Do the words “spring break” make you want to jump up and down or groan in agony? A full week with your family is an absolute gift, but at the same time, it can be completely intimidating. On today’s blog, we break down five ways to prepare for spring break so you can minimize screentime and maximize memory-making.

The positive effects of participating in youth sports are numbered, yet there is a distracting new teammate causing disengagement among today’s athletes—the smartphone. Instead of focusing on the game, players run to the bench to check their phones for notifications. Instead of practicing drills outside, teens spend hours inside scrolling through social media.

We all know time matters. For parents, we need to focus on how we spend that time. From the moment our children are born until the time they graduate, we have approximately 936 weeks with them. In the book Playing for Keeps by Reggie Joiner, Kristen Ivy and Liz Hansen, these precious weeks are illustrated with a jar filled with marbles—each marble representing one week.

From viral TikTok challenges to the controversial launch of Metaverse, 2021 was filled with big changes in the digital world. In a time where tech trends and news can be overwhelming, we thought we would take this opportunity to summarize the top digital stories for parents in 2021.

Felicia Wu Song is a sociologist at Westmont College who studies the way technology has changed contemporary life. On the Screen Sanity’s final episode of 2021, she joins START co-founder Krista Boan for a conversation about digital fatigue and unpacks how our own lives have been transformed by devices and screens.

Join Krista Boan as she talks with the founder of Protect Young Eyes, Chris McKenna. It’s a topic many parents are trying to tackle: digital safety. They talk tools, apps, ways to think about “layers” of protection, and a variety of other details that parents are trying to grasp.

Amy Holsopple is a writer, fitness instructor and the mother of a seven-year-old girl. She hosted a Screen Sanity Group Study in September 2021 with four of her fellow mom friends. Read on to hear her first-hand experience as the group host.

We recently chatted with a mom who has an adopted son from foster care. Due to past trauma, she explained that he could experience things differently…one of those things is video games. The moment we heard her story, we wanted to know more and understand how the START community could help by raising awareness.

Recently, one of our Screen Sanity parents contacted us to seek advice on how to handle school-issued devices in her family’s home. With the fall season in full swing, we thought it timely to share our feedback in hopes of helping others who are sending kids back to school with more technology than ever.

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.