digital wellness – Page 3 – Media! Tech! Parenting!

21st Century life, 21st Century parenting, acceptable use, collaborating with kids, digital devices, digital kids, digital wellness, distracted driving, family conversations, gadgets and sleep, media and family life, modeling for kids, monitoring kids online, parents and technology

After Buying a Device & Before Giving It to Kids: What to Do

Posted on December 9, 2015March 17, 2019 by Marti Weston

Every 21st Century parent needs a holiday digital parenting checklist that describes the tasks to accomplish between purchasing a new digital device and watching a child gleefully unwrap it. A list gives parents a head start, helping them understand challenges, set explanations and guidelines, anticipate problems, and most importantly, set the stage for responsible and respectful use of extraordinarily powerful devices.

Many parents I speak with point out how little time they have to go through this sort of checklist — but the time spent now is nothing compared the time drain that occurs after your child experiences a connected world problem. It’s worth your time to consider the checklist now.

The MediaTechParenting 2015
Digital Parents’ Holiday and Beyond Checklist
Continue reading “After Buying a Device & Before Giving It to Kids: What to Do” →

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, connected learning, digital citizenship, digital learning, digital parenting, digital wellness, educating digital natives, parents and technology

10 Digital Wellness Thoughts to Consider

Posted on May 6, 2015March 22, 2019 by Marti Weston

These days everyone talks about personal wellness — those steps that people need to take to remain physically and mentally healthy and strong. But what about digital wellness? Poor digital health affects not only our connected lives but also our physical and mental well-being.

Digital wellness is about fine-tuning the 21st Century skills that we use to work and play in a connected world, and it also involves understanding a number of common myths about the nature of online life. Helping family members take steps to develop digital wellness habits can challenge parents, mainly because many children, pre-adolescents, and teens appear to be far more advanced online consumers than their parents. Underneath the veneer of digital native expertise, however, are a fair number of information gaps. Continue reading “10 Digital Wellness Thoughts to Consider” →