Throughout the country spring break has just finally come to a close. But, summer vacation is coming up. What will that mean for screen time in your life? I have some rules to help my family manage screen time while on vacation. We set times that we are all going to check in otherwise we try to disconnect.
I was recently in remote areas of Mexico with my family and it was both healing and at times distressing to be without cell service or a computer connection most of the time. I managed by setting expectations with the people I work with about when I would be able to check in and when I would be totally unavailable.
Camps are a great opportunity for your kids to unplug. We highlight a study in Screenagers that showed that kids who unplugged and went to a nature camp for just 5 days showed a marked improvement in capacity for empathy.
Here's some questions to ask your family this week for Tech Talk Tuesday (#TTT):
Do you think we should completely unplug during vacations?
How would you feel about going to a camp that had no wifi or cell service?
Do you think parents should be able to work some during family vacations?
Are there some things you think you should be able to do on your phone or computer while on vacation? If so, what?
If there was an emergency and you didn't have a cell phone, do you have some ideas of how you might solve the problem?
Throughout the country spring break has just finally come to a close. But, summer vacation is coming up. What will that mean for screen time in your life? I have some rules to help my family manage screen time while on vacation. We set times that we are all going to check in otherwise we try to disconnect.
I was recently in remote areas of Mexico with my family and it was both healing and at times distressing to be without cell service or a computer connection most of the time. I managed by setting expectations with the people I work with about when I would be able to check in and when I would be totally unavailable.
Camps are a great opportunity for your kids to unplug. We highlight a study in Screenagers that showed that kids who unplugged and went to a nature camp for just 5 days showed a marked improvement in capacity for empathy.
Here's some questions to ask your family this week for Tech Talk Tuesday (#TTT):
Do you think we should completely unplug during vacations?
How would you feel about going to a camp that had no wifi or cell service?
Do you think parents should be able to work some during family vacations?
Are there some things you think you should be able to do on your phone or computer while on vacation? If so, what?
If there was an emergency and you didn't have a cell phone, do you have some ideas of how you might solve the problem?
Everyone is trying to grasp where we currently are with screen time and kids and where we will be when the COVID crisis is more fully behind us. Today I highlight some of the key findings in a new report and what we can glean from the data to help in conversations with young people.
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Recently two friends of mine — a married couple — told me that they were just about to get their 13-year-old son his first smartphone. They explained that they told him that they would get him one once he reached 8th grade and did well academically during the first part of the school year. They explained to their son, I’ll call him Charlie, that they needed to set up expectations and ground rules around the phone, and they wanted him to write down the reasons he wanted a phone and why he felt he needed a phone. Also, they asked him to write some possible rules and ideas about good digital citizenship. They recorded the conversation and today I share some of it with you.
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A few weeks ago a dear friend shared with me about her screen-free family Sundays with her 3 kids. When Jamie started Screen-Free Sundays, they planned to just try it out for a month so she wouldn’t feel overwhelmed by the experiment. I also talk with a mom in Alaska who prioritized reading in her family in all sorts of ways — and keeping screens at bay when they read. Hear how the experiments have gone.
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.
