Adults know better than anyone how hard it is to get enough sleep, fit in enough exercise, and keep from just staring at the TV after a long day of work. Teens have the same struggles, and they’re particularly vulnerable to spending more time staring at a phone than playing a sport or getting to bed at a reasonable hour. Here’s how to ensure they have a healthy mix of activities (and non-activity).
Instagram is one of the most popular social media sites, especially among teens. But beyond the risks to public safety, it’s also been shown to wear down the self-esteem of its users. The constant parade of people looking better, making more, spending more, traveling further can create a feeling of inadequacy or even failure. How can parents help teens form a healthier relationship with Instagram?
Impersonation used to be a difficult thing to pull off. Now, anybody with access to a social media site and an email account can pretend to be you, or, more often, your teen. If your teen finds somebody impersonating them online, here’s what to do.
Much of our society is “set it and forget it.” Our appliances turn on and off automatically, our bills are set to autopay, our cars can park themselves, and that makes it easy to forget that some of what we do must be hands-on. And while parental control apps can help with monitoring kids’ internet use, they’re only one piece of the equation.
As long as there have been children, books, and something to distract them from reading, there has been concern that children aren’t reading enough. The latest “something” is the smartphone and the tablet. But are screens denting children’s literary skills, or is the concern overblown? The answer is more complicated than you think.
In simpler times, if you wanted to get away from your peers, it was easy enough. You just left the room, ignored the phone, and did something else. Now, though, we’ve all got smartphones in our pockets, including our children, and peer pressure can follow us everywhere we go. How is technology changing peer pressure, and how can we counteract it?
