21st Century parenting – Page 9 – Media! Tech! Parenting!

21st Century life, 21st Century parenting, digital change, digital kids, digital parenting, parents and technology, parents as mentors

Digital Parenting Booster Shot? A Healthy Child Metaphor

Posted on September 13, 2015April 22, 2019 by Marti Weston

If you are an educator or parent searching for just the right comments about digital parenting to use at a school, organization, or parent meeting, take a look at the blog post A Booster Shot on Parents’ Night by Ann Klotz over at the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS). Klotz, the head of the Laurel School outside of Cleveland, hits the nail on the head, using a healthy child metaphor to describe the important responsibilities — digital and otherwise — for the parents of digital kids. Adults, she points out, must take on these responsibilities no matter how they feel about technology (or even how much more a parent thinks a child knows about technology). Below is one paragraph from Klotz’s post, but I suggest that you read the entire post.

Ann Klotz wrote: Continue reading “Digital Parenting Booster Shot? A Healthy Child Metaphor” →

21st Century parenting, digital health and wellness, digital parenting, digital wellness, media and family life, parents and technology

Now In Top 10 Child Health Concerns: Internet Safety & Sexting

Posted on August 12, 2015March 21, 2019 by Marti Weston

C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health conducts regular surveys several times each year polling adults in around 2000 randomly selected, nationally representative households, about significant health issues that relate to children. The goal of this survey and others in the C.S. Mott program is to collect information and identify trends that are useful to health providers, community public health organizations, and public policymakers.

CS Mott health probllem results — Image from CS. Mott Children’s Hospital Survey report site.

One of these surveys on children’s health asks adults to rate the issues or problems that are of greatest concern when it comes to kids’ health.

This year, 2015, parents rated internet safety as the fourth most important health problem for children, moving from eighth place in 2014. Sexting, which was in 13th place in 2014, was rated as the sixth greatest health concern for children in the 2015 survey.

These findings indicate that 21st Century parents are increasingly concerned about the vulnerability of their kids in today’s media-dense environment. Increasingly today’s adults seek to focus on the digital health and wellness of their children and seek to learn how to parent digital natives more effectively and more positively. Continue reading “Now In Top 10 Child Health Concerns: Internet Safety & Sexting” →

21st Century life, 21st Century parenting, digital parenting, parents and technology, social media

Pinterest: A Digital Passport to the World of Images

Posted on August 7, 2015March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

If you are the parent of a 21st Century digital kid, and you want to try something new in the turbulent, always-changing social media world, you might explore Pinterest — a social media site that helps people accomplish an old activity in a new and better way.

In the “olden days” people spent time looking through magazines and catalogs, identifying images such as the best-looking clothes, interesting plants, comfortable shoes, or pictures with ideas for an upcoming home construction project. An individual cut out the image and put it into a folder (or a pile). I used to have folders filled with images on all sorts of topics, waiting for me to consult, and I used them from time-to-time. Now Pinterest makes this process digital.

Pinterest, a social media sharing site, allows users to collect and store digitized images from all over the web, along with the image links, and it offers a way organize the pictures into digital folders — Pinterest calls them boards. When a person searches for and finds a useful image, it’s pinned along with its web link into a board’s collection. An individual can also discover, collect, and pin web images from outside of Pinterest. Continue reading “Pinterest: A Digital Passport to the World of Images” →

21st Century parenting, digital kids, digital parenting, digital wellness, parents and technology

Making Digital Parenting Easier, Not Scarier

Posted on August 1, 2015August 21, 2019 by Marti Weston

It’s nearly impossible to compare the parental responsibilities before and after the onset of the digital age.

Parents today encounter one challenge after another, and each family member lives a slightly different connected life. Deciding on devices and time to spend on them is only one parenting issue. Other issues include the monitoring of child’s privacy, the access to so much uncensored information, the ease of making mistakes, and parental worries about what happens with devices when a child visits another household with different connected-world rules. And then there’s the big problem for adults — how they model (or don’t model) appropriate use for younger family members.

Many parents approach digital family life with focus and ongoing attention. That’s why Jane Brody’s two New York Times articles, Screen Addiction Is Taking a Toll and How to Cut a Child’s Screen Time made me a bit nervous, Brody aptly describes screen addiction, a situation that is not uncommon, and she points out that parents, too, need to learn how to disconnect and pay more attention to their children. Brody offers several top-notch resources for parents and quotes Catherine Steiner-Adair, whose excellent book, The Big Disconnect, is an eye-opening presentation about the family and especially real-life parental problems in the connected world. Continue reading “Making Digital Parenting Easier, Not Scarier” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century parenting, digital footprints, digital life, family conversations, parents and technology

Parents: Discover Your Digital Footprints & Teach Your Children Well

Posted on June 23, 2015March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Yes, once again it’s summer! To celebrate the season I’m writing specifically for the parents of digital kids — suggesting ways that parents can use this more relaxed time of year to learn more about their own digital footprints.

While some of the activities are similar to those in a post from last year, this beginning-of-the-summer blog post aims to help parents gain a greater understanding of digital footprints for themselves — and then share this increased knowledge in conversations with their children. The longer-term goal, of course, is to ensure that each child returns to school in the fall with more knowledge about the family’s digital profile, their own digital footprints, and privacy.

Below are some suggestions to help parents get started learning.

Log in and visit your Google dashboard.

Google yourself. See what digital footprints others see when they Google your name or your email address. Then go to the Dashboard, while you are logged in, and see how Google keeps track of your activities. Dashboard notes everything a person does on Google — from email to images to alerts to searches and much more. Once you finish up learning about your own digital trail, organize a family digital footprint party and help every member of the family go through the same steps.

Continue reading “Parents: Discover Your Digital Footprints & Teach Your Children Well” →

21st Century Learning, 21st Century parenting, digital footprings, parents and technology, privacy, sharing media, social media

Sharenting? Kids Are Beginning to Notice

Posted on May 16, 2015March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Two years ago, for the first time, students took me aside to wonder aloud how to go about asking their parents not to share photos. It happened again last year when a child commented about baby photos that were especially embarrassing.

All of this adult sharing of kids’ images and information is called “sharenting.” A fair number of people, including researchers, are wondering about the effect that too much sharenting has on kids.

A few months ago researchers at the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital conducted a survey on the subject. The hospital’s National Poll on Children’s Health investigates topics several times a year, polling adults in around 2000 randomly selected, nationally representative households, about significant health issues that relate to children. In March the hospital announced the results of a November-December 2014 poll that asked 21st Century parents a range of questions about how they use social media to gain knowledge about parenting on social media as well as how they share information about their children.

Continue reading “Sharenting? Kids Are Beginning to Notice” →

21st Century parenting, digital devices and gadgets, digital parenting, digital-device-free times, parents and technology, screen time

Don’t Be Afraid of Device-free Times in Your Family!

Posted on April 6, 2015April 14, 2015 by Marti Weston

My March 2011 post, Five Tech-free Times for Families, discussed the importance of planning family time-out activities away from digital devices. Time away from screens, I noted, provides family members with opportunities to communicate with one another and enjoy activities that do not require technology (playing outside, eating together, reading, enjoying a game).

Device-free times also help kids and adults become more aware of the people around them, and without screens good conversation is much easier. Many people have kept journals of their device-free activities, and often they note how much easier it is to talk more with people, try new activities, even sit around and relax.

If you missed College Kids Giving Up Their Cellphones: The Incredible Tale of the Maryland Women’s Team, it’s a great resource to read now and share with the young people in your family. Continue reading “Don’t Be Afraid of Device-free Times in Your Family!” →