This week:
Screen Addiction Among Teens: Is there Such A Thing?
“We have, as a society, gone all-in on tech,” “So we don’t want some buzz-killing truth-sayers telling us that the emperor has no clothes and that the devices that we’ve all so fallen in love with can be a problem”
http://kuer.org/post/screen-addiction-among-teens-there-such-thing#stream/0
Simon Sinek on Millennials in the Workplace: (8MM views)
What is the missing piece in the happiness of millennials? How did we get so ‘good’ at showing people that “life is amazing!, even though we are depressed”?
https://youtu.be/hER0Qp6QJNU
How Smartphones Are Making Kids Unhappy:
For the first time, a generation of children is going through adolescence with smartphones ever-present. Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, has a name for these young people born between 1995 and 2012: “iGen.” She says members of this generation are physically safer than those who came before them. They drink less, they learn to drive later and they’re holding off on having sex. But psychologically, she argues, they are far more vulnerable.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/08/07/542016165/how-smartphones-are-making-kids-unhappy
The Psychological Effects of Signing Off Social Media:
https://the1a.org/audio/#/shows/2017-12-28/the-psychological-effects-of-signing-off-social-media/113120/@00:00
Child Experts Warn Parents To Avoid Facebook’s Messaging App For Kids:
A group letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg argues that younger children — the app is intended for those under 13 — aren’t ready to have social media accounts, navigate the complexities of online relationships or protect their own privacy
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2018/01/30/parents-avoid-facebook-messaging-app-kids/
How to End Screen Time Without a Struggle:
The trick: build a bridge
Whenever you decide that screen-time should come to an end, take a moment to sit down next to your child and enter his world. Watch TV with him, or sit with him while he plays his game massacring aliens on the screen. This doesn’t have to be long, half a minute is enough. Just share his experience. Then, ask him a question about it.
“What are you watching?” might work for some kids.
Others might need more specific questions. “So what level are you on now?” or “That’s a funny figure there in the background. Who’s he?”
Generally, children love it when their parents take an interest in their world. If they are too absorbed still and don’t engage, don’t give up. Just sit with them a moment longer, then ask another question.
Once the child starts answering your questions or tells you something she has seen or done on screen, it means that she is coming out of the “cut-off” zone and back into the real world. She’s coming out of the state of flow and back into a zone where she is aware of your existence – but slowly. The dopamine doesn’t drop abruptly, because you’ve built a bridge – a bridge between where she is and where you are. You can start to communicate, and this is where the magic happens.
https://www.parent.com/how-to-end-screen-time-without-a-struggle/
Thanks this week go to Peter D, Marlaine C, Amanda R and other members of Parenting 2.0, committed to prosocial options for our kids!
Pay it forward
Love,
Neville
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“From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of each other – above all for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.”
– Albert Einstein
Happy Soul Food Friday! 