As you prepare for a new school year and check items off supply lists, calm nerves, and remind kids of routines, it’s also important to make sure your family is tech ready. To make it easy, here’s a back-to-school tech checklist featuring quick things to do before the year starts. Back to School Tech Checklist…
digital safety
Giving Your Child Their First Cell Phone? Read this first!
This post is sponsored by Google Family Link and Be Internet Awesome If you’re giving your child their first cell phone (or any digital device), take some time to develop a strategy for what happens next. It’s ok if you haven’t thought this until now because you’ve been focused on trying to figure who has…
How to Turn Off Instagram Location Sharing in 6 Easy Steps
Earlier this week, Instagram released a new Map feature. It’s designed to share your location with nearby friends in real time and allows you to see posts tagged by friends or those you follow that are close by. While Instagram Maps may seem like a fun new feature that Mashable says could be “a handy…
How Bark Parental Controls Monitors Devices to Protect Your Child
As expectant first-time moms and dads, we sought out as much information as possible about milestones at every age and stage. Fast forward to the present and there’s no handbook guiding us through the tween and teen years with mobile devices and ever-changing landscape of social media. Even though we can’t turn back time, we…
Reinforce Kindness in the Digital World with These 6 Questions
This post is sponsored by Google’s Be Internet Awesome When my daughter was in preschool, she used to come home with sand in her mittens. Each afternoon I’d wonder what she’d done to fill her tiny pink mittens to the brim with sand. She thought it was one of life’s great mysteries too! Tethered to…
Why Aura Parental Controls are a Must for Your Child’s New Phone
This post is sponsored by Aura If a new phone is at the top of your child’s wish list this year, you’re not alone. More new smartphones are activated on Christmas Day than any other day of the year! If your child will be unwrapping a new phone this holiday season, include guardrails, like Aura…
Why Aura is the Best Proactive Protection to Keep Your Family Safe Online
This post is sponsored by Aura The Internet offers unlimited opportunities for us to learn, explore, and connect but it also presents overwhelming challenges. Keeping kids safe from online predators, cyberbullying, and inappropriate content feels like a formidable task especially when monitoring screen time and ensuring their personal information stays safe. There hasn’t been one…
7 Favorite Resources for Teaching Digital Safety to Kids
Every year I’m asked to speak to our school PTA about digital safety. Teaching digital safety to kids isn’t easy, especially when cell phones, laptops, and tablets provide convenience and connectivity that we need. We want our kids to be connected to us through their cell phones if they need us but that also means…
6 Conversations About Digital Safety Every Family Should Be Having
This post is sponsored by TextNow My day often starts with my two sleepy teens making their way to the breakfast table with phones in hand. They’ll catch up on TikTok or respond to texts or Snaps before it’s phones away as we eat. Sometimes one will send me a text with a link to…
Talking to Tweens About Sexting: How to Prepare and Keep the Conversation Going
This post is sponsored by Thorn for Parents and all opinions are my own. Online safety and sex top the list of uncomfortable topics for parents to address with kids, but have you talked about sexting and nudes yet? We’re aware of the implied safety risks of digital devices in our children’s hands but often…