Calling all parents, teachers, counselors, coaches, grandparents, and every other adult who cares about young people.
We have a pledge we would love you to take today!
The pledge is simply to commit to making one small change around a screen time habit for a specific amount of time and to discuss your plans with kids in your life.
Once you take the pledge, tell your child you did, tell them what you aim to try and change and consider even asking them if they will help keep you accountable.
So often, we use the word resilience and how we want “resilient kids.” However, many kids tell me this term is confusing and vague and ask me what exactly is resilience? One of the central skills of resiliency is being able to stop and assess one's current situation and then come up with ways to make modifications. We build a sense of self-efficacy every time we make little wins in the areas we work to modify. Our kids are eager to build their resiliency skills, and a perfect way to help them is to model our process of working to make a change.
I would bet money that every single one of you reading this can think of some way that there is something related to your devices that either distracts you away from work you need to get done or displaces things you wish you did more.
Making changes, even small ones, can be super challenging, but doing this as a community can be empowering. So right now, let all of us — this wonderful Screenagers community — join together to take this Make a Change Pledge. Inherent in the Pledge is to involve our children and students.
When you click to take the pledge, you won't get asked to say what you plan to change, just that you intend to try and make a change.
So, what type of change do you want to commit to? Don’t overthink it, but by the time you finish reading this blog, just pick something! Perhaps it relates to how you often become distracted when doing work on your computer, or maybe it has to do with how you want to change up one evening a week. Perhaps it has to do with how frequently you reach for your phone.
When choosing, think about the why (the “because”) and what will you replace it with (the instead)? Be sure to tell your kids about these pieces of the pie. And remember, a tiny action can have a significant effect because the chance of success is greater when you make a small change.
(We would love if you write in the comments what you plan to try and change)
There are so many excellent discussion points you can be having with your kids throughout your Make A Change Pledge. For example, when you feel the urge to self-distract with a treat-type screen activity, how will you handle the urge?
I have written several posts regarding behavior change, and you can find them on our Screenagers blog.
As well as our weekly blog, we publish videos like this one every week on the Screenagers YouTube channel
Calling all parents, teachers, counselors, coaches, grandparents, and every other adult who cares about young people.
We have a pledge we would love you to take today!
The pledge is simply to commit to making one small change around a screen time habit for a specific amount of time and to discuss your plans with kids in your life.
Once you take the pledge, tell your child you did, tell them what you aim to try and change and consider even asking them if they will help keep you accountable.
Some months ago, I got back into therapy, and I remember the first day back, the therapist asked me, “Do you do a self-compassion practice?” I remember the moment because I had one of those little head-scratching kind of moments. My therapist's question about a self-compassion practice made me want to understand what I might be missing and, most importantly, how self-compassion could help me as a parent and all parents.
READ MORE >I just released a new Screenagers’ Podcast episode featuring a lively and productive interview with Charlie Appelstein, a social worker and the author of “No Such Thing As A Bad Kid,” who has worked with youth and parents for over four decades. He is full of wisdom about helping youth with behavior management. Having seen his parenting workshops, I can personally attest to the remarkable insights and impactful strategies he shares. In the podcast, we address challenging scenarios, including how to determine appropriate consequences for lying and managing rude behavior from our children and teenagers, among many other topics. Read today’s blog for a sampling of some screen time dilemmas and strategies for addressing them that we tackle on the podcast
READ MORE >We recently launched the Screenagers YouTube Channel where we will be uploading a range of new content and resources each week, such as movie clips, podcasts and other original content. I wanted this week to introduce you to the first regular feature on the channel - Screenagers Bites!
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.