The Ultimate Digital Parenthood Gift Guide
A note from Aura's Chief Medical Officer, DrScott As a parent, I love my kids more than anything. And I know you do, too. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't hard to be a parent sometimes! I think that's a pretty universal feeling around the world and even through time. If I had a way to transport myself back to the middle ages, I bet I'd find some parents to commiserate with (even though our parenting challenges would certainly be different!) This decade might be the hardest time ever to be a parent, though. According to an advisory issued by the Surgeon General , a whopping 48% of parents say that most days their stress is completely overwhelming (compared to 26% among other adults.) There's so much to worry about: online safety, offline safety, health, balancing remote school and remote work…the list goes on. And it gets even more difficult during the holidays! It feels like kids are talking about new tech every five minutes these days—and revising their gift lists just as fast. Heck, there's even an AI Santa Claus that can have a conversation with your kids. (Is that even safe? We're still trying to decide!) So we, in collaboration with several of our DigitalParenthood experts, wanted to do whatever we could to make your holiday season easier. As a parent, you need community, support, and resources to help you create safe online and offline environments for your kids. This gift guide serves as the latter—and our community of supportive parents and experts is always open to you at DigitalParenthood.com. Wishing you a happy, peaceful holiday season. Download your copy below ⬇️Ask Me Anything: TECHWISE study recording
Thank you for joining us and asking such great questions about TECHWISE. I’ve been conducting clinical research for more than 30 years and I am as excited as I have ever been to launch this important study. So much of the research into the effects of tech/social media use on kids’ mental health is limited by access to ground truth data and we are seeking to fill this important gap. We are seeking youth between 8-17 years of age who have a smartphone or tablet to enroll with their parents for a 3 month study where we will assess a range of mental well-being and mental health outcomes while measuring device use through the Aura app. Help us spread the word about this study! We anticipate sharing our data with researchers interested in tackling a wide range of questions we will be able to address. Check out get.aura.com/techwise for more info. Click here to watch the recording.Back to school, back to screens
School’s back in session, and with that comes extra screen time for our kids. Chromebooks and iPads are a ubiquitous part of school for many children right now. They use these devices for everything from learning code to emailing classmates about projects. When you couple this schoolwork with kids' personal device use, it adds up to a lot of screen time. A lot of parents I've talked to want to get their kids off of screens as soon as school work is done, but they find it causes friction at home. This is because personal screen time is important to most kids today. As humans, we've always moved through different stages of growth–including wanting to spend more time socializing and exploring with our friends in our adolescent years. But while you and I may have done that socializing outside, at a friend's house, or at the mall, kids are now doing more of that important exploration online. My clinical practice work has shown me that the best solutions for every family will be different—but these steps are a great place for everyone to start. Set up screen-free zones or times A screen-free zone can be a physical place or a time of day when your kids, and ideally the whole family, take a break from their devices. Research shows that when we set routines around our screen time, we can have better relationships with our devices. Make time for guilt-free fun Setting screen time routines isn’t just about limiting when your kids can’t use their devices. When they know there’s a designated time to chat on social media or invite friends to play Fortnite, it helps reduce the stress and frustration around logging off for things like dinner. Plan out screen time schedules It’s also important to build in guilt-free screen time. Abruptly switching from something enjoyable, like gaming with friends, to a tough homework assignment can cause conflict. A planned schedule helps smooth these transitions. Use parental controls Sometimes kids need some digital guardrails in place to help them balance their screen time. Your kids’ personal devices may already have screen time (sometimes called “focus time”) controls built-in, and you can also restrict screen time using apps like Aura. Using these controls could look like: Fully blocking social media sites and games when it’s time for homework Allowing kids to access social media apps throughout the day, but turning off access once they’ve spent a certain cumulative amount of time on the app Only un-blocking certain apps during scheduled guilt-free screen time Scheduling internet black-out periods when it’s time for bed Model good screen time habits All of the screen time schedules and parental controls in the world can only go so far. Showing your kids what healthy versus problematic tech use looks like through your own actions can be the most effective teaching tool you have at your disposal. This isn’t to say that you can’t use your devices. It’s just a matter of being mindful about it! Creating better screen time habits in six steps To recap, navigating social and school life online is tricky for everyone. It's okay if it takes a few tries to find just the right approach for your family—just remember these six things: Strike a balance between school and fun screen time. Taking away all non-school screen time could stifle kids' chances to explore and interact with peers in casual settings. Eliminate screens from bedrooms. A good starting point for creating screen-free zones is to eliminate screens from bedrooms for sleep—and turning off screens one hour before bed is even better. Stack similar on and offline activities. Some families I work with have managed device transitions successfully by pairing similar screened and screen-free activities together, like playing online for 30 minutes and then going outside for the same length of time. Set up parental controls. Whether you use on-device controls or an app like Aura, these tools can give you better insights into how and when your kids are using their screen time. Resist the urge to scroll. If you're asking your kids to stop scrolling online during family time, try doing the same! This sets a great example—and can help your own mental well-being and sleep, too. Talk it out. Making your children active partners in deciding how and when they'll allocate their screen time—and talking about why limits are important—helps to keep everyone invested in their digital health. We'll be publishing additional resources to help you balance screen time during the school year, too—keep exploring the community for more!Raising a Connected Generation: Dr. Becky on Parenting in the Digital Age 🎥
A throwback to our DigitalParenthood Summit back in June! NYT Best-Selling Author and Clinical Psychologist Dr. Becky Kennedy sat down with award-winning, Emmy-nominated journalist Poppy Harlow at our NYC Digital Parenthood Summit to offer parental guidance in the digital era, emphasizing that keeping kids safe is more important than keeping kids happy. The same way they can't have dessert until they finish their broccoli, children's use of technology must also be moderated. Here are 5 key ways parents can set strong boundaries: First, understand the difference between your child’s wants and needs. What purpose will technology serve them? Does your child need the new social media app they’re asking for, or do they simply just want it? Rather than brushing off requests, have conversations with your kids about the purpose they believe this new app will serve in their life. There may be a valid reason for downloading it. Second, form a group of parents to have continuous conversations over the years. Parents will avoid making split-second decisions and feel sturdier when their children go to them. Your kid will tell you that they are the only kid to not have a certain device, bedtime, or app. Years before this, when your kids are too young to negotiate, Dr. Becky recommends getting a group of parents together to discuss and plan how you all will approach these boundaries. Third, encourage kids to “gaze-in” on themselves, rather than seeking validation on social media. The way we parent our kids sets them up for how they approach the world. Naturally, people tend to focus on what everyone else is doing before considering our own values, interests, and feelings. By providing infinite access and constant exposure to other peoples’ lives, social media only adds to this pressure. It’s important that children build their confidence inside-out, rather than waiting to be told if they’re good enough. Fourth, keep the parent-child relationship separate from the technology-child relationship. Even as adults, it is difficult for us to put our phones down because it’s designed to make us unable to do that, so how can we hold our kids to such high expectations? The difference is that kids don’t make decisions for themselves, we do. So instead of setting ourselves up for frustration and children up for a power struggle or punishment, we must set a boundary that allows us to embody parental authority and tolerate our kids being upset. And lastly, give yourself permission to change course. If you were on a plane, you would want your pilot to give themselves permission to make an emergency landing if any flight information changed. Many parents disempower themselves by assuming what’s done is done. But good leaders, upon getting new information, change their plans to realign with the outcomes that they care about. Watch Dr. Becky’s full panel here:
