You wouldn't send your kid to a sleepover without telling the parents about your kid's allergies or bedtime bugaboos. Why not use the same logic with screen time rules?
We know it's hard to do. It can feel like you're being judgmental or don't trust the other person to take good care of your child. But if you have strong preferences about what and when your child consumes media, you need to speak up even when you're not around to supervise.
Topics: Parenting, High School, Internet, Primary School, Preschool, Prep, Toddlers
Ask most parents about their experience of school and the stories are often quite similar: Their teacher would talk and write on the board; students would listen and take down notes. You’d do exercises from a textbook, take tests, get grades… rinse and repeat.
Topics: High School, Internet, Primary School, Technology, Project Based Learning
Teenage anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. The iGeneration (iGen) – people born after 1995 – was the first demographic to spend its entire adolescence with a smartphone. Could there be a connection? Dr Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University, thinks so.
Topics: Parenting, Teens, High School, Internet, Social Media, Anxiety
Working with kids in schools these past weeks, and indeed having five children of my own, has alerted me to the seemingly unprecedented obsession with the new online game Fortnite. Not since Pokémon Go has something seemed to take the world by storm, leaving parents wondering when it will ever stop.
Topics: Parenting, High School, Internet, Primary School, Technology
Like many parents, I struggle with kids and screen time, most notably with computer games. I set time limits on play, check games are age-appropriate, ban devices from the bedroom and offer all sorts of alternative play and activities … but still get disheartened that my two boys would rather race virtual cars and navigate imaginary worlds than kick a football around or build Lego.
Topics: Parenting, High School, Internet, Primary School, Technology
Each year, Oxford Dictionaries chooses a Word of the Year. For 2016, the 'Word of the Year was 'post-truth'.
'Post-truth' is the idea that it is easier to influence public opinion with messages that appeal to emotions, belief and prejudices than it is using facts. It is an idea that has been around for awhile, but was brought to a head in 2016 during the Brexit vote in the UK and the Presidential election in the USA.
Topics: Internet, Technology, Social Media
