As a parent or someone in a parenting role, you play an essential role in your child’s/teen’s success. There are intentional ways to grow a healthy parent-child/teen relationship and ensure that your child/teen develops a healthy relationship with technology.

Technology use has become essential to your child’s/teen’s life and learning in school. It has the potential to play a role in:

● social and emotional development[1]

● language development

● academic learning

● connection to friends, family, and others

● empathy and understanding of others

● imagination

● ability to choose healthy behaviors (preventing high-risk behaviors and unhealthy choices)

Children/teens ages 11-14 are at the very beginning of their teen years and experiencing dramatic shifts with their bodies and emotions, entering puberty full force by age 11. Additionally, they’ll experiment with and learn social skills through forging and prioritizing friendships and peer opinions. They will create more independent relationships with teachers, coaches, and you while beginning or deepening their involvement in extracurricular activities like sports, music, or others.

Yet, technology can pose challenges. Most parents say parenting is more challenging than twenty years ago, and most point to technology as the primary reason.^1 71% of parents with children under 12 said they worry that their children spend too much time on screens. The same number of parents said they fear smartphones could harm their children/teens. Let’s take a deeper look at the screen time habits of this age group:^2

- 11-12-year-olds are on screens an average of five and a half hours per day, and 13-14-year-olds are on screens an average of eight and a half hours per day. Most of this screen time is spent on online video viewing accounts (with a smaller amount viewing YouTube);*

- Boys tend to be on screens longer than girls. ^2

- 38% of 11 and 12-year-olds are on social media.

Children and teens are highly stimulated by technology, and this is often where they connect with friends, so it can become a source of conflict when they need to disconnect and can take away time from family being together and growing intimate connections. Indeed, addiction can be a real threat as those jolts of happy hormones (dopamine) are fueled; infinite scrolling is the norm on social media, and games are programmed to keep them perpetually engaged. Daily, devices can take time away from other critical pursuits for their physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development, such as reading, playing outdoors, unstructured creative time, friend time, homework, and more. The kinds of content that a child/teen can view or stumble into online can range from mildly irritating to disturbing and dangerous, whether it involves repeated consumer messages, cartoon violence, graphic violence, or even pornography. Additionally, children and teens can encounter social aggression and bullying online and through social media, which can hurt uniquely since they can be more publicly exposed than most in-person incidents.

We know that growing a healthy relationship with technology requires regular conversations and a commitment from the whole family to become intentional about their use of technology, including appropriate boundaries and safety practices. Approach this topic with empathy and recognize that the devices and apps are...