“We often think that play or connection has to be these huge, big moments and it’s not. The foundations to kids who want to come home at 30 start with dumb stuff you say in the car on the way home from school.”
Category: Screen Less Play More
I know that you want to make it a magical and memorable Christmas or Hanukkah. But please, do yourself and your child a favor: do not buy them a smartphone as a gift. (And please tell Santa to hold off as well.)
Reasons include: increased suicide risk, exposure to pornography, decreased attention, health problems, and more!
Tune in each day from now until Christmas for 50 reasons to delay buying your child a phone.
It’s not like your 12-year old boy wakes up one day and decides to be a woman hater.
It often starts with memes. Kids trade texts with thinly veiled misogyny, homophobia, and racism and pass it off as humor.
Then they start watching “self help” videos on Youtube about getting fit, earning money, and attracting women.
That’s when it starts to turn dark…
While reading “Charlie and The Chocolate Factory” it’s easy to infer that Roald Dahl was disgusted by the way children were changing from the new technology of his time.
I can relate.
If Roald Dahl, (and Willy Wonka) are disgusted by the new breed of television-obsessed brats, (in 1964) then what would they like children to do instead of TV?
Well, I believe is best said in the words of Dahl’s most memorable creations, the Oompa-Loompas…
Podcast guest Emily Cherkin jokes that, “Parenting is the judgiest sport I’ve ever played…From day one, you’re being judged about how you diaper, how you feed, how you sleep. And that in and of itself is exhausting. But but wait until the screen time stuff comes up.”
Join me on Substack for bonus podcast episodes, essays, and book reviews!
Find out how you can support the mission of “Screen Less Play More” and help more parents raise balanced, thriving kids in the digital age!
The author of my favorite parenting book “Hunt, Gather, Parent” has a new book? And it’s about screen time and kids? YES, PLEASE!
The Anxious Generation alerted you to the danger of screens, however, it’s almost impossible to live modern lives without them.
“Dopamine Kids” is your handbook for solving that fundamental problem of our times—and teaching your kids to have a healthy relationship with technology and food.
As it turns out, nearly everything you’ve heard about dopamine is wrong. No, it’s not the molecule of happiness. And no, it doesn’t give us pleasure—it gives us motivation…
I created a fake Snapchat account under the name Tiffany, said I was 15, and made my avatar look like a cute teen girl.
I honestly expected that I was going to sit through an hour of mind-numbing tutorials about lip plumper and then BAM– a predator was going to strike-up a conversation with me in the chat.
Not so.
I was offered a completely different flavor of inappropriate that I was not prepared to see…
Would you let your teen get behind the wheel of a car without taking driver’s ed? No! Then why are you handing them the entire internet without sufficient training?
Pre-teen and teen tech classes are coming soon!
Tweens and teens will learn the tools to make smart, safe choices online.
Kids will learn how to avoid scams, sextortion, pornography, cyberbullying, and phishing. They will learn the pitfalls of social media and video games, smart phone etiquitte, and how to create healthy screen habits.
Students will be empowered with knowledge about AI, how to spot deepfakes, and how to avoid…
Think back to your favorite childhood memory of play.
Were you outside? Probably.
Riding your bike? Maybe.
Were a bunch of adults telling you what to do? Definitely not.
Deb Lawrence of The International Play Association USA tells us that the best thing you can do for your child’s development, self-esteem, coordination, social skills, resilience, and self-control is…