A Practical Guide to Parenting in the Digital Age: How to Nurture Safe, Balanced, and Connected Children and Teens

Parenting has never been easy. The essentials of protecting your kids come down to a short list: Where are they? Who are they with? What are they doing?

Today, the questions are the same, but the possibilities are endless. Unless you have a plan and know where to look, your children and teens could be spending their time anywhere in the virtual world, with anyone in the world, and doing anything under the virtual sun. But rest assured that the task of tackling parenting and technology is not an impossible one.This practical guide provides ten principles—many of which you already practice in other areas—to help you escort your children through the real and virtual worlds. Dr. Lender also includes hands-on resources, worksheets, and a strategy for developing a family digital plan to alleviate fear of technology and maximize the benefits of digital media.Tablets and handheld devices are becoming more common in the home and more integrated into educational settings, and this guide is a much-needed resource to parents, administrators, teachers, and program directors alike, for keeping their children and students on task, on appropriate content, and on target for a positive and successful future.

“A concise, frank, easy-to-implement and genuinely helpful guide to setting digital boundaries…She is refreshingly specific about what constitutes reasonable time limits for various ages and how to communicate those notions…About a third of the book is dedicated to tools, such as worksheets, checklists, sample contracts to be agreed upon between parents and children, and the like. Her most innovative piece of advice—creating a “positive digital floor plan”—is itself worth the price of admission.”