Growing Up Social: Raising Relational Kids in a Screen-Driven World – by Gary Chapman and Arlene Pellicane
How has the digital age and technology affected our children? How does it affect my relationship with my children? How much technology is too much? What can I as a parent do to help my kids stay connected in real relationships?
All these questions and more are answered in this book. This is pretty standard Gary Chapman. He breaks the book down into sections like anger management (you’d be amazed at what research shows about screen time and anger) and shyness.
While there’s lots of research cited in the book about what is healthy screen time for you and your kids and how all this technology is changing our brains, Chapman also focus a lot on how to relate to your children and what skills need a little extra focus these days.
He gives great advice for setting guidelines for technology usage and what we as parents can do to set a good example for our children. Sometimes, something as simple as putting your phone away for dinner can make a big difference to your children. It’s important that my children know that they are way more important than my phone!
This book is great for if you’re just looking for some good guidelines or for if you need help to make some needed changes. Wherever you’re at as a parent, you’ll find some great info and suggestions for helping your kids use technology in a way that doesn’t interfere with their relationships with people around them.
I received this book free for purposes of my review. All opinions are my own.
Sounds like a good book. I think keeping them busy with other things is important. Then you don’t have to set strict rules. They just don’t have time to overdo it.
I feel like our kids are all part of a big social experiment and no one has any idea how it will all turn out. Sound like this book might supply much-needed guidance in this area.
It is tough because I can’t look back and go “my parents did this” or “my friends did this”. We’re all just making it up as we go 🙂 This book does help a lot.
Growing Up Social sounds like it’s a book most Americans need to read. We need to put down our devices and see what going on around us. Lead by example to our little ones.
I’m pretty sure every person in the free world needs to read this. We are all guilty of being too into out devices, and that rubs off on our kids.
So true. They do what they see us do.
Growing Up Social sounds like a book so many folks could do with reading! It’s so important to balance social media with ‘real life’ for the sake of our families and their future!
This sounds like a great resource. My son is 12 and is chopping at the bit to get on social media. I better read up!
I think this sounds like a great book. Today’s kids are super tech savvy, but I have to wonder how all that screen time affects their social skills.
This sounds like an interesting book. Limiting screen time is so important!