When Melanie Hempey's oldest son dropped out of college due to a video game addiction,

she used her nursing background to focus on the science behind childhood screen addiction

in order to create a better environment for her younger children who were still at home.

Instead of removing all screens, she removed the most toxic ones, video games, social media,

and pornography through the critical

adolescent years. I met Melanie at a conference recently and I was absolutely blown away by the

work that she is doing to help parents just like me make sure that our kids do not become

addicted to screens, whether it's social media or video game. She has a powerful story.

She is going to empower you to be a better parent.

This is probably going to go down as one of my favorite episodes in the history of the

Heidi St. John podcast.

I hope you'll share it with your friends.

Stick around.

I think you're going to be encouraged.

Well, hey, everybody. How are you doing? Listen, we are post-election day here, and I'm going to turn our attention right now.

Before I do an analysis of the election or anything like that, I want to turn our attention to a completely different topic because I get questions about this all the time. Mothers will write into me and say that their kids are addicted to video games or they're

struggling with their self-image because of social media. It doesn't matter what it is.

Instagram, TikTok, you know, any of the platforms that are out there right now, most of the young

people I don't think are on Facebook anymore.

But Melanie's going to make a very strong case for why you should not let your children and your teenagers have smartphones or play video games. I know a lot of you are struggling with

this topic right now. And I'm struggling too. To be honest with you guys, I'm at the very tail end of raising

seven children, and I'm kind of tired, and I told Melanie that. And I think it's okay to be tired,

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