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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. All this weekend next, during our Fall Pledge Drive, we're hearing from some of our favorite professional advice givers on thorny topics like relationships, finances, and etiquette. Yesterday, we took questions with Cheryl Strayed about the creative process and now, it's on to parenting. You may know Jamilah Lemieux from her co-hosting of the Slate advice podcast called Mom and Dad are Fighting, or from giving advice in the Dear Care and Feeding section also on Slate.

A few recent podcasts and column titles are My Child is a Disaster at the Dentist, How to Deal with your Kid's Boredom at School, and I Can't Believe What Comes Out of My Six-Year-Old's Mouth. Jamilah Lemieux, Welcome to WNYC. Do we have Jamilah?

Jamilah Lemieux: Sorry. I'm here. Thank you for having me. I'm sorry. I was muted.

Brian: That's okay. Unmute yourself, how many times have we said that over the last year and a half? For our listeners who don't know you, before we open up the phones and invite their calls asking you for advice, can you introduce yourself? I think people might be curious, how do you get into the business of giving parenting advice? How does one do that?

Jamilah: Sure. I think the long and short of it is that I became a parent. I was a writer already and somehow, I fell into the parenting writing world, because I wasn't there at all. I was an editor at Ebony for five years. My work is typically centered around race, gender, and identity. I've always been open about mothering my eight-and-a-half-year-old daughter Naima. I post her on social media, and I used to share a lot about her on Twitter. I heard from Dan Kois, who is the co-founding host of Mom and Dad are Fighting as well as, at the time, the editor for the Care and Feeding Parenting Column.

He was like, “We have an opening, and we've heard your voice will be great.” It's been a really lovely situation ever since then. I don't think anyone is actually qualified to give advice, we are all just doing the best we can with what it is that we have. If it's helpful to people, I'm glad for that, but I don't think of myself as an expert, just someone who has some thoughts.

Brian: Well, knowing some of the responses you get, it's obviously helpful. Listeners, do you have a parenting question for Jamilah Lemieux? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. Maybe you're familiar with her stuff on Slate. Whether or not, you can ask a question, 646-435-7280, for Jamilah Lemieux or tweet a question @BrianLehrer. Do you have a question, listeners, about, I don't know, sleep training or no sleep training? Masks or no masks on play dates? Ideal number of minutes of screen time per day other than zero? The right age for their first phone? How much should the tooth fairy bring, or anything else? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280.

I mentioned your recent column, Jamila, I Can't Believe What Comes Out of My Six-Year-Old’s Mouth. These weren't curse words exactly, it was more badly-timed jokes, calling an aunt an old maid, or joking about a bomb in a crowded place. Were those real examples from your own six-year-old?

Jamilah: No, these are all from readers. No, not my six-year-old, but I will say that my daughter throughout her life has been known to say incredibly wild things at less than optimal times. It's just a part of what comes with parenting, I think, particularly at six.

Brian: What did you tell this reader?

Jamilah: One that this is part of what comes with having a child that is-- your entire childhood is about testing boundaries, figuring out where you fit in the world, what's okay and what's not. Your job as the parent is to redirect and to do it in a positive way, not to make your child feel like they are bad, or that there's something wrong with them, or that you're very angry or disappointed in them because of their choice of language, but that they have done some things that is inappropriate and for them to understand why it's inappropriate.

I think one of the biggest challenges that a lot of parents have with discipline or with correcting behavior is not letting their kids know why something is wrong, but instead, just focusing on letting them know how wrong it is. If they don't get why they're not supposed to be doing this thing, and what the potential consequences are not just for themselves but for others, like what the emotional stakes are, then you can count on them repeating the behavior so long as it's interesting to them.

Brian: Yes. We have a question coming to us from a WNYC parent. We mentioned that you were coming on today to our colleagues and asked if anyone had a question that they wanted to ask. While our phone calls are coming in, I'll ask you this one that seems to be on a lot of people's lists, especially after some of the recent news. The question is, what's the best approach or technique to prepare my daughters for the inevitable Instagram, TikTok, and generally ugly digital exposure in the coming years. I'm sure you get that a lot, Jamilah, in this case for young kids who haven't already been exposed.

Jamilah: Yes. That's an excellent question. I think something that parents are tasked with now, as opposed to maybe 15 years ago, is that screens are going to be likely to be a central part of their classroom experience, depending on where they go to school. Perhaps from an early age, there are kids getting tablets as early as kindergarten or first grade at school now. It's not in the sense that we’re in the past-- there are parents that are just anti-TV. It's like, “Well, TV is just not a thing we do in our household. It doesn't matter if it's Sesame Street or The Simpsons, we're not going to watch that, and that's fine.” But imagine if, when they got to school, they didn't have to be a proficient TV watcher.

That's what parents are up against now. That we have to teach our kids how to use and respect, and understand these screens and not to abuse them, while so many of us, myself included, are struggling with managing our own screen time and our own overexposure to Instagram, and TikTok, and all those things. You know your child better than anyone. You know what they can. You should have some concept of what they can and cannot be trusted to do.

When you make that first introduction to a screen, I think you should start with what I like to call a baby screen. A tablet that's designed for smaller children, or a play phone, something that gets them in the habit of using buttons and switching apps, and learning how this device technology works, without them having the ability to access things that you would not want them to have access to.

Parental controls are incredibly important from a very, very, very young age. You might not think that your kid is going to Google “sex” or that they would pull up porn, because they're not thinking about porn, because they don't know what porn is, but maybe sex is a word that they heard an adult, say and they're curious about it. They know that Google is where you go to find things out. That’s exactly how my daughter ended up Googling “sex” some years ago, long before we thought we had to worry about her looking stuff like that up. She was just like, “I just keep hearing people say it and I wanted to know what it was.”

I would say, be sensitive to the type of device that you're giving them access to, that you are holding their hand through this process, that you're not parking them with the device, particularly when it's early on. As they get older-- when I say older, I mean seven, eight-- it's time to start having the conversation about the dangers of the screen and the other things that can happen, that there are people that are on the other side of these things, and you don't know who they are. They may understand that they've sent a text message to one of your friends before, or like, “Can I text grandma?”

“When you're texting grandma from my phone, she doesn't see you. That could be me, that could be you, that could be your sibling.” Helping them to understand that when they're communicating with people on the other side of the screen, unless they can see them, they don't know who that is. That there are people, there are adults that use these things to get to children. That's not something that you want to save until they're much older. That's not information you get in middle school. That's something they need to know early on.

Brian: Great stuff. Angela in Cold Spring Harbor, you're on WNYC with Jamilah Lemieux. Hi, Angela.

Angela: Hi. Thank you for taking my call, Brian. You are a national treasure. I appreciate your show daily. It really keeps me in the loop. My question is regarding my eight-year-old son who is terrified of needles. We've had two really bad experiences at the doctor's office recently, getting his flu shot. I'm hoping that he's able to get the COVID shot before the year is through, but it has been very difficult, being in the doctor's office for these experiences. Do you have any advice to share?

Jamilah: I do. I am an alumni of being terrified of needles to the point, where I would jump, when I was a kid, and end up with a scar a couple of times. My daughter also dealt with the serious fear of needles. One, try to make sure that, is this a fear or is this a phobia? Because that is something that exists. There are people that have such a problem with needles that they're going to require some additional support with getting used to getting shots. It's not something that you just grow out of. If you're able to establish that this doesn't seem to be a phobia, that he can look at a needle, he can watch someone else take a shot, and is that something that he's done yet? Has he seen anyone else have a shot?

Angela: No. I actually got my flu shot yesterday very last minute at my physical, and I regretted that he wasn't with me. I'm thinking about having him watch some YouTube videos with me, and he seems to really shrink away just at that idea.

Jamilah: I think if you can get him comfortable with that and-- again, gauge his comfort, because if he is dealing with a serious, serious fear, the last thing you want to do is put a loop of people getting shots on a screen in front of him. If he can watch people having this thing done, particularly if he can watch young people, if they have videos of kids getting shots on YouTube, he could see that it's not just that they're braver than him, and that there's something different about those kids versus him, that simply they understand that shots really don't hurt. The thing that hurts the most is the anticipation, and the fear for most shots. Flu shots typically do not hurt. He may talk to someone. Pardon me?

Brian: He may need to talk to someone. No, no, you go ahead, you can finish that thought. Sorry.

Jamilah: I was just going to say, if you're feeling like this is deeper than something you can handle on your own, don't be afraid to talk to your pediatrician about making a referral to someone he can talk to about this.

Brian: Thank you for your call, Angela. I hope that's helpful. Here's one from a listener via Twitter, “My son only wants to do things he's immediately good at. How do I get him to understand that's not realistic and working on something, practice is an improvement, pride, good habit for life?”

Jamilah: Find examples of people who started at something, when they were young and things that they weren't really great at, and became really great. There are plenty of children's books about athletes, and artists, dancers, people that had to really spend a lot of time training at their craft. We oftentimes think of the greats as being naturally talented, or that you get to become Michael Jordan just because you're really good at basketball, from birth. It doesn't work that way.

I think that kids seeing that other people have had to put a lot of work into becoming good at something, helps them to accept that the same goes for them. Then also not allowing them to get away with just dropping something at the first sign that they're not good at, it is important, too.

Brian: One more on the phones, Debbie in Jackson Heights, you're on WNYC, with Jamilah Lemieux from Slate. Hi, Debbie.

Debbie: Hi. I'm a big fan of both of you, so thank you for taking my call. My two-and-a-half-year-old son loves to take naps at daycare but refuses to take naps at home. I'm just trying to figure out what to do about that?

Jamilah: Are you creating the conditions for napping? Are naps typically around the same time of day? Has the house gotten quiet, and the TV's off? Or is it that he's expected to nap in the middle of everything as he left it?

Debbie: We turn all the lights down. I play the same music that they play at daycare to let them know that it's nap time. I try to do everything the way daycare does. If I put him in the crib, he just screams until I take him out,, or he'll scream for 45 minutes if I leave him in there.

Jamilah: Is there a quiet activity that he could do during that time? Because there are kids that are just not great nappers, so if they're not at school, they're just not going to do it. If he can have 45 minutes, where the lights are low, where he's maybe quietly playing with a fidget spinner or something that can keep him occupied but not high-energy, where he's still getting some downtime, that wouldn't be bad.

Debbie: Okay. That's a great idea. Thank you so much.

Brian: Thank you, Debbie.

Debbie: You're welcome.

Brian: Hope that helps. All right, Jamilah, let's finish with a little lightning round. You’re ready?

Jamilah: I'm ready.

Brian: Short answers, short questions. Masks or no masks on play dates or with the grandparents?

Jamilah: Masks.

Brian: Ideal number of minutes of screen time per day, other than zero?

Jamilah: 30.

Brian: The right age for their first phone?

Jamilah: 10.

Brian: Right age to start talking about race, racism and/or privilege?

Jamilah: Birth.

Brian: Right age to start talking about sex?

Jamilah: Four.

Brian: How much should the truth fairy bring?

Jamilah: I think it should depend on your lifestyle, but I would say between one and five dollars.

Brian: Jamilah Lemieux, co-host of Slate advice podcast called Mom and Dad Are Fighting. She also gives advice in the Dear Care and Feeding section in the written version of Slate. Jamila, this has been great and so helpful. Thank you so much.

Jamilah: Thank you.

Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, more to come.

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