When it comes to relationships, the most important thing one must bring to the table is one’s attention. Our attention is a precious gift that we decide to give or withhold from others.
In an app-development class, 4th to 7th graders were asked to define a problem and then come up with an app that offers a solution. Students often brought up two main issues:
To solve the issue, the kids came up with the idea of a voice-recognition app that would temporarily freeze their parents’ phones whenever the child’s voice is detected. To combat seeing inappropriate content, mostly on TV after bedtime, the kids proposed an app named “Earmuffs App.” The app would sense when a kid came into the room and then would mute swear words and switch the adult content from the TV to a hideable phone or tablet.
So often we want our children to get off of their phones. But what if our kids want us to get off of our phones? I’m sure you’ve heard “mom, mom, mom “ while you’re reading an email, checking a text or reading an article. Our phones have become such a part of our daily lives that we often don’t realize how much we are using them. But, our kids know.
For this week’s TTT let’s turn the focus away from our kids’ use of technology and put it on our own. Let’s get our kids’ or partners’ attention with questions like these:
When it comes to relationships, the most important thing one must bring to the table is one’s attention. Our attention is a precious gift that we decide to give or withhold from others.
In an app-development class, 4th to 7th graders were asked to define a problem and then come up with an app that offers a solution. Students often brought up two main issues:
To solve the issue, the kids came up with the idea of a voice-recognition app that would temporarily freeze their parents’ phones whenever the child’s voice is detected. To combat seeing inappropriate content, mostly on TV after bedtime, the kids proposed an app named “Earmuffs App.” The app would sense when a kid came into the room and then would mute swear words and switch the adult content from the TV to a hideable phone or tablet.
So often we want our children to get off of their phones. But what if our kids want us to get off of our phones? I’m sure you’ve heard “mom, mom, mom “ while you’re reading an email, checking a text or reading an article. Our phones have become such a part of our daily lives that we often don’t realize how much we are using them. But, our kids know.
For this week’s TTT let’s turn the focus away from our kids’ use of technology and put it on our own. Let’s get our kids’ or partners’ attention with questions like these:
If there was an emergency, what are some things you could do now to shore up your tech to help lessen the impact on your family and work? Read in this Tech Talk Tuesday about four key things I did and made sure my family knew.
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Raising topics around sexuality is, to varying degrees, uncomfortable. Yet, I believe our digital age makes having uncomfortable conversations paramount. It’s a gift to kids of all ages when we calmly and non-judgmentally raise topics related to sexuality and let them know we care and are here for them. Today, I offer four topics to raise with your child or older teen. Some will be appropriate for both age groups, and some will just make sense for those who are a bit older.
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Our youth have complex social worlds, online and off, particularly now in the ongoing age of COVID, and they are vulnerable to the fact that they can’t control who is attracted to them, nor who they are attracted to. In today’s Screenagers’ Tech Talk Tuesday blog, I’m writing about how to help our kids with the universal human challenge of knowing when to accept what we can’t change in our social lives versus what we can try and change.
READ MORE >for more like this, DR. DELANEY RUSTON'S NEW BOOK, PARENTING IN THE SCREEN AGE, IS THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE FOR TODAY’S PARENTS. WITH INSIGHTS ON SCREEN TIME FROM RESEARCHERS, INPUT FROM KIDS & TEENS, THIS BOOK IS PACKED WITH SOLUTIONS FOR HOW TO START AND SUSTAIN PRODUCTIVE FAMILY TALKS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AND IT’S IMPACT ON OUR MENTAL WELLBEING.
