START recently partnered with the Wall Street Journal to share thoughts about a hot app for kids: Facebook’s Messenger Kids, an introductory social media app designed for kids age 6-12. If you decide to take the plunge, it’s likely your child’s first foray into social media and it’s important to equip them for it and to be attentive to potential unexpected side effects.

When it comes to check-ups, healthcare professionals share that digital health is just as important as physical health. This article includes practical questions providers can use to start the digital health conversation with their patients.

For your teen or tween, more time at home likely means more incoming texts…some of which might be layered with hidden meanings. Need a decoder? We gotcha covered! This FREE DOWNLOAD gives you the scoop on the latest trends in teen text-slang.

Looking for a fun activity to do to help your family unplug at dinner? Or a tool to help your kids have a successful Zoom play date? Print out and complete this “quarantine mad lib” with your family. We hope it leads to conversations and connections to help your family weather this storm.

Even before the world of Zoom calls, distance learning assignments, and social media “family challenges”…keeping tabs on our children’s screentime was enough to cause any calm parent a decent amount of anxiety. That’s why we were thrilled when our friend Caroline Hesdall, Ph.D., liscenced psychologist, let us pick her brain about ways we can calm the anxiety we feel over our kids’ screen habits.

In a world where we are physically distanced from each other, our challenge is to maximize the gift of screens, but minimize the isolation we are feeling. Ironically, for our teens, this challenge isn’t necessarily a new thing. Join us for a peek our kids’ world. We are here to help you make a plan to help them stay healthy.

Parenting in the days of quarantine is a juggle of childcare, conference calls, household chores, and emotional roller coasters. Screens are providing a beautiful lifeline, but how to we best manage them without letting them consume us? Let’s make a plan!

Make a list of what core values will guide this season—or maybe a rally cry like, “Just keep Swimming” from Finding Dory or “Do the Next Right Thing” from Frozen 2. Ask your kids to join you, co-creating a vision for how you want your family to live this season! Then…hang them up! Whether it is just a handwritten post-it on the fridge or a Pinterest-inspired art print doesn’t matter, but hang your vision in your home as a visual reminder of what your family is striving for.

Even before quarantine, studies showed that we look at our phones 80+ times a day – and based on our own news and social media scrolling amidst this crisis, it’s likely gone up.

In the thick of flurries of group texting, news checking, and zoom scheduling, you might sense that you—and your kids—are online more than ever. But just like our devices need to recharge, so do we. If you are looking for a couple of zones to designate as “device-free”—we suggest tables and bedtimes.