Why Smartphones Make Horrible Christmas Gifts Considering gifting your child a smartphone for Christmas? Think again. By Melanie Hempe, BSN, Founder of ScreenStrong Every parent desires to give their children the perfect gift at Christmas. We long to see the look on our children’s faces when they open what they have been begging for…
Yesterday, our kids were dressing up in princess costumes and digging in the sandbox. Today, they are standing in front of their mirrors taking selfies to build their personal brands on social media or spending hours in darkened rooms playing video games. They’re lost in an adult virtual world, obsessed with video games and smartphones.…
Rethinking School Screens: Why Our Kids Can’t Focus By Melanie Hempe, BSN, Founder of ScreenStrong When teachers put devices in the hands of kids and expect them to be productive, they’re expecting too much. Teaching kids with technology is analogous to having an AA meeting in a bar. —Matt Miles, ScreenStrong Ambassador, author, and high…
Silence Really is Golden By Dawn Poulterer-Woods, ScreenStrong Ambassador Years ago, before the iPhone was clutched in every human hand, I posed a question to our 300 plus high school students. After years of working in a high school as a teacher and counselor, I noticed some changes in our culture that were causing me…
Middle School Misfortunes Then and Now, One Teacher’s Take By Benjamin Conlon Let’s imagine a seventh grader. He’s a quiet kid, polite, with a few friends. Just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill twelve-year-old. We’ll call him Brian. Brian’s halfway through seventh grade and for the first time, he’s starting to wonder where he falls in the…
Open Letter to a Ninth-Grade Boy Screen Tips for High School By Melanie Hempe, BSN, Founder of ScreenStrong “Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.” —Uncle Ben, Spider-Man (2002) You’re starting high school and we’re so excited for your new adventure! We know you’ll have a wonderful time with your old friends and make many…
Photo: Halo, Dead Rising 3, Call of Duty: WWII, Fortnite We all know of [the] problems that video games can [cause]. And we haven’t done anything about it. Because it was [another] family, not mine. But unless we start to learn from some of these societal mistakes, we are going to repeat them. — …
Sometimes in the of act of giving our kids smartphones, we need to step back and take a broader view of what that smartphone is replacing in real life. The following story by Benjamin Conlon paints a perfect picture of the benefits of allowing simple, everyday events to build maturity in our kids’ lives. …
Are you ready to throw the video games and smartphones out the window? This is definitely not the summer you had in mind. If you’re like many families, by the middle of summer, you’ve hit a wall with the screen obsession in your home. Summer vacation is supposed to be a time for family fun.…
Are you happy with the amount of time your child spends on a screen? Are you pleased with how your son spends his summer break on the couch, in the air conditioning, racking up more kills in Fortnite? Are you okay with how much time your daughter spends scrolling through a world that you don’t…