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“Having calm, consistent conversations has greatly improved screen balance in my home and I have written hundreds of articles to help others through my weekly Tech Talk Tuesdays newsletter and blog.”— Delaney Ruston, MD Physician/Filmmaker"
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We all know tech gifts are a big part of the holiday season, but as always, I offer tech-free ideas today. I am not putting down tech — many wonderful tech gifts will get exchanged this year, but I hope you will find this tech-free list to be a bit helpful.
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One of the most important resiliency tools we all carry in our tool belts is the act of remembering past times we got through challenges. The problem is doing it during setbacks, and those times don’t readily come to mind. Today’s blog is about 3 ways to nurture this skill in our children.
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This Thanksgiving week, I’m taking time with my family. Due to illnesses in the family, this is the first time since the pandemic began that we finally get to have an extended family gathering, and I’m taking the week to truly enjoy it. Here are four of my past Screenagers’ Tech Talk Tuesday favorite Thanksgiving posts which are chock-full of ideas for fostering togetherness this week.
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Hearing ideas from people in our circles can significantly impact us in many ways. For example, it might get us to try something new, and being able to follow up with the person who shared the idea can get us through challenging times. Parents often believe other parents are much more permissive around tech than they actually are. In today’s blog, I write about ways you can help instigate more sharing of screen-time parenting approaches with your friends.
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Recently I received a wonderful email from Adam Slusher, vice principal at Pennsville Middle School in New Jersey, who did a thoughtful rollout of Away For The Day, using many of the free resources we’ve put together to help people through the process. What I think is great about the letter is that it maps out in great detail the rules they created as well as details on how they implemented Away For The Day.
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Many young people and adults love horror films and talk about how they love the feeling of being scared. This is so very different from me. I am not at all a fan. This week I have been thinking about ways to talk with kids about when horror in movies, TV shows, and online, in general, go too far.
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I firmly believe that kids should have at least two activities that they are doing outside of school time. But what to do if the teen is not motivated to find something to do? In today’s blog, I write about what to do when our teens are resistant to getting involved in extracurriculars.
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The Screenagers’ Tech Talk Tuesday blog from two weeks ago provided four questions for teens to answer regarding the HBO show Euphoria. As intended, the questions sparked conversations among adults and teens, and we got many thoughtful answers from teens in the questionnaire.
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Today’s topic is about human mental health at the widest level: intrusive thoughts (also known as repeated negative thoughts, unhelpful chatter, and so forth). In my early thirties, I began having intrusive thoughts on a more regular basis. Today I share several ways I combat these intrusions.
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I find HBO’s Euphoria incredibly disturbing and know that although so many of our kids have watched it, many parents never have. Today, I offer a way into a conversation with youth about the show’s topics and popularity.
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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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The start of this academic year gives us an opportunity to get clarity on our key reasons for wanting to work with our kids to ensure that they have time off screens. What would your three top reasons be? Today, I share mine AND I offer you this 60-second activity to get the conversation going.
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Today, I share a strategy (and a story) to help any youth or family who might be struggling emotionally. In this approach you gather a “brigade” of helpers to do what I call “ambushes of love.” Read the blog to see how it worked for one family.
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School has started for some of your children and is right around the corner for others. Schools are, of course, full of tech, which also means they are full of A.I. All those little algorithms are taking their cues, making their moves, and, at times, helping students or hindering them with constructive and destructive capabilities. I’ll start with a personal example of when A.I. can be constructive.
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It has been four years since my team and I launched The Away For The Day (AFTD) campaign to help people get sound cell phone policies into schools. The research remains clear that when phone use is limited at schools, students do better socially, academically, and emotionally. Given the enormous increases in screen time and social isolation over the past two years, as well as the jump in mental health problems, ensuring healthy phone policies is more important than ever. Today, I share some wonderful examples of how the AFTD Campaign has led to real changes in schools across the country.
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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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When thinking about burnout, we generally connect it to work, feeling like the demands are too high and nothing we do makes a difference. We can also get burned out from the job of parenting. Today, I provide strategies to help combat parental burnout, drawing from the organizational psychologist Adam Grant’s ways to address burnout in the workplace by using these three components: demand, control, and support.
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Should I be wearing this brand? Should I try those skateboard tricks I saw on YouTube? Should I try vaping? Throughout my kids’ school careers, I’ve always reminded them, “You are steeped in social pressures, and there is no way you can fully appreciate the weight of them until you get to the other side. Social pressures never completely disappear, but they lessen greatly after your schooling days.”
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