Translating Current “Tech Recs” for My Family

As a parent, I’d imagine that you have been following the media explosion about the impact of technology on children and the associated recommendations for modern families. Daunting, right?  

If you are feeling overwhelmed, guilty, judged, shamed, or just at a loss about how to implement a positive tech plan for your family while muddling through daily screentime arguments with your children, I have some thoughts to share.

Arguing over screen time between parents and kids is the biggest parenting dilemma of our generation!

As a therapist specializing in working with parents and families and the head of a busy family psychotherapy practice, I’ve extensively studied the impact of technology on children’s mental health. Inspired by Hannah Rosin’s RadioAtlantic piece, The Smartphone Kids are Not All Right, and Jonathan Haidt’s work, The Anxious Generation, I’ve delved deep into these issues and their recommendations by writing several blog posts on the topic.  In case you want to check these out, you can find them here:

Is Tech Different for Kids with Neurodivergence – Part 1

Is Tech Different for Kids with Neurodivergence – Part 2

Is Tech Different for Kids with Neurodivergence – Part 3

In this final post, I bring my expertise in working with parents and families for almost a quarter century to the complex issue of managing tech time with and for your children and adolescents.  And this is a really challenging topic. One that I continuously update both in my own parenting and in my practice,  

While many of the recommendations and information put forth by well-meaning experts are timely and necessary, I also think that they leave parents feeling judged, guilty, and often hopeless about implementing these proposed recommendations with their kids. When parents feel ashamed and defeated, they are often not good at their parenting jobs.  

As a therapist, I‘m in the business of people and, most importantly, relationships and emotions. Therefore, I want to shift the conversation and translate this work into actionable suggestions for everyday parenting.

First, I want to highlight the key take-home points from Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.  Second, I want to translate these recommendations into real-life parenting strategies for kids of different ages, needs, and circumstances.  

How to Translate & Apply Haidt’s Tech Recommendations & Norms

I don’t know about you, but when I read these recommendations and norms, I feel somewhat hopeful but mostly defeated and overwhelmed. My children are 12, 14, and 16, and we’ve already gone down a path that makes it difficult to imagine successfully applying them to my family’s tech use.  

Yes, I’m a therapist for families. Yes, I’m highly educated about the negative impact of screens on the mental health of youth. I know A LOT when it comes to child development and mental health issues.  AND I’m a parent trying to raise healthy children in a tech-heavy world.  

So let me tell you, we are in the thick of heavy-duty tech time in our family.  Both of my boys play video games online.  All three of my kids already have smartphones.  Yes, we use screen time limits and try to teach digital citizenship. We don’t have gaming computers in their bedrooms. Yet, phones, iPads, and laptops easily set up shop there.  We also have a child with Autism, which poses a very different set of issues for managing tech. Our older two deal with some ADD/ADHD, which is managed well at this point but also concerns me as I think about these issues. 

I’m fortunate to have a therapeutic lens to draw upon about how to help parents best.  As a Parenting Specialist, I work with parents daily on how they can support their children’s mental health and help their children who have been diagnosed with mental health conditions feel better and get better.  And here’s what I know to be the primary goal of all parents, especially parents worried about their children’s mental health.

Our primary parenting task is to convert our concerns (worries and fears) into positive care for our children!! 

What does this mean? We must learn how our worries and fears are signals to do personal work before devising and implementing a parenting strategy or plan. I will explain the steps below to help you do this work. 

This internal, personal work is directly relevant to Haidt’s suggestions, partly because his sage advice will activate parental fear and present parents with many seemingly unsolvable dilemmas.  Haidt is a social psychologist and lives in the academic world. He’s steeped in data and information about how tech hurts kids’ mental health.  He’s also a published expert on morality (The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion) and is the creator of the Moral Foundations Theory. Haidt is positioned well for offering opinions that can feel moralistic and absolutist for parents.  

I work with individual parents in the trenches daily, dealing with real-life scenarios of navigating these tricky decisions and executing real-life action plans with their kids around tech use. I find that parents have to wade through their self-judgment, unstick from their shame, and both use and simultaneously let go of their guilt to take proper, healthy action in their families. 

I propose that every parent know about and heed Haidt’s work. It’s relevant, important, and a path forward for adults to come together to solve our tech problems with our kids and support better mental health for our children. I’m also advocating that every parent take two major actions in translating this advice and recommendations into useful help within their families. 

First, let go of any judgment, shame, or moralism in this debate about the impact of tech on our kids. We all know too much tech is unhealthy. Most of us expose our children to more tech than is desirable.  And many of us exceed what is considered harmful and downright problematic for children’s development. 

It’s okay to feel guilty for a moment. Then, use that guilt to convert your worry into positive action.  Change those “what if” thoughts in your parental worries into “what now.” Here’s how you do that:

1. List all the individual worries that go with your parental guilt about tech time.
2. Write the “what if” statements with those worries in the next column.  
3. Right next to that list, write out the positive steps of what you can do now to help that worry or change that problem in your family.  
4. Then, prioritize the list in two ways.  Rank order the list from biggest worry/problem to smallest concern.  
5. Then, number the top three items you feel you can take successful action on soon. The key word is successful. What three things will give you and your family the biggest bang for your buck regarding improving your family’s tech time?  And,  then, what is the one thing you want to begin with right now? Start there! Then, return to the list when you’ve accomplished your goals. 
6. Sit down with your partner, if you have one, and children and discuss these ideas, engaging them in how to achieve success.

Change, for most of us, is incremental. If your children are young or your family is not already heavily steeped in technology usage, you can take a bolder approach. You can try a tech detox or reset and completely adapt all or some of Haidt’s suggestions.  However, most of us will need a gradual approach so as not to incite too much conflict within our family.  Some conflict is acceptable. Yet, when conflict overrides the relationship, it’s best to choose the relationship. That doesn’t mean giving in or making your kids happy 24/7. It means keeping them in mind, including their thoughts and feelings, as you tackle this problem and make changes around screen time.  It’s not your fault the world is this way, yet it is your responsibility. It’s not their fault, either. 

Second, adopt a decision-making process about your family’s unique issues to discern how you can make tech changes that suit your parenting styles and children’s needs. Here are the factors to consider. 

1. Consider your child’s age. The younger the child, the faster you can fully adopt the proposed norms and recommendations. The less steeped your kids are in their devices, the more progress you can make. 
2. Note your child’s level of engagement with technology (how much time daily/weekly, how many different devices, across what settings, reactions to time limits/restrictions/endings, etc.) The less engaged your kids are in their devices, the more progress you can make. 
3. Reflect on your family’s unique constellation of members, supportive adults, stressors, and resources available (e.g., time, money, etc.).You will need your resources to leverage new tech time norms and expectations in your family.  Make the tech work for you as a parent as well. I want to note that this approach may not feel viable for those exceptionally strapped due to single parenting, lack of support, or excessive work hours.
4. Assess the level of functioning of the adults in the home. Healthier, more functional adults will be able to control their tech use better and enforce new tech rules/plans. Less healthy adults might struggle more. Be real with what your family is facing and do what you can to make a change without overtaxing your current family system. 
5. Discern if any of your kids are neurodivergent, which means they are dealing with issues such as ADHD, Autism, or other diagnosed mental health concerns. While these issues may pose more significant problems with too much tech use, they can complicate the change process and hold specific implications for tech use in families. For instance, kids with Autism might benefit socially from some online gaming where they would struggle with engaging socially. 
6. Consider the developmental phases of tech use when working on your family’s plan.
7. Begin to work with your other parent friends and schools to advocate for more K-12 education around healthy, productive digital use. Ideally, schools would adapt digital health/learning as a core class that is just as important as English, social studies, math, or science. Tech is here to stay, which means we need to both embrace it and manage it.

It’s a complicated issue that has become a problem for families over the past decade and a half. Therefore, it will take time and effort to unwind tech from our children’s mental health. Yet, it can be done bit by bit. Try to focus on your “one thing” as your focus for changing your child’s relationship to screens.  

References

• Etchells, Pete. (2024).  Unlocked: The Real Science of Screen Time (and How to Spend It Better)
• Haidt, Jonathan (2024). The Anxious Generation: How the Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.
• Kulman, Randy. (June 5, 2023)  The impact of screen time on neurodivergent kids–improving the lives of people with ADHD. Founder www.learningworksforkids.com
• McGonigal, Jane (2016). Super Better: The Power of Living Gamefully
• Rossin, Hanna (March 2024). Radio Atlantic story, Smartphone Kids are Not All Right
• Dr. Alok Kanojia Explains How to Raise Healthy Gamers on TilT Parenting Deb Reber March 12, 2024