Parenting for the Digital Generation provides a practical handbook for parents, grandparents, teachers, and counselors who want to understand both the opportunities and the threats that exist for the generation of digital natives who are more familiar with a smartphone than they are with a paper book. This book provides straightforward, jargon-free information regarding the online environment and the experience in which children and young adults engage both inside and outside the classroom. The digital environment creates many challenges, some of which are largely the same as parents faced before the Internet, but others which are entirely new. Many children struggle to connect, and they underperform in the absence of the social and emotional support of a healthy learning environment. Parents must also help their children navigate a complex and occasionally dangerous online world. This book provides a step-by-step guide for parents seeking to raise happy, mature, creative, and well-adjusted children. The guide provides clear explanations of the keys to navigating as a parent in the online environment while providing practical strategies that do not look for dangers where there are only remote threats.
Children today are digital natives, growing up in an age where social media and online communication is the norm. This book is an indispensable guide for parents who may feel they are struggling to keep up, addressing the issues that young people and their families face in the world of modern technology. Suzie Hayman, a parenting counsellor, and John Coleman, a distinguished psychologist, use their combined expertise to explore the challenges and possibilities of being constantly connected, helping parents to make choices about how they communicate, set boundaries and establish rules. Using real-world examples and solid psychological theory, the book looks first at the anxieties parents express about digital technology, followed by the serious potential threats such as cyber-bullying, sexting and easy access to pornographic or violent materials. However, the internet is also full of enormous potential and a further chapter explores the positive side of the digital playground. The authors also share their expert understanding of child and adolescent development and how this relates to the appeal of digital media, with special attention paid to the importance of good communication. The end result is a toolbox for parents, full of tips, strategies and techniques designed to help navigate the digital world, ensuring it is safe yet still exciting for young people. Parents and Digital Technology is essential reading for all parents and guardians as well as those caring for children and teenagers in a professional setting, who want to get the best out of life and modern technology while keeping safe in a family that talks to each other, spends time with each other and enjoys each other.
"In the decades it takes to bring up a child, parents face challenges that are both helped and hindered by the fact that they are living through a period of unprecedented digital innovation. Drawing on extensive research with diverse parents, this book reveals how digital technologies give personal and political parenting struggles a distinctive character, as parents determine how to forge new territory with little precedent, or support. The book reveals the pincer movement of parenting in late modernity. Parents are both more burdened with responsibilities and charged with respecting the agency of their child-leaving much to negotiate in today's "democratic" families. The book charts how parents now often enact authority and values through digital technologies-as "screen time," games, or social media become ways of both being together and setting boundaries. The authors show how digital technologies introduce both valued opportunities and new sources of risk. To light their way, parents comb through the hazy memories of their own childhoods and look toward varied imagined futures. This results in deeply diverse parenting in the present, as parents move between embracing, resisting, or balancing the role of technology in their own and their children's lives. This book moves beyond the panicky headlines to offer a deeply researched exploration of what it means to parent in a period of significant social and technological change. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative research in the United Kingdom, the book offers conclusions and insights relevant to parents, policymakers, educators, and researchers everywhere"--
As a practicing child psychiatrist and mother of three, Jodi Gold has a unique understanding of both the mind-boggling benefits and the serious downsides of technology. Dr. Gold weaves together scientific knowledge and everyday practical advice to help you foster your child's healthy relationship to technology, from birth to the teen years. You'll learn: *How much screen time is too much at different ages. *What your kids and teens are actually doing in all those hours online. *How technology affects social, emotional, and cognitive development. *Which apps and games build smarts and let creativity shine. *How your own media habits influence your children. *What you need to know about privacy concerns, cyberbullying, and other dangers. *Ways to set limits that the whole family can live with. Winner (Second Place)—American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award, Child Health Category
SELECTED AS A 2008 BEST BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST The Net Generation Has Arrived. Are you ready for it? Chances are you know a person between the ages of 11 and 30. You've seen them doing five things at once: texting friends, downloading music, uploading videos, watching a movie on a two-inch screen, and doing who-knows-what on Facebook or MySpace. They're the first generation to have literally grown up digital--and they're part of a global cultural phenomenon that's here to stay. The bottom line is this: If you understand the Net Generation, you will understand the future. If you're a Baby Boomer or Gen-Xer: This is your field guide. A fascinating inside look at the Net Generation, Grown Up Digital is inspired by a $4 million private research study. New York Times bestselling author Don Tapscott has surveyed more than 11,000 young people. Instead of a bunch of spoiled “screenagers” with short attention spans and zero social skills, he discovered a remarkably bright community which has developed revolutionary new ways of thinking, interacting, working, and socializing. Grown Up Digital reveals: How the brain of the Net Generation processes information Seven ways to attract and engage young talent in the workforce Seven guidelines for educators to tap the Net Gen potential Parenting 2.0: There's no place like the new home Citizen Net: How young people and the Internet are transforming democracy Today's young people are using technology in ways you could never imagine. Instead of passively watching television, the “Net Geners” are actively participating in the distribution of entertainment and information. For the first time in history, youth are the authorities on something really important. And they're changing every aspect of our society-from the workplace to the marketplace, from the classroom to the living room, from the voting booth to the Oval Office. The Digital Age is here. The Net Generation has arrived. Meet the future.
Computer games, the Internet, and other new communications media are often seen to pose threats and dangers to young people, but they also provide new opportunities for creativity and self-determination. As we start to look beyond the immediate hopes and fears that new technologies often provoke, there is a growing need for in-depth empirical research. Digital Generations presents a range of exciting and challenging new work on children, young people, and new digital media. The book is organized around four key themes: Play and Gaming, The Internet, Identities and Communities Online, and Learning and Education. The book brings together researchers from a range of academic disciplines – including media and cultural studies, anthropology, sociology, psychology and education – and will be of interest to a wide readership of researchers, students, practitioners in digital media, and educators.
The Internet can be a scary, dangerous place especially for children. This book shows parents how to help digital kids navigate this environment. Sexting, cyberbullying, revenge porn, online predators…all of these potential threats can tempt parents to snatch the smartphone or tablet out of their children’s hands. While avoidance might eliminate the dangers, that approach also means your child misses out on technology’s many benefits and opportunities. In Raising Humans in a Digital World, digital literacy educator Diana Graber shows how children must learn to handle the digital space through: developing social-emotional skills balancing virtual and real life building safe and healthy relationships avoiding cyberbullies and online predators protecting personal information identifying and avoiding fake news and questionable content becoming positive role models and leaders Raising Humans in a Digital World is packed with at-home discussion topics and enjoyable activities that any busy family can slip into their daily routine. Full of practical tips grounded in academic research and hands-on experience, today’s parents finally have what they’ve been waiting for—a guide to raising digital kids who will become the positive and successful leaders our world desperately needs.
Becoming a Digital Parent is a practical, readable guide that will help all parents have confidence to successfully navigate technology with their children. It accessibly presents evidence-based guidance to offer an overview of the digital landscape, empowering parents to embrace opportunities whilst keeping children responsible and safe online. Covering a range of topics including developmental stages, screen time, bed time, gaming, digital identities, and helpful parenting apps and resources, Carrie Rogers-Whitehead explores the challenges and opportunities involved in parenting in the digital age. With advice for parents of babies through to teenagers, each chapter includes an explanation of the latest research, interviews with parents and experts, and helpful case studies gathered by the author during her extensive experience of working directly with parents and children. This book will show parents how to communicate better with their children, create a family technology plan, put in place intervention strategies when things happen, and take advantage of the benefits technology can afford us. Becoming a Digital Parent is ideal for all parents looking to effectively navigate the technological world, and the range of professionals who work with them.
How do you know when your child is ready for a smartphone? Which apps are the most dangerous for my 13-year-old? What do I do if I catch my child watching porn? How do I get to a place of trusting my kid with social media? How do I spot signs of trouble in my kid from their use of social media? These are questions parents ask every day - parents who are overwhelmed, fearful or ignorant about social media and technology. Parenting in a Tech World is for parents who don't know where to start with addressing the use of technology in their homes. Our book is a comprehensive resource that answers your questions, and provides you with a plan of action for developing a relationship between you, your child and technology. Our families have been adversely affected by technology, just like yours. Whether it's viewing inappropriate material or being unable to focus on anything else. We've felt the tension of needing to use technology and being concerned with what our kids might stumble into online. Also, our families have been positively affected by technology. Whether Facetiming with grandparents, chatting with friends who have moved away, or playing online games among siblings, we've benefitted from the connection that technology and social media can bring. Parenting in a Tech World addresses common tensions surrounding tech, and provides a valuable perspective on how technology can't be ignored, but must be taught to be used responsibly. We break down how to talk to kids about tech, and how to teach them boundaries on social media. With practical tips, real-world advice from fellow parents, and helpful exercises, we walk you through how to nurture a healthy relationship between your kid and technology by the time they leave your house. From hardware to new apps, to new users, to new features, we take a look at what you need to be mindful of when introducing anything to your family's online network. To fully equip you, we share impactful websites that provide tools you can use to inform yourself and develop a tech infrastructure for your family. Though technology isn't inherently good or bad, it can be used either way. Through the use of statistics, we show you what's going on with kids and tech. And we prove exactly how important it is to monitor your child's technology use. Parenting in a Tech World is your guide, from start through finish, to creating a healthy relationship with technology among your family members. The stakes for your child's wellbeing and safety are too high to gloss over the power technology has in our society. If you're looking for where to begin with managing technology in a healthy way, Parenting in a Tech World is that starting line.