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Why We Don’t Use a Teen Cell Phone Contract—and What We Do Instead
No, cell phone contracts aren’t bad, but I think they are an outdated solution for the challenges teens are facing online today.
Is My Teen Ready for a Cell Phone?
Is my teen ready for a cell phone? This is the million-dollar question for parents today! There is no single right answer because every family and every teen is different.
We are parents who are still learning, but we’d like to share a few strategies that have helped us make this important decision.
Our Family’s Screen-Free Gift Guide
After years of storing our TV in the closet, living in a small home, and losing most of our belongings in an extensive house fire, we have a solid idea of which toys and activities are worth keeping around! We hope this list inspires you to create a home where your...
How to Create Your Own Family Blackout Night
Pull out the flashlights and candles. Turn off the lights.
Put away the devices.
And get ready for some unforgettable fun!
Easy Isn’t Always Best: Take Back the Family Road Trip
In our digital era, we often want to avoid boredom, discomfort, and dealing with the hard stuff. I know many families who allow free-reign with electronic devices on road trips for this reason. It’s much easier to hand everyone a device and just let everyone zone out, but if we do this, we miss out on unique opportunities to connect with one another.
Rethinking Screen Time Rewards
What’s wrong with a chore chart that allows our children to earn their screen time?
Career Guidance: An Opportunity to Connect With Your Teen
Are you struggling to connect with your teen? Are you wanting to help him or her discover strengths and start thinking about a career path? Guest author, Heather Glenn, shares some great ideas to help with career guidance and an exercise to help you work with your teen to discover their strengths.
Work With Your Kids to Plan a Fun Summer (Technology Boundaries Included!)
Your kids can help you to create summer screen time boundaries that will actually work! Not sure how? Click to read more.
The Reality of a Virtual Reality
Guest author, Spencer Sessions, courageously stepped away from his gaming addiction to create a life of meaning and purpose.
Screen Time Check-In
As we talked with our teen, we came up with five questions that each of us, (including the parents!), can ask ourselves before we spend any quality time with our phones. You can print this out and put it by your charging station or take a screen shot and save it as your phone’s wallpaper to help you check-in throughout the day.
How to Help Your Teen Transition to a Smartphone
As parents we have to decide when (or if) we want our teens to use a smartphone.
We recently worked with our teen as she transitioned from a feature phone (flip phone) to a locked-down smartphone. This idea comes from our four-phase process.
In this post, we share some help on making this transition!
What Are Your Daily Bookends?
Darren Hardy, author of The Compound Effect, says the bookends of our days are the key to a successful life. How can we minimize our technology use during the bookends of our daily life?
Tips for Teaching Teens With Technology with The Mom Life Coach
Do you teach or work with teenagers in a volunteer or church setting? Are you wondering how to get them to look up from their device and connect with not only their learning, but with the people around them? Our friend, Chelsea, also known as the Mom Life Coach, has some great tips to help!
Printable: Our Four-Phase Process
We have a great printable for you featuring our Four-Phase Process. Print it out, test it out, and consider how you might gradually give your children small amounts of responsibility one step at a time.
Using Everyday Steps to Help You Put Technology in Its Proper Place
Over the past year I’ve read a lot of books, articles, and blog posts about screen time. Out of everything I’ve read, there is one particular book that stands out.
Am I Ready for a Personal Device? {A Self-Evaluation for Teens}
A result of our Family Tech Think Tank: A list of 12 questions for kids and teens to ask themselves when they feel they are ready for a personal device or a cell phone. What would you put on your list?
![How Your Tech Guidelines Can Change As Your Children Grow with Kathy Keller Jones [Audio]](https://www.betterscreentime.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/DSC_2343-400x250.jpg)
How Your Tech Guidelines Can Change As Your Children Grow with Kathy Keller Jones [Audio]
As our children get older, how do we give them more freedom with technology, but not give them free reign? Kathy Keller Jones, developmental psychologist and former kindergarten through eighth grade school counselor, shares her wisdom in this audio post.
Ready…or Not? A Cell-Phone-Ready Checklist to Use with Your Child
We are excited to share a helpful tool we’ve been using with our family: a simple Cell-Phone-Ready Checklist! This checklist provides tangible and concrete benchmarks to keep expectations clear as you and your child discuss cell phones.
Smartphone Stairsteps: A Four-Phase Process
Check out our four-phase process to help your child ease into cell phone ownership!
No Regrets: Prepping for a Cell Phone
As I talk with parents “just ahead of me” about screens and technology, I often hear the words: “I wish I would have waited.”