January 7, 2025 • 35 mins
Ever think of trying to run your family more like a business? Economist Emily Oster has. She returns to help guide parents through the less-frequent but more substantial challenges of parenting during the elementary and preteen years. Bringing insights from her book “The Family Firm,” she recommends looking at strategies employed by successful businesses — like identifying your core values, and focusing on "the four F's" — to create a plan for navigating these tricky years.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello Sunshine, Hey bessies.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Today on the bright Side, economist Emily Oster is back
with more data driven research to help us feel empowered, confident,
and prepared as parents. So get your notepad out, because
today we are answering your biggest parenting questions from kindergarten
all the way through those tricky preteen years. It's Tuesday,
January seventh. I'm Simone Boyce.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
I'm Danielle Robe and this is the bright Side from
Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to
share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Danielle, I am so thrilled to have Emily Oster back.
She is like a balm for my struggling mother's soul. Oh,
I know you really love her, I really do. I
mean her work on parenting has just been groundbreaking and
revolutionary for parents around the world for over a decade.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
What I love most about her.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Work is that it's grounded in science and data and
and so it takes a lot of the guesswork out
of it and also the shame too. I was actually
just having a conversation with my friend Alise Show over
the weekend about how Emily Auster's stance on screen time
has just been such a relief for us and just
(01:19):
made us feel so much less guilty.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
About when our kids are in front of the TV.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Because she just says, if it's helping you be a
better parent, than do it. You know.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
I was actually surprised when she said that, And I
think she has this unique quality of making everything feel
like it's going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
And as a person who's not a.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Parent yet, I've been so interested in everything that she's
had to say when she's on the show, So I
find that aspect interesting too. And I think one of
the reasons is she always comes from a data driven place.
She's an award winning economist, a professor of economics at
Brown University, and New York Times best selling author. She's
(02:00):
also the founder and CEO of parent Data, which is
a data driven guide to pregnancy, parenting, and beyond.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, and today we're digging into Emily's book The Family Firm,
and this one specifically focuses on that post toddler time,
the school aged years from kindergarten all the way up
until about the ages of eleven or twelve, right before
puberty kicks in.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
And here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
See Emily points out that once children start school, the
logistics around childcare and family time become complicated, and she's
so right. If you have kids in sports, you know
what I'm talking about. If you have kids who attend
multiple birthday parties on the weekend, you know what I'm
talking about. And even just getting everyone around the dinner
(02:42):
table together every night can be a challenge, And of
course this all gets compounded when there are multiple children involved.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
So I always say that I have decision fatigue when
it comes to getting dressed in the morning. I can't
even imagine how tired all of the parents are with
all of these decisions you have to make. So Emily
has a framework for streamlining the many decisions that go
into parenting kids in the post toddler and pre teen phase,
and she's here to unpack it all with us. I
(03:10):
miss this conversation, but I'm really excited to listen in.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
All right, Chelle, here's my conversation with Emily Auster. Emily,
welcome back to the bright Side. Thank you so much
for having me back. Emily, You've been here a few
times now. I feel like we have a shorthand I
can I can just be real with you right, go
right into it.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Let's just go right into it, Okay.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So I am really looking forward to this conversation today,
and I am so ready to get humbled by you
and all of your fabulous data. Because I am just
now entering the grade school phase. I don't really know
what to expect. I feel like I'm doing so much
wrong just now, and like I have a kid in TK,
so I am so here for all the knowledge that
you're going to drop on us.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Grade school is really fun and what's so interesting I
think about the distinction the sort of move from little
kids to bigger kids is like the problems are less frequent,
like you get into more of a rhythm, like things
are more predictable and almost more normal. But then when
(04:11):
things do come up there, they feel bigger and they
require more thought. And so it's like instead of like
every single day it's like fire, fire, firefire, It's like
everything is great and then all of a sudden, the
entire house is on fire.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
All of once great. I'm so looking for to that.
But you can do it, and it's so rewarding when
you get right.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I met this woman on vacation one time, and I
think she saw me struggling with my kids, and she
was like, little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems.
When we had a one year old, like a four
year old.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
We were visiting some friends and they had these older
kids and their kids were in high school, and my
husband and I were like, oh, it's going to be
so relaxing, Like, you know, these people like their kids
could put their their shoes on themselves, you know, they
put their jackets on, they like they could drive. And
then they were explaining they were like, you know, we
thought it would so great when our kids are big,
and now we've learned, like, no problem can't be solved
(05:05):
by talking for three hours at night about the social
dynamics of my school.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
It's totally right.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
It's like, on the one hand, you know, it is easier,
and on the other hand, it's it requires time.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, and they're becoming they're becoming becoming humans, fully fully
developed human.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
It's like you could mess up more. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Okay, So in your most recent book, The Family Firm,
you offer some new perspective, and it kind of surprised me,
to be honest, you say that once kids move into
elementary school, the data isn't as cut and dried. I
was surprised to hear that from you. Why is that
the case.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Is surprising to hear from me, because, as you know,
I love data, and when kids are a little there
is a lot of data to answer some of these
basic questions that we have issue as our kids get bigger.
In this way I talk about in family Firm is
that kids get more different from each other. So often
(06:05):
in data, what we're able to say is what's the
average effect of this? So a common question people ask us,
like what's the best kind of school? We can answer
the question, you know, what, on average, what kind of
school has higher test scores, or what on average kind
of school produces more high school graduates.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
But to ask what kind of school is right for
your kid?
Speaker 4 (06:30):
That becomes way more complicated as kids are older, because
the differences across kids start to become more important than
the average. And so we find ourselves in a situation
where even if you said for the average kid, this
school is better than that other school, you're much less
likely to be able to conclude from that that this
school is the right school for your kid. It's much
more about like figuring out fit figuring out what your
(06:53):
kid needs, what's the likely effect of different schools on
different kinds of kids, or how much the kids need
different kids need different amounts of sleep, and knowing the average,
which is something we're really good at in data. It
can be helpful for drawing some boundaries, but there are
a lot more places where you'd say, this really isn't
(07:15):
enough information to inform me about what to do with
my kid.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Okay, So factoring all of this in that these averages
can help us, but they don't necessarily represent the nuances
of each child.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
What do we do now? Where do we turn now?
Speaker 4 (07:32):
In the family firm, I talk about the importance of
deliberate decision making. I think so much in this space
is about being smart about our choices and about how
we use data. So talk about a four step process
where you start by framing the question and whatever is
your problem, asking what are the options I have? People
(07:55):
are not that good at really asking the concrete question
that they have about their kids, So what are my
actual choices? And then taking some time to collect the
information you need to af fact find and some of
that is looking for data, some of that is asking
what's logistically feasible for our family.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
What would we have to give up if we did this.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Activity or that activity, you know, if we send our
kid to private school, what else would we be doing
with that money, Like really trying to think carefully about
what a decision means for your family, and then only
then sort of turning to making the decision and trying
to use all the information together at once to make
a choice. And then there's a fourth f which is
(08:37):
follow up. I think people are probably too reluctant to
revisit their decisions. So we make choices and then we're like, Okay,
I've made that choice forever. But you know, like a
soccer season is one season. If you do travel soccer
and it sucks, you shouldn't do it again, even if
you did it once. And I think we're not always
that good with bigger kids at revisiting decisions. So whether
(09:00):
that particular decision framework works for people or not, I
think the idea of approaching these less frequent but more
important decisions as like it's my job to figure out
to do this. I want to approach this in a structured,
organized way so I can make a decision that I
feel good about and I will say there. People will
(09:24):
say that, like, I want to do this so I
can make the right decision. You cannot guarantee you will
make the right decision. All you can do is make
the best decision that you can with the information you have.
That's all that's in our control. And I think that's
a pretty important thing to remind yourself, because you could
decide to send your kid to some school and it
could not work for them, and that doesn't mean you
(09:44):
made the wrong choice. That's why there's the opportunity to revisit.
But it means you know, you've learned something new and
takes a little pressure off ourselves and also just I
think helps us recognize the things we can control and
the things that we can't.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
There's a phrase is that I kind of say to
myself during decision making periods, choose your choice, which is
what you're saying. Yeah, like, stand by the decision and
keep choosing it every day, keep.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Choosing it every day, but then give yourself the opportunity to,
like not to every day. I mean, there's such a
tricky thing here because you don't want to read this
at your decision every day.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
You don't want to every day be like, ah, is
it right? Is it not right?
Speaker 4 (10:24):
You know, we need to make choices and then move forward,
and also give ourselves the opportunity to say, there is
a point at which I want to look back and
say was this the right choice? Do I want to
make a different choice in the future. So holding both
of those things at the same time is a challenge.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
I love this four F framework that you have set up.
Can you give me an example of how you've used
this decision making framework in your own life, Like, is
there a big decision that you can think of that
you really approached deliberately and found positive results?
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Okay, so give you an example.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
An opportunity came up that my older kid is very
interested in doing, like a volunteering opportunity. But it happened
during dinner, and a sort of core family value for
us is like having dinner together. But at the same time,
like volunteering is also a core value, and so this
was a place where we kind of sat down. We asked, Okay,
the questions pretty obvious, should she do this or not?
(11:24):
And then we sat down. We thought about the schedule,
and we thought about, Okay, what are we giving up?
How will we make this work logistically, when will she eat,
will she be able to get enough sleep? Will we
get the other things done? Like, let's actually deliberately map
it out. And it's an interesting example because there's no
data like other than sleep is important, so we want
to make sure we're not getting in the way of sleep,
(11:45):
but there's no other data there. It's really about like,
let's figure out whether this works together inside our family.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
And then we decided, okay, she can do it.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
She did it for a few weeks and it was like, okay,
let's see how this is working. So it's sort of
a little bit into the natural cadence of how you
make choices, even you know, relatively small choices, but choices
like that are important because if every day there was
an opportunity to do something during dinner, and every time
we were like, oh, it's just one day. It's just
(12:16):
one day. It's just one day. Like pretty soon you're
never having dinner together. So not allowing individual small choices
to sort of go unnoticed, but to think about how
they contribute to everything else. I think that's that's kind
of part of the key.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
We need to take a quick break, but we'll be
right back with Emily Aster and we're back with Emily Aster. Well,
I want to get into some of the big topics
that I think a lot of parents who might be
(12:53):
listening have questions about, especially when it comes to elementary
and middle school. I know that we're kind of whole
the data loosely here, but what do the data generally
say about sleep?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
So this is a.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Place where actually I do think the data is quite good,
and what it says is that sleep.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Is very important.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
I mean, sleep is an extremely interesting thing because every
animal sleeps, like every every animal, including like animals that swim,
and it must therefore be so so important because it's
the stupidest adaptation, Like if you said, like from an
evolutionary standpoint, like we're going to evolve to like lay
around for like eight hours and be totally out of it,
(13:35):
Like that's terrible. That's a great opportunity to be eaten
by a tiger. And so it must be that it's
so important. We don't really know why, but it's very important.
And most kids are not getting as much sleep as
they should, so it's sort of typical kid in elementary
the middle school needs like nine to eleven hours of
sleep at night.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
That's a lot. Yeah, I mean as they get older,
maybe eight to ten.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
But if you sort of think about that, like let's
say your kid's getting up at seven go to school.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Which actually would be pretty late.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
You know, if they're getting up at seven to go
to school and you want them to get ten hours
of sleep, they need to go to bed at nine,
and that's early for a lot of middle school kids.
But you know, and we have to kind of adapt
around that. There's a lot of variation. But I think
just sort of pointing out to parents that like sleep
(14:23):
is actually something that's core to your kids functioning. I mean,
we have studies like randomized trials where they will do
sort of on off design. So they have kids where
for a week they have their parents put them to
sleep in the normal time.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
For a week they have them put them to sleep
an hour later, so.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
They're missing just an hour of sleep, and at the
end of the week, they like do testing on them,
and the kids do worse on the test. Their memories
are worse, their parents say their behavior is worse. Like
and that's like four days of one hour less sleep.
You bring college students into a lab and you keep
them up all night and then you give them tests.
(15:01):
They think they did great on the tests, but they didn't.
That's like the greatest fact. The college students are like
I did amazing on that test, Like that, actually it
did terrible. You didn't sleep. So for me, this all
sort of says like we really want to just think
about how we're prioritizing sleep and what it's going to
take to make sleep like an important part of our
(15:21):
kid's life.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
My oldest son, he kind of struggles with sleep right now.
He kind of like lays in bed at night, has
a hard time falling asleep, and then I think he might,
you know, get up during the night a little bit.
Have you picked up any tips or tricks along the
way to encourage healthy sleep habits and kids?
Speaker 4 (15:42):
So I think there's like two pieces. One is for
kids in your son's age group. There's a kind of
like getting there to be a consistent bedtime where kids
stay in their rooms. There's like an opportunity to generate
good sleep habits. But that's really less about external factors
and more about like deciding what the sleep routine is
and setting up the sleep routine and implementing the sleep routine,
(16:04):
and that's more for the younger kids side, I think
the issue when we get into like you know, particularly
sort of later in elementary and middle school, is actually
the activities kids are doing outside, like extracurriculars, start getting
in the way of sleep. So it's less like my
kid is coming out of their room fifty times for
a glass of water.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
You know, my thirteen year old is not doing that.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
It's more like kids are at dance practice until ten
thirty at night, and then they haven't you know, done
their homework, and then it's and so I think that's
the piece where when the kids are younger, we have
an opportunity to set up a good, solid set of
sleep habits, but we have to keep investing in that
and thinking about not ruining sleep as our kids get big.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, is there any link between sleep training and sleep
habits when kids are in elementary and middle Not really.
If you look at the impacts of sleep training, they're
there's no evidence of any dangerous from sleep training, but
the benefits of sleep training when you look at kids
at like five and six, the difference doesn't really show
(17:11):
up between kids who have been sleep trained in kids
who have not been. So it's really the benefits of
that are in younger ages.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
I know this is about elementary and middle school, but
I do have to say I am very pro sleep training.
It's been amazing. Okay, moving on to nutrition. Nutrition is huge,
and we're also hearing a lot about nutrition in the
news right.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Now, a lot of that. It's coming up, it is,
it's coming up everywhere.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
It is now a huge part of the political conversation
in this country. What do the data say about choosing
the best foods for our kids and how nutrition impacts them.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Nutrition is really hard to study because the choice of
what to eat for both adults and kids is very,
very very wrapped up in many other things. So if
you look at one of the characteristics of people who
eat a lot of broccoli and we don't eat a
lot of broccoli, They're different in a million other ways,
other aspects of their diet, exercise, smoking, income, education. So
(18:08):
when we look at the kinds of studies that are
often used in nutrition, it's very hard to learn anything
from them. Having said that, there are a few kind
of like big picture things which we can piece together.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
You know, a diet should contain vegetables.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Fiber is an important nutrient, not eating a huge amount
of sugar. Those are kind of the things that show
up the most directly as beneficial when we talk about kids.
I think there's like two other more specific things, and
one is that a lot of taste is formed in childhood.
I always hesitate to say that because it sounds like
it's your responsibility if your kids, it's you're going to
(18:49):
be your fault.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
But it's also an opportunity.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
So there's an opportunity to expose your kids to foods
in childhood, which will influence the foods like later.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
The other thing is that kids get super picky. Almost
all the.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Kids have a phase of some significant amount of pickiness,
typically starting around eighteen months or two years and going
until they're six or seven. And that's a really hard
spaege for parents because kids can get so picky that
like they'll just be like, I don't want to eat anything.
And they also don't need quite as much food as
they did when they were like fifteen months old, is
they're growing more slowly and so sometimes they just eat
nothing and parents will react by saying like, oh, I
(19:23):
have to like start giving them, you know, nugget that
every milk is the only thing that they will eat.
There's something wrong with nuggets, but that reaction then they
learn that if you don't eat dinner, you get nuggets.
So it's again a place where it's sort of worthwhile
thinking about what are we trying to accomplish, what are
we trying to get to, how much do we care
(19:44):
about this particular issue versus other issues, and then thinking
about how much you're going to invest in like making
it work.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Earlier in our conversation, you shared one of your family values,
which is sitting around the dinner table together. And I
love the idea of using values as this compass through
which to process deliberate decisions. Why is that such a
core value for you and your family?
Speaker 4 (20:08):
You think it's because, given our schedules, that is the
time that we are able to have dedicated family time.
So a lot of literature, a lot of studies about
family dinner, most.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Of which are linked to good outcomes.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
I think the truth is a lot of that link
is not about the dinner aspect of it, per se,
but just because you're spending time with kids is important,
and you know family dinner is one opportunity for that.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
I love that. Let's talk about homework.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
I colloquially hear parents of elementary school and middle school
children complaining about the amount of homework that comes home
with them. Where is the line what's healthy and what's
too much?
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Homework has been up and down a lot over the years.
It seems to go up when we're feeling like we're
behind other countries. So there was like this peer in
the fifties where it was like, we're behind Russia and
we have to have more homework to catch up with
their space program. There is some evidence that homework can
be good. It can reinforce learning in school. It can
(21:13):
be an opportunity for kids to develop executive skills. So
the ability to take a thing home at the end
of the day, to do it, to put it back
in your backpack, to return it to school. That's actually
a skill separate from being able to do math, which
is also very valuable for life. And to the extent
that homework does those things, that's good. When we start
(21:34):
talking about, you know, how much is the right amount
of homework in elementary school, and there's a lot more debate,
and most of the evidence would suggest you don't really
need very much homework to accomplish the thing is it's
actually accomplishing, and people start telling me, you know, my
kindergartener has an hour of worksheets every night, Like there's
just no evidence that that would be helpful, and that
is not really what a kindergartener should be doing in
(21:56):
the evenings every day.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
So there's a there's a balance here. It's time for
another short break. We'll be right back with economist and
New York Times bestselling author Emily Oster.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
And we're back with Emily Oster.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
All right, it's time to address the elephant in the room,
and that is screens and phones and technology. Okay, here
we go. Let's go into the gauntlet here. I know
that we've talked about this with you before.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
It's like one of the topics that is every age group.
It's relevant for it's the topic. It's the topic.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
I was just talking about it the other day with
a friend and your name came up, and I was like, listen,
I just do what Emily Oster tells.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Me to do.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
And she told me that I could put on the
TV wall I'm cooking dinner, okay, and she said that
that's totally healthy. So I just am so grateful for
your voice in this conversation.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
But this is the big topic.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
So there are lots of different ways that you can
approach screen time and social media and phones.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Let's go to the research. What have you learned? What
are the through lines that emerge?
Speaker 4 (23:09):
So one through line is that when you are doing
things on screens, you are not doing other things. So
I think that's a really important through line that hits
at all ages is thinking about screens or phones or whatever,
not necessarily as good or bad, but thinking about them
as substituting for something else. And you know, if your
(23:29):
kid is on their phone or on their screens instead
of doing their homework, or instead of going outside, or
instead of doing something else they're responsible for, or instead
of sitting at dinner with you and talking to you,
then that is not good because it's substituting for something
that would be better. If your kid is watching television
or on their screens during a time that they would
(23:50):
other advice, be screaming at you, or you know, when
you're getting something done so you could have that nice
center together.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Like that's a different story.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
So I think one piece of this is just thinking
about the substantution, thinking about what we call the opportunity
costs is like a through line everywhere. There's a part
of this conversation that I think really has to distinguish
the kind of world of television and videos that our
younger kids are thinking about. Then morphsenter the world of
social media and phones with older kids. There's a much
(24:20):
more challenging discussion because it's not only the time that
it takes from other things, but it's also you know,
is there something about social media itself that's bad for kids?
Is there something about mental health that is being affected
by this? And that's a place where you know, our
evidence isn't perfect. It seems pretty clear that some kids
(24:42):
benefit from Instagram and some kids really don't benefit from Instagram.
And sort of getting back to an earlier part of
the conversation where I said, like, data isn't that helpful
because you have to think about your kid. This is
very much that case where like we could probably say
that like, on average, for the average kid, it's probably
(25:02):
slightly negative in terms of, you know, mental health. I
would say that's what the study, the small number of
studies and this would suggest, but that is more or
less totally uninfformative, when like it's really good for some
kids and really bad for other kids. You got to
figure out what's appropriate for your kid.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
When it comes to phones.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
I'd love to talk through how we can use your
four step framework to make a deliberate, informed decision about
when to give your child a phone, whether to give
them a phone at all, and what kind of phone
to give them.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
How would we do that?
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Okay, So I would start by framing the question and
asking what am I deciding? So it's not should I
give my kid a phone or not? Because first of all,
a phone is not well defined, and or not is
also not well defined. So I would encourage people to say, like,
you know, should I give my kid a smartphone now?
Or should we revisit this conversation in six months? That's
(25:59):
it well defined question. Or should I get my kid
a dumb phone now, like a flip phone now? Or
should we revisit this conversation in six months? Or should
I give them a flip phone or a smartphone? Something
where it's like two concrete things you can actually compare against.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
So the specifics really matter.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
Specifics really matter because you won't be able to fact find,
You're not going to be able to evaluate the question
unless you actually have a well defined question. Then I
would sit down and think about both what is the
data say, which is what do we know kind of
about the evidence on phones? We talked about some of that,
but then also like why are we doing this? So
(26:38):
what is the reason to get this phone? And what
are we getting out of this? So my kids they
want to call their friends, I need to call them,
they need access for school whatever. It is like thinking
about why are we having this conversation now? And then
you make a decision with your kid, and I think
this piece of it the sort of second stage.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Eventually you are going to get at your kidaphone.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
So at some point you're going to decide, Okay, we're
not going to wait anymore, We're going to get our kidaphone.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
And this is your opportunity to set boundaries. Okay.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
So part of the issue is that, because every kid
is different, until you give your kid that smartphone, you
actually probably aren't really going to know how they're going
to react. So is your kid going to find the
phone very difficult to pull away from? Are they going
to feel bad about the group chat? Are you going
(27:34):
to give them access to social media? And if you do,
how are they going to feel about that. None of
this stuff is super predictable. So this is an opportunity
to sit down with your kid and say, this is
a trial. We're going to try this out. Here are
some restrictions you might put on it to begin with,
maybe you don't have social media at the beginning. Maybe
you only have a certain amount of time whatever it is,
and then you know, have a specific time you're going
(27:54):
to revisit. So when we eventually gave my kid a phone,
we were like, okay, we're going to give it to you.
You have it for three months, and at the end
of three months, we'll talk about how it went. And
we reserve the right to take the phone away at
any time and also to change the rules at any
time because we are.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
In charge of this.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
But we are for sure going to talk about it
three months and see how it's going. So it's like
such a hard moment, but like remembering, like you're in charge.
It's your job to help your kid figure out how
to use this, and that may mean giving them a
phone and then taking it away. That's okay, that's your job,
and they're going to say I hate you, and that's
your job is for them to tell you that they
(28:32):
hate you some of the time.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
It's actually true. Yeah, no true statement has been said.
It's sort of too bad, but it's what it is.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Well, I think it's really interesting that you talk about
involving the kid in that decision, like coming from the
household that I was raised in. I was not involved
in any decision making until I was eighteen years old
and out of the house.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Yeah, I mean, I think this is the thing I
think is totally changed. I share your view, but I
think it's totally changed. There's a balance, right, sort of
you can involve your kid in this decision and talk
about what are the restrictions that you could still be
the boss. That's a hard balance to hold, but ideally
we talk about like authoritative parenting. That's sort of what
it is to kind of have your kid involved but
(29:18):
at the same time not have them be in charge
because you're the actual CEO of this small and medium
sized enterprise.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yes, it's your family. I'm loving all these corporate analogies.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Emily.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
It's very Emily meetings. You have your OKRs, you.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Know APIs, KPIs CAT, you have your APIs.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I don't know what any of these terms, it's very
hard to tell.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
It's I don't know. Well.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
In thinking about running your household like a business, a
lot of businesses operate within the confines of a value system,
and that's something that you talk about in your book.
How would you define a value system in this context.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
Because a few different ways. So I talk about having
a mission statement. So I think as simple thing is like,
could you say what you're trying to do, like what
you're trying to accomplish in like one sentence. Another way
into that is to say, like what are our three
core values? What are the three things that are most
important one of our family, things like we follow through
on our commitments.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
That's a core value and that you could sort of
come back to.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
And be like, okay, but our core value is this
and so this is why we're going to do it
things like this.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
But there's a broader sense.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
You could think about values as like what are the
activities that are important to us? Which is a little
different than values, but I think reflects the fact that
your value should influence your behaviors, So like what is
something we want to make sure we do every day?
So thinking about being deliberate about what are the things
that are important, that's the core idea.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Do you feel like this approach has reduced friction for
you and your husband?
Speaker 4 (30:53):
Yes, Friction is a very good word there, because I
think part of this is when you if there are
cases in which you disagree, you have to have some conflict,
And a lot of this is about sort of bringing
forward the conflict into a moment in which you're ready
to talk about it, rather than having the conflicts in
the moments that they're happening. If I think back, like
the first year of our daughter's life, of my first
(31:14):
kid's life, was really tough. It's tough on everybody's marriage,
but that was like, that was a hard year, And
I think a lot of that was that we had
not planned to have any of these conversations, but had
no idea what we were doing, and so then we
were constantly like arguing about small things when we should
have backed up and been like, okay, what, like we're
sort of disagreeing about some fundamental value, Well, we haven't
(31:35):
talked about that, and.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Now we're sort of arguing about that in the.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
Context of discussing a nap, which of course is not
really the core problem at all.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Yeah, and you're both sleep deprived and you're tired. Yeah,
and it's a terrible time to be arguing.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Okay, Emily, before we wrap this up, we know that
you have been studying the data for over a decade.
What surprising new research has come out since you started,
and is there any additional insight you've gained from recent studies.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
So I'll tell you about one recent study which goes
back to nutrition. It's about sugar. I like it because
it's informative, but I think it's also a very cool idea.
So I said, it's very hard to study dietary patterns
because of all the other things that are wrapped up
in people's choices about what to eat. So what these
guys did in this study is they look at this
(32:26):
episode in England where sugar was rationed. So after World
War Two, sugar was rationed for a pretty long time,
and then at some point, like one day, like in
September of nineteen fifty three, they took sugar off rationing
and then you could like have some much sugar as
you want, and the consumption of sugar per capita like doubles.
And so they have kids who spent the first years
(32:47):
of their life in like a low sugar environment, and
then kids who spent the first years of your life
in a much higher sugar environment. And then because this
happened like in nineteen fifty three, they actually have data
on these people when they're like sixty. So what they
see is being exposed to a lot of sugar when
you're young has impacts on diabetes and hypertension when you're old.
(33:08):
And so it doesn't just to like back up for
all the freaked out parents. It doesn't say you shouldn't
have any sugar. It just argues for some moderation and sugar,
which is already the kind of dietary advice that we
give parents. But it's a I think, a really interesting
example of where we can have some good data even
in a space where data is hard.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
I feel so convicted by this right now because I
use sugar as leverage. I'm like, you'll get a little
treat if cooperate.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
Everybody does that. That's how everyone in America. I got there,
bets to use the potty eminem's.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Get the body, you get an M and M.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I fed my kid toxic red dye skittles and now
he's potty trained.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
So yeah, the toxins and that are overrated. I would
say I love talking to you.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
I was still so vindicated, Emily, Thank you so much
much for coming back on the bright side.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Thank you, Ray.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Emily Austar is an award winning economist, Professor of Economics
at Brown University, and New York Times bestselling author. Emily
is also the founder and CEO of parent Data, a
data driven guide to pregnancy, parenting, and beyond.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
For today's show, Tomorrow, best selling author Gabby Bernstein joins
us to share her tips on setting intentions, finding balance,
and manifesting your dreams.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect
with us on social media at Hello Sunshine on Instagram
and at the bright Side Pod on TikTok oh, and
feel free to tag us at Simone Boyce and at
Danielle Robe.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Listen and follow The bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
See you tomorrow, folks, Keep looking on the bright side.
Hello Sunshine, Hey bessies.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Today on the bright Side, economist Emily Oster is back
with more data driven research to help us feel empowered, confident,
and prepared as parents. So get your notepad out, because
today we are answering your biggest parenting questions from kindergarten
all the way through those tricky preteen years. It's Tuesday,
January seventh. I'm Simone Boyce.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
I'm Danielle Robe and this is the bright Side from
Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to
share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Danielle, I am so thrilled to have Emily Oster back.
She is like a balm for my struggling mother's soul. Oh,
I know you really love her, I really do. I
mean her work on parenting has just been groundbreaking and
revolutionary for parents around the world for over a decade.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
What I love most about her.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Work is that it's grounded in science and data and
and so it takes a lot of the guesswork out
of it and also the shame too. I was actually
just having a conversation with my friend Alise Show over
the weekend about how Emily Auster's stance on screen time
has just been such a relief for us and just
(01:19):
made us feel so much less guilty.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
About when our kids are in front of the TV.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Because she just says, if it's helping you be a
better parent, than do it. You know.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
I was actually surprised when she said that, And I
think she has this unique quality of making everything feel
like it's going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
And as a person who's not a.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Parent yet, I've been so interested in everything that she's
had to say when she's on the show, So I
find that aspect interesting too. And I think one of
the reasons is she always comes from a data driven place.
She's an award winning economist, a professor of economics at
Brown University, and New York Times best selling author. She's
(02:00):
also the founder and CEO of parent Data, which is
a data driven guide to pregnancy, parenting, and beyond.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, and today we're digging into Emily's book The Family Firm,
and this one specifically focuses on that post toddler time,
the school aged years from kindergarten all the way up
until about the ages of eleven or twelve, right before
puberty kicks in.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
And here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
See Emily points out that once children start school, the
logistics around childcare and family time become complicated, and she's
so right. If you have kids in sports, you know
what I'm talking about. If you have kids who attend
multiple birthday parties on the weekend, you know what I'm
talking about. And even just getting everyone around the dinner
(02:42):
table together every night can be a challenge, And of
course this all gets compounded when there are multiple children involved.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
So I always say that I have decision fatigue when
it comes to getting dressed in the morning. I can't
even imagine how tired all of the parents are with
all of these decisions you have to make. So Emily
has a framework for streamlining the many decisions that go
into parenting kids in the post toddler and pre teen phase,
and she's here to unpack it all with us. I
(03:10):
miss this conversation, but I'm really excited to listen in.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
All right, Chelle, here's my conversation with Emily Auster. Emily,
welcome back to the bright Side. Thank you so much
for having me back. Emily, You've been here a few
times now. I feel like we have a shorthand I
can I can just be real with you right, go
right into it.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Let's just go right into it, Okay.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So I am really looking forward to this conversation today,
and I am so ready to get humbled by you
and all of your fabulous data. Because I am just
now entering the grade school phase. I don't really know
what to expect. I feel like I'm doing so much
wrong just now, and like I have a kid in TK,
so I am so here for all the knowledge that
you're going to drop on us.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Grade school is really fun and what's so interesting I
think about the distinction the sort of move from little
kids to bigger kids is like the problems are less frequent,
like you get into more of a rhythm, like things
are more predictable and almost more normal. But then when
(04:11):
things do come up there, they feel bigger and they
require more thought. And so it's like instead of like
every single day it's like fire, fire, firefire, It's like
everything is great and then all of a sudden, the
entire house is on fire.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
All of once great. I'm so looking for to that.
But you can do it, and it's so rewarding when
you get right.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I met this woman on vacation one time, and I
think she saw me struggling with my kids, and she
was like, little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems.
When we had a one year old, like a four
year old.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
We were visiting some friends and they had these older
kids and their kids were in high school, and my
husband and I were like, oh, it's going to be
so relaxing, Like, you know, these people like their kids
could put their their shoes on themselves, you know, they
put their jackets on, they like they could drive. And
then they were explaining they were like, you know, we
thought it would so great when our kids are big,
and now we've learned, like, no problem can't be solved
(05:05):
by talking for three hours at night about the social
dynamics of my school.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
It's totally right.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
It's like, on the one hand, you know, it is easier,
and on the other hand, it's it requires time.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, and they're becoming they're becoming becoming humans, fully fully
developed human.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
It's like you could mess up more. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Okay, So in your most recent book, The Family Firm,
you offer some new perspective, and it kind of surprised me,
to be honest, you say that once kids move into
elementary school, the data isn't as cut and dried. I
was surprised to hear that from you. Why is that
the case.
Speaker 4 (05:44):
Is surprising to hear from me, because, as you know,
I love data, and when kids are a little there
is a lot of data to answer some of these
basic questions that we have issue as our kids get bigger.
In this way I talk about in family Firm is
that kids get more different from each other. So often
(06:05):
in data, what we're able to say is what's the
average effect of this? So a common question people ask us,
like what's the best kind of school? We can answer
the question, you know, what, on average, what kind of
school has higher test scores, or what on average kind
of school produces more high school graduates.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
But to ask what kind of school is right for
your kid?
Speaker 4 (06:30):
That becomes way more complicated as kids are older, because
the differences across kids start to become more important than
the average. And so we find ourselves in a situation
where even if you said for the average kid, this
school is better than that other school, you're much less
likely to be able to conclude from that that this
school is the right school for your kid. It's much
more about like figuring out fit figuring out what your
(06:53):
kid needs, what's the likely effect of different schools on
different kinds of kids, or how much the kids need
different kids need different amounts of sleep, and knowing the average,
which is something we're really good at in data. It
can be helpful for drawing some boundaries, but there are
a lot more places where you'd say, this really isn't
(07:15):
enough information to inform me about what to do with
my kid.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Okay, So factoring all of this in that these averages
can help us, but they don't necessarily represent the nuances
of each child.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
What do we do now? Where do we turn now?
Speaker 4 (07:32):
In the family firm, I talk about the importance of
deliberate decision making. I think so much in this space
is about being smart about our choices and about how
we use data. So talk about a four step process
where you start by framing the question and whatever is
your problem, asking what are the options I have? People
(07:55):
are not that good at really asking the concrete question
that they have about their kids, So what are my
actual choices? And then taking some time to collect the
information you need to af fact find and some of
that is looking for data, some of that is asking
what's logistically feasible for our family.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
What would we have to give up if we did this.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Activity or that activity, you know, if we send our
kid to private school, what else would we be doing
with that money, Like really trying to think carefully about
what a decision means for your family, and then only
then sort of turning to making the decision and trying
to use all the information together at once to make
a choice. And then there's a fourth f which is
(08:37):
follow up. I think people are probably too reluctant to
revisit their decisions. So we make choices and then we're like, Okay,
I've made that choice forever. But you know, like a
soccer season is one season. If you do travel soccer
and it sucks, you shouldn't do it again, even if
you did it once. And I think we're not always
that good with bigger kids at revisiting decisions. So whether
(09:00):
that particular decision framework works for people or not, I
think the idea of approaching these less frequent but more
important decisions as like it's my job to figure out
to do this. I want to approach this in a structured,
organized way so I can make a decision that I
feel good about and I will say there. People will
(09:24):
say that, like, I want to do this so I
can make the right decision. You cannot guarantee you will
make the right decision. All you can do is make
the best decision that you can with the information you have.
That's all that's in our control. And I think that's
a pretty important thing to remind yourself, because you could
decide to send your kid to some school and it
could not work for them, and that doesn't mean you
(09:44):
made the wrong choice. That's why there's the opportunity to revisit.
But it means you know, you've learned something new and
takes a little pressure off ourselves and also just I
think helps us recognize the things we can control and
the things that we can't.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
There's a phrase is that I kind of say to
myself during decision making periods, choose your choice, which is
what you're saying. Yeah, like, stand by the decision and
keep choosing it every day, keep.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Choosing it every day, but then give yourself the opportunity to,
like not to every day. I mean, there's such a
tricky thing here because you don't want to read this
at your decision every day.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
You don't want to every day be like, ah, is
it right? Is it not right?
Speaker 4 (10:24):
You know, we need to make choices and then move forward,
and also give ourselves the opportunity to say, there is
a point at which I want to look back and
say was this the right choice? Do I want to
make a different choice in the future. So holding both
of those things at the same time is a challenge.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
I love this four F framework that you have set up.
Can you give me an example of how you've used
this decision making framework in your own life, Like, is
there a big decision that you can think of that
you really approached deliberately and found positive results?
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Okay, so give you an example.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
An opportunity came up that my older kid is very
interested in doing, like a volunteering opportunity. But it happened
during dinner, and a sort of core family value for
us is like having dinner together. But at the same time,
like volunteering is also a core value, and so this
was a place where we kind of sat down. We asked, Okay,
the questions pretty obvious, should she do this or not?
(11:24):
And then we sat down. We thought about the schedule,
and we thought about, Okay, what are we giving up?
How will we make this work logistically, when will she eat,
will she be able to get enough sleep? Will we
get the other things done? Like, let's actually deliberately map
it out. And it's an interesting example because there's no
data like other than sleep is important, so we want
to make sure we're not getting in the way of sleep,
(11:45):
but there's no other data there. It's really about like,
let's figure out whether this works together inside our family.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
And then we decided, okay, she can do it.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
She did it for a few weeks and it was like, okay,
let's see how this is working. So it's sort of
a little bit into the natural cadence of how you
make choices, even you know, relatively small choices, but choices
like that are important because if every day there was
an opportunity to do something during dinner, and every time
we were like, oh, it's just one day. It's just
(12:16):
one day. It's just one day. Like pretty soon you're
never having dinner together. So not allowing individual small choices
to sort of go unnoticed, but to think about how
they contribute to everything else. I think that's that's kind
of part of the key.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
We need to take a quick break, but we'll be
right back with Emily Aster and we're back with Emily Aster. Well,
I want to get into some of the big topics
that I think a lot of parents who might be
(12:53):
listening have questions about, especially when it comes to elementary
and middle school. I know that we're kind of whole
the data loosely here, but what do the data generally
say about sleep?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
So this is a.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Place where actually I do think the data is quite good,
and what it says is that sleep.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Is very important.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
I mean, sleep is an extremely interesting thing because every
animal sleeps, like every every animal, including like animals that swim,
and it must therefore be so so important because it's
the stupidest adaptation, Like if you said, like from an
evolutionary standpoint, like we're going to evolve to like lay
around for like eight hours and be totally out of it,
(13:35):
Like that's terrible. That's a great opportunity to be eaten
by a tiger. And so it must be that it's
so important. We don't really know why, but it's very important.
And most kids are not getting as much sleep as
they should, so it's sort of typical kid in elementary
the middle school needs like nine to eleven hours of
sleep at night.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
That's a lot. Yeah, I mean as they get older,
maybe eight to ten.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
But if you sort of think about that, like let's
say your kid's getting up at seven go to school.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Which actually would be pretty late.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
You know, if they're getting up at seven to go
to school and you want them to get ten hours
of sleep, they need to go to bed at nine,
and that's early for a lot of middle school kids.
But you know, and we have to kind of adapt
around that. There's a lot of variation. But I think
just sort of pointing out to parents that like sleep
(14:23):
is actually something that's core to your kids functioning. I mean,
we have studies like randomized trials where they will do
sort of on off design. So they have kids where
for a week they have their parents put them to
sleep in the normal time.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
For a week they have them put them to sleep
an hour later, so.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
They're missing just an hour of sleep, and at the
end of the week, they like do testing on them,
and the kids do worse on the test. Their memories
are worse, their parents say their behavior is worse. Like
and that's like four days of one hour less sleep.
You bring college students into a lab and you keep
them up all night and then you give them tests.
(15:01):
They think they did great on the tests, but they didn't.
That's like the greatest fact. The college students are like
I did amazing on that test, Like that, actually it
did terrible. You didn't sleep. So for me, this all
sort of says like we really want to just think
about how we're prioritizing sleep and what it's going to
take to make sleep like an important part of our
(15:21):
kid's life.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
My oldest son, he kind of struggles with sleep right now.
He kind of like lays in bed at night, has
a hard time falling asleep, and then I think he might,
you know, get up during the night a little bit.
Have you picked up any tips or tricks along the
way to encourage healthy sleep habits and kids?
Speaker 4 (15:42):
So I think there's like two pieces. One is for
kids in your son's age group. There's a kind of
like getting there to be a consistent bedtime where kids
stay in their rooms. There's like an opportunity to generate
good sleep habits. But that's really less about external factors
and more about like deciding what the sleep routine is
and setting up the sleep routine and implementing the sleep routine,
(16:04):
and that's more for the younger kids side, I think
the issue when we get into like you know, particularly
sort of later in elementary and middle school, is actually
the activities kids are doing outside, like extracurriculars, start getting
in the way of sleep. So it's less like my
kid is coming out of their room fifty times for
a glass of water.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
You know, my thirteen year old is not doing that.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
It's more like kids are at dance practice until ten
thirty at night, and then they haven't you know, done
their homework, and then it's and so I think that's
the piece where when the kids are younger, we have
an opportunity to set up a good, solid set of
sleep habits, but we have to keep investing in that
and thinking about not ruining sleep as our kids get big.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, is there any link between sleep training and sleep
habits when kids are in elementary and middle Not really.
If you look at the impacts of sleep training, they're
there's no evidence of any dangerous from sleep training, but
the benefits of sleep training when you look at kids
at like five and six, the difference doesn't really show
(17:11):
up between kids who have been sleep trained in kids
who have not been. So it's really the benefits of
that are in younger ages.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
I know this is about elementary and middle school, but
I do have to say I am very pro sleep training.
It's been amazing. Okay, moving on to nutrition. Nutrition is huge,
and we're also hearing a lot about nutrition in the
news right.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Now, a lot of that. It's coming up, it is,
it's coming up everywhere.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
It is now a huge part of the political conversation
in this country. What do the data say about choosing
the best foods for our kids and how nutrition impacts them.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
Nutrition is really hard to study because the choice of
what to eat for both adults and kids is very,
very very wrapped up in many other things. So if
you look at one of the characteristics of people who
eat a lot of broccoli and we don't eat a
lot of broccoli, They're different in a million other ways,
other aspects of their diet, exercise, smoking, income, education. So
(18:08):
when we look at the kinds of studies that are
often used in nutrition, it's very hard to learn anything
from them. Having said that, there are a few kind
of like big picture things which we can piece together.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
You know, a diet should contain vegetables.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Fiber is an important nutrient, not eating a huge amount
of sugar. Those are kind of the things that show
up the most directly as beneficial when we talk about kids.
I think there's like two other more specific things, and
one is that a lot of taste is formed in childhood.
I always hesitate to say that because it sounds like
it's your responsibility if your kids, it's you're going to
(18:49):
be your fault.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
But it's also an opportunity.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
So there's an opportunity to expose your kids to foods
in childhood, which will influence the foods like later.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
The other thing is that kids get super picky. Almost
all the.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Kids have a phase of some significant amount of pickiness,
typically starting around eighteen months or two years and going
until they're six or seven. And that's a really hard
spaege for parents because kids can get so picky that
like they'll just be like, I don't want to eat anything.
And they also don't need quite as much food as
they did when they were like fifteen months old, is
they're growing more slowly and so sometimes they just eat
nothing and parents will react by saying like, oh, I
(19:23):
have to like start giving them, you know, nugget that
every milk is the only thing that they will eat.
There's something wrong with nuggets, but that reaction then they
learn that if you don't eat dinner, you get nuggets.
So it's again a place where it's sort of worthwhile
thinking about what are we trying to accomplish, what are
we trying to get to, how much do we care
(19:44):
about this particular issue versus other issues, and then thinking
about how much you're going to invest in like making
it work.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Earlier in our conversation, you shared one of your family values,
which is sitting around the dinner table together. And I
love the idea of using values as this compass through
which to process deliberate decisions. Why is that such a
core value for you and your family?
Speaker 4 (20:08):
You think it's because, given our schedules, that is the
time that we are able to have dedicated family time.
So a lot of literature, a lot of studies about
family dinner, most.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Of which are linked to good outcomes.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
I think the truth is a lot of that link
is not about the dinner aspect of it, per se,
but just because you're spending time with kids is important,
and you know family dinner is one opportunity for that.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
I love that. Let's talk about homework.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
I colloquially hear parents of elementary school and middle school
children complaining about the amount of homework that comes home
with them. Where is the line what's healthy and what's
too much?
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Homework has been up and down a lot over the years.
It seems to go up when we're feeling like we're
behind other countries. So there was like this peer in
the fifties where it was like, we're behind Russia and
we have to have more homework to catch up with
their space program. There is some evidence that homework can
be good. It can reinforce learning in school. It can
(21:13):
be an opportunity for kids to develop executive skills. So
the ability to take a thing home at the end
of the day, to do it, to put it back
in your backpack, to return it to school. That's actually
a skill separate from being able to do math, which
is also very valuable for life. And to the extent
that homework does those things, that's good. When we start
(21:34):
talking about, you know, how much is the right amount
of homework in elementary school, and there's a lot more debate,
and most of the evidence would suggest you don't really
need very much homework to accomplish the thing is it's
actually accomplishing, and people start telling me, you know, my
kindergartener has an hour of worksheets every night, Like there's
just no evidence that that would be helpful, and that
is not really what a kindergartener should be doing in
(21:56):
the evenings every day.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
So there's a there's a balance here. It's time for
another short break. We'll be right back with economist and
New York Times bestselling author Emily Oster.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
And we're back with Emily Oster.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
All right, it's time to address the elephant in the room,
and that is screens and phones and technology. Okay, here
we go. Let's go into the gauntlet here. I know
that we've talked about this with you before.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
It's like one of the topics that is every age group.
It's relevant for it's the topic. It's the topic.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
I was just talking about it the other day with
a friend and your name came up, and I was like, listen,
I just do what Emily Oster tells.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Me to do.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
And she told me that I could put on the
TV wall I'm cooking dinner, okay, and she said that
that's totally healthy. So I just am so grateful for
your voice in this conversation.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
But this is the big topic.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
So there are lots of different ways that you can
approach screen time and social media and phones.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Let's go to the research. What have you learned? What
are the through lines that emerge?
Speaker 4 (23:09):
So one through line is that when you are doing
things on screens, you are not doing other things. So
I think that's a really important through line that hits
at all ages is thinking about screens or phones or whatever,
not necessarily as good or bad, but thinking about them
as substituting for something else. And you know, if your
(23:29):
kid is on their phone or on their screens instead
of doing their homework, or instead of going outside, or
instead of doing something else they're responsible for, or instead
of sitting at dinner with you and talking to you,
then that is not good because it's substituting for something
that would be better. If your kid is watching television
or on their screens during a time that they would
(23:50):
other advice, be screaming at you, or you know, when
you're getting something done so you could have that nice
center together.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Like that's a different story.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
So I think one piece of this is just thinking
about the substantution, thinking about what we call the opportunity
costs is like a through line everywhere. There's a part
of this conversation that I think really has to distinguish
the kind of world of television and videos that our
younger kids are thinking about. Then morphsenter the world of
social media and phones with older kids. There's a much
(24:20):
more challenging discussion because it's not only the time that
it takes from other things, but it's also you know,
is there something about social media itself that's bad for kids?
Is there something about mental health that is being affected
by this? And that's a place where you know, our
evidence isn't perfect. It seems pretty clear that some kids
(24:42):
benefit from Instagram and some kids really don't benefit from Instagram.
And sort of getting back to an earlier part of
the conversation where I said, like, data isn't that helpful
because you have to think about your kid. This is
very much that case where like we could probably say
that like, on average, for the average kid, it's probably
(25:02):
slightly negative in terms of, you know, mental health. I
would say that's what the study, the small number of
studies and this would suggest, but that is more or
less totally uninfformative, when like it's really good for some
kids and really bad for other kids. You got to
figure out what's appropriate for your kid.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
When it comes to phones.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
I'd love to talk through how we can use your
four step framework to make a deliberate, informed decision about
when to give your child a phone, whether to give
them a phone at all, and what kind of phone
to give them.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
How would we do that?
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Okay, So I would start by framing the question and
asking what am I deciding? So it's not should I
give my kid a phone or not? Because first of all,
a phone is not well defined, and or not is
also not well defined. So I would encourage people to say, like,
you know, should I give my kid a smartphone now?
Or should we revisit this conversation in six months? That's
(25:59):
it well defined question. Or should I get my kid
a dumb phone now, like a flip phone now? Or
should we revisit this conversation in six months? Or should
I give them a flip phone or a smartphone? Something
where it's like two concrete things you can actually compare against.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
So the specifics really matter.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
Specifics really matter because you won't be able to fact find,
You're not going to be able to evaluate the question
unless you actually have a well defined question. Then I
would sit down and think about both what is the
data say, which is what do we know kind of
about the evidence on phones? We talked about some of that,
but then also like why are we doing this? So
(26:38):
what is the reason to get this phone? And what
are we getting out of this? So my kids they
want to call their friends, I need to call them,
they need access for school whatever. It is like thinking
about why are we having this conversation now? And then
you make a decision with your kid, and I think
this piece of it the sort of second stage.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Eventually you are going to get at your kidaphone.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
So at some point you're going to decide, Okay, we're
not going to wait anymore, We're going to get our kidaphone.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
And this is your opportunity to set boundaries. Okay.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
So part of the issue is that, because every kid
is different, until you give your kid that smartphone, you
actually probably aren't really going to know how they're going
to react. So is your kid going to find the
phone very difficult to pull away from? Are they going
to feel bad about the group chat? Are you going
(27:34):
to give them access to social media? And if you do,
how are they going to feel about that. None of
this stuff is super predictable. So this is an opportunity
to sit down with your kid and say, this is
a trial. We're going to try this out. Here are
some restrictions you might put on it to begin with,
maybe you don't have social media at the beginning. Maybe
you only have a certain amount of time whatever it is,
and then you know, have a specific time you're going
(27:54):
to revisit. So when we eventually gave my kid a phone,
we were like, okay, we're going to give it to you.
You have it for three months, and at the end
of three months, we'll talk about how it went. And
we reserve the right to take the phone away at
any time and also to change the rules at any
time because we are.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
In charge of this.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
But we are for sure going to talk about it
three months and see how it's going. So it's like
such a hard moment, but like remembering, like you're in charge.
It's your job to help your kid figure out how
to use this, and that may mean giving them a
phone and then taking it away. That's okay, that's your job,
and they're going to say I hate you, and that's
your job is for them to tell you that they
(28:32):
hate you some of the time.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
It's actually true. Yeah, no true statement has been said.
It's sort of too bad, but it's what it is.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Well, I think it's really interesting that you talk about
involving the kid in that decision, like coming from the
household that I was raised in. I was not involved
in any decision making until I was eighteen years old
and out of the house.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Yeah, I mean, I think this is the thing I
think is totally changed. I share your view, but I
think it's totally changed. There's a balance, right, sort of
you can involve your kid in this decision and talk
about what are the restrictions that you could still be
the boss. That's a hard balance to hold, but ideally
we talk about like authoritative parenting. That's sort of what
it is to kind of have your kid involved but
(29:18):
at the same time not have them be in charge
because you're the actual CEO of this small and medium
sized enterprise.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yes, it's your family. I'm loving all these corporate analogies.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Emily.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
It's very Emily meetings. You have your OKRs, you.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Know APIs, KPIs CAT, you have your APIs.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I don't know what any of these terms, it's very
hard to tell.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
It's I don't know. Well.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
In thinking about running your household like a business, a
lot of businesses operate within the confines of a value system,
and that's something that you talk about in your book.
How would you define a value system in this context.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
Because a few different ways. So I talk about having
a mission statement. So I think as simple thing is like,
could you say what you're trying to do, like what
you're trying to accomplish in like one sentence. Another way
into that is to say, like what are our three
core values? What are the three things that are most
important one of our family, things like we follow through
on our commitments.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
That's a core value and that you could sort of
come back to.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
And be like, okay, but our core value is this
and so this is why we're going to do it
things like this.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
But there's a broader sense.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
You could think about values as like what are the
activities that are important to us? Which is a little
different than values, but I think reflects the fact that
your value should influence your behaviors, So like what is
something we want to make sure we do every day?
So thinking about being deliberate about what are the things
that are important, that's the core idea.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Do you feel like this approach has reduced friction for
you and your husband?
Speaker 4 (30:53):
Yes, Friction is a very good word there, because I
think part of this is when you if there are
cases in which you disagree, you have to have some conflict,
And a lot of this is about sort of bringing
forward the conflict into a moment in which you're ready
to talk about it, rather than having the conflicts in
the moments that they're happening. If I think back, like
the first year of our daughter's life, of my first
(31:14):
kid's life, was really tough. It's tough on everybody's marriage,
but that was like, that was a hard year, And
I think a lot of that was that we had
not planned to have any of these conversations, but had
no idea what we were doing, and so then we
were constantly like arguing about small things when we should
have backed up and been like, okay, what, like we're
sort of disagreeing about some fundamental value, Well, we haven't
(31:35):
talked about that, and.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Now we're sort of arguing about that in the.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
Context of discussing a nap, which of course is not
really the core problem at all.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Yeah, and you're both sleep deprived and you're tired. Yeah,
and it's a terrible time to be arguing.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Okay, Emily, before we wrap this up, we know that
you have been studying the data for over a decade.
What surprising new research has come out since you started,
and is there any additional insight you've gained from recent studies.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
So I'll tell you about one recent study which goes
back to nutrition. It's about sugar. I like it because
it's informative, but I think it's also a very cool idea.
So I said, it's very hard to study dietary patterns
because of all the other things that are wrapped up
in people's choices about what to eat. So what these
guys did in this study is they look at this
(32:26):
episode in England where sugar was rationed. So after World
War Two, sugar was rationed for a pretty long time,
and then at some point, like one day, like in
September of nineteen fifty three, they took sugar off rationing
and then you could like have some much sugar as
you want, and the consumption of sugar per capita like doubles.
And so they have kids who spent the first years
(32:47):
of their life in like a low sugar environment, and
then kids who spent the first years of your life
in a much higher sugar environment. And then because this
happened like in nineteen fifty three, they actually have data
on these people when they're like sixty. So what they
see is being exposed to a lot of sugar when
you're young has impacts on diabetes and hypertension when you're old.
(33:08):
And so it doesn't just to like back up for
all the freaked out parents. It doesn't say you shouldn't
have any sugar. It just argues for some moderation and sugar,
which is already the kind of dietary advice that we
give parents. But it's a I think, a really interesting
example of where we can have some good data even
in a space where data is hard.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
I feel so convicted by this right now because I
use sugar as leverage. I'm like, you'll get a little
treat if cooperate.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
Everybody does that. That's how everyone in America. I got there,
bets to use the potty eminem's.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Get the body, you get an M and M.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I fed my kid toxic red dye skittles and now
he's potty trained.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
So yeah, the toxins and that are overrated. I would
say I love talking to you.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
I was still so vindicated, Emily, Thank you so much
much for coming back on the bright side.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Thank you, Ray.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Emily Austar is an award winning economist, Professor of Economics
at Brown University, and New York Times bestselling author. Emily
is also the founder and CEO of parent Data, a
data driven guide to pregnancy, parenting, and beyond.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
For today's show, Tomorrow, best selling author Gabby Bernstein joins
us to share her tips on setting intentions, finding balance,
and manifesting your dreams.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect
with us on social media at Hello Sunshine on Instagram
and at the bright Side Pod on TikTok oh, and
feel free to tag us at Simone Boyce and at
Danielle Robe.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Listen and follow The bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
See you tomorrow, folks, Keep looking on the bright side.
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Simone Boyce
Danielle Robay
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