Katherine Heigl and Josh Kelley Imposed These Tough Rules to Break Their Kids' ‘Unhealthy' Phone Habits: ‘They Were Little Addicts' (Exclusive)
The actress says they made the changes after seeing how attached they were to their phones: "They were little addicts"
Sticking with their plan was tough, but Heigl says it helped "break the addiction"Katherine Heigl says she knew she and husband, singer Josh Kelley, needed to make some changes at home when they realized that their kids were becoming "little addicts" with their phones.
"We started back in September because grades were slipping," says Heigl, 46, who shares three children with Kelley: daughters Naleigh, 16, and Adalaide, 13, and son Joshua, 8. "We always said no phones at bedtime, but there was sneaking devices and staying up really late and not getting good sleep and being unbearably cranky the next day. And it was just like, this isn't healthy."
The Grey's Anatomy alum says she and Kelley held out on giving their eldest a phone until she was 12.
"I was going to try to wait until 16, and I realized it's not possible. Not in the world we live in right now," she says. "She was just taking friends' phones and they were letting her use their phones. And then I have no idea what she's up to. And then if she wasn't on at all, couldn't participate in cafeteria conversation and didn't have any idea what other kids were talking about. So I was like, "Okay, let's find a balance."
The Firefly Lane actress says a friend helped her put strict restrictions on Naleigh's phone, "and it made me feel a little bit safer." But, she admits it was a slippery slope with her other kids: "When Adalaide was like nine or 10 and I was like, 'Fine, I'll get you a phone.' And Joshua has had a phone since he was like three," she says. "it's ridiculous."
It got to the point where "they were little addicts" with the devices, she says.
So several months ago, she and Kelley got tough. "They don't get their devices at all on Tuesday, Thursdays or Sundays. Saturday they get it after lunch. And they would only get them Monday, Wednesday and Friday after school, after homework, until bedtime — we start that process at 8 p.m. And they cannot take them to their rooms ever at night. They have to put their phones in our bedroom to charge."
The new rules weren't immediately welcome.
"It was like withdrawal for the first couple of weeks," she says. "There was a lot of anger and boredom and frustration. We just had to get through it. Josh and I would just give each other a pep talk, like, 'It's going to get better.'"
And over time, "it did. And they started developing other interests. I felt so much relief," she says. "Kids have not yet learned how to self regulate and self discipline, so we have to teach them."
Read the original article on People
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Tristan Rogers,' General Hospital' Star, Dies at 79
The Australian actor began playing Robert Scorpio on the daytime soap opera in 1980 Tristan Rogers has died at the age of 79. The Australian actor was best known for playing Robert Scorpio on General Hospital. He first joined the soap opera in 1980. His longtime manager, Meryl Soodak, confirmed his death to ABC 7 Eyewitness News on Friday, Aug. 15. It was revealed in July that Rogers has been diagnosed with cancer. Soodak told the outlet that Rogers' General Hospital role "meant everything to him." 'He loved being Scorpio and he created that role from nothing,' Soodak continued. 'He was supposed to work a day and he ended up making it into something huge. He was just a genuinely loyal, kind human being and he loved his family." PEOPLE has reached out to Rogers' manager and the General Hospital team for comment. Rogers was born in Melbourne in 1946. He left school in 1964 and eventually started a rock band with his friends. At 21, he turned to modeling and commercials to make money. Then he decided to become an actor — with no experience. 'As far as I was concerned, it was a way to make a bit of money. That's all,' he told in 2022. Many of his earliest roles came on Australian television. He appeared on the Aussie soaps Bellbird, Number 96 in 1974 and The Box in 1975. He also appeared in a few British films, including 1972's Four Dimensions of Greta. Rogers moved to the United States in 1980 and shortly after was cast as Robert Scorpio on General Hospital. Robert was a spy for the fictional World Security Bureau and later served as the police commissioner and district attorney of Port Charles. The character was good friends with Luke Spencer (played by Anthony Geary) and, in 1981, was part of Luke's wedding to Laura (Genie Francis) as Luke's best man. The wedding brought in 30 million viewers and remains the highest-rated soap opera episode in U.S. TV history. 'I didn't know at the time the importance of General Hospital; it was just one more job for me,' he told Soap Opera Digest in 2020 about his casting. 'But it was really exciting, to be fresh off the boat and walk into this role. Of course, after that, everywhere I went, people would go, 'You're on General Hospital? That's the hottest thing in the country! You're working with Luke and Laura? Oh, my God!'. . . . I got caught up in the General Hospital tidal wave and just got swept away by it.' Robert eventually became a fan-favorite character and was one of the show's leading men. He was killed off in 1992 and Rogers departed the series. But — as often happens on soaps — Robert returned, alive, in 2006, when the show brought back many popular characters from the '80s. "I think this character will follow me to my grave," he told The New York Times at the time. Rogers continued to make sporadic appearances on General Hospital throughout the next decade, and since 2019 had appeared as a recurring character. 'I've seen this show at its best and at something less than that,' he told PEOPLE in 2023 for the show's 60th anniversary. In 2008, Rogers took the character to the General Hospital spin-off General Hospital: Night Shift, where Robert learned he had colon cancer and reconnected with his family. 'This [storyline] was about the deconstruction of an iconic character done in a way it hadn't been done before,' he told Entertainment Weekly at the time. 'Characters like mine don't get colon cancer. They get shot, they get beaten up, they get hit by trains. They don't get colon cancer. It's not very glamorous. I thought it was a hell of a challenge, more than the usual fare that you're given going into this: Go through the investigation, find the bad guys, have a gunfight, get a schmooze….This was a whole different animal.' He added, 'So I thought, maybe along the way, if somebody watches this and sees what we're doing, they might go out and get tested. And if we inspired that, then it's a bonus.' Reflecting on the dominance of soap operas — and their decline — he said in an interview for the 2011 book The Survival of Soap Opera, 'This is not a genre that will be around in another 50 years… in many respects, it isn't necessary. They have made their mark, and almost every type of medium owes something to the way the soaps have been put together, whether they want to admit it or not.' Rogers' other roles included an arc on The Young and the Restless from 2010 to 2011, as well as the TV series Fast Track and Babylon 5. He also did voice over work, most notably in the 1990 Disney film The Rescuers Down Under, and won a Daytime Emmy for his performance in the 2019–2020 Prime Video series Studio City. Rogers married Barbra Meale in 1974, and they divorced in 1984. He briefly dated his General Hospital costar (and on-screen love interest) Emma Samms, but they split in 1985 when she left the show. He married Teresa Parkerson in 1995. They share two children, Sara and Cale. Rogers is survived by his wife and children. Read the original article on People
Cosmopolitan
2 hours ago
- Cosmopolitan
How Did AD and Ollie Get Over Their ‘Perfect Match' Drama?
Going into this season of Netflix's Perfect Match, fans already had an idea that things were going to work out between AD Smith and Ollie Sutherland—getting engaged on TV before the season actually airs will do that. But now that reality TV obsessives have watched the entire season, there are some lingering questions. Like, how did AD and Ollie move past all that Perfect Match drama? 'Ollie was in time out for a while,' AD admitted to People in a post-Perfect Match finale interview. And now that we've all watched season 3 of the Netflix dating show, it's easy to see why. AD and Ollie came in second place and were still together when it ended, but they also had a few major pain points that needed tending to. Despite being paired up from the beginning, AD and Ollie had their rough patches on the show, specifically when Ollie went on a date with Love Island USA's Justine Joy and lied to AD about kissing Justine, something she later found out on her own. 'He had a lot of making up to do,' AD continued. 'But we focused on intentionality in our relationship and just being open and honest with each other about what we wanted out of our own personal lives and what we wanted as a couple.' For his part, Ollie told People that their brief split on Perfect Match is actually what made him realize just how strongly he felt for her. 'In that moment, where I was so scared I was going to lose her, I think that made me realize just how important she was to me, and how much I'd never want to be in that position again,' he said. That feeling might help explain how the couple went from reality show to engaged in less than a year. AD and Ollie announced their engagement in March of 2025 during the Love Is Blind season 8 reunion, news that was soon followed up by a pregnancy announcement. They're now enjoying being engaged while they await the arrival of their baby girl. It might seem fast in the normal world, but in the world of reality television, it's actually pretty standard. 'The show expedited things for sure, because from day one, when you're sharing a room with that person, you're waking up and doing challenges with that person,' Ollie explained. 'In the real world, you don't date in that fashion.'
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Bob Odenkirk Still Does His Own Stunts in 'Nobody 2' After His Heart Attack — But There's One Big Rule (Exclusive)
NEED TO KNOW Bob Odenkirk speaks to PEOPLE exclusively in the video series My Life in Pictures In his new action-comedy Nobody 2, sequel to the 2021 hit Nobody, the Emmy winner does his own fighting Other stunts, he says, are off the table: 'They don't let me fly through the air' Yes, Bob Odenkirk does his own stunts. Well, almost all of them. 'I do my own fighting. But they don't let me fly through the air," reveals the 62-year-old actor-producer in PEOPLE's My Life in Pictures video series, while discussing the sequel to his 2021 action-comedy Nobody. The powers that be behind Nobody 2 (in theaters today) are 'not dumb,' he quips, when it comes to stunts like high falls or being attached to wires. 'I've had a heart attack,' says Odenkirk. 'I am 62.' It was before that 2021 heart attack, a near-fatal incident on the set of his hit drama Better Call Saul, that Odenkirk decided to take on the action genre with Nobody's director Ilya Naishuller and writer Derek Kolstad. 'This is another strange journey from my career,' he says, looking at photos from decades in and out of the spotlight. 'I had this strange notion that I could do action. I was in pretty good shape.' Saul Goodman, he adds, was 'a character who was never quitting, clever and had a real heart driving him. And I thought, 'All I gotta do is add the fighting to it, and I'm willing to train.' So I trained for years and I found some people who were foolish enough to back me at Universal Studios. And we made a 'big-little' film called Nobody.' Its sequel, from director Timo Tjahjanto, reunites the Emmy winner with costars Connie Nielsen, Christopher Lloyd, RZA and more. It adds Colin Hanks, John Ortiz and Sharon Stone to the action-packed world of Odenkirk's Hutch Mansell, a government assassin-turned-family man. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. 'I love doing the stunts,' admits the comedy veteran. 'The stunts are the closest thing to sketch comedy of anything I've done because there's something about pulling it off. You do the stunt, you have the choreography, you change it, you modify it, you invent things, and then you go behind the camera and watch it. And when it works, everyone laughs.' Odenkirk is aware that Mission: Impossible star Tom Cruise — one year older at 63 — 'does his own stunts,' he says. 'I know, I know. Tom, good for you.' He adds, 'I'm probably not in as good a shape as good, ol' Tom Cruise.' Nobody 2 is in theaters now. Read the original article on People
