How’s the school year and tech going?

Tell me if this sounds familiar: Your child walks through the front door, drops everything in the doorway and plants themselves in front of the television (or tablet or whatever they use to decompress.) Or if you’re schooling from home, how is differentiating between school time and recreation tech time going?

Never fear! Transitions and using tech doesn’t have to be a negative thing! Here are some tips to moving past the zombie stage after the kids are worn out from a day at school, or helping them recognize the difference between tech uses.

1. Enjoy a 30 minute break with them. Sure their show of choice or game they play are not high on your interest list, but your child is on that interest list. Watch with them, ask questions about it afterwards, get to know what they love even if you don’t understand why they like it.
2. Get together as a family this weekend and make a plan. In fact, you can use this discussion tool and This Link for an excellent guide to create your family plan AND start good conversations. The more involved your kids are in the planning, the more likely they will abide by the plan. You can find age specific media plan flowcharts here.
3. Plan out family activities together. Sometimes the kids are just burned out from school and extra-curricular stuff. They just want to spend time with people who they love. So pick a movie for a family movie night, look for a cool local hike, find a new park, see if there are bike trails nearby, and go for it! And if you find an activity everybody loves doing together, make it a weekly habit. Everybody benefits from good family traditions.

In short, continue building a routine for the school year WITH the kids. Develop and grow together. The more interests you and your children hold together, the better relationships they have with technology will be.