Haydel’s Bakery:

https://haydelsbakery.com/

Dong Phuong Bakery
https://www.dpbakery.com/

Hillary Wilkinson: (00:02)

My guest today became a mental healthcare provider because she wanted to fill in the gaps. She wanted to go that extra mile to support the mental and emotional health of patients with medical conditions as they went through the process of diagnosis, treatment, and life. She treats her pediatric patients as individuals rather than a diagnosis, focusing care on what makes each patient and family unique and helps them to be their best selves. And I love her self-admitted “little something extra”, which is to meet kids where they're at, using language through treatment that makes sense to them. She explains mental health concepts using Disney movies or Harry Potter and even video games, and I can't wait to hear some of her tips on how to talk to our kids using language that resonates with them, so we can all avoid sounding like the Charlie Brown teacher. So, welcome to Healthy Screen Habits. Dr. Becca Wallace!

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (01:15)

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Hillary Wilkinson: (01:17)

Dr. Wallace, you have this really interesting focus of helping kids and teens deal with men their mental health while dealing with very weighty physical and medical concerns. And are there ways I, I think there's a lot of mom guilt that comes if we have a, a child who is undergoing like a medical crisis or is even under the weather. I know the screen time, it creeps up on all of us. Right. And so I just wanted to get an official, you know, opinion, if you will. Are there ways to use tech in a healthy way to help kids get through some of these acute periods of stress, like with illness or anything like that?

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (02:08)

Yeah, I mean, I think tech technology and screens are in our pocket at all times, and so it's one of the easiest tools to take to, to clinic, to a hospital and those kind of things. So it's, it's kind of become almost the go-to of like, oh, you have to get blood work or you have to wait for a long time here, you can play on my phone or you can do this. And, you know, my thing I always tell parents is, “you know, you just gotta get through things sometimes.” And so not feeling guilty because, you know, you've been a strict parent that doesn't have screen time, doesn't let them play on their phone, but they have all these medical visits and now you're letting them play on it for an hour a day, and you didn't expect that. And so kind of giving yourself a little bit of leeway to say that's okay.

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (02:57)

Um, but also making sure that we do take the time to, you know, pack other things as well. You know, as our hospitals, childrens hospitals are great. They always have color sheets, they always have other things kids can do, so taking advantage of those as well. So it's not the only tool in our toolbox. Um, but, you know, able help them know that like screen time isn't necessarily a bad thing. The other thing is that sometimes screen time in those high stress gives them a sense of normalcy. Like if they're used to playing their favorite game after school and they're having to sit in the hospital, or, um, like I said, those clinic visits, being able to play their game lets them kind of feel normal for a minute and forget that they're at the doctor's office.

Hillary Wilkinson: (03:51)

Yeah. I, um, had read kind of all these pain management studies that had come out of Walter Reed using, uh, video games instead of pain, you know, uh, pharmaceutical pain management. And I can tell you when my daughter had to have a pretty involved knee surgery, I, it was one of the only times that she's ever been, I like, I was like, okay, kid. Like, have at it. You know? I mean, it was like we never do tech in in the bedrooms. We never do any of that. But it was, it was kind of, you know, like you say, there's these acute periods where using your best mom judgment, right, and keeping that, keeping that all aligned.

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (04:43)

Yeah. I mean there is some really cool research out there that show, like, even during like virtual reality, during burn debridement, um, has a better effect than a lot of pharmacological meds.

Hillary Wilkinson: (04:56)

Right.

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (04:57)

So, you know, it it, it is a really cool tool. We just can't have it be the only one.

Hillary Wilkinson: (05:03)

I totally agree. Yeah. And if you have the ability to pre-think some of those, I, I call 'em go bags where you can just have, you know, your Hot Wheels cars, your, you know, etch of sketch draws your, all of those things in a go bag that you can just take with you. It's kind of like when you, uh, prep your meals for the week, right. You have a lot more success with maintaining healthy diet.

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (05:37)

Absolutely. And I encourage parents to almost, if your child's like elementary age and old enough, they can pack their own go bag. Like they can go, like if you know you're going to a clinic visit, like while you get stuff packed say, “Hey, you know, what are five things in your room that you wanna take that can keep you busy?” Like your favorite book, you know, the, the arts and crafting. I think the cool thing that I think is coming out is they're realizing parents are kind of moving away from tech. So some of the old school activities and toys and, and like little like magnetic draw boards are coming back, which I think are really cool.

Hillary Wilkinson: (06:13)

I agree. Yeah. And the ones that they have now are way cooler than the ones that I had, which was like Mr. Fuzzy drawing in the beard and then you'd like set it down

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (06:24)

Everyth you had the little knobs.

Hillary Wilkinson: (06:25)

Everyth. Exactly. . No, these are, they, they have those boards that, I can't even think of the name of it, but you press the button and it's like, it clears the board. Yeah. Oh gosh.

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (06:35)

I just, yeah.

Hillary Wilkinson: (06:36)

Blew my mind

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (06:37)

They can draw whatever they want on it. Those are really cool.

Hillary Wilkinson: (06:40)

Yeah. Okay. So you mentioned briefly about a children's hospital, but I don't think I kind of did a very good job on the intro. You work for the amazing institution of, uh, Children's Hospital, New Orleans, which is a nonprofit facility committed to excellence in pediatric care. As I'm talking to you, you've got this amazing paper mache alligator hanging on the wall behind you, . It's, um, and you're very definitely in the seat of New Orleans, which your city went through a very scary event this past New Year's, and it was splashed all over socials and news feeds when an act of terrorism was committed. And to bring that around to healthy screen habits and how do we deal with this? bBecause you deal with patients and families who are hearing very scary news of a different variety, like a diagnosis, but yet they can go looking up things all over the place and sending themselves down, you know, information, rabbit holes. How do you recommend that we talk to kids about scary things like this, like, like the incident on New Year's Eve in New Orleans when we don't necessarily control the feed of information?

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (08:14)

Yeah, I mean, I think, um, unfortunately the, the timing in which we're talking, um, kind of opens up into that. And I think even as an adult in the city kind of getting the information and, and on New Year's Day there were so many different perspectives and so many different things being shared that I know a lot of adults who got overwhelmed by it. 

Hillary Wilkinson: (08:38)

For sure.

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (08:40)

And we as adults have a full functioning brain. Like our, our frontal lobe should be formed by now. It forms in like your mid twenties. Um, and, and so when we consider kids and teens that are hearing this and hearing it on the TV in the background or, um, even like when they're scrolling and, and on YouTube and stuff and they stumble on this, their brains don't fully understand what is happening and they don't understand fully like perspective taking. And so I think it's important to help parents realize that, that I think in modern times, because kids get exposed to stuff so young, we just think kids are really mature and they, if they see it, they know how to do, how to deal with it or they understand it. And the truth is they don't. They know how to fake it. And, and kids are way more mature than we were probably at their age.

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (09:42)

But I think knowing that in mind is, it's important one to have open and non-judgmental conversations with kids about everything from the get go. And you know, especially their screen time use like as they get older and, and as they use screen time, I always use the example of driving a car. No one takes their car keys and throws it at their 14-year-old and says, “Hey, good luck. Don't hit anything.” You first, you know, when they start to become ages where they can get their permits, you have them sit in the front seat, you have them watch you, you kind of start to talk about like, oh, notice how this car does this or that car does that, you know, you might put 'em in driver's ed and then once they get their permit and you let them drive, you let them drive in a safe area and you're in the car with them and you're coaching them.

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (10:37)

And then that circle keeps getting bigger to where you feel confident you can give 'em the keys and say good luck. And I think that's true with screen time and online too, but we don't do a great job of it is, I think we need to like supervise them, sit in the same room with them as they're scrolling YouTube, you know, kind of watch it together, not creepily look over their shoulder, but like show interest in it. 

You know, see what their social media is, talk about kind of following them, um, have them look at your social media and kind of see how it might be different than their perspective. One thing that I find interesting is who your friends are on social media determines what you get exposed to. So like my social media has literally kind of every side of every story. 'cause I have friends that, that are across the spectrum and it goes back and forth. Whereas I know other people who only know friends in a certain like section. So that's all they see. And so teaching kids like, Hey, it can look different, if that makes sense.

Hillary Wilkinson: (11:49)

Right. Manage that algorithm.

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (11:51)

Yeah. And just being open and honest with them and having like, like a lot of parents sat down and kind of explained to their kids, okay, this happened in this part of the city, but our house isn't there and it's safe, and how can we keep safe in our neighborhood?

Hillary Wilkinson: (12:05)

Right, right. I like that. And, and kind of, I think, um, one of the ongoing challenges that we have with technology is it does an amazing job of opening the world to us, but yet all of that can be so overwhelming, even for, like you said, those of us with, you know, supposed fully functioning brains, . And so I think, you know, uh, I mean just a method of just keeping things local and you know, really assessing what's happening right in front of you. And I think that can bring some comfort. I feel like what you were sort of getting into kind of dovetails with your concept of, um, quality time and prioritizing. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (12:58)

When we are on screen time, we have to try and encourage and try and model, you know, quality time over just kind of quantity of time. So, you know, trying to encourage kids from a young age of how do we do like educational material or even like Minecraft over shoot 'em up games where like we're building, we have to critically think the next level kind of like puzzle based video games. 

Hillary Wilkinson: (13:31)

We have this phrase “creation over consumption” you know, something where you're, where you're building, where you're involved in, you're moving forward. 

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (13:45)

Yeah. Like looking for those, or looking for connection, like connecting with friends and family that live far away instead of following a bunch of influencers who you don't really know and you're not really, their content might be entertaining and it might help you kind of socialize at school. So having some of that, but not having all of that. So kind of having more like realistic connections than, than kind of the, the insta reality, if that makes sense.

Hillary Wilkinson: (14:16)

Yeah, completely. So when we come back, let's talk more about tips to keep all family members committed to their own healthiest screen habits. 

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Hillary Wilkinson:

I am speaking with Dr. Becca Wallace from Children's Hospital, New Orleans, and I have never been to your beautiful city . Okay, when I say that to most people, there's this collective gasp and I've heard of so many amazing experience of others, uh, the music as well as really difficult history that can't be ignored. But above all what I hear so many people talk about is the food . So like, invariably when you're having like the what's the best, you know, fill in the blank you ever had, and they invariably New Orleans enter the chat. So do you have, do you have a, a favorite place or a best of meal?

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (15:40)

So in New Orleans we don't just have one, it depends on like, okay, the, the specialty dish that you want. Uhhuh . So for example, right now it's king cake season, it just started yesterday. And so everybody has their opinion of who makes the best king cake and what flavor is the best. And my favorite, um, is traditionally either Haydel's or Dong Phuong, which, um, I'm sure other people who might be listening might fight me on those , but, um, but yeah, I mean, you, you can't go wrong here in eating. Like we joke that at one meal we're already talking about the next meal.

Hillary Wilkinson: (16:20)

I's funny. Well, like I said, it is, it is definitely on my list of two visits. I just haven't gotten there yet. So speaking about, and I, go ahead.

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (16:31)

Oh, I was just gonna say, I always encourage people who come here to, to see some of the like neighborhoods like magazine street, like City Park area and kind of see the quarter, but also get out because we, we have so many unique areas.

Hillary Wilkinson: (16:45)

Very cool. Very cool. So speaking about meals, we are in agreement that designating meal time to be screen free time is very important. And can you talk, I feel like people are probably sick of hearing me talk about it. So could you talk about ? Why ?

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (17:05)

Yeah, I mean, I think, so there's a couple reasons why I think it's important to have screen-free meals. One is that it's our connection to people in real life and our family, our parents, our siblings, they're kind of our practice buddies in how to make small talk, how to communicate, how to take turns, asking questions and, and practice our social skills, which honestly kids today kind of struggle with. Um, and having at dinner time, it's a perfect time to practice that and kind of sit down together and ask about each other's day or laugh and joke about a topic. I think the other reason it's important is eating is a basic necessity for all of us. And when we put the screen away, we can actually focus on like taking care of our bodies in a healthy way and noticing what, what foods we like and how foods affect our body. And I think that's really important because when we're sitting eating at a screen, we don't necessarily pay attention to how much we're eating or what we're eating is we're either in a rush to get it done so we can get back or we're so distracted is it's, you don't know what you eat. And so I think it's really important to be mindful during that time as well.

Hillary Wilkinson: (18:29)

I, you know, I'm having this little epiphany moment and this is why I needed you to talk about it, not me. I have always had this like, oh yeah, mealtimes screen-free and everything with, with families, but I've never stopped to consider the importance of keeping mealtime screen-free when I'm eating by myself. 

If I'm eating by myself, I even at a restaurant, you're much more likely to whip out your phone and you know, for some, I mean for sometimes it's a little uncomfortable to just be looking around, you know? But, um, I think that that is going to be a, a new focus for me to really be aware of keeping, yeah, keeping devices away anytime I'm eating, so not just when I'm with my family.

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (19:30)

Yeah. I mean, it's hard to do. Yeah, it's hard to do, especially alone is we do, we are like, oh, well I'm less creepy if I'm looking at my phone while I eat

Hillary Wilkinson: (19:38)

Which is weird because it's like, especially as women, like you're supposed to be really aware of your surroundings and everything else. Like, you know that all that doesn't go away. So it's, uh, it's important We know that big tech uses persuasive design and the reward system in our brains to help us to keep us connected to that device. Like we were just talking about. It's more comfortable to just dive into your phone rather than sit and look around. But you have this concept of split time and I think that's really interesting. Can you talk about that whole attention economy, I think your split time really helps to manage that.

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (20:33)

Yeah, and I mean, I think, so the thing that people don't realize is a lot of this screen technology, especially nowadays, they have some very intelligent people working on it. And they actually have like psychologists and like sociologist who their whole job is to figure out how to get you to be most engaged and keep you engaged. And the blessing of that is, I mean, it's really cool when you look down at how it works, but the curse is, it, it teaches kids and it teaches us to have more limited attention, less focus, less delayed gratification. And because you're right, everything like I get through this level, I get my points and I'm onto the next. Um, and so split time is, for me, it's more about balancing technology with non-technology. And so making sure, like rather than having hard lines of like, okay, an hour a day is gonna be technology, we don't care what it is, but it's an hour a day.

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (21:34)

Um, which kind of makes it hard to balance is it saying, okay, if you're gonna spend a hour on technology, we're gonna make sure we have an hour to do things that are off screens and, and are more engaging. So like you can build with Legos, you can do arts and crafts, you can go outside. There's so many health benefits to just even being outdoors that, you know, we probably took advantage of when we were kids. And again, it was probably safer. It was more of a community thing and it was something we did where kids nowadays, there's some kids that never go outside if they're not getting in a car to go somewhere else. Um, or they're outside on their phone and so they don't notice it. So split time is just learning about these other aspects of life and using other aspects of your brain to kind of have a better understanding of the world and actually, you know, get away from that. Well, I'm bored 'cause my phone is dead of knowing, okay, well I can build with Legos and that's gonna take a lot of sustained attention. You know, I can, you know, draw something or make something or do a puzzle, um, or, you know, go for a walk and kind of observe the world around me.

Hillary Wilkinson: (22:53)

Two things come to mind. I love all the ideas that you have. I think it's probably helpful for people to have those listed somewhere or even, you know, with, if you've got early readers, even pictures of, you know, pictures of blocks, pictures of a tree, pictures of, you know, just as like reminders. Because again, to bring it back to the food analogy earlier, you know, I mean, it's so much easier to just grab the unhealthy choice if you can't, if you don't have things lined up, which the, the split time thing where you're like, you know, balancing the time for time. I really like that. 'cause um, it reminds me of when my kids were younger, we had, we had a snacking rule called package snacks, which were always in the same box. And those were anything that like, you know, like granola bars or, so, you know, something that came in a non-natural wrapping, like a peel would be a natural wrap. So it was like for every, you could have whatever snacks you wanted, but you had to balance, if you had a package snack, you couldn't have another package snack, you had to have a, you know, a, a healthy choice or whatever. And that sounds very judgmental to call it healthy choice. I think I had a different…

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (24:23)

No, like more of a natural choice, like through

Hillary Wilkinson: (24:25)

Yeah,

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (24:25)

Yeah. With like exactly crackers. Like you can't exactly just eat five bags of chips.

Hillary Wilkinson: (24:31)

Right, right. So yeah, it kind of, but your split time kind of reminds me of, of that .

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (24:38)

Absolutely. And I am, um, I am a big supporter of, of lists, whether it's pictures or words, um, for kids to know what their options are.  I think it's a great activity. Again, elementary school, they're learning, they want to practice writing their words, have them make it and keep it on the fridge or on a bulletin board by like the family area. So they know like, okay, so one of my tools is screen time, but is that watching a movie on the tv? Is that playing on my switch or is that, you know, playing on a tablet? But then, you know, my non-technology is I can do all of these things. So instead of the whole go play with something I don't know, mom, I'm bored. You decide, you can say, “okay, here's your menu, you choose.” I think that really empowers the kid, but it also like takes away from that back and forth argument of like, “do something. Um, and it's a great response when your kid comes to you and says, I'm bored. You can be like, okay, bored. Here you go. Like, choose something.

Hillary Wilkinson: (26:05)

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, we have to make, take another short break, but when we come back, I'm going to ask Dr. Wallace for her healthy screen habit. 

Hillary Wilkinson:

I'm speaking with Dr. Becca Wallace, and now on every episode of the Healthy Screen Habits podcast, I ask my guest for a healthy screen habit, which is going to be a tip or takeaway that listeners can put into practice in their own home. What is yours?

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (26:41)

So mine might be a little bit more shocking, but it's, if you're extremely emotional or your child gets extremely emotional, get off the screens. So especially like the tablets and the, um, video games and stuff like that, if we're thinking with our emotional mind and then we get in the super stimulating situation, it's only going to feed the emotion and make it worse. Or like say we're playing a game, a kid's playing a game and they get frustrated, the longer they play it, the more frustrated they're gonna be. So when we start to see those emotions coming in and feeling really emotional, I really encourage people to take a break from it, um, and do something sensory. So a sight, a smell, a sound, a taste, a feeling like go stand outside and, and kind of take at least a five or 10 minute break from the screen so that your brain can kind of calm down and come out of that emotional mind and you can get more to like logical thinking.

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (27:45)

And I think that's especially true in teaching kids because we, our gut instinct is, oh my gosh, my child's screaming. I'm in a restaurant here, I'll throw my phone at them. And that might make them happy short term, but it's not necessarily kind of teaching them how to control their emotions. So trying to have them like take a minute to take them outside or give them like some ice to suck on, um, doing something that might calm them a little bit before we give them the screen can keep that emotion a little bit lower.

Hillary Wilkinson: (28:20)

It's gonna be good practice for me to remember to kind of verbalize that when I'm doing it in front of my kids. Like if I get an upsetting message or if I'm something, or if I'm, you know, something happens and I'm really annoyed I am, I'm going to work on saying, “Oh my gosh, I'm so annoyed right now. I need to go walk it out.” Or “I need to go brush the dog.” Or I need to go, you know, my big thing is vacuuming. But, uh, but like to to make that transparent to them, so that they can see it being modeled. I think sometimes we do things and we don't think to vocalize it, and that's, that's kind of like a lost teachable moment if we don't do that.

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (29:23)

I absolutely agree. And I, I really encourage parents, especially when it comes to emotion regulation, to model for your kids. And, and almost like parents say they make it, it makes them feel weird, but to say, I am taking a five-minute break. I'm gonna go get a drink of water, I'm gonna go sit in my room by myself, you know, I'm gonna put myself in a timeout. Um, I'm gonna suck on a sour candy. Like to actually verbalize what you're doing, um, because it, it teaches kids that one, it's okay to feel that emotion. And two, there are healthy ways to deal with it and if we can actually model and verbalize that, our kids are gonna learn that from us rather than learning, you know, oh, on YouTube, the kid doesn't get their way and they freak out and cry until mom gives it. And so like, they're gonna get it modeled one way or the other. And you would rather, as a parent be able to model a healthy way. But it also, like as parents, we gotta, we gotta be our first, our first practice dummy. Like we have to calm ourselves down in a healthy way, um, because kids are gonna learn our habits one way or the other.

Hillary Wilkinson: (30:37)

Right? Right. We have this thing called the cycle of vulnerability that happens with big feelings, screen overuse, and it leads to a compounding of, you know, not-so-great choices online. Yep. And it just, you can see how people get stuck in a loop and um, yeah. Yeah. So thanks for help with that. Absolutely. . So you can find a complete transcript of this show as well as a link to Children's Hospital New Orleans by visiting the show notes for this episode. You do this by going to healthyscreenhabits.org. Click the podcast button and scroll to find this episode. Dr. Wallace, thank you so much for being here today and for working so hard to keep kids' mental health a priority in our healthcare system.

Dr. Rebecca Wallace: (31:28)

Definitely. Thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed it.