S1 | EP1: Unboxing a Future with Christine

Unboxing a Future

What if the thing that looks like rule-breaking… is actually readiness?

In this episode of Infinite Halls, I sit with a story that starts in a very familiar place: slime videos, squishy toys, and a child who just couldn’t seem to get enough of her screen.

But this isn’t just a story about screen time.

It’s a story about a girl named Mimi—who, before the age of ten, wasn’t just consuming content. She was studying it. Testing it. Recreating it. And eventually… selling it.

What began as harmless watching turned into something much harder to define:
Was this too much screen time?
Or was it the early signals of something else—curiosity, agency, even entrepreneurship?

For Christine, Mimi’s mom, the tension wasn’t just about limits.
It was about interpretation.

When your child pushes past boundaries, how do you know if it’s a problem… or a sign they’re ready for more?

This episode lives right in that uncomfortable space.

Because the truth is, parenting in the digital age rarely presents itself in clean lines. It shows up messy. Blurry. A little too early. A little too much.
And sometimes, what looks like disobedience is actually a child trying to make sense of the world they’re already living in.

Together, we unpack what it means to:
Notice the difference between distraction and direction
Hold boundaries without shutting something down too soon
Sit with the discomfort of not immediately knowing what’s “right”
And recognize purpose—even when it arrives in forms we don’t fully understand

This is not a story about permissive parenting.
And it’s not a story about letting screens run wild.

It’s a story about restraint.
About timing.
About learning when to step in… and when to step back.

Because sometimes, the real question isn’t:
“How do I stop this behavior?”

It’s:
“What is this moment trying to teach my child—and me?”

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering whether to pull the plug… or lean in just a little longer, this episode is for you.

No judgment. No rules. Just a real story from inside the endless twists and turns of raising kids in a world of screens.

Welcome to Infinite Halls

This episode is supported by Mums@PLAY—building community for moms navigating work, life, and everything in between.
 The MAP Circle is their space for mompreneurs and solopreneurs ready to grow.
 Explore more: https://mumsatplay.com/

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The MAP Circle is part the Mums@PLAY community, designed for solopreneurs growing their businesses.

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Transcript

Unboxing a Future

Arcadia 0:05

Hey, it's Arcadia, your Screen Time squad mate. Welcome to Infinite Halls, where we explore the endless twists and turns of parenting in the digital age. The guilt, the joy, and the completely unexpected. I'm a former video game exec and a mom who's lived the screen time battle from every angle. Around here, there's no judgment, just real stories and understanding. Alright, today's episode is called Unboxing a Future. It's a story of a girl, a squishy toy business, and a mother who had to confront a hard parenting question. When does rule breaking signal a problem? And when does it signal readiness? Christine's daughter, Mimi, didn't just use screens to play. She used them to experiment, sell, market, and test ideas about value and trust. All before she was 10 years old. What began as slime videos and squishy toys became an early education in entrepreneurship, and what began as parental concern became a lesson in restraint, in knowing when to intervene and when to step back. This episode isn't about permissive parenting. It's about managing disobedience without crushing momentum and recognizing purpose when it shows a furly and a little messy. Before we dive into Mimi, I'd love for you to introduce yourself, your family, and the context in which you were parenting at the time.

Christine 1:54

Oh, hi. Thanks, Arcadia. So I think we first talked about this story. I don't remember. We were connecting, I was working at the school and you were at the PTA, and we were just talking about screen time stuff. I have four kids, and number three is the very entrepreneurial one. And I only say that because she started off with this business. I've been working mom. And I've always felt that I have been permissive with screen time and obviously a little guilty. So only when I told you this story did I actually feel maybe a little bit better about that, if that if that makes sense. It's funny that you should feel better about it because I was astounded. I was like, this kid is awesome. So I grant him.

The Sham Shui Po Secret

Christine 2:35

So funny. So my daughter Mimi is very precocious. She dabbled in the performing arts and she got herself into Youth Arts Foundation, which actually works with a lot of schools here in Hong Kong. She made friends with other kids in other schools. And she basically figured out she could sell squishy toys to other kids on Instagram, which, you know, I think this was like seven years ago, which back then I had no idea really what it was. So, long story short, she figured out that she could use it to sell squishy toys. I didn't really put two and two together that she was doing this until one weekend I went up to her and I said, Hey, Mimi, what do you want to do? She was turning 11 at this point. And she said, Oh, I would love to go to Shamshui Po. And I said, Oh, that's odd. We were living in mid-levels, right? And I was like, Okay, let's go to Shamshui Po. I hadn't been to Shamshui Po in so long. So we went, and as we were coming out of the MTR, she basically said, Okay, well, I said, Where should we go? I th I figured she had like some cafe or some place to go to. And she was like, Oh, how about we go here? And I was like, Okay. And then, you know, we walked maybe two blocks and she was like, Oh, look at that building over there. It says Dragon Center. And I said, Okay, so let's go in there. I was like, I've never been there. And she goes, Oh, well, let's see what it is, mom. Like it was, she was a really good actress. And me as a parent, I was just kind of like, This is cool. I'm having a really nice, cozy little date with my 11-year-old. So we went in and Dragon Center, if you've ever been there, is like 11 floors. So I'm just going up in the escalator and being like, Oh, this is cool. I'd never been there before. I was like, Where should we go? Which floor do you want to go on? She's like, it's just keep going up. And then we kept going up until the eighth floor. Yeah. And we walked into these little, it's like a rabbit warrant of little stalls. And that's when all of a sudden the shopkeeper started greeting her like she was an old friend. They're like, Oh, you know, like you know, I mean, they were speaking Cantonese, but somehow, and she doesn't speak Cantonese. So somehow she was communicating and she was at the same time a little embarrassed, but they were like, Oh, you, and they were started giving her stuff. And I was like, What is going on, Mimi? They were showing her because she had ordered stuff from them. That's why we were there. That was the mission. So after like 10 minutes of this, where she was basically like doing business with these shopkeepers, I was like, Okay, that's when it dawned on me. I was like, this is not the first time you've been here. You've this whole room. So we had made this arrangement since we live in Hong Kong. Not something I would feel super comfortable with if we were in the US. But since we were living in Hong Kong, she was able to commute to rehearsals in places by herself. But I had never let her go all the way into Sham Choi Po. She'd say, Oh, can I go to Causeway Bay or do this? And I'd say, Yeah, sure, that's fine.

Arcadia 5:21

Yes, it was obvious. I'll pause for a second just to give context about what this means for a lot of my listeners who don't live in Hong Kong. There's Hong Kong Island, and then across Kowloon Bay is where you would, it's Kowloon, right? And that's where Shanfui Po is. And so Hong Kong Island, it's really small, relatively you cross a harbor. Yeah, and you have to cross a harbor. It's almost like if we were going from New Jersey into New York. Well, yeah, it's it's royal Chinatown. Yeah, exactly. It's a little bit more bustly, less organized, I suppose, right? And so Cham Shupo is the heart of a lot of these small, crafty businesses and things along those lines. It's a very entrepreneurial space, it's a very safe city overall, even on either side of the bay. But when you go across the bay, it's an extra little like farther away, right? And so that's a very typical rule that parents would have. Yeah. You wouldn't dream of going to Calun, right? No, I never really went to Shamshui Po. It's quite like Cal. Unless you live, right? Exactly. Yeah. Because Hong Kong side, you would have all that stuff anyway. But the here's the thing that's interesting about this is that she figured out that if she went to Shamshoi Po, she would get a higher profit margin because she was having this business of squishies. So you could buy them like a 10-minute walk from our house. We lived in mid-levels and could just walk to Central. She could go to any of the little stores over there. But she figured out that for her to sell things to people in other schools, she could compare the fact that she had a somewhat permissive parent, me, who wasn't home from 3:30 to 6:30. And that she could use that to go somewhere else in order to sell things to people who were not able to do that or who were not uh savvy enough to do that. Then they have much more selection, right? Yes.

Speaker 7:21

And I think that that's also a very important thing to do.

Christine 7:24

So working things out with shopkeepers and getting hard to find squishies. So the videos that she ended up posting on Instagram where you would watch a squishy slowly rise because apparently that was a really hot thing for kids. Is like the slower the squishy rises, the higher quality it is, and all of that. And then she was into this whole thing where she was apparently working it out with the shopkeepers that she would get like special poissants, which are like this big, you know, or like special pineapple buns, which are Hong Kong buns, which are special things that you don't usually find.

Lies, Rules, and the Witching Hour

Christine 7:57

So when I realized this, like I was there in the middle of it with her with all these people, and I was like, wait a second. I was like, you obviously have been here before. I was like, Mimi, you have been lying to me. And she was like, I know, I'm sorry, mom, but I figured out that I could make more of a profit if I buy it near our house and it's a lot more expensive. And then if I resell it, I don't have as much of a profit. But if I go all the way to Shamshe Po, they have so many more things and I get more of a profit. And after that, I remember pausing and just being like, okay, I'm getting over the fact that as a parent, I'm really mad that my 11-year-old just lied to me and has been lying to me. And probably actually thinking about it has lied on Instagram because I'm pretty sure that 10 and 11-year-olds are not even now not supposed to have Instagram accounts. So that's when I just really had this reflective moment. What do I do? Do I ground her? Yes, like do I ground her doing something, which is what I told her to do, which is do something creative, do something productive online. Don't just use it for brain rot.

Arcadia 8:58

Yeah. And the other part of you is like, I am full-on impressed with my daughter, understanding profit margins and understanding and of course there's a little bit of that.

Christine 9:07

But at the same time, I was like, which is more? Like the pride that the fact that she's done this, she didn't learn this from school. I was like, that's so cool. I work in her school, by the way. She didn't learn this from school. But at the same time, I was just really upset. This kid has been lying to me. This is terrible. What else is she gonna lie to me about in the future?

Arcadia 9:26

Okay, before we really unwrap that situation about how we're managing screen time, rules, communication, and relationships, I want to go back to something that you said previously. I think there's something really fascinating there. You talk about for parents who are working the witching hour, particularly when it comes to screens and technology. Can you let's talk about that a little bit more? Before that moment, you thought you had set up the rules the right way in the rule book of how you're supposed to manage these tools. How did that intercede with the witching hour?

Christine 10:04

Okay, so Arcadia, I work in education. So I tried to do everything textbook. Like I have in my notes an ancient agreement, like a contract between me and the kids, what they're supposed to do, what they're not supposed to do, all this other stuff. I had a conversation with them about pornography. I tried to have a very kind of aggressive idea. So like an idealistic I feel like I've been reading about it. Yeah. And of course, trying to do this at home. But at the same time, there is that time. One of the things that I tried to do as a parent is I would fill up that time with activities. If I'm at home, then she's obviously doing something. She must have been between shows, or it might have been during the day that she wasn't doing this. The other thing that I tried to do was say things like when the kids were young, you could record yourself or you could record things, but you have to use my computer. So they would use the photo booth app. And then as a result, I have lots of videos on my computer where they're doing this stuff. So I was trying to do that, but at the same time, I just don't think you can know everything. I think you can try your best to have a really good relationship with your kids, but you just can't know everything. And I think one of the things I realized as a parent was maybe that's a good thing, like thought it was a good thing. Because if I'm being honest, especially moms, if I knew that she was running a business before she was running a business, I would be like, let's try to do this together. Why don't you do this? Why don't you do this? And I would do everything I could not to have her fail at the business. But as it is, that's not the best thing because I'm not a business person. I I don't even know where I would be Googling that stuff, whereas she was just actually learning from experience. Right. And now she's doing fashion business. And even though she was very active in the arts, singing, performing, and all of that, she made a very conscious decision. I was like, Don't you want to go to performing art school when you go to college? And she was just like, no, she was like, I don't want to do that. I'll do that for fun, but I don't want to do it for work. I think she knew about herself that she didn't want to depend on the pressure of singing and performing and all that. She just wanted to do that for the love of doing it. But she was just like, I like business because she had dabbled in the business world on her own and proceeded to open up a few other businesses too.

Arcadia 12:20

Well, I mean, once everything I was out in the open, she was able to talk to you and explore the full scope of what it meant that she was doing. She discovered her passion. She discovered what she's good at, right? She understood sourcing, pricing, packaging, marketing. It must have really surprised you how serious and thoughtful she was about it.

Christine 12:47

Yeah, and how

From Squishies to Fashion Business

Christine 12:48

thorough, I think. So after this squishy thing, she also had this little thing with slime where she was trying to give the slime different names, make it something else, you know. Which is, I think, really just marketing because it's not pink glitter, it's like unicorn poop or whatever you want to call it. So that's one. But then things really took off when she was 15 and she was on Instagram. And of course, like every parent, I'm freaking out about Instagram because you're seeing all kinds of things. And this is way back, I think 2018, 2017, 2018, I want to say. And she was more attuned to the fact that you could sell stuff on Instagram. So I don't know if people remember the whole Brandy Melville trend that was, I think here in Hong Kong, of course, it was in the US before. Yeah. But she figured out she could buy things online for directly from China. And this is a girl who was taking Mandarin classes but couldn't really read or understand Mandarin. But she taught herself Taobao Mandarin. Taobao is basically the direct seller from China, way cheaper than Amazon. It's like super direct. It brings you directly to the sellers.

Arcadia 13:56

It's like cheaper on steroids.

Christine 13:58

Exactly. And now Taobao is very user-friendly for Western people because there's a translator. But back in 2018, there was no translator. Like you literally had to sometimes screenshot. So she this girl was working hard to communicate with the sellers. And that was more mandarin learning than she ever did got in school. She had a goal. And the goal was driven. Yeah. She was just like, I want to make a profit. I've identified that I can buy things directly from the manufacturer. She was selling clothing to fellow teenagers or preteens and girls and et cetera. And she had made this very sophisticated Instagram store.

Arcadia 14:34

Yeah.

Christine 14:35

It's called Style Icon HK. She ordered packages for herself, like signature packaging. She was using the highlights component of Instagram appropriately. Like she was like, these are the things that I'd made. And there's like, so she was super thorough about everything. And I think one of the things that she really learned is customer service. Like how important it is that as a seller, you have integrity. Like you buy this, you're selling it. This is the price you're doing it for. And then, you know, you tell someone you're going to mail it that day, you're going to mail it that day. But again, if I had micromanaged it, I might have been like, let's get you some logos printed out. Let's get you to doing this. But she figured that out on her own. And I'm really happy for her.

Arcadia 15:10

Yeah. And then it led her down a path. You briefly mentioned the fact that this is what she's studying in college. And can you tell me the exact thing that she's studying?

Christine 15:20

She's at the Fashion Institute of Technology and she's doing fashion business. What one of the assignments that she just shared with me because she knows I like Margilla is that she was a buyer for Margilla. And she said, These are the things I would buy from this season. This is how many units I would buy. This is what I would price it at. These are the things that I would display in this store, and this is how I would display it. So that's that's all stuff that I mean she did on a very micro scale.

Arcadia 15:45

Like I mean, that's and she was also doing that already in some way, shape, or form, but out of instinct and knowing the voice of her customer because she was a teenager, right?

Christine 15:56

Knowing the voice of her customer, one of the things I remember seeing was she was starting to have influencers. Some people she knew had a thousand followers. These are kids in Hong Kong. That's a friend picture. She knew that if she said something, then they would tag her store. She would sometimes give a discount code if you referenced. All right, goodness.

Arcadia 16:20

I want to take a quick pause and share something that's been quietly grounding me as a mom who's building things. It's mom's at play community. It's a space for mom trapeers and solopreneurs who are trying to grow something without losing themselves in the process. And what I love isn't just the business side. It's the feeling of being in a room where people understand the full picture. Show up, share what you're building, and people actually help you move it forward while still holding that space for life as it is. If you've been craving community, gentle accountability, and a place to grow without feeling like you have to have it all figured out, Map Circle is worth a look. As a member, you'll get access to special pricing on events and gatherings, early access to new mums at play initiatives, thoughtful touches like weekly promotions, social features, and circle-only meetups. You can head to the link in the show notes to learn more. And if you do join, tell Meru that Arcadia and Infinite Halls sent you.

Kids Ahead of Trends

Arcadia 17:30

So this is back in 2018, and this is happening now, right?

Christine 17:33

And this is this is something that's everybody knows that you need to do that now. But she was doing that based off her own instinct. The other thing that she started doing too was those unboxing videos way back when, and that's fun. But that's something that you only see now. You see that a lot now. I just am amazed at how kids can be super innovative that way. It's grassroots almost. It's yeah. And um Or I'm just really old and we only get it like three years after the fact.

Arcadia 18:02

Um as parents,

Conversation Over Punishment

Arcadia 18:05

I think there's quite a dilemma, right? Because you had a child who you had some very clear rules about, aligned with your family values around creativity and being useful, right? This notion of being useful on your technology. And there's a moment when I think many parents in your situation might have shut it down, right? Because there's some lying here, some safety concerns, age limits, but you did not. And I'd love to understand why not. What stopped you from pulling the plug and getting very authoritative?

Christine 18:43

I think because well, okay, so there is this advice that I got from someone ages ago. And this was not even about parenting teenagers. This was about they were like, when you're older and your kids are adults, one of the ways that you're gonna have to change the way that you parent is just to share them what you're concerned about. Don't tell them what to do. You have to learn how to be a good bystander and just say, I'm worried about this. And I remembered that. Okay. And even though she wasn't an adult, she was venturing into very adult territory. Okay. And I also didn't want to be a hypocrite and be like, I want you to be creative, but oh, only within my rules of what you can be. Because I didn't know that she was really into business. I thought that she was my performing arts kid. Right. But that's what I thought. Right. I remember taking pause and being like, How am I gonna do this? Because I don't want to ground her. I basically just took her aside and I said, Look, you lied to me. That's wrong, but I just want to explain to you why and the reason why I didn't want you to come all the way out here. I was like, I didn't know where you were. I know Hong Kong's safe, but if something happened to you, I wouldn't know. And so that's the only reason why I need to know where you are, and you should really not be lying to me about where you are. I think she understood that. She heard the concern and the love. There's a lot of love in my voice. And I said, Look, I get that you're doing this. So we just kind of made some rules around it. She had to tell me where she was going, she had to text me when she got there, you know, stuff like that. Like parent stuff. It was also kind of a lesson for me because I was like, Well, in her head, she was like, That's only about six subway stops from where you let me go. Right. She was like, Couldn't I go there? Because she does know that Hong Kong is safe. Right. I'm not gonna squash her. I was thinking, I learned a lesson too, which is why do we say you guys can't go all the way to Kowloon? It is only a few subway stops from where she's going. In her head, it's maybe even a little closer.

Arcadia 20:40

You chose conversation over punishment. Right? They chose compassion over punishment. You didn't want to crush her momentum.

Christine 20:50

No, I didn't want to. She was so into it. She had a little ledger and everything about what she was keeping track of and who was buying, and she was so into her customers and what you know, having something in the store that people would want, and she was so into it.

Arcadia 21:06

She couldn't articulate the fact that she was ready for more. And you couldn't articulate what that meant because you were learning about what this business like their 10 and 11-year-old is into this stuff, right?

Christine 21:19

But she figured it out and she was really happy about being able to make a little money for herself.

Arcadia 21:24

So letting her continue this meant for yourself living with a little discomfort, right? Because you know you're not going to know everything. And then going forward, you're like, ah, this is a pretty steep learning curve for myself. And then you have to resist the urge to manage or optimize, like helping her with her business. So there's real tensions here. And so, what was the hardest part for you as a parent during this time watching her after you knew going forward?

Christine 21:55

I think the hardest part was acknowledging the fact that. I really couldn't micromanage, if I'm being honest. As parents, we really want our kids not to be disappointed, first of all, not to fail. I was just like, well, if this is a business, then she needs to be able to do this and this and we should get investors. I was already thinking about this and starting to talk it through with her, but she was just not interested. You know, she had to figure it out on her own. She was turned on by the fact that it was her thing, it was her engagement. And I have to say that I think it really informs a lot of her own decisions because she's going to be finishing school soon. Right. And I I asked her, I said, What do you want to do after you graduate? And like, I think I would like to work for a brand first. I said, Oh, don't you want, you know, as a parent, creative parent, whenever I was like, Why don't you make your own store? And she was like, Because it's really hard to make your own store, mom. There's nothing that I can see as my store right now.

Arcadia 22:51

Right.

Speaker 1 22:52

And then I was like, Oh, right. I wanted to say you know that. But then I was like, oh, she knows that. She knows how hard it is to kind of scavenge. And she also probably knows the wrong things that she did in the business. So, you know, she wants to work for a store, actual brand, so that she can learn some of the ropes and then maybe venture out. Whereas other people might be like, Oh, I want to have my own store, you know, because I've never had it before, but she did that when she was like 11 or 14, 15.

Arcadia 23:18

I mean, she wasn't playing business, she was learning business.

Christine 23:21

When she was learning business, yeah, yeah.

Arcadia 23:24

And it's fascinating. And she knows herself and what she wants to be better because she experimented with this technology in that way. Her studying fashion business management includes strategy, marketing, trend forecasting. It's amazing. And so when you look back, it's clear you see the through line, right? From that disobedience to where she is now, and how can you possibly forecast her future?

Christine 23:53

It was a big lesson for me as a parent, basically to let them be and let her fail and just explain to her rather than punish her. This is why I had that rule. Okay. It wasn't like I had all the answers. I think sometimes you're just like, oh, 10-year-olds can't go more than four subway stops. But why not? That's something I was willing to learn.

Tools Not Toys Mindset

Arcadia 24:14

Christine, one of the things that we've always talked about, and I have borrowed it relentlessly in my conversations with infinite screen times, is technology as tools, not toys. And I see this in this example, right? Yeah. Oftentimes, as parents, we look at our kids playing on Instagram, playing video games. It's playing, it's being useless, it's brain rot, it's too much. YouTube, it's terrible content, right? And as parents, we end up panicking. What do you think parents get wrong when kids show early entrepreneurial instincts using their technology?

Christine 24:59

Uh, one of the things that I know I got wrong before I attended, I believe, your first infinite screen time one where it was a parent and child playing the video game. Yeah. So one of the things my kids will tell you that I always say is, turn off the electronics. No electronics. You can do anything else, just not electronics. My two sons were really into video games. My younger son, he has an older brother who's five years older. This is something that usually happens when you have like this five years difference between. So the younger one is more exposed to things that the older one is playing with. I remember him saying, I want to play this game. And it was something for like 16 and up. And I was like, No, you're 12. I don't think it's good. I'm not gonna buy it for you. And he was just like, Why? And I said, Because it says 16 and up, and it's got violence and all of that. And he was just like, But you let me watch Lord of the Rings. We watched that as a family. He was like, Remember the scene with Urkai, you know, that's pretty bloody. And I was like, I know. We got this whole discussion about how like I had to admit that one of my things that I was maybe buying into is video games make you more violent. I remember you and I were talking about this, and I attended your video game and parent session.

Arcadia 26:14

You're right.

Christine 26:15

And only when I started playing with Milo, right, playing it, and I I was amazed at the dexterity. I could not do the whole jump and fight and make a fortress or whatever it was that we were doing. I could see that the world is different because kids' brains are different. All of a sudden it was like, I woke up, I took the red pill and I woke up because I was just like, oh my God, curriculum has to be different, books have to be different. My brain could not figure that out. And so one of the things that I think we parents sometimes do wrong, and I was also doing it wrong, is that we're just saying, turn it off, but we're not really saying, like, what is it that you're doing? Oh, why do you find that funny? Okay, so what happens when that guy does that? What strategy are you using? Instead, we're just like, oh my God, that guy's shooting, turn it off, it's violent. Right. Stop playing it. Right. So I think that was a big thing. And even now it's great because my kids are Milo is 19 and Max is 24. And so there's a lot of crazy stuff out there on the internet. And now I'll be like, what is up with this, you know, horrible meme? And what does that mean for you? And now it's a talking point rather than a I hope you're not doing that. I hope you're not doing this.

Arcadia 27:23

Right.

Christine 27:23

And it's been refreshing too because I actually am seeing that my kids have very traditional values. In fact, my daughter Maya keeps telling me, she's like, I remove the app from my phone. So I was like, You didn't respond to me on Instagram. She was like, Oh, I delete the app because I noticed I get really upset and I get really obsessively, and before I know it, I've wasted time and I haven't done this. She has come up to this on her own. Yeah. And she's actually told me, she's like, When I have a kid, I'm not gonna get him an iPad. And I was like, Oh, okay, this is great. So much for my permissive parenting, which I thought was failed. But there are, you know, by talking about it, by talking about it, I think I feel like we built values together.

Arcadia 27:59

Huh. So one very fascinating thing that I didn't realize was my kids are just not into the AI thing, especially AI and art. Because I sent Milo a music video that that uh was half created by AI, and the kids were like, no, that's done by AI. And I was like, but isn't that cool? And they were like, No, not really, you know. And then Max got really into this whole discussion about like, you know, creating things and what makes us humid. And I was just like, oh my God, that's so interesting that they're feeling this way. That's fascinating because those early conversations talking about technology, not in a binary way, good or bad, but more in a nuanced way, very curious way. Gave them an opportunity to have a point of view that they will share now with you, particularly with new technology, because a lot of this stuff didn't exist even a few years ago, right? And yeah,

Letting Go of Control

Speaker 28:51

this is something that I asked all of my guests. It helps to reflect on who we are now versus who we were before when we were parenting them. If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing in those early years, what we're doing.

Christine 29:06

Myself as a parent. Oh, I feel like life has forced me to change anyway. Because probably as an early parent, we always want to protect our kids from everything.

Arcadia 29:22

Yeah.

Christine 29:22

I mean, everything. Like you don't want them to go to the park or stranger danger and all of this other stuff. I feel like maybe the internet and crowdsourcing kind of fuels this paranoia that you're in danger all the time. Sometimes I feel like we have a tendency to want to micromanage their safety, their well-being. If you're always worried about someone being in danger, you're gonna kind of make them anxious.

Arcadia 29:47

Right.

Christine 29:48

Because they're just gonna feel like they're not capable and there's danger out there.

Arcadia 29:52

Right. This is something that I've learned the hard way. Thank you so much. This was an amazing conversation. Amazing conversation.

Christine 29:59

Thank you so much for everything you're doing, Arcadia. I had such a great time with your parent in child workshop. You should do more of those. Oh, thank you. It was called Fortnite is an F-word, though. That's right. That's right.

Arcadia 30:12

Thank you so much for your wisdom.

Christine 30:14

Sometimes you have to be lefty on devices. Yeah, sometimes.

Arcadia 30:26

Christine's story reminds us that parenting rarely unfolds in the way we plan. Sometimes it asks us to sit with discomfort, to hold the line on safety while we loosen our grip on control. What looked like disobedience at first, lying about age, going farther than allowed, turned out to be something more complicated. A child reaching for readiness before she had words for it. This wasn't a story about ignoring rules or giving unlimited screen time. It was about a parent choosing curiosity over punishment, conversation over shutdown, and trust over fear. Even when the trust felt risky. This podcast is a project of Infinite Screen Time, the organization I founded in 2020 to help parents raise screen smart kids while embracing the infinite possibilities of technology. The goal isn't answers, it's understanding. If this episode spoke to you, I'd love to hear from you. Email me at akim at infinite screentime.com or use the link in the description to learn more. Until next time, I'll see you around the Infinite Halls.