Teach your kids to evaluate online info like a reporter
I was hopeful that once the election was over, the barrage of fake news sites and sensational headlines in my social media feeds would just…go away. One can hope. The rise of fake sites, overly-sensational political “news” pages, and questionable sources have caused some to speculate on the influence this garbage had on the outcome […]
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7 parent behaviors that model good digital citizenship
It’s a terrifying fact that our kids learn more from watching us than anything we tell them. If you doubt this, just think of the last time you heard your own words come out of your child’s mouth. (And it was most likely at the worst possible moment. Like a meeting with your kid’s teacher […]
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Are your kids really that tech savvy?
Of course, we all want our kids to be safe online. That’s a given. Wherever they are, whether online or offline, we want them to be safe and make safe choices. When they are on screens, we don’t want the boogeyman to get them while watching YouTube, or solicited in social media, or cyberbullied in […]
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New screen time recommendations and tools from pediatricians
As digital parents, it’s probably the question we wrestle with the most. How much screen time? Of course, the answer always starts with those oh-so-unhelpful words: “It depends.” The child’s age. His or her temperament. The amount of time spent on other activities. The type or quality of screen time. And what if you have […]
Read more...[Book Review] Screenwise: Helping Kids Thrive (and Survive) in Their Digital World
As parents, many of us struggle betweend two styles of digital parenting. Do I tightly monitor and filter my children’s online life, or do I allow them total freedom to discover and learn on their own. The concern of the former is that we’ll stifle and frustrate them, and we’ll be forever playing cop. The […]
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That one summer we let our kids have too much screen time
So, once again, our names have been left off the nomination list for Parents of the Year. This summer, our boys spent way too much time on their devices. What often began as “an hour” would turn into a whole morning. On road trips, the alternating hour-on-hour-off quickly went out the car window. The encouragement […]
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What parents can learn from an educational technology conference
Every year, thousands of teachers, administrators, and companies gather for an enormous educational technology conference to learn and share the latest in tech and teaching trends. This year, I was fortunate to join 18,000 educators in Denver, CO, to see the latest innovative ideas, gadgets, and services making their way into classrooms. With over 1200 […]
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Keeping the bad stuff off your kid’s smartphone
One of the most common questions I hear parents struggle with is “How old should my child be before I give him or her a phone?” The very next question is usually, “How do I keep all the bad stuff off of it?” Like most decisions, every tween or teen differs in their maturity, responsibility, […]
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10 activities that get your kids (and their technology) outdoors
I suppose it’s appropriate that I’m writing this outside. Right now, it is late spring in Wisconsin. We’ve just come out of an unseasonably cold spring…even for Wisconsin. We were hoping that Spring would be a real thing this year, and here it is. I’m sitting at a picnic table in a pavilion in one […]
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Are my kids addicted to technology?
Can our children actually be addicted to technology? This is a question I’ve been wrestling with lately, so when CommonSenseMedia released the results of a recent study they conducted, I was intrigued. Survey Says… They asked more than 1200 parents and their teens about their own tech use and their perceptions of other family members. […]
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