How Hand-Me-Down Phones Are Hurting Our Kids Three reasons why giving your teen your old phone is not a good idea. by Melanie Hempe, BSN, Founder of ScreenStrong The temptation is real. You need to upgrade your phone. So what will you do with your old one? Trading it in doesn’t amount to much,…
Should I Worry About My Kids’ Screen Time During the Pandemic? How one crisis can put our kids at risk for a second crisis. By Melanie Hempe, BSN, Founder of ScreenStrong With all that’s going on in the world right now, should parents worry about how much time their kids spend on screens? After…
Five Keys to Avoid a Screen Crisis During Quarantine By Melanie Hempe, BSN, Founder of ScreenStrong Are you looking for tips for regulating screen time during the quarantine? We needs guidance during times like this when our routines are disrupted and we find ourselves with hours of downtime. The following are practical solutions for…
Photo credit: Shutterstock.com How you can help your teen dodge digital mistakes. A mom sits across from me at a restaurant she picked, outside of her normal stomping ground. She doesn’t want anyone to see her meeting with me. She is embarrassed. Her daughter posted a nude photo of herself last week, and the mom…
Photo credit: Shutterstock.com Not too many years ago parents who came to our workshops asked if screen time could make their kids stressed, anxious and depressed. Intuitively, parents knew that screen time used for entertainment, not just screen overuse, had the power to hurt their kids. Today we have the studies to prove that the…
Considering gifting your child a smartphone for Christmas? Think again. 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 all year. Secretly, we want them to like our gift most of all. This…
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.…
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 school teacher (1) Do you ever check your personal email or social media at work?…
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 pause. I figured it would…
Middle School Misfortunes Then and Now, One Teacher’s Take: 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 social hierarchy at school.…