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![🙋🏻♂️When considering screen time have you heard the phrase “what is screen time replacing?” This is a common way of evaluating screen time, but what is this potentially overlooking?
🤔Yes, sometimes screen time replaces the potential for independent play or reading. But it also might replace:
🙋🏻♂️A parent too exhausted/overworked/dysregulated to be present with their child at the moment
⛳️An unsafe or limited outdoor environment. This comes up with extreme climates but also urban housing where backyards and parks are not equitably or safely available
👩👩👧👦A caregiver preoccupied with another child or work
😡Dangerous or destructive play
😞A child having to isolate and not see friends
🤬Loud or disruptive play that could interrupt work, a napping baby, or a grouchy neighbor
🌟Screen time is ALWAYS replacing something. Any activity is replacing another that could go in its place. When we frame screen time this way we are essentially framing it as the LAST option, only acceptable if all other activities have been used so they aren’t getting replaced by screen time.
➡️Instead, ask yourself: “could this screen time be easily and reasonably replaced with something else?”
🤔Sometimes the answer is yes: I can turn on the radio and have a dance party with my child while making dinner, I don’t have to use a screen. Other times the answer is no: due to a child’s limits, an adults limits, or situational limits, screen time is the best tool for the job.
What does screen time replace in your house?]()
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2025-10-13 20:10:06
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![🤯 want an easy way to help your kid learn how to regulate? Give them a reference guide to all of the regulation choices they have, thanks to video games.
🧠video games are very complicated and we often forget things like button combinations, item, properties, possibilities, etc.
💪 to help with that, there are often glories, reference guides, or menus that you can consult at any time. So even if you pick up the controller after a year, you can refresh your memory to support this girl.
We all know that it’s very hard for kids to regulate when they are just regulated. A regulation menu makes regulation not only less emotionally waited, but it makes regulation tools available at any time, including calm moments.
You can obviously tweak this to work for you, but one thing I think makes it very effective is involving a child so that we use their language and make sure they agree with the strategies listed.
🥳Plus, this takes the labor off of adults to remember all of these things for kids, and makes it so that anyone can access the information. Since it’s more neutral this way, it also doesn’t come with any of our potential emotions that could complicate a tough situation.
Do you think this would work for your kids?]()
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2025-10-10 18:30:00
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![🤯Did you know you can limit what your child can see or search for in google chrome, and you can even lock their device? All it takes is setting up Google Family Link, for free!
🪁Google Family Link is a free app that you can use to set up your child with their own Gmail account, which you can then monitor and restrict as desired.
🔥This can apply to what they see in the Google play store, when their device is available during the day, and even what they can see in YouTube.
🤔This applies to a personal Gmail account, so you cannot use this to restrict a school based email account, but if your child uses their personal email on a Chromebook you can apply these restrictions to their personal email.
💪🏼These settings can also apply to their chrome use and YouTube use on a computer that is NOT a Chromebook, as well as non-android phones, so long as they are signed in to chrome under their account name.
🧠If you put these restrictions in place, it can be worth discussing them with your child so they understand the limits, their purpose, and the skills they can work on to increase the responsibility and access to screens that they can have.]()
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2025-10-08 18:30:00
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![If you’ve followed me for a while you know I enjoy video games and I also enjoy hiking. But what many people don’t know is that I enjoy hiking BECAUSE of video games.
My journey with exercise is complicated (like many millennials, I am sure), but as I played countless hours of Breath of the Wild, I found myself loving the freedom to explore, summit mountains, and find hidden lakes. And although I had hiked locally some, I hadn’t ventured further out. But Zelda got me wondering what I might be missing.
And that’s how I ended up waking up before dawn to climb a mountain one morning. As I crept toward the summit, I looked over the edge and saw a glittering alpine lake, just like those I’d seen in Zelda games. I gasped and realized that it felt just like those discoveries I made while playing Breath of the Wild.
Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s easier to find hidden lakes in a video game, but if in that moment someone had said to me “isn’t this SO much better than playing a video game?” I would have felt invalidated.
The reality was: it wasn’t better, it was different. The satisfaction was very different; I felt highly competent, I felt grateful to myself, I felt surprised at my own abilities. But it was also tiring, difficult, and -frankly- inaccessible in many ways.
So, sometimes I explore in a game, and sometimes I explore in real life. And thanks to staying neutral in my view of leisure activities, I can enjoy real life hiking and in-game exploration, knowing that they may evoke similar feelings but be better at different times in my life.]()
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2025-10-06 19:59:18
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![🍎Getting kids to pack their own lunch, make a snack, or grab ingredients, thanks to video games.
👾Games like Minecraft have specific systems for combining things together, such as a crafting table. But regardless of the game, most games have a place for you to review items and their properties, and how to use them.
🤯So when I noticed my child was struggling to make their own snacks and meals, I decided to make them a “snack crafting menu”
🧐 obviously this is for my family, and you can customize this idea for your family, your pantry, and your needs.
🧠brain what I like about this is that it acknowledges that being able to put together different foods is a skill, and that it’s OK if our kids need reminders of the functions of different foods.
💪But it also sends the message that an adult, especially a default caregiver, is not a walking encyclopedia of information.
🤩 bonus! put a notepad or magnetic whiteboard on your fridge so that if an item on the snack crafting menu is out of stock, kids can write it down, so they are also contributing to the grocery list]()
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2025-10-03 18:56:22
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![🗒️I know it may seem simple, but this sticky note trick saved me from a post-screen time, pre-dinner meltdown that I frankly would not have handled well.
🤔Screens are engrossing, but they also involve a lot of skills and planning, and when it’s time to stop that is not always convenient.
😭For kids who are neurodivergent, or for kids who like to play open ended or less “leveled” games, finding a place or way to stop can be really hard.
💪So, when I sensed my child was not going to stop easily, I grabbed a sticky note.
🧠“What’s the next thing you want to do in the game?” I asked. Then I wrote it down. I showed them what I wrote to make sure it made sense, put the sticky note on the console, and told my kiddo that when they came back to play tomorrow, they could pick up where they left off with no issues.
🤯Then we went to the dinner table, and the next day my child played and was glad to find the sticky note was there to remind them of what they were going to do.
👀Yes, I could have just held the boundary and dealt with the ensuing behavior, but I wanted to emphasize to my child that while stopping something engrossing or fun is hard, it’s still a skill we can work on.
🔥Whether it’s imaginative play, working on a project, playing a video game, or studying for a midterm, all of those things are big tasks that can require breaks. By focusing on the skill, we not only save ourselves a power struggle about screens, we also give our kids skills they need that will apply in many parts of their lives.]()
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2025-10-01 19:27:31
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![🐓Please tell me I’m not the only one who grew up helping this woman wrangle Cuccos?
It can be hard when our kids seem to forget things that we have said over and over again, especially with things like routines or expectations.
But if we nag them, or tell them why they have to remember, that isn’t necessarily going to help.
Instead, we can try to be more like a video game; correct the behavior by simply reminding them of the expectation.
Video games do this all the time. If you show up with the wrong number of stars, the wrong item, or something else, the game will simply restate the expectation. A character may playfully chastise you, but the game won’t punish you in most cases.
Instead, the expectation serves as a corrective for your behavior; “6 of my Cuccos are still missing!” as opposed to “why are you talking to me? I told you, you have to find all my Cuccos!”
So, if we notice our child is grabbing their iPad when they should first be packing their lunch, we can correct by reminding them of the expectation. This could sound like:
“iPad is available once your lunch is packed”
“What has to happen before the iPad is available?”
“Oh you already packed your lunch? That was fast!”
It could also look like checking to see if they’ve packed their lunch already, before giving feedback.
And depending on the stakes of the situation, we could choose to do nothing and allow them to face a natural consequence. That can also be a learning opportunity to ask them what they need to do differently or what support they need to meet that expectation.]()
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2025-09-29 19:02:15
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![*Disclaimer first*: all kids are different. If you hear what I chose to say in this video and think my exact verbiage wouldn’t work for your kid, change it! This is an example made to fit social media video lengths, it’s not meant to be an exact script.
There is a huge overlap between mental labor and executive function; when we can find ways to illustrate this overlap and make these steps more concrete for kids, it can go a long way to building not only their executive functioning skills but also applying these skills to household labor.
We can start these conversations from early childhood! Packing for vacation is a great example, (see my other reposts about how to help kids learn to pack). Another great example is preparing to go to a birthday party. In education we call this “backwards design” “end in mind” or “ready-do-done” thinking, (or a mix of them all!).
Many aspects of this domestic labor seem magical and invisible to children (and to other adults, at times). And although these are learned and conditioned skills, they are often invisible, thus having us model the steps for our kids is crucial so they can learn the steps themselves.
As they get used to this, we can start asking them more things to prompt these skills, such as “hey, Dad’s birthday is next month. How about we check in next week to decide if we’re going to order something or go to the store?” or “do we have everything we need for the party? I see a wrapped gift, what’s missing?”
*if these ideas about mental load resonate, check out the work of everodsky rose.hackwoman thatdarnchat timetoleanpod whose ideas are used in this video* And preorder thatdarnchat’s upcoming book on the subject!]()
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2025-09-26 18:30:00
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![🧠All brains are good brains. AND we can learn how our brain works best.
If you use this app and have any pro tips, drop them in the comments- the new updates are great!
Remember my last video about ADHD brains and inventory? Go check it out if you haven’t seen it.
The biggest question on that video was: how can we expand “inventory”?
There is no quick fix. But the most important thing is to NOT fight against your brain (or your child’s brain) but instead recognize what is tough for someone’s brain, and find a way to address it.
I used to view writing things down or making a list as a weakness. If it was that important, I’d remember. But that meant I was wasting a LOT of my energy on remembering things.
The Reminders app for iPhone is an Apple app and most people seem to assume it’s just a checklist. And for many ADHD brains, checklists aren’t helpful because it’s easy to forget about the checklist. But the reminders app can do SO much to make checklists actually helpful.
When we find a strategy that works well, it helps us establish new patterns for our brains, making it easier to continue using the strategy while also making it more likely to help us form a new habit 💪
(Android users: Google tasks is an ok version of this but not as good, IMO. There are 3rd party apps available too!)]()
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2025-09-24 19:25:24
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![💜If you know, love, teach, and/or parent someone with ADHD, you have probably run into the frustrating reality that is the inability to hold multiple things in mind at once. (All brains are different and not everyone with ADHD struggles with this in the same way)
🤯I thought of this analogy the other day and it really felt like a powerful way to think about ADHD that we don’t typically do.
🏹When you start a video game and you have only one “slot” in your inventory for, say, shields, then you have to keep juggling which shield you have. But other people have bigger inventories and can swap shields as many times as they want.
😩For people with ADHD, their “inventory” is often just a single slot all the time, occupied by whatever is directly in front of them or in their hands.
👀So, if I put a frozen donut in the microwave to thaw, hit the “1 min” express button, think “ok I need to come back in 15 seconds so it doesn’t melt”, that would be achievable for a neurotypical brain, because the donut in the microwave can move to the “back” of my mental inventory, and packing snack can move to the “front” of my inventory.
😵💫But with an ADHD brain, there’s only one slot, so the donut in the microwave exits my inventory, snack enters my inventory, and the only thing that makes me realize I just incinerated a donut is the microwave dinging 1 minute later.
This “swapping” is exhausting, and it also results in many people with ADHD appearing as though they have “done nothing” but in reality they have done 10+ mental swaps in their “inventory” plus felt bad about forgetting things 10 times, all while trying to just get one thing done
How do we try to accommodate this? Depends on the person or the brain or the moment! Reminders, or saying something out loud (“I have to check the microwave in 10 seconds”) may help, but simply acknowledging this reality and not seeing it as a personal or moral failure is a huge step. If someone feels ashamed of their brain, they won’t feel empowered to gain skills.
Do you have someone in your life whose brain works this way? What has helped them in these moments with a small “inventory?” Please share in the comments!]()
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2025-09-22 19:25:56
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![I received this question recently, which explicitly gave me consent to use it for content, so I am!
This person’s child is in a class where videos are being shown during lunch time. The family doesn’t like this particular use of screens, but conversations haven’t gone well so far. What do we do in these moments where our values or approaches conflict with other parts of our kids’ lives?
Often times, when screens are being used, it’s easy to assume from the outside view that it’s an indication of a failure or weakness of the person using them. But in many cases, there is an aspect of a *barrier* that a screen is helping to manage.
I don’t know this school’s situation, but the first question that comes to mind for me is “what barrier is the screen trying to address?”
If I am a parent of a child in this classroom, if I ask myself what barrier the screen is trying to address, then it helps me focus on how I can connect with the teacher and try to alleviate this barrier.
An example from my own teaching was a hands-on version of a lesson I wanted to teach that involved making hundreds of small, printed out images for students to physically manipulate. If I wanted that set to last for more than a day or two, it needed to be laminated, which doubled the amount of time it took.
For me, that was a barrier. Thankfully, a parent volunteer helped to alleviate that barrier by laminating and cutting out the images, and the set lasted me years. But if I hadn’t had that help, I likely would have used a screen because of the barrier of a lack of time or help.
Approaching these situations with curiosity and the end goal of better understanding the situation to hopefully help alleviate the pain point is not only going to help address the problem, but create a better long term relationship with the school.]()
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2025-09-19 18:49:38
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![💪🏼Boundaries are our way of laying the ground rules, or the parameters, that WE are comfortable with. Boundaries are ultimately about the things WE can control.
🧠Think of it like a physical space, like a video game- boundaries are the coded rules and barriers of a space. We are aware of them from the beginning, they’re consistent, and they don’t change based on our behavior. We can interact with them, we can push them, we can complain about them, but they do not change.
🤯On the other hand, if a rule changes based on our behavior (Ex: “you were rude in the car, no TV today”) then that boundary is no longer clear or dependable. It’s not conditional on a child’s behavior but is also conditional on *our feelings and emotions as adults*.
💪🏼For me, having clear boundaries not only helps my child but it helps ME fall back on the clear rules and boundaries I’ve already set, so that I don’t contradict myself or make an impulsive decision based on my own dysregulation.
🫠Of course, the tough thing about boundaries is that we can only prove they exist by *enforcing them*. An invisible wall in a video game only exists if we run into it to prove it’s there. Similarly, a child can only know our boundaries are real and enforced by testing them and ensuring we will enforce them.
🙈If we place the responsibility of enforcing a boundary on our child, we are asking them to do *our job* and that may not be appropriate given their age or development.
🔥ALL families are different! All children and brains are different. Some of my “not boundaries” examples could still be useful for some families especially with kids who need a bit more responsibility or feeling of choice. We may start by strictly enforcing a time limit and then try saying “ok time to turn it off!” and it may work fine! That might mean our child has learned the boundary well enough that they can now enforce it themselves- that’s great! That’s a skill we want them to have as they grow. But if we find ourselves getting into a power struggle it may be a sign that we may have to step in and reinforce that boundary, even temporarily.]()
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2025-09-17 19:25:27
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![Just some thoughts, on this Monday. May we all care as much for one another as we would hope others would for us.
*I know this video is an oversimplification. Short form media bad for nuance. I am in no way saying we should not care about how these things impact a majority group of people, only that we should care as soon as the most marginalized were affected, with the same intensity as when the majority is impacted. I am responding to a specific video but my comments are based on the general tenor of many public responses this week presented in the media*]()
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2025-09-15 18:34:34
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![This article is not getting the attention it deserves so I’m making sure you hear about it. It is paywalled (I accessed it via apple news+) but I’m sharing the takeaways here.
In the last few years we’ve seen increases in AI use in schools, but simultaneously have seen a cultural push asking schools to ban personal devices like smartphones. The biggest winner in this scenario, unfortunately, are private companies and their investors, and the biggest losers may very well be students.
When we ban phones and social media, we make it harder to educate kids on the inherent risks involved, since we have forced them out of the educational environment in all circumstances, making them more susceptible to nefarious technology.
But at the same time, kids are encountering AI tools within their learning environments and educational software programs more every week, but are then going home to try to do homework and told not to use Chat GPT (the LLM many ed tech AI tools are based upon). It is not surprising that this would feel hypocritical to kids.
The AI companies in this article make it unfortunately clear they are prioritizing profits over the impact these tools have on students. But more troublingly, the push to ban phones and personal devices doesn’t help, because it creates more justification for “school friendly” technologies that these AI companies claim to provide.
It’s made even harder still when commonsenseorg neatoday and aftunion are accepting money from AI platforms. In the case of Common Sense Media, their paid campaign with OpenAI was to create *AI training materials for students and teachers*.
As an educator, this not only concerns me, it sickens me. The most effective tool in a classroom is an effective teacher, trained in best practices (not just fed PD by the companies whose technology they are told to use), and given freedom and support to access and use the materials they think are best for their students. And now, even the organizations that are meant to support the best interest of teachers and students are accepting money from AI startups.
Continued in comments.]()
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2025-09-12 18:43:08
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![🤯I cannot tell you how much I love this question. “How will you know when you’re done?” Why is it so magical?
🧠When we ask someone this, we are asking them to envision a final product or their goal. Maybe a child is working endlessly on a drawing and says “it’s still not done” or they are playing a game and saying “I’m not done yet”. Next time this happens, ask them- “how will you know when you’re done?”
🌟This makes kids focus on their goal and envision a final product. This also helps them articulate what they are working toward. Maybe a child says “I’ll know I’m done when I can’t think of anything else to do”. This child would benefit from making a list of everything they want to accomplish so they can step away and come back later.
🤔A child who struggles with stopping game time might say “I’ll know I’m done when I’ve [accomplished certain task]”. This lets us know what motivates or drives our child.
⏰But what to do if they won’t have time for these goals? We can let them know and still give them a goal to focus on: “you have 10 minutes of game time left. What would you like to have done in 10 minutes?”
🤯Finally if you have a perfectionist, try using this question to get them to focus on their goal and how they can measure it. Have you ever started cleaning your kitchen and ended up cleaning the whole house? Sometimes we need to force ourselves to have a stopping point, and “how will you know when you’re done?” can help!
I hope you’ll give this a try!]()
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2025-09-10 18:39:03
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![I know, I know, this is not a food blog. I am not known for my aesthetics in baking, but I just had to get this roll-cake reveal on Timelapse video and I can even relate it to screen time.
I like baking. I find it therapeutic. It helps me regain control and turn off my brain. It calms me.
But I also feel that way when I play certain kinds of video games, or when I go hiking, or even building a LEGO kit.
And yet…only one of those above hobbies is likely to get the blame if I were to rely on it as my only coping strategy. Some weeks, as my colleagues can attest, I bake 3-4 times a week, and not once has anyone accused me of being addicted to baking.
One of the things that gets brought up with screens and technology is how satisfying they are (as Rigby and Ryan call it, the “need density hypothesis”- see chapter 8 of my book for more on this!). But other things in life can give that kind of satisfaction as well: takeout, a drive-thru latte, a hug or physical connection that gives us a boost of endorphins.
None of these things are bad in isolation, but our relationship with them can be more or less problematic. Instead of focusing on WHAT kids are interested in, we’d be better served in focusing on their relationship with that interest, and if they have alternatives.
If kids satisfy every negative or unpleasant feeling with screens, or with anything, that’s not sustainable long term. But that also doesn’t mean it’s not ok at all.
Sometimes we need the lowest hanging fruit- sometimes a quick fix is actually what I need in order to get myself to a more sustainable strategy. If I distract myself with an episode of TV and then go make a cake, I’m figuring out how different strategies work for me.
So if kids are turning to screens at the slightest frustration, we want to give them alternatives to try, but it’s also ok to recognize that sometimes a screen may be an appropriate tool for the job.]()
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2025-09-08 18:30:00
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![“Power On” is officially a best seller 🥳🤩🤯
I’m at a loss for words except to say: the tide is turning.
Caregivers are tired of fear, blame, and guilt; we are ready for actionable, empowering ways of navigating a technological world with kids.
I mean this sincerely: thank you for being part of this journey, for helping this message get out into the world. You are the most powerful part of the shift from fear to empowerment: every share, referral to my page, preorder or library request, all of those seemingly small gestures have huge impacts.
And most importantly, this is creating a lasting positive impact on our kids lives. Thank you for being a part of it. 💜]()
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2025-09-05 18:30:00
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![I have a lot of unusual takes in this space, but I think my most controversial might be this one:
I, a middle school teacher, do not support blanket cellphone bans.
This doesn’t mean I think kids should use cell phones at school (they shouldn’t, in most cases). Nor do I think kids should be allowed to readily access their phones whenever they want to.
As soon as a cut-and-dry ban is implemented, teachers (and caregivers) are put in a very hard position. If a student is bringing a phone to class, even if it is off and not disruptive, teachers are now expected (and/or required) to discipline the student, often removing them from the classroom environment, stopping the flow of instruction, potentially reducing the class time the student is present for.
Some bans include things like storage for phones, but this problem will still happen. And while yes, this is the student’s “fault”, it results in a situation that will not promote an increased sense of connection between teachers and students, and also requires a high level of vigilance and labor from teachers and administrators.
Plus, some students are (correctly) exempted from bans due to accommodations, and this also puts those students in the position of having a private accommodation (such as monitoring blood sugar) now public to their peers.
As a teacher, I firmly believe that any rule we expect students to follow should be one that we are also willing and able to follow. While I would fully expect to follow the same dress code or “no food in class” policy as students, I would not feel comfortable being apart from my phone until I knew my students and I were safe from gun violence. (Some will say cell phones are dangerous in a shooter event. They could be, though that hasn’t been historically shown. But you know what would make this irrelevant? GUN REFORM.)
If every state in the US required K-12 digital literacy education (as opposed to the 4 that do now) we could address important underlying issues while also managing the symptoms of phones in school.]()
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2025-09-03 16:30:00
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![Today is the day to start recording stories with hidden wisdom for your child to listen to.
I do this with a Yoto player, but you can do it with a Yoto, a Tonie, an Mp3 player, you could record it on cassette tape for all I care, I just want you to try it.
Think of a topic, a life skill, a pain point, a thing you really need your kid to be prepared for, and tell a story about it:
When you failed a test and didn’t know how to handle it.
When you dated someone longer than you should have and there were signs you weren’t right for each other (or they weren’t safe).
Or when you said something you know you shouldn’t have, felt super embarrassed, and didn’t know how to handle it.
It could be when you thought your crush was waving at you but they were actually waving at the person behind you and you wanted to crawl in a trash can and never come out.
Perhaps it’s when you did something your parents told you not to, it went badly, and then you were scared if you told them and asked for help they’d be mad at you.
Even the story of when you first went to sleep away camp and felt homesick for the first time.
Open a voice note, pick a topic, and start talking. You can screw up, you can say “um” and “like” as much as you need to, but describe how you felt, what you thought, what you learned at the time and what you know now. If the story didn’t go well in reality and you want it to be a cautionary tale, maybe throw in what you know now and how it would go differently for your kiddo with a supportive adult like you in their lives, or how you would handle it if they came to you in this situation.
Our kids know we aren’t perfect (and they find ways of making that clear) but if we make it clear that we’re willing to talk about how WE dealt with these tough topics, we’ve done something super important- we’ve started the conversation in a safe way.
Then, if our kids or teens are facing one of these topics, they may already have an idea of how we talk about it, and they know they can come to us and continue the conversation because we’ve already started it.]()
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2025-08-29 18:30:00
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![This is a replay of maryvangeffen and thegamereducator IG live talking about screens and spicy ones 🌶️]()
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2025-08-29 04:14:04
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![I don’t really have the words or emoji for the last few days.
I’m feeling so grateful, amazed, and honestly very very exhausted 🥹🥰🫠
My book, Power On: Managing Screen Time to Benefit the Whole Family” is officially OUT NOW wherever you buy your books.
From this never-quitting-their-day-job educator and librarian, I am so thankful to all of you for the support.
Thank you for the shares, the preorders, the library requests, the “likes” and comments.
Here’s to helping people through education and empowerment, not fear and shame. 💜💜💜]()
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2025-08-27 19:22:57
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![I’m probably the only person to give this advice, but before you start cutting back on screen time for getting back to school, you may want to wait.
In fact, you may want to let your kids have EXTRA screen time (or a “summer” amount) for a week or two.
Why?! Isn’t this the time to get back to “normal”?
Short answer: yes. Longer answer: adults often underestimate how taxing the back to school transition can be for kids.
There is a lot of demand in a school day, but there is also a huge loss of autonomy for kids, and they may- reasonably- need ways of adjusting to that normal routine.
Just as we have to set ourselves up for success by laying things out the night before, setting our alarm a few minutes earlier, or meal prepping, we may also do things like saying yes to takeout, or vegging on the couch with a movie as we get used to routine.
Kids are the same. And if we try to flip a switch and instantly go back to “normal” in all areas of their lives at once, it may be too much.
We may let them know that we will go back to their typically screen time routine, but we can also be flexible. In fact, for tweens and older kids it can be a great way of helping them get in touch with what they need during this period. They may THINK they need extra screen time, and we can say yes, then provide other regulating or calming things like playing a board game or reading together.
And then we can check in: how did those activities feel? Which was more or less helpful? What did they notice?
The point of this isn’t to bombard them, but to help build their own introspection about what works for them in a given situation. That’s a lifelong skill, both on a screen, and off.]()
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2025-08-25 18:30:00
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![🔥🔥🔥This is one of my favorite and most often used phrases and it will help your kids become better at looking for things and finding them independently.
🤯Believe it or not, looking for things is a SKILL. We have to learn how to look for things. As parents we often find things for our kids because it’s easier and faster. But if we don’t involve them in the looking, we perpetuate the idea that *we* know where things are and they don’t. This results in kids (who become adults) who struggle with not just finding things, but the executive functioning skill of knowing how to look.
🧠Instead of finding things for your kids (or student, or spouse) say: “where have you already looked?” This lets several important things happen:
They reflect and recall what they’ve tried
We can offer another idea (“where else could it be?” Or “try looking X place because Y reason”)
They are the ones having to look and find a solution
🕹Video games are a great way to practice this. Kids often do a LOT of looking and planning and executive function in games but they don’t realize it. We can help them bridge that to real life by noticing when this comes up in games and offering them similar strategies.
👾We can also notice when they do this successfully in games and help them recognize the skills they’re using. This might sound like “I heard you playing Minecraft with your friends today and you kept saying you didn’t know where they were. How did you find them? What did you try?” Or “wow you checked your inventory today to see what you were missing! Next time you’re wondering if you have clean shirts, you can do the same thing in your room and check your “clothes inventory” in your closet!”
In the comments: what is the silliest or most obvious thing you’ve been asked to find? (I’ll go first- “where is my cheese?” asked while they were holding the cheese)]()
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2025-08-22 18:39:56
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![A replay of our Instagram Live celebrating “Power On: Managing Screen Time to Benefit the Whole Family” with TheGamerEducator and BusyToddler.
Link to preorder/buy the book is in thegamereducator bio! Thank you for joining and watching!]()
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2025-08-22 05:06:56
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A replay of our Insta..
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![More and more, I’m looking for ways to streamline my parenting. What are the through lines between one part of my kids’ life and another? What I keep finding, more and more, is that most parts of my child’s life boil down to a few key ideas. And when I don’t know where to turn, I turn to my favorite two questions:
1 “What part(s) of this do I need to protect them from (because they don’t have the skills required yet)?”
2 What part(s) of this are skills they are ready to build?”
There is no better example of this recently than my child’s latest experience packing for themselves. My kid is a packing pro (see my July post about packing for how to do this) but I still check their work casually to make sure they’re prepared. Recently they were going away without us, with other family, and I noticed they hadn’t packed something. I knew without it, they’d probably have a tough, unpleasant experience.
So I came back to my two questions. Since they were going for several days, without parents, I considered not only what my child needed protecting from but also what kind of additional labor the other adults needed to be protected from. If this had been one overnight with me, I probably would have let them experience the consequence of being unprepared (and maybe packed them a backup to protect them if needed).
I decided this was a time to intervene, so I did. But instead of just saying “no you did it wrong, you forgot long pants” I went to the second question- what parts of the skill do they need help refining? They had checked the weather, but had skipped over what it would really mean, so we talked through what they might do on their trip (be outside at night time, for example) and rethought what they’d packed.
How does this apply to the online world? We’re always finding the balance between protection and responsibility, but we need to remember that protection is not *shielding* them from something, but about empowering them with skills. I’m not going to let a toddler choose from any app in the App Store, but I may let them choose form the apps I have downloaded, and then ask them what they notice about how their body feels after they play certain apps.]()
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2025-08-18 18:30:00
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On average, Mx Ash Brandin EdS gets 2.1K likes and 52 comments per post. (Historical)
