HayU Blog

If you are like me, you often want to throw all of the devices into the Pacific and go raise your children on a farm. But realistically, we cannot protect our children from the hazards of the internet and social media forever. The key is to help them stay safe and to develop a healthy relationship with the ever-changing technology that will be an integral part of their academic and social lives.

As a mom of two daughters, 11 and 17, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about screen time, social media, and which boundaries my husband and I want to set for our family. Here are my down and dirty, go-to suggestions for each age range. Consider implementing some, none or all of these in your home...

All ages

• Ban phones/devices at the dinner table.

• Skip phones/devices in restaurants.

• Discourage phones/devices while watching a TV show or playing a game as a family.

• Choose other fun times to unplug as a family at least once or twice per week.

Elementary School:

• No phone.

• No social media. Reminder: RoBlox and TikTok, while involving active creation, do have social media components of which to be aware.

• Limit tablet or computer use to 1 hour per day.

• Install parental controls.

• Consider limited or no technology during the week.

• TV rules can be different from other technology.

• No administrator access to any devices.

This once fringe movement is now powerfully mainstream because their mission suddenly resonates with the masses:

“The National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest) advances quality education and equal opportunity by promoting fair, open, valid and educationally beneficial evaluations of students, teachers and schools. FairTest also works to end the misuses and flaws of testing practices that impede those goals.”

It’s a war for equity, and the SAT and ACT are getting trounced.

Naysayers will claim our most prestigious and selective schools will ultimately slink back to the SAT and ACT as soon as it’s safe for our kids to sit together again. No doubt many well-endowed, private schools will feel the pressure of trustees and well-heeled benefactors to do so.

And we still don’t have another viable, standardized assessment tool that passes today’s sniff test for diversity, equity and inclusion. But we’re not nose blind anymore. Now that they’re gone, we finally recognize how badly both tests stink.

Imagine what happens when the incoming, “untested” classes at the Ivies and everywhere else perform just as well (if not better) than did their test-scarred predecessors? Because all the admissions folks will have the data to prove what, deep down, we all already know:

We can overfill all of our great schools with a diverse and deserving pool of brilliant and fabulous kids without standardized testing. Ah, the delightful disruption of it all!

Let’s not forget the leaders of the UC system had already called for a battering ram to splinter the holy gates of both test empires long before the latest lawsuit or the coronavirus arrived with the leveling power of plague. After years of study, the Board of Regents unanimously voted to deal both exams a death blow in California.

Middle School:

• Get first phone but no social media until the recommended age for each app.

• No social media for the first year of having the phone (texting and group texting is hard enough to manage).

• Discuss the do's and dont’s and your family rules regarding texting, selfies, phone etiquette, etc., and the reasons behind those rules.

• Consider adding one social media option at a time and no more than one platform per year (e.g. if your child gets her phone in 6th, only texting in 6th, Instagram in 7th, one additional social media app in 8th).

*Discuss family rules and advice regarding social media usage.

• No administrator access to any devices.

• Install parental controls.

• Monitor your child’s texts periodically.

• Establish communication with parents of your child’s friends so you can help one another when inappropriate or worrisome communications happen via text. It takes a village, and these issues become teachable moments and crucial learning opportunities.

• Continue to limit screen time during the week and on weekends.

*We implemented no iPad during the week for my 6th grader about halfway through the first semester and it made a huge difference! She could still watch TV after homework and she had access to her dumbed down iPhone (texting and games but no Internet).

• Consider limiting the functionality of each device due to concerns about the impact of technology and multitasking on the teenage brain.

*For example, the phone could be the only device enabled to text, the computer could be used for school purposes only, and the iPad could be used for games, videos, YouTube, etc.

• Dumb down your tween’s devices:

*Hide Google and Safari on a smartphone. (video tutorial)

*Disable texting on an ipad or computer. (video tutorial)

*Set time limits for devices to go to sleep or for certain functions to go to sleep, e.g. between 9 pm and 7 am. (video tutorial)

*These tips help you limit your child’s tech access while still letting them “look cool” with a modified smartphone.

High School

• Increase technology freedom over the years to prepare for full control in college.

• Charge phone and computer outside of bedroom for 9th and 10th, but consider changing this for 11th and 12th to allow your teen to figure out her own pitfalls and problem solve.

• Allow administrator access to devices starting in 9th or 10th grade.

• Continue to monitor your child’s texts and social media platforms periodically, at least for 9th grade.

~Amy Hayutin Contreras, Partner

Hayutin & Associates

• This is part 3 of 3 in our social media series. Check out Matthew Hayutin’s “The Troubled Waters of Social Media” and Dana Musulin’s “Screen Time’s Impact on Neurological Development.”

• For tips on how to turn off digital distractions, read Courtney Wittner’s blog.

• Check out “Parenting in the Digital Age” by Dana Entin, MN, RN, PNP. Dana is a parent educator, consultant, and coach.

• Kendra Delahooke, LMFT, and Daniela Judah-Ormani, LCSW, offer a unique 12-week therapeutic family interventions. Kendra works with your child while Danielle works with you, then everyone comes together. Learn more here.