337: Dr. Delaney Ruston and Parenting in the Screen Age

Ending Human Trafficking Podcast

Dr. Delaney Ruston joins Dr. Sandie Morgan to discuss parenting strategies in the digital age, focusing on mental health, communication, and her book Parenting in the Screen Age.

Delaney Ruston, MD

Dr. Delaney Ruston is a physician and award-winning filmmaker renowned for her impactful documentaries, including the Screenagers series, which explores the intersection of technology and youth well-being. She has appeared on numerous media outlets discussing screen time, mental health, and parenting in the digital age. Dr. Ruston also hosts the Screenagers podcast and blog, offering practical advice to families navigating digital challenges. Her work is driven by a passion for fostering open conversations about mental health and technology’s role in our lives.

Key Points

• Dr. Ruston’s book, Parenting in the Screen Age, provides science-based strategies for calm and productive conversations about technology between parents and children.
• She emphasizes the importance of setting boundaries around screen time, citing its impact on mental health and sleep.
• Validation is a key parenting skill discussed in the book, helping children feel understood without necessarily condoning their behavior.
• The concept of a “Vulnerable Village” encourages collective action among parents and communities to delay smartphone and social media use for children.
• Dr. Ruston recommends “Tech Talk Tuesdays,” a family tradition of having short weekly conversations about technology to build understanding and establish boundaries.
• She highlights the importance of balancing screen time with other enriching activities like creative projects, in-person interactions, and outdoor play.
• The book provides guidance on creating collaborative family media plans that incorporate sleep time, family time, and study time rules.
• Dr. Ruston shares her experience with her daughter’s mental health struggles, offering insights into how open conversations and community support can make a difference.
• The Screenagers films and associated blogs provide additional resources for parents and communities to address digital challenges collectively.
• Dr. Ruston advocates for using science-based parenting techniques and communication strategies to navigate the complexities of raising children in the digital age.

Resources

• Screenagers Movie Website
• Parenting in the Screen Age: A Guide for Calm Conversations
• Screenagers Podcast

Transcript

[00:00:00] Sandie: Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast here at Vanguard University’s Global Center for Women and Justice in Orange County, California. This is episode number 337, Dr. Delaney Rustin and Parenting in the Screen Age. My name is Dr. Sandy Morgan, and this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking.

[00:00:33] Sandie: Dr. Delaney Rustin is a physician and award winning filmmaker renowned for her impactful documentaries, including the ScreenAgers series, now comprising four films that explore the intersection of technology and youth well being.

[00:00:53] Sandie: She has appeared on numerous media outlets discussing screen time, mental health, and parenting in the digital age. She is the voice behind the Screenagers podcast. and blog and offers practical advice to families navigating digital challenges. Her work is driven by a passion for fostering open conversations about mental health and technology’s role in our lives.

[00:01:26] Sandie: Today, we’re going to talk about her book, Parenting in the Screen Age, a guide for calm conversations.

[00:01:35] Sandie: I am so happy to have Dr. Delaney Rustin with us for this episode of Ending Human Trafficking. Welcome.

[00:01:45] Delaney: Oh, it’s wonderful, Sandy, to be here. Thank you.

[00:01:48] Sandie: We are, let me just tell everybody that in our next Insure Justice, March 7th and 8th, we’re going to be screening the movie Screenagers. And I’m excited now to have this interview to talk with Dr. Rustin about her book. And do you want to kind of give us a snapshot of the book and why you wrote it?

[00:02:18] Delaney: Oh, absolutely. I, 12 years ago, was really struggling at home with my two kids who wanted more and more screen time. And I had been doing documentaries on mental health issues. And I found that the mental health, if you could say that in our family, the stress was so high. And I felt completely confused on what to do.

[00:02:44] Delaney: I didn’t,

[00:02:48] Delaney: So I started to wonder as a doctor who takes care of teens and adults, what I could do to look for solutions. And I started to make the first Greenagers movie. which is called Screen Readers Growing Up in the Digital Age, which came out in 2016, although we just re released it, updated. Since then, there’s been three other documentaries.

[00:03:14] Delaney: During the time that I became much more knowledgeable, as I went on this journey to help my family, my kids, my patients, I In making these films, learned so much that I realized it would be really helpful to parents to have this information in a book. I did my residency at San Francisco and I stayed on for a couple years to do research on human to human communication.

[00:03:45] Delaney: The ways that we can more effectively use communication for good, as well as in your world, how communication can be manipulative and take advantage of people. Well, I want to be opposite. How do we as parents use techniques that understand the development of our children, understand our struggles to not be triggered by our intense emotions that we have in parenting this, and use that knowledge of communication science?

[00:04:15] Delaney: Along with everything I’ve been learning in making the documentaries and to put that in a book called Parenting in the Screen Age.

[00:04:24] Sandie: I would recommend highly listeners that you go and look for your closest bookstore, go on Amazon. and order this book. even if you’re not currently raising young people, it’s a great tool to share in, in your community. Grandparents would value this as well. So, because my community, I’m a grandparent.

[00:04:53] Sandie: And grandparents are really concerned about their grandchildren growing up in a digital age. So I’ve started recommending it to all the grandmas and grandpas. So let’s talk about the book. How did you lay it out? And can I say parenting in the screen age and the subtitle? I love a guide for calm conversations.

[00:05:16] Sandie: Because when I talk to parents who are intensely. In the middle of this right now and having flaming arguments about you can’t take that away. And, and I’ve talked to parents who have decided to shut down the internet at their house at eight o’clock at night. I’ve talked to parents who gave up and their kids don’t have any supervision.

[00:05:43] Sandie: And I often, correlate this with how we teach our kids to be safe on the streets. We started, we, when they were toddlers and could walk, and we held their hand and we said, you walk across the street when there is a crosswalk. So there’s, there’s boundaries, there’s guardrails for how you do this, and it’s not the same rule from the time you’re three years old until you’re 13.

[00:06:11] Sandie: When you’re 13, you’re walking across the crosswalk by yourself. So this book for calm conversation is really based on your experience in communication. So tell us how the book is broken down.

[00:06:27] Delaney: Yes, and I would say what’s really important is what you just mentioned. Having boundaries and limits on the, the most attention grabbing, devices ever created is incredibly important and part of our job as parents and yet there’s all this discussion in the media, how much time is okay, how much is not.

[00:06:50] Delaney: We’re not talking about the real how to. So let me give a context of first the number one thing that I say to parents which is in the book, which is there’s really no And I think it’s a better way to approach this than to have a calm conversation, whether it be once a week, which I recommend, or once every two weeks.

[00:07:15] Delaney: But you really, and I’m going to say how to do this. It’s the number one thing that is in the book and that I have still now on the stage and working in my clinic room, whatever the audience is, how valuable and vital this is. And the reason it is so important is that every day there is new things in the, in the internet age that is impacting all of us.

[00:07:45] Delaney: There are good things and there are hard things. And we get to work with our kids to have them be incredible, critical consumers of all that’s happening. And Work with them to make sure they have a very full life and it’s not overly consumed by the digital age. I made a lot of mistakes and I’m going to be telling you some of them in this interview.

[00:08:11] Delaney: I’m going to start by saying in, we call it in our home and now I have eight years of blog that helps a lot of parents, which is called Tech Talk Tuesdays. And the idea is to have a short five minute conversation with our families once a week about technology. But I was doing it wrong when we started. I was just wanting to focus on the problems.

[00:08:34] Delaney: And in fact, my daughter, when we gave her a smartphone, which by the way I would have delayed longer had I been able to know better, and And I shouldn’t say just no better, if we could have done it as a collective community to all delay. And I say that in the updated version now. Ultimately though, when I gave that to her, we also gave her a contract.

[00:08:58] Delaney: And we tried to get her to, put in there what she wanted also. And so that it would be a collaborative. She just tuned out. She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to do it. It was a real What didn’t go well, I realized that I hadn’t validated enough of the reasons why she wanted to use technology.

[00:09:19] Delaney: It’s this, it’s the same reality that people want to be understood as much as they want what they think they want.

[00:09:27] Sandie: you, can you describe what you mean by validated?

[00:09:32] Delaney: Yes, I needed to say to Tessa, wow, tell me more about why you love being on Snapchat with your friends. And then she would tell me and I would actually repeat back some of it. Oh, okay, you, you really, it does feel good when you’re invited into a Snapchat group that you feel really like and I’ll try to use her same words.

[00:09:53] Delaney: I want her to Really see that I get it doesn’t mean I agree with it doesn’t mean that I’m condoning it and say that’s fantastic Let’s get you more time on

[00:10:02] Sandie: Ah, ha, ha,

[00:10:04] Delaney: It’s just that she’s seen. Oh my mom gets it She’s not just saying oh you should not ever use that whatever because then she’s then the brain writes that person off Then they feel justified in their conscious and unconscious to say, Oh, I’m not going to listen to how we’re trying to do this safely and limit the amount of time because my mom doesn’t get it.

[00:10:27] Sandie: Hmm.

[00:10:29] Delaney: And it’s the same way, for example, as a doctor. Let’s say I have a parent who brings in their 10 year old, 11 year old who has an earache. And I look in there and I see it’s a little inflamed, but it really, the whole, everything fits that it’s a virus and doesn’t need antibiotics. I’ll say back to the parent, actually, I’m usually talking with the child because it’s a wonderful, uh, and the parent keeps wanting to, to speak up, but I just love to not talk down, but really, I’m going to be repeating back, I’ll say, wow, so your daughter she’s had feeling achy and she just doesn’t feel right and, and she’s not eating well and she has a runny nose.

[00:11:16] Delaney: That’s hard. She has a lot of stuff going on. It’s only after that. Then the parent, if I say, you know what, I’m from all my 30 years as a doctor, I can tell we’re actually going to do more harm at this point if we give antibiotics, because all the symptoms align with this being and the epidemiology with this being the viral.

[00:11:36] Delaney: So the point being the parent was heard, so she’s not going to leave the office and be mad that doctor, she just didn’t hear me. She didn’t understand how sick you felt.

[00:11:45] Sandie: Hmm.

[00:11:45] Delaney: validation is The central, central theme because as parents we are indeed so worried and we have a right to be. There’s lots of things to be worried, but what’s most important, we might be right, but are we effective?

[00:12:02] Delaney: And when we use validation, communication skills like that, we become much more effective. So when you mention the book in terms of what are the ways that, things that I make sure to include in the book, I love to talk about the three V’s. One is validate. The next next one is values, and then we’ll get to vulnerable village

[00:12:25] Sandie: Oh, this sounds fun. Values.

[00:12:28] Delaney: values are talking about what are the things that we as individuals in the family value, as well as as a family. I don’t like to say our family values without. Having the kids be thinking about what do they value because I I never want to speak for other people But once it’s been discussed like oh, do we all kind of agree that?

[00:12:52] Delaney: Being kind to people is a value and and then you can have that discussion. And so like yeah, but do we also You know, value, honesty, and so sometimes that might be that we’re not going to, we have to say something to someone that might not be as nice as we want to be. Values as parents is, I need to value, I need to parent with integrity.

[00:13:16] Delaney: That’s a key element. For me as a parent, I have to be science based, I have to look at evidence of things, and I have to do what I really think is the right, right thing. I value. People’s input. And that means you, Tessa, and um, my daughter, I value your input into figuring out how we ensure safety and not excessive screen time.

[00:13:41] Delaney: And, and then, and then, for example, I value, because of science, your guys sleep. And, you know what? This is a non negotiable. We need to have technology out of the bedrooms for sleep time. But here, Sandy, is where some of that validation comes in. Like, but I know that’s hard. I know that you are really, you’re really Empathic.

[00:14:07] Delaney: You would love to be there for your friends at any time. I, I see how it’s uncomfortable when you can’t respond. If you have a friend who’s going through a hard time and might, just, you want to know that they could call someone, could, you could give them my number. Can they call me? And I, and we could talk about maybe I’d go and get you if it’s not bedtime yet.

[00:14:25] Delaney: So it’s working together. And with that values, I say, Tess, I, I need I want your input and there’s some collaboration. I think the devices should go away at nine o’clock. You’re 13, 14. You know, I think that time you should be off by then. She might say, mom, no, that’s too early. 9. 30 or 10, or she might say 10.

[00:14:48] Delaney: And we say, let’s, let’s do 9. 30 and we’ll check in in two weeks. Let’s put this on the refrigerator as a, one of the things we’ll talk about on Tech Talk Tuesdays. So that’s where the values that all of this is. I value Tessa, your incredible creativity. I, that’s why a big part of why we’re limiting screen time because screen time is really And I’m talking about screen time as a treat, there’s a tool and there’s the treat part of it.

[00:15:17] Delaney: And the treat is really a lot of consuming, a lot of chit chat with friends, which is important, but there can be excessive, that can come at a cost. and so I, in terms of that treat time of consuming, I want to make sure, Tessa, you’re using your incredible heart and brain to produce your own life, your own things.

[00:15:40] Delaney: In person relationships with calling grandma, with, talking to, having some time to just, you’re outside and you end up just chatting with the neighbor. You’re doing your own painting. In fact, you can, you, the listeners can’t see

[00:15:54] Sandie: Yeah.

[00:15:54] Delaney: My daughter just left to go back to college and my Christmas present in a card was, Mom, you can, you can have me paint, any painting you want me to do.

[00:16:03] Delaney: And so on my wall there, is this beautiful landscape of Paris with the Eiffel Tower done out of, yeah, that she painted for me. And I got to direct it. I’m like, oh, I’d love to have that a little softer sage green. Can we do that? It was looking a little pink on the sky and still has some pink. So that’s about values.

[00:16:23] Delaney: And then Vulnerable Village is one that luckily I was just talking to Jonathan Haidt yesterday that we’re doing, talking about different collaborations and he has a book, Anxious Generation, and he’s in two of the Screen Readers documentaries.

[00:16:37] Sandie: And he was on your podcast recently. So we’ll put a link to that interview, in the show notes for our conversation today. So, so we’ve got validate, values, and the third V we’re moving into.

[00:16:53] Delaney: it’s, I like to call it Vulnerable Village, so you could say that’s, yes, so Vulnerable Village is something I came up with years ago around this and the reason I bring up Jonathan Haidt is so much of this needs to be done collectively. For example, if we’re going to delay smartphones, if our daughter or son or however they self identify don’t have that device and everyone, very, a lot of their close friends do, they’re in a pickle.

[00:17:21] Delaney: And it’s not to say they still can’t work, it absolutely can. They can use the computers and be able to Text and communicate with friends and whatnot, but better yet ideally as a community of parents we decide hey, let’s all delay smartphones until and And so this collective action concept is really being heightened by Jonathan Haidt who actually is being very Concrete, which he, which in terms of creating new social norms, is to delay giving smartphones until the beginning of high school and actually delay two years longer social media, which would be like the age you start driving if you’re getting the license at 16.

[00:18:06] Delaney: So that the, and he is very, he knows, as all of us know, this has to be done collectively because There’s, if we don’t start now with younger parents of younger kids, it becomes, much harder to do later on. Now, it’s not to say, the point is, even if our kids, and many do, have social media and, and smartphones, and social media, honestly, is now on the computers in all sorts of forms, that we can still do the work that I’m talking about.

[00:18:35] Delaney: We can still very much do helping our kids be safer online and have, and prevent excessive. Screen time. So Vulnerable Village, and I’ll give concrete examples of what I mean, when I was making the first Screenagers movie, my daughter was in seventh grade and many of the kids already back then had a phone.

[00:18:59] Delaney: and I. I was really surprised how nervous I was, but I called the other parents and I said, can we make it a tech free carpool? And you’d, yeah, and you’d think that I like, here I am, I’m pretty outgoing, you know, I wouldn’t be feeling nervous, but I really thought I’m going to be judged as like the overly controlling, the, you know, anxious, worried parent.

[00:19:27] Delaney: Fortunately, the other parents were immediately on board, which is great. I’m not saying that will always happen, but they did. And having the kids get in the car and hearing them talk and just then, and then now and then I could say a little, I got to know them a little bit better. You know, her friends was such a gift because otherwise free time becomes screen time.

[00:19:51] Delaney: It’s that much of a pull and when we have clear loving boundaries, we do so much service and goodness for our kids. It gets a little bit trickier with some of the other things that we ask. For example, my daughter in Screenagers next chapter, which deals with mental health. Problems in the digital age, and most importantly, as all of my films in the book does, focuses on solutions.

[00:20:20] Delaney: So it, that film looks at depression symptoms, all the way to clinical depression, anxiety, stress, how it’s What are some of the factors to think about how this is all playing out in the digital age? And most importantly, each one of the stories has great science slipped into the film and then also really wonderful experts talking about solutions.

[00:20:45] Delaney: Unfortunately, but this is life, my daughter had a lot of clinical depression in high school. And she was so loving, she let me film a little bit of that and, and at the end I said, Tessa, do you want to be in this film? Because you don’t need to be, there’s plenty of stories, there’s plenty of science. And she said, and she watched the rough cut and she said, mom, when I see how much it helps me to hear these other.

[00:21:11] Delaney: Kids talking and saying how things got better. It helps me so much I definitely want to be in the film and she never looked back. She started talking after the film She joined the suicide prevention club in her school and the list goes on But what I’m about to, that, that was, getting a little bit off track, but when she was doing very poorly, she wasn’t able to do the things that she loved to do.

[00:21:35] Delaney: And one is be around kids. She loves, in fact, she loves babysitting and she wasn’t reaching out to anyone and she was just hiding and no one in her room at times. And so I went to, A neighbor who she would babysit for and I said, Christy, I said, Tess is not doing so well. She has depression and she’s just not able to advocate for herself.

[00:21:56] Delaney: Would you be able to? Ask her to babysit and I immediately, I felt kind of bad that I, because I, I go, but I can pay you to pay, give her money. I didn’t mean for them to have to like go out and pay a babysitter, you know? And she’s like, I’m so glad you asked me Delaney. Of course, I would love to. And she did start asking Tessa to babysit more.

[00:22:17] Delaney: And it’s one of the pieces of the puzzle is my work for 20 years in mental health advocacy is not just, Like being able ourselves to talk about, but for all of us to get better at being a vulnerable village of how to reach out to help others or to ask for help as a parent.

[00:22:36] Sandie: so So, this element of mental health, it’s a whole chapter in the book and, and I think this integrated approach to helping parents have conversations with their kids is what I really valued about this. It is science based, but so many of the guides that I’ve. encountered. They’re about, Oh, here are the risks of social media.

[00:23:04] Sandie: Don’t do this. Don’t do this. Don’t do this. This is not probably going to be very effective with, from an adolescent development perspective. So the, the idea specifically in the mental health is helping parents figure out how to have those kinds of conversations. And, It’s like one of the most valuable chapters in the book from my perspective.

[00:23:30] Sandie: But, in those conversations, the, later in the book, you’re halfway through and you get to the contracts and family rules.

[00:23:41] Sandie: Because, you know, it talks about co parenting. Because you can have rules, but then, unfortunately, sometimes they go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house or Auntie’s, and they have different rules.

[00:23:53] Delaney: and that’s perfectly fine. That’s perfectly fine. I think, I’m so glad, Sandy, that you’re bringing up grandparents a lot because I’ve written about grandparents and that they very much have a role in this and they often feel disempowered. Like, okay, if they bring over that iPad, nothing I can say.

[00:24:12] Sandie: Hmm.

[00:24:13] Delaney: Power to the grandparent who takes that time to have some calm conversations with the parents, beforehand and talk about as well as with the young people and, and defining it.

[00:24:25] Delaney: Ultimately, people do better when they know the rules. And better yet, if they can have a say in them, that’s fantastic. Our world is full of rules. Our kids are going into a world Full of this is okay. This is not. Thank goodness. We have understandings of what’s okay, and what’s not. We know Trafficking people is not okay.

[00:24:52] Delaney: We know violence against women and females is absolutely not Okay, we have put lots of safeguards in place. Do things go awry? Do people go against what we know and what we work hard to establish? Yes! That’s why you’re doing all the incredible work that you’re doing. Our kids will do better when they know, and they help to, when they will, create the boundaries.

[00:25:22] Delaney: I like to say that there are. Roughly 33 billion and two fun things to do on a screen so that the biggest issue is it makes perfect sense that they want to be on it and play games with their friends and, and look for, you know, more ways to do cool things and watch this show and watch it again and again and a thousand YouTube shorts.

[00:25:49] Delaney: It makes sense, but it makes perfect sense that we also need to have concrete limits around this. Now, I tend to, I used to say contract, and um, you can see in the film how that came to be the concept of a contract from a woman who went viral having done one with iPhone Janelle. But I often will say a media plan, a family media plan, a, a, Collaborative contract.

[00:26:21] Delaney: So you can use the word contract, but the idea is for, for us, we really had sleep time, family time, and study time. That’s not just, and I’ll say it’s sleep time, as I mentioned, it’s both a combination of devices out of the bedroom for sleep, even through high school, and That is so science based on all the, so many reasons why.

[00:26:45] Delaney: that also has to do with what time devices are put away as they get ready for sleep time. And so families, one of the biggest issues is homework. That the kid will say, Oh, I still have homework. When you have a set boundary, devices are, go away at nine, they know they have to get their work done or they’re going to be showing up at school.

[00:27:05] Delaney: And kids don’t want to fail. They don’t want to not succeed. And you’ve got to help them if they keep not doing their homework because they were putting it off and they said, well, I’m not going to do it because it screens go away. Then like we have a, we have a problem as a family and, and let’s figure this out.

[00:27:18] Delaney: Let’s, why don’t we go to the counselor together or whatever that is. So that’s sleep time. Family time is like, no devices are away. At mealtimes when we go away for a day on a Saturday or Sunday or something, device is left at home. So my daughter, still to this day, she’s just home from college, she will say, I’m gonna leave my phone at home, mom.

[00:27:39] Delaney: You sit and it’s just more relaxing. She likes it. She likes the breaks.you, other fam, there’s other family, we’re playing, we’re watching a movie, we’re not going to double screen for our family night, we’re not going to all be on our screens. And, and then for study time, which is another hard one, that for us, for example, Tessa’s, when she had that, smart phone was out of the room and she could take breaks, but it’s not right by her.

[00:28:08] Delaney: Um, and so I’ve written about all of that in the book, all sorts of other concrete ways of doing this, but I want to get back to, um, so that’s an example of why, and what, why having a, Plan and set rules is important. Now. I talk a lot about what what does that mean when rules aren’t followed all the time?

[00:28:31] Delaney: They’re not gonna be followed all the time. So what do you do in those situations? Like that’s where we really need the help and that’s where other chapters look at that but I do want to make sure in our remaining time that we touch on some of the parenting skills around mental health challenges and I want to talk about First and foremost, three points about emotions that we can do, all of us, right now.

[00:28:56] Delaney: Whether there’s mental health problems in the home or not. And I’m going to assume right now, the general big population, putting aside any significant mental health problems, even if they are there, in fact, this still works. And the first is, emotions just happen. And You can, it’s also thoughts just happen, but I am constantly working with my kids and kids that I work with, like, Nope, there, and I’ll bring it up.

[00:29:27] Delaney: Oh, there comes that jealousy thought I just had about someone. Oh, there comes this wave of feeling sad. I wonder what it’s, what I’m feeling it for, and so as parents to model that to say, Oh, I’m having this emotion that comes up and talking to our kids who are saying, I’m feeling. Helping them to think of the name, the feeling that they’re having and say, huh, I wonder where that came from and that we don’t control it because kids feel very self punishing for the emotions and thoughts they have.

[00:30:06] Delaney: They feel really bad about feeling less than. feel really bad about feeling mad at and the problem is that prevents them from doing the number one thing that helps us to get out of stuck hard places which is feeling shame. Lists enough, it’s unwarranted shame is what people are feeling. Having enough self efficacy to say, I need help or this is what’s happening inside of me.

[00:30:38] Delaney: And if I had a dime for every time a patient says to me, I haven’t ever said this to somebody else. I would be a millionaire. So, that ability to help our kids name their emotions, help them understand that emotions and thoughts just come, there’s no judgment to that, and modeling our emotions to our kids, both the ones that are just coming up, we’re not sure what they are, Or, and often, why we’re feeling, what emotions we’re having.

[00:31:13] Delaney: I love in, in Screenagers next chapter, Laura Kastner says, she’s a wonderful expert and written many parenting books, says, how is it that we expect our kids to go to their dads and talk about their jealousy or feeling less than on the sports team when the dad is never talking to them about their emotional internal experiences?

[00:31:39] Sandie: So, my mind is racing now and there is so much more. We have to have another conversation, Dr. Reston. I want our listeners to know that if you’re at Insure Justice, March 7th and 8th, we’re going to be doing the new version of Screenagers. We’re doing a screening and we’re inviting parents. And as we sign off today, can you tell us where to find the resources that we’ve talked about?

[00:32:15] Delaney: So, anyone can go to Screenagersmovie. com. The blog is right there and it has a search bar, so look up anything that you want and you’ll get the blog, but it’ll also bring up podcasts, and so I’ve done multiple podcast episodes on all of these. Again, the whole idea. People can find the trailers to all four of the documentaries and how to bring it to their community.

[00:32:42] Delaney: Because what we have been doing now for eight years and have had millions and millions of people in this country and other countries. come together, kids and adults and in schools and out of schools, seeing the film with all the solutions and then saying, okay, what other solutions can we be doing and how do we implement these things?

[00:33:04] Delaney: Collective community action is where this is all going to get, make things get much better.

[00:33:12] Sandie: I am so grateful and I’m going to leave this conversation thinking about the three V’s, validate, values, and our village. And I look forward to Communicating, um, developing our relationships and working together to end human trafficking. Thank you so much, Dr. Rustin.

[00:33:33] Delaney: Thank you, Sandy. It was a delight.

[00:33:35] Thank you, Dr. Delaney Rustin. I encourage our listeners to check out her book and visit the Screenagers website. We are also inviting you to take the next step and go over to endinghumantrafficking.

[00:33:54] org. That’s where you can find resources we’ve mentioned in this conversation. And so much more things like the anti human trafficking certificate program here at the global center. And if you haven’t visited that site before, this is a great time to take the first step, become a subscriber, and you’ll receive an email with the show notes.

[00:34:21] When a new episode drops, follow us on Instagram and Facebook. And of course, I’ll I’ll be back in two weeks.