Tips for Parents
- Demonstrate curiosity about the cultures of technology that children and adolescents join. Let them show you the games they play. Participate with them in online activities. Assist them in developing awareness of the risks and benefits of online cultures.
- Educate yourself about the evolving and complex worlds of online cultures. Spend time developing healthy online habits for yourself (this includes paying attention to parental cell phone use and television watching habits, which are both technology cultures).
- Keep all computers and televisions in public, family spaces (no computers in bedrooms except under direct supervision and collaboration).
- Limit recreational screen time (ages 1-5, roughly 5 minutes daily; ages 5-12, roughly 20 minutes daily; ages 13-16, roughly 30 minutes daily).
- Model and encourage physical exercise practices (sports) for kids and physical activity (exercise) for adults. The ideal is one hour daily for everyone.
- Explore the emotional benefits that kids derive from online cultures and find ways of meeting those emotional needs also in the non-online world (through sports, for example, or community involvement, or reading, or any number of healthy activities).
- Recognize that kids will find ways around all types of computer surveillance strategies implemented by parents. Focus on education and awareness of risks.
- Recognize that some type of access control (to prevent viewing inappropriate content, for example) may be required and that kids are not fully capable of self-control (they are kids...). Use access control transparently. Involve kids in developing an access control system and assist them in learning self-management skills.
- Avoid hypocrisy whenever possible. If you view inappropriate content, or involve yourself in online activities that are not healthy, your kids will very likely find out about it. Try to avoid this credibility disaster. Practice good mentorship.
- Recognize that the psychological development of anyone born after 1990 is different from those born prior. Technology cultures are foundational to childhood and adolescent development today. The solution is not to avoid technologies but rather to understand them. Be an informed consumer and parent.
