Teens and Technology
by our Counseling team: Jenna Lott, Matina Hawkins, Devon Morris, Heidi Gillmore

As we are all aware, teens and technology is a complicated combination. While it is a critical component of their social connection, the layers of toxicity abound. We as their caregivers want to help them navigate the potential for harm with openness to their creative and social selves while keeping them safe with clear, firm boundaries. We have found the following resources to be really helpful in guiding our conversations as counselors and as parents. It is important that we keep the conversation open so that our kids feel they can come to us when they’ve made a mistake, or feel uncomfortable about something they’ve seen in their online worlds. Each of these websites provides great conversation starters and resources for creating and maintaining healthy boundaries for kids and their screens. 

Resources: 

Wait Until 8th is a wonderful resource for families who are considering waiting to give their kids their own phone until middle school. It also provides some robust research to support limiting access to screens if your tween/teen is needing to hear it from someone other than you.

  

Family Online Safety Institute has a wealth of resources about how to set reasonable boundaries for all family members and all types of devices. They have printable contracts as well as helpful tips for every platform and topic regarding screens.

  

Delaney Ruston’s Screenagers Blog has an archive of blog posts about how to open the conversation with your tween/teen without shutting them down - acknowledging the benefits of screen time while also collaboratively setting healthy limits.   

Podcasts:

Absolute Yes to Fighting Less (about technology) 

Arguments in the home about screen time are common and more so when school is in session, so what to do?What is a parenting strategy that can promote healthy screen use, and other positive behaviors, while at the same time, decrease fighting? Listen to learn more from Dr. Delaney Ruston, Pediatrician and Digital Parenting Expert.

Why do some kids and teens get overly frustrated and bored when it’s time to turn off their video games? How to know when game playing has become excessive? What are tips that all families should know for ensuring healthy video game play?  Listen to learn more from Dr. Delaney Ruston. 

What can be done to protect children's health in an environment where digital devices are everywhere? In this episode, host Sophie Guy talks with Dr Anthea Rhodes, a paediatrician and expert on the health impacts of digital technology from the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. The conversation covers a range of issues including the challenges families are facing in managing the impacts of technology, the effects of screen use on children's health and development, and how to work with families to address problems with the amount of screen time for children.

Technology has advanced at breakneck speed over the past decade. And that’s disrupted our lives — the ways we interact with each other, work, learn, and even grow up. This season looks at the impact all this technology is having on young people. Like many parents, this topic is personal for Dr. Sanjay Gupta. In our first episode, Sanjay speaks with one of the people most directly impacted by it all: his daughter Soleil. Plus, a conversation with Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University, about how social media is affecting youth mental health.