How to Get More Phone-Free Quality Time With Your Family #parenting

Rebeccah Silence, an emotional-healing coach, suggests a "no-phone Monday night" rule her 11-year-old proposed to reclaim family time. She recommends a weekly phone-free dinner or two-hour window with phones in a bowl, plus three conversation starters: "What is most important to you right now?" "What are you most grateful for?" and "What's challenging for you, and how can I help?"
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Live and local, it's Mix 102.5 on a Mental Wellness Wednesday. If you check out theunsilentwoman.com, you will find the world's leading love and emotional healing coach. She is Rebeccah Silence. Rebeccah, good morning. How are you?
Hello everyone. I am thrilled to be here. What are we doing today?
So a new survey has come out and people have actually admitted that they have missed very important things when it comes to their family because they've had their nose in their phone. So what I, what I would like to do is maybe give some tricks of the trade or maybe some, some ways to help people realize and remember to put the phone down and just to, just to be more present on a regular basis.
Yeah. And it's really hard, right? Because your intention is not to ignore the people you love or care about or live with. And there are so many people wanting so many things from us and so many opportunities to just check out and distract ourselves with our phone. So I've talked about this before, I believe, but on Monday nights in my house, there's no phones. I know, it's one night a week. Yes. And it was actually the 11-year-old's idea to do this, to on Monday nights have dinner and no phones and play games and just be together. And it's been kind of game-changing. Yeah, it's really kind of cool. So you might not have your kid asking for this, right? And if you ask them for it, you might get some disgruntled looks, and I don't want that to discourage you. Even if you ask your spouse and they're like, what, you want me to put my phone down one night a week? It could even just start with like a 2-hour window one night a week, and we have a bowl and we all take our phones and we sit down It's gonna probably be messy and uncomfortable at first, and I just want to acknowledge that. But if people are like, this isn't fun, or giving you a hard time, that doesn't mean don't do it, right?
Right.
Let me give you a few questions you can actually ask for some conversation starters, because some of you, the truth of the matter is, whether it's with your kids, whether it's with your spouse, you don't know what to do without your phone. You don't know what to talk about. You don't know where to even start. So if that's you, all right, I'm not calling you out in a judgmental way. I'm just wanting to acknowledge I get it. You know, we've gotten so used to superficial or disconnected, we don't know how to actually even connect. So here are 3 questions you can ask: What is most important to you right now in your life? Okay, if you don't know what's most important to your spouse right now How about we ask? If we don't know what's most important to your kids right now, how about we ask?
And the answer cannot be your phone.
Well, true story. But the other thing is, you might be a little bit jaded and resentful because they don't know what's important to you. Well, have you told them? And if you ask them, right? So start with what's most important to you in your life right now. Second thing is What are you most grateful for right now? Like, what's going really well and you're really grateful? I want to know. And the third thing is, what's going on that's challenging? What's hard for you right now? What's most important to you right now? Right. What's hard for you right now and what are you most grateful for right now? And then with the what's challenging or hard for you right now question, How can I help? Is there anything I can do to support you? If you have that conversation with your spouse, with your kids, you just game changed your relationship with them. That's all I want you to do. So some of it is, yeah, get off your freaking phone sometimes, right? I have the hardest time putting my phone away at least an hour before I go to bed. That's like my little process I've put myself on because I want to be on there. And then let it help me fall asleep, if I'm honest. But that isn't healthy for me. It is about putting away your phones, but it's also about knowing what to do when you don't have your phone. So you can try a night a week and you can try these conversations. What's most important to you right now? What are you grateful for right now? What's hard? And is there any way I can support you? And game change your relationships.
Absolutely fantastic. It's a Mental Wellness Wednesday. If you want to learn more about Rebeccah and everything that is under the Rebeccah Silence umbrella, which there is a ton, theunsilentwoman.com, the world's leading love and emotional healing coach, Rebeccah Silence, Mental Wellness Wednesday. Absolutely awesome. Thank you so much. I'm going to go put my phone down now and we'll talk to you next week.
Okay. Be careful with each other's hearts. Bye everyone.
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