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…
free resources
8 Ways to Manage Daily Tech Use to Regain Control of Your Digital Life
This post is sponsored by Google A new year has started and with it comes new resolutions that are often broken. Instead of putting pressure on yourself to make and keep resolutions, it’s ok to be more mindful- especially when it comes to technology use. Managing tech use is no simple task and often taking…
How to Talk About Digital Wellbeing with Your Teens
This post is sponsored by Google In an age when our kids are surrounded by technology, are they mindful about unplugging in favor of their own digital wellbeing? If you doubt that your child even knows what it means to unplug, chances are they know how it feels when they spend too much time connected…
Free Digital Resources for Teaching Fire Safety to Young Ages
This is a post sponsored by the National Fire Protection Association and Sparky.org. Did you know that in a typical home fire, you may have as little as one to two minutes to escape safely from the time the smoke alarm sounds? No one likes to think about the possibility of a fire in their…
10 Tools That Will Help You Take Charge of Your Digital Life
This post is sponsored by Google Have you ever thought about the role technology plays in your life? Living a digital life is exciting but also complicated. Digital devices make us more productive, help us stay connected, allow us to keep learning, and provide a much-needed break from reality. Our phones are the first things…
How to Teach Your Kids to Unplug in Favor of Digital Wellbeing
This post is sponsored by Google Every family struggles with screen time. You’re not alone in telling your kids to put down their phones, issuing reminders about dwindling minutes when gaming, and feeling frustrated when requests to get off the computer fall on deaf ears. Some of us have tried to limit minutes using devices…
These Free Resources Will Help You Raise Confident Digital Citizens
This post is sponsored by Google As parents, we’re constantly reinforcing the importance of being smart, alert, strong, kind, and brave to our kids. The conversations about kindness and friendship we have with them extend beyond the real-life face to face interactions in school hallways, classrooms, and during extra-curricular activities to virtual ones that occur…
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 Kids Can Play Their Way Through Interland to Learn Digital Citizenship
This post is sponsored by Be Internet Awesome When I was a technology magnet coordinator, one of my beginning of the year tasks was to acquaint kids with our school system’s User Responsibilities for Computer Systems, Electronic Information, and Network Security during their first visit to the computer lab. This nine page PDF was filled…
How to Talk to Kids When They See Adults Being Unkind
This post is sponsored by Be Internet Awesome “Ugh,” my husband typed when I texted him to ask how the team meeting went before our son’s weekly baseball practice. The three letter response left me with more questions than answers about the mandatory pre-practice meeting that I thought the coach was holding to address bullying…