Managing Kids and Technology Over Summer – CSC on The Morning Blend Milwaukee

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Cyber Safety Consulting’s Liz Repking appeared on Milwaukee’s Morning Blend to talk about the balance between unstructured summer break time and the use of technology. See the segment here: Managing kids and tech over summer. Here are some suggestions offered to ease the pain and confrontation around kids’ increased screen time:

  • Reset the limits and boundaries around tech use. This is a good time to bring out that tech contract or even work with your child to create one for the summer. Talk about time limits, down time, apps, and of course, the appropriate use of tech.
  • Encourage your child to use technology in more productive ways than just scrolling through Instagram posts. Create a blog on a topic that they are interested in or create a website for fun. My daughter created a website for baking gluten and dairy free desserts. She loves baking and this combines her interests and the use of technology in constructive ways. Check out her site here.
  • Have your child make a list of non tech things he or she enjoys doing…reading, going to the pool, riding a bike. Sometimes the mere act of reminding ourselves what we enjoy not involving a screen can motivate us to put the device down and engage in some long, lost, fun activities. I once heard my son say, after the encouragement to find a non tech activity, “I forgot how much I like to read!”
  • Use technology with your child. Find a game that you can play together or create a summer bucket list of things to do and research it online.
  • See a movie or read a book together that centers around issues kids are dealing with online. Here is a long list of Young Adult books: Internet novels.
  • And like always, be involved and stay current on trends, news, apps, games and websites. Check out this article on Instagram’s new antibullying efforts.

Most importantly, find some non tech time this summer to spend as a family. It could be as simple as going for a walk together and talking or picking a day a week to go ‘tech free’ for the entire family. Decide together how to use non tech time and talk about it.

We hope you enjoy your summer!