9 internet dangers to our children:

1. Screen Addiction
2. Inappropriate Content
3. Negative Social Influence
4. Cyber Bullying
5. Online Predators
6. Social Media Depression
7. Mis-Information
8. Bad Digital Footprint
9. Identity theft and Misuse of children’s PII (Personally Identifiable Information)

By setting up a secure apps/device environment, our children can use these devices safely.

6. How To Stop Reacting to Your Child’s Screen Misbehaviour

This is a concept I believe strongly in and something I’ve been focusing on a lot lately when it comes to my own reaction to my children’s misbehavior.

Reacting means that you meet your child’s emotionally-charged behavior with your own emotionally-charged reply.

They are yelling, so you enter the conversation by yelling.

They are screaming and having a tantrum, so you work hard to quiet them down and “get over” their fussing.

However, when we react to their misbehavior, we are pushing them away.

We need to respond to them and bring them back into the family.

Our children have big emotions, and their “emotions brain” has taken over. When we reacted to them, their “emotion brains” will be even more exaggerated. We need to respond to calm them down so that their “logic brain” can take over.

When their “logic brain” is back in control, then it is time for us to discuss what happens and to achieve a win-win solution for both of us.

Happy parents happy children.

So, there you have it, my friend.

My 6 steps that helped Hanna to overcome her son’s screen addiction.

Some of you may wonder, why am I giving these steps for free.

So I just wanted to share some stories of mine.

Back in March 2020, when COVID came and my country announced a lockdown, my children had to stay at home and pivot to the online classroom.

It means that my children will be with the screen most of the time.

I was afraid of screen addictions and I saw many parents are struggling to cope with their child’s excessive screen time or screen/gaming addictions.

I started to put in everything I knew from mindfulness, parenting, Internet Safety, and Habits to “digital parent” my children.

I realized that the technology is going to stay, so I started my approach by asking “how can I nurture good screen habits?”.

It worked well for my family.

A few months later, my best friend Lydia called me up and shared that she has to fight with her teenage son to snatch back the smartphone. Her son was addicted to the smartphone.

I realized perhaps this is what I can offer to the world and I began my journey by coaching other parents to overcome their child’s screen addiction or reduce their screen time.

I realized the screen has not just created disconnect and also disharmony in the family.

Some parents I worked with felt helpless, guilty and like a bad parents, do not know how to deal with their child’s screen addiction.

It is as if they have lost their children to the screen!

I discovered my LIFE PURPOSE.

I help parents to regain confidence as a parent and to nurture good screen habits in their children, and to create a deeper connection as a family.

I’m not leaving anyone behind, but you have to decide to come with me.

Here’s to celebrating your big parenting goal.

Here’s to celebrating 100% results for you and your children.

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Jessie Liew is the founder of Digital Parenting Coaching and a mother of 4. Her previous career included working as a cybersecurity specialist, where she protected clients from the harmful effects caused by online hackers and predators. In her spare time, Jessie enjoys reading, playing games, and adventures.

If you would like to learn more about Jessie and her work, please visit her website at https://www.neverfightwithyourkids.com/.

You can also find her on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn as Jessie Liew SP.

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