The Busy Parent’s Guide to Managing Technology with Children and Teens
Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, FamiliusTitle: The Busy Parent's Guide to Managing Technology with Children and Teens: The Parental Intelligence Way
Published by: Familius
Release Date: June 9, 2020
Pages: 112
ISBN13: 978-1641701938
Busy Parent Guides: Quick Reads for Powerful Solutions
OVERVIEW
How does technology impact kids’ mental health and physical well-being? How do screens affect babies? How can I protect my children from cyberbullying? What are the positive effects of technology? How can we bridge the technology generation gap?
With aggregate case studies and the latest research, Psychoanalyst Laurie Hollman answers these questions and many more in this contemporary, up-to-date mini book for parents learning to manage technology with their children and teens.
Parents who follow the 5 steps of The Parental Intelligence Way become meaning-makers deeply interested in what goes on their children’s minds and how their brains work as they use technology. In this helpful guide, parents will come to understand new research findings that are both exciting and overwhelming. As these findings become more complete in the decades to come, utilizing Parental Intelligence will help parents continue to discover their children’s capabilities as they learn the meaning behind their kids’ technological behaviors and conflicts.
The audiobook is narrated by actor Rich Hollman, son of the author, who was raised The Parental Intelligence Way.
ENDORSEMENTS
"In this volume, The Busy Parents Guide to Managing Technology with Children and Teens: The Parental Intelligence Way, Dr. Hollman takes on a current and rapidly growing source of difficulty in our modern world, technology... I found the section on “cyberbullying " particularly useful. We are now dealing with a new kind of “bullying” which has expanded exponentially with the use of social media... I highly recommend this book."
—Barbara G Deutsch MD, Certified in Psychiatry, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, Adult and Child Psychiatry, Certified in Psychoanalysis, American Psychoanalytic Association, Adult and Child Psychiatry
"Through a series of easily understood explanations and the creative use of anecdotes to clearly illustrate the principles involved, Dr. Hollman takes the reader on a journey about technology today which illuminates the pathway to enhanced understanding and compassion for our dearest partners and children."
—Ernest Kovacs, M.D., F.A.P.A., Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Supervisor for Marital and Family Psychotherapy, Zucker Hillside Hospital Northwell Health
"...Dr. Hollman provides practical, thoughtful, and grounded guidance in navigating the often daunting and ever-changing landscape that has become one of the greatest challenges we face in raising our children and adolescents into compassionate and independent critical thinkers. A must read for all parents and family members, professionals, or lay persons interacting with our most precious asset; the next generation!"
—Lynn Seskin, Psy.D., Clinical Psychologist; Behavioral Medicine Associates of New York; Behavioral Medicine of Pennsylvania
"Dr. Hollman’s new book gives an excellent overview of the impact of technology in children’s and teens’ lives today. She then gives a concise account of Parental Intelligence methods and shows, with the aid of helpful real-life examples, how to use these methods to solve problems caused by technology. An excellent resource!"
—Janet Wilde Astington, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Institute of Child Study, Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology, University of Toronto; Editor, Minds in the Making
"Technology now plays complex roles in child development and in how parents interact with their children. In Dr. Hollman’s book she provides an insightful process through which parents can respond to and deal with this challenge in their children’s development."
—Jeremy Carpendale, Ph.D., Professor of Developmental Psychology, Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC VSA 156 Canada
INSPIRATION
As a psychoanalyst treating children, adolescents, and adults with psychotherapy for over thirty years, I am inspired by the knowledge that young minds are constantly developing as the brain matures until age twenty-five. I am motivated to help busy parents consider this as they explore how new technologies and online usage impact their children and teens.
Some medical experts claim that the brains of our children’s generation are physically developing differently because of frequent interaction with technology, which impacts their communication skills. Technological usage can affect the parts of the brain that control a child’s and teen’s personality. This can affect the way kids interact in that there might be changes in their ability to regulate emotions, remember certain events, and pay attention to different things.
With this book, I intend to help busy parents take all of these factors into consideration as they consider how to communicate with their children.
Technology can have both positive and negative effects on our children’s and adolescents’ emotional lives. Given the technology revolution, I am motivated to help busy parents look at growing information about how new technologies affect their kids’ self-confidence and social skills so they can decide how to raise emotionally stable children. One dramatic example is how I hope to help busy parents address their worries about cyberbullying, unprovoked repeated aggressive harassment directed towards children and teens that may inflict physical, psychological, social, or educational harm.
I am offering busy parents a structured approach to solving problems their children and teens now face due to this rise in technology. The Parental Intelligence Way is a five-step approach with specific tools for solving these puzzling problems of today’s youth. In this book, I intend to explain and explore Parental Intelligence so that busy parents feel more confident in helping their children through the technological maze while, at the same time, building their growing parent-child relationships with empathy and respect.
EXCERPTS
Chapter Four
Children and Technology:
The Parental Intelligence Way
Busy parents question when they should allow their kids to have smartphones. Because both children and their parents are busy, parents like to be able to text their kids and know when and where they are going places. But parents also know that phone usage started too early can be addictive and lead to isolation; kids can feel isolated after using too much technology instead of socializing with their friends in person. Busy parents are practical yet wise enough to not risk the early onset of depression, discussed in earlier chapters, in their children and teens—who isolate themselves online when they do not contact or connect with others.
Ari and His Parents:
The Question of Phone Usage at Age Ten
Ari is a reserved child who just turned ten; he is in the fifth grade and attending middle school. He tends to keep to himself, reading books avidly, playing video games, and building projects with his dad. He has a few friends but doesn’t tend to gravitate to social experiences, such as team sports. He enjoys school, does well academically, and has joined a science club that meets two days after school. He’s been pressing his parents for an iPhone, because he likes all the apps and music and looks forward to using them. He also enjoys photography and wants to be able to take pictures and create videos with his phone. On the school bus, he’s noticed that all the other kids have phones, even those younger than he is, so he feels justified in pressing his parents to get him an up-to-date smartphone. He’s tech-wise and knows he’ll be able to go online with it as well as use it as an actual phone. His parents’ main hesitation is their worry that Ari is so tech-wise that he’ll isolate himself from making friends except through texting, i-messaging, and emailing. He doesn’t have a pension for FaceTime, but his parents would be pleased if he did; then he’d have more personal contact with others.
Ari’s dad is an introverted guy and doesn’t object to the phone, feeling that society’s preference for extroverted people isn’t the way of the world or necessary. People have different temperaments and personalities, and he feels that Ari is well-adjusted and a great kid. Ari’s mother is more of a happy-go-lucky social person and worries about Ari isolating himself—even though he joined the science club, to her delight. She wants him to feel in the social loop and likes the idea of being able to contact him when she’s at work. However, she and her husband are very busy professionals and Ari is an only child, so she is fearful of Ari becoming addicted to phone usage even though his plans for using it are very varied.
Ari’s folks decide to use the Parental Intelligence Way to resolve this question, collaborating with Ari about the decision.