we have compiled our best list of resources to help you and your family live free from the tyranny of technology.
End the phone-based childhood now.
In this article Jonathan Haidt summarizes the need for the next generation to grow up analog.
FAMILY MEDIA PLAN
This is a tool for you and your family to come up with guidelines for how you will interact with screens based on your family’s preferences and needs.
Digital Citizenship Curriculum from Common Sense Media
Interactive Lessons and Activities for all grade levels.
Screentime Guidelines from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry:
Until 18 months of age limit screen use to video chatting along with an adult (for example, with a parent who is out of town).
Between 18 and 24 months screen time should be limited to watching educational programming with a caregiver.
For children 2-5, limit non-educational screen time to about 1 hour per weekday and 3 hours on the weekend days.
For ages 6 and older, encourage healthy habits and limit activities that include screens.
Turn off all screens during family meals and outings.
Learn about and use parental controls.
Avoid using screens as pacifiers, babysitters, or to stop tantrums.
Turn off screens and remove them from bedrooms 30-60 minutes before bedtime.
RESEARCH
BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
Click the image to grab your copy.
A must-read for all parents: the generation-defining investigation into the collapse of youth mental health in the era of smartphones, social media, and big tech—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood.
Our ability to pay attention is collapsing. This book is a groundbreaking examination of why this is happening—and how to get our attention back.
New York columnist-turned-movement leader Lenore Skenazy delivers a compelling and entertaining look at how we got so worried about everything our kids do, see, eat, read, wear, watch and lick -- and how to bid a whole lot of that anxiety goodbye.
Rosen exposes an unprecedented shift in the human condition, one that habituates us to alienation and control. To recover our humanity and come back to the real world, we must reclaim serendipity, community, patience, and risk.
Whether you’re seeking refuge from an exhausting news cycle or you’re concerned about the negative effects of social media, How to Break Up with Your Phone offers practical solutions. It’s guaranteed to help you put down your phone—and come back to life.
Children spend an average of 7.5 hours on digital devices every day with profoundly negative consequences. Childhood Unplugged takes a bold approach to creating healthy boundaries around the use of digital media.
PARENT PLEDGE
We commit to using our phones around our children for only the necessities. No scrolling, playing games, or browsing in the presence of our children. If we need to use the phone we explain to the children what we need to do on our phone and how long it will take us. No phones at the dinner table. As a family we commit to putting our phones away before we go to sleep and getting them up after we are awake. We commit to keeping the times after work and before bedtime as screen-free as possible to set an analog example for generation Alpha.
We commit to creating times and spaces where alphas can experience more independence and free play in the real world. We commit to fostering love and appreciation, curiosity and joy about the real world.
We commit to banding together with other like minded families to resist the tyranny of technology together.
