Love it or hate, the personal device revolution is here to stay! In this EPISODE, we talk about some of the common benefits and dangers of those digital devices as well as pursue some great ideas and resources for managing their usage for our families.
Some of the healthy boundaries we discussed were:
- Introducing Devices using Age-Appropriate Boundaries. Introducing device time through a series of graduated time-restrictions can help develop a habit of self-regulation. We do recommend that a young person not get their own personal smartphone until the teenage years.
- Requiring Devices to be used in Common Areas of Your Home. This rule can help build accountability for time, usage, and content.
- Setting a Schedule for our Device Usage. Making some daily limits. Requiring some “device-free” spaces such as meals or other family times. Setting weekly, monthly, or yearly “mobile-reduced” days. These all can help us loose the hold that our devices tend to have upon us.
Ultimately, we don’t want to manage and monitor our children’s devices; we want to teach and train them to self-regulate themselves in a healthy manner. That being said, one of the greatest ways we can help our children learn healthy habits is to be a good example ourselves. Start with an evaluation of your own device usage and begin making a plan for a household device plan.
A couple of the resources we mentioned in this episode are:
- A tutorial on applying grayscale to your phone. This is an interesting way to help yourself look at your phone less.
- We continue to recommend Tony Reinke’s book 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You. It’s a must-read for anyone living in the 21st Century.
Next week we will hit part two of our series by exploring the idea of “Withing” featuring a special guest interview! Until then, Be Abnormal!