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The Rosie and Roula Show
Welcome to the Rosie and Roula show! We have very different lifestyles and family dynamics. Rosie loves dogs. She lives the van life alone, and most days she can't be bothered to brush her hair or even look in the mirror. Roula love cats, she has three kids and a husband and doesn't dare leave the house without wearing her red lipstick.
On the surface, we're like chalk and cheese. And sometimes, our beliefs are so different that we don't see eye to eye at all. Yet we find so much knowledge and fun in the conversations we have about our lives.
We talk about insignificant matters that have a daily impact on the way we interact at work, in our family lives, friendships, and with ourselves.
Our episodes are short, sharp, and to the point. There's no chit chat or sweet talking around here. We talk about everything from our illogical pet peeves and philosophical musings to the things in society that make us go, what the fuck?
We ask the big questions. For example, should a person with a penis put down the toilet seat for a person with a vagina, or the other way around? And does it disgust you when someone licks their fingers whilst eating and then passes you the salt? Or when they burp, without saying excuse me?! And what was the one thing you heard today that put a smile on your face, and why?
Join us each week during your lunch break, a trip to the shops, or even whilst you're sitting on the toilet, for a quick dose of banter with your spicy hosts, Rosie and Roula.
The Rosie and Roula Show
158: Roula’s TikTok Parenting Decision - Why She Said Yes (With Rules)
This one’s a follow-up we know you’ve been waiting for. Roula finally made a call on whether her son can use TikTok—and the decision says a lot about how she’s approaching parenting this time around.
She shares what she learned from giving her daughters phones too early, why she refuses to go down the “ban everything” route, and how she’s teaching her son to manage screen time with self-control instead of guilt. From setting a 15-minute weekend limit to laughing over AI cat podcasters, this is real parenting in motion—messy, thoughtful, and deeply intentional.
Topics covered:
- Why banning tech can backfire with kids
- Lessons Roula learned from raising her daughters
- How TikTok is being introduced with rules (and humour)
- Why self-control matters more than restriction
- The little wins that make parenting feel worth it
Do you think kids should learn to manage social media early, or should it wait until they’re older?
TikTok parenting, should kids use TikTok, screen time rules, digital parenting, raising kids with social media, parenting podcast, parenting boundaries, TikTok and kids, parenting digital age
Listen to episode 144 where we originally discussed Roula's TikTok Dilemma.
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Roula (00:02)
This is to be short episode. hope we've been saying this for the last two episodes. Okay. You mentioned in our previous episodes about ⁓ our episode related to TikTok and ⁓ evaluating should I allow my son on TikTok, et cetera. And now I want to tell the listeners what decision we took because this is serious topic and we do want to.
Rosie (00:05)
We say this every time.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I wanna know.
Roula (00:31)
take a decision. And I also.
Rosie (00:32)
Definitely. And we'll put the episode
⁓ number in the description so you can go back and listen to that to know what we're talking about because Roula was having a real dilemma about this TikTok thing.
Roula (00:44)
Yes.
Looking at the interaction with the listeners, talking at home about it with my husband, observing the behavior at school, listening to my son's needs, and consulting my daughter who works at a school, a middle school, with difficult children.
Rosie (01:05)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Okay.
Roula (01:21)
we came to a decision that we feel really comfortable with. And this adds a little bit to what you talked about in our previous episode, the one before this, on if we ban everything for our children because we want to protect them and we're scared for them to be hurt, how can they learn how to deal with this stuff? Okay, so we don't want to ban it. And I know
Rosie (01:25)
Mm-hmm.
Roula (01:50)
I know when things are banned, everyone knows probably most of the people, you desire them more, you consume them more. So we decided not to ban it. And here what we're going to do, drum roll.
Okay, I will open an a TikTok account for him on my phone because he doesn't have a phone. I will open an account for him on my phone and with his sister because his sister uses TikTok, she and she knows how to guide him. They will search for the contents that he's interested in. And she will share with him. She shares with us all the time these podcasters, but there are two cats that are done by AI.
Rosie (02:13)
Mm-hmm.
Roula (02:38)
It's called podcasters, cats, AI. They're hilarious and we laugh a lot about it, a lot when we watch them. So she will help him find nice, funny, cute content also oriented to his interest so that at least his feed start to showing this kind of stuff.
Rosie (02:38)
god.
Okay.
Run,
run.
Roula (02:58)
And these are the rules. He can be on TikTok 15 minutes on the weekend with one of us with him. So we will sit next to him and we will and he will go on TikTok. We will not be like on top of scaring him. No, but we will be there with a corner of our eye check in. What are the stuff he's looking at? And we will take it from there. He's not having any phone until he's ⁓
Rosie (03:05)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
right.
Mm-hmm.
Roula (03:27)
in two years time when he got to the middle school. But we find it important that he starts also learning. And the most important thing is controlling his compulsive behavior.
Rosie (03:30)
Okay.
Right.
Roula (03:42)
learning to control his scrolling and not feel guilty about it. And by doing 15 minutes on the weekend, we will tell him you can spread the 15 minutes. You can have five minutes. You can have 10 minutes on another hour. They don't have to be 15 minutes after each other. And we do have something at home.
Rosie (03:47)
Alright.
in one go. Yeah.
Roula (04:04)
We have this timer that we use all the time. So I time it on five minutes. And this is how we know we're strict on time. We take it with us everywhere. Sorry.
Rosie (04:07)
Mm-hmm.
that's cool.
There
it goes. It's a nice visual that it shows the red depending on where you put the time. I quite like that.
Roula (04:23)
Yeah,
This is the decision that we took.
Rosie (04:28)
Hmm.
I love it. And I think I just want to make clear to our listeners, I don't think there's a right or wrong, but the fact that you have made this decision. ⁓ what's the word you've consciously made the decision. wasn't like you were pressured into doing it. You took the time to think about it. You've set boundaries and you've justified it. Okay. This is why we're doing it this way. I love that.
And I think it's really gonna teach him self-control as well. Those 15 minutes, I think many people, myself included, would be scrolling on their phones for longer than 15 minutes. So to teach him, okay, just 15 minutes, a little bit, and I don't have to do it in one go, and okay, it's finished now. I might wanna keep doing it, but no, let's go do something else.
Roula (05:18)
Yeah. And I know in a few years when he goes to the middle school, I won't have this control anymore. And that's OK. I'm trying now to build some mindset for him that he probably will use later. I don't know how his use going to be later, but I'm hoping with this mindset and something important. A mom from school, I was talking to her ⁓ because Liam, this is his second.
Rosie (05:24)
Right. Right!
Right, yeah. Right.
Roula (05:46)
school year at this new school in the new city where we're living. And he has this one boy, he tells me, Mom, I trust him. I feel like I'm myself with him. I really feel safe. at school camp, I want to hope and be like in the same room, connect with him because I'm very nervous of camp. I don't want to go, but I have to. And I'm telling this mom, his mother, the mother of a friend of the friend.
Rosie (05:49)
Right, right.
Mmm.
Yeah. Wow.
Roula (06:16)
how much Liam feels safe with her son. And she said to me, you know what? My son also loves to play with Liam because he's the only one who's playing outside and doing all these things. Every time he wants to play with someone else, they just on their phone and they don't do anything. And that's frustrating her son. They're like, you know, there are still children out there who want to be free from social media, but parents
Rosie (06:33)
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Roula (06:45)
Give the phone. Sorry, saying parents give the phone seems very attacking. I don't mean that. I did this with my daughters, but I'm learning. His third child. I'm learning. When I did wrong with my daughter and giving them the phone, like so many parents, they have to be I have to be able to reach them because I work full time and they go from school. And, know, really, how many times I called them during the day?
Rosie (06:55)
Right. Yeah.
Roula (07:14)
Almost never, unless it was necessary.
Rosie (07:14)
Never. That's right.
Roula (07:18)
So thought I'm giving them the phone so that I can reach them. I didn't need to reach them. And there were so many other ways to reach me in case of emergency. And this is what I learned with Liam. He has, he doesn't have a smartwatch, but he has a watch we can call him on it. And that's enough. More than this, it's not needed. And I'm grateful for this watch because when he was playing at the playground, was a bit far from our house and he broke his, his, uh,
Rosie (07:23)
Yeah. Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah.
Okay. Right.
Roula (07:47)
collar bone, this. ⁓ If he didn't have his watch to call me, there was no one around to help him. You know, so it's...
Rosie (07:48)
my God. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I haven't
heard of watches like that. Yeah. That's cool. So it's not like an Apple watch or anything. It's just, yeah.
Roula (08:02)
Yeah, it's not smart. It's just no, no, no, Yeah.
This is what I learned from my daughters. I gave them the phones with the excuse to so I can reach them all the time, but really I rarely needed to reach them. So that's the lesson that I've learned. Yeah.
Rosie (08:18)
Right. Yeah. You learn through experience. Yes.
Absolutely. Yep. Well, thanks for the update. You'll have to let us know how it goes. Yeah.
Roula (08:23)
Rosie. Yeah. Thanks for listening.
I'll keep you updated. It's the TikTok episode.
Rosie (08:30)
Good.
Roula (08:34)
Thank you for listening and being so supportive also on our social media with your comments and your interest in this topic. Wish you all good day. Bye!
Rosie (08:41)
Yeah, it's been great having engagement. Bye.