Hi Reader, The other day, I heard a parent describe their child like this: “The phone is basically an extension of her body. She doesn’t go anywhere without it.” She’s 12 and got a phone for her birthday. Her parents asked her to be mature and responsible with it, but things slowly got out of hand. She used to love going on bike rides with her neighborhood friends. Now, she spends all of her after-school hours lying on her bed scrolling. They shared that the phone had become “her entire...
2 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, I don't know about you, but October has been a doozy in my house. We battled head lice (so gross). I got COVID for the first time ever (turns out I’m not one of those super humans who never gets symptoms like I thought I was). And work has been busy, to say the least. And then, of course, my younger daughter started having intense nightmares. All it took was one conversation in the car about the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz. Here’s the thing: she never saw the movie. There...
13 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Did you know that nearly 3 in 4 teens have tried an AI companion?(Common Sense Media) If that number makes your stomach drop, you’re not alone. It’s also why the founder of Google’s trust and safety team just took a new job leading an effort to crash-test these chatbots before kids use them. When parents hear a stat like that, they tend to either panic or tune out. Neither helps. So let’s look at what the data actually says, and what you can do about it. The facts According to...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, 47 seconds. That’s about how long we stay on one screen before switching to something else, according to UC Irvine researcher Gloria Mark. When she started measuring in 2004, it was two and a half minutes. Now think about what our kids practice every time they open TikTok, Reels, or YouTube Shorts. Swipe. Something new. Swipe. Something new. Every few seconds, the brain gets a fresh hit of something new, and it never has to stay with anything slow or boring. That practice seems to...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader, For years, I’ve seen tweens and teens walk into my office with climate anxiety - that heavy, helpless feeling that people get when they learn about a (possibly existential) problem that they have very little control over. Lately, I’m starting to see the AI version of this. Last week’s news didn’t help. Here’s what happened, why it matters, and what to actually say to your kids. The 60-second recap An Anthropic empolyee named Jacob Coxon quit his job and posted on X that AI...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, This week, the two largest school districts in the country, New York City and Los Angeles, both announced generative AI bans for their students. If you’ve only seen the headlines, here’s what’s actually in the policies, and the part I think matters most for parents. What NYC is doing: Student-facing generative AI is paused for a year in grades K–8 — about 600,000 kids. Companion chatbots (think Character.AI-style tools) are banned outright, in every grade, no exceptions. High...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, It's been a big week in the world of kids + tech. Last week, Meta agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion to settle state lawsuits claiming Instagram and Facebook were built to be addictive to kids. It's the biggest settlement of its kind since Big Tobacco, and people close to the case are calling it social media's "Big Tobacco moment" outright. Three things worth knowing: what actually changes for your teen, a strange bet Meta placed on its own competitors, and why the tobacco...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, A few months ago I sat down with a group of middle schoolers to talk about their family's tech norms. Within minutes, the conversation flipped from the students' own screen time to their parents'. Every kid wanted to chime in. And honestly, their perspectives were more nuanced than I thought they would be. They didn't ask for their parents to get off their phones. They asked for eye contact when they wanted attention, and an honest answer instead of silence: "I'm finishing an email...
3 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Last week a DocuSign landed in my inbox: an agreement to receive a Chromebook for my daughter’s first grade classroom. There was no opt-out. No “no thank you” box. Just a document outlining how the device would be used and what happens if it gets damaged. My heart sank a little. Okay, let's be honest... my heart sank a lot. In my opinion, first grade feels way too young to hand a kid a laptop. I still don’t know exactly how it’ll be used in her classroom, and I have a lot of...
3 months ago • 2 min read