Parents raising children today are like first-generation immigrants to a very strange land. We grew up in a world where children went to school in a building, played games on boards, courts, or fields, and mostly had friends who lived near them.

Now our kids are coming off a semester of distance learning, they play games that their parents have never heard of, and they make “friends” with people who may or may not exist.

It’s a crazy time to be a parent.
One of the problems is that most of us feel like we’re making it up as we go along. We learn from our mistakes but don’t plan ahead… since we don’t actually know what is coming. Our heads are swimming from all the possibilities. Our kids can seem like aliens from another planet.

In the face of this, how do we come out the other end feeling like we’ve prepared our children for the world they’re living in?

A little research.
No matter what any impassioned friend (or “friend”) might post on Facebook, the picture of what screen and Internet use is doing to our kids is mixed. It can look all good or all bad if you squint really hard through a tiny hole, but the reality is that we can only know for sure that it’s a mixed bag:

• Kids gain a huge amount of knowledge on the Internet
• Screens allow our kids vast creative powers
• Games can be both cognitively and socially good for kids
• Screen time in itself is not actually “bad for” kids

However:
Kids are exposed to everything from garbage science to emotionally harmful imagery from an early age

• Most of kids’ screen time is not spent on creative pursuits
• Games, whether or not you use the word “addictive,” are engineered to suck kids’ attention into a small box and reward them the longer they stay in there.
• Too much of certain types of screen time correlates with all sorts of things we don’t want, such as depression, health problems, and social isolation
• Instead of deciding that screen time is “all bad” or “something I can’t control,” let’s consider how we can design intentional use of screens to maximize benefits and minimize harm.

Communication is key
If you haven’t been communicating with your children (of any age) about screen use, start today.

In your casual conversations with your children, ask what they’ve been watching. Ask them what they like about it. Ask them to show you a game. Show them something you are doing on your screen. Get involved with their screen use so that it feels natural to them.

Formally, family meetings are a must. A regular family meeting sets up a time when everyone knows that they can bring up issues and concerns. There are some great guides out there for family meetings—find one that speaks to your parenting style.

The only non-negotiable aspect of a family meeting is that everyone needs to feel free to express themselves.

It’s also helpful to read up on and try to implement Collaborative Problem-Solving. In this approach, parents collaborate with children on the decision-making process. Using CPS, children feel that their voices are heard and their opinions are considered so they’ll be more willing to follow the rules they helped create.

Make a point of finding balance
The quarantine laid bare to many families the irony of their rules for screen use for their children. Once the parents were working at home, the kids got to see how much time the parents were spending in front of screens. And parents noticed it, too. Family walks have gained a new popularity.

The point is that we all need to balance our screen use with other activities. A good way to look at it is this: Is your children’s screen use keeping them from pursuing a physically and mentally healthy lifestyle? If yes, then it’s too much. As much as we can, we should make intentional choices about how much time we spend on screens, and what we do when we’re not on screens.

Value valuable screen use
Some families try using a simple limit on the number of hours that kids spend on their screens. This method ignores what research has proven and common sense also tells us: there are better and worse ways to spend your time online.
Kids who are using screens to gain knowledge, do creative projects, and communicate with real people who share their interests do well on measures of well-being.

Kids who use screens to “tune out,” who watch passively and obsessively, and who self-isolate show alarming rates of physical and mental health disorders.
Setting a simple limit on screen time may actually encourage children not to use screens in the healthiest way possible. Instead, collaborate with kids to identify and prioritize how they like to use screens. Just like you teach them to cross roads safely when they’re little, your guidance will set them on the right path to healthy screen usage.

Raise digitally literate kids
The end goal of parenting is to put out a young adult who is happy, healthy, and functional in the world. If we keep our kids from technology, or if we go the other way and just let them use and abuse without guidance, we aren’t doing our job.
A child in a hunter-gatherer society might have to learn how to safely use a machete from an early age. Think of screens as a modern child’s machete. They are necessary, but also dangerous.

Our job as parents is to raise adults who know how to use computers as tools, but can also recognize when the tools are hurting rather than helping.

Suki Wessling is a local writer, teacher, and musician, and is the mother of two college students. Read more at SukiWessling.com.