Screen Time In The Mean Time

Screens are everywhere, all of the time. They make life easier in so many ways. But for parents, managing screen use is a huge challenge. For the first time in history, parenting is a full-time occupation. We are expected to faithfully care for and entertain our kids most of our waking hours, without complaint and with few supportive resources. It¿s simply not possible to keep kids busy all of the time. So, we allow them to play games, text, watch videos, facetime, and use social media¿too often. Even our toddlers beg to play on mobile tablets and smartphones. But we worry about it. We hear news stories that say screens are rewiring our brains and offering an unmonitored portal for sexual predators. We see that our kids are using screens compulsively, distracted from the real world. We worry that screens are a drug, and we¿ve enabled addictive behaviors by handing them over. But strict management just isn¿t possible considering our kids need screens for school, to interact with their friends, and for edutainment. What are we to do?Dr. Bennett is a clinical psychologist and founder of GetKidsInternetSafe. Having raised one young adult and still with two teens at home, she recognizes that screens are a necessary part of everyday family life. In her work with families for over twenty years, she has created sensible screen safety parenting hacks that work. Screen Time in the Mean Time is the thinking-parent¿s-guide to screen safety, written with a warm, relatable voice that is more practical than preachy. There are no scare tactics here. Instead, she offers a refreshingly real-world perspective on child and brain development and the risks and benefits of screen use. Her easily doable parenting strategies guide parents of toddlers to teens, step-by-step for confident screen management.

As a mother, Lisa Guernsey wondered about the influence of television on her two young daughters. As a reporter, she resolved to find out. What she first encountered was tired advice, sensationalized research claims, and a rather draconian mandate from the American Academy of Pediatrics: no TV at all before the age of two. But like many parents, she wanted straight answers and realistic advice, so she kept digging: she visited infant-perception labs and child development centers around the country. She interviewed scores of parents, psychologists, cognitive scientists, and media researchers, as well as programming executives at Noggin, Disney, Nickelodeon, Sesame Workshop, and PBS. Much of what she found flies in the face of conventional wisdom and led her to conclude that new parents will be best served by focusing on “the three C’s”: content, context, and the individual child. Advocating a new approach to television and DVDs, Guernsey focuses on infants to five-year-olds and goes beyond the headlines to explore what exactly is “educational” about educational media. She examines how play and language development are affected by background and foreground television and how to choose videos that are age-appropriate. She explains how to avoid the hype of “brain stimulation” and focus instead on social relationships and the building blocks of language and literacy. Along the way, Guernsey highlights independent research on shows ranging from Dora the Explorer to Dragon Tales, and distills some surprising new findings in the field of child development. Into the Minds of Babes is a fascinating book that points out how little credible research exists to support the AAP’s dire recommendation. Parents, teachers, and psychologists will be relieved to learn positive approaches to using videos with young children and will be empowered to make their own informed choices.

"Screens have become an essential part of modern childhood. This book will show you how to parent with them instead of against them."--Page 4 of cover

A guide to using play routines to build and accelerate a child's communication skills. Includes instructions and examples, language stimulation tips, techniques, and strategies, charts to monitor progress, ways to incorporate speech development activities into daily routines, etc.

This book presents modern methods and real-world applications of compositional data analysis. It covers a wide variety of topics, ranging from an updated presentation of basic concepts and ideas in compositional data analysis to recent advances in the context of complex data structures. Further, it illustrates real-world applications in numerous scientific disciplines and includes references to the latest software solutions available for compositional data analysis, thus providing a valuable and up-to-date guide for researchers and practitioners working with compositional data. Featuring selected contributions by leading experts in the field, the book is dedicated to Vera Pawlowsky-Glahn on the occasion of her 70th birthday.

From award-winning author A.L. Kennedy, an original Doctor Who novel featuring the beloved Fourth Doctor, as played by Tom Baker. “I shall make you the jewel at the heart of the universe.” Something distinctly odd is going on in Arbroath. It could be to do with golfers being dragged down into the bunkers at the Fetch Brothers’ Golf Spa Hotel, never to be seen again. It might be related to the strange twin grandchildren of the equally strange Mrs Fetch--owner of the hotel and fascinated with octopuses. It could be the fact that people in the surrounding area suddenly know what others are thinking, without anyone saying a word. Whatever it is, the Doctor is most at home when faced with the distinctly odd. With the help of Fetch Brothers’ Junior Receptionist Bryony, he’ll get to the bottom of things. Just so long as he does so in time to save Bryony from quite literally losing her mind, and the entire world from destruction. Because something huge, ancient and alien lies hidden beneath the ground and it’s starting to wake up…

Increasing numbers of parents grapple with children who are acting out without obvious reason. Revved up and irritable, many of these children are diagnosed with ADHD, bipolar illness, autism, or other disorders but don’t respond well to treatment. They are then medicated, often with poor results and unwanted side effects. Based on emerging scientific research and extensive clinical experience, integrative child psychiatrist Dr. Victoria Dunckley has pioneered a four-week program to treat the frequent underlying cause, Electronic Screen Syndrome (ESS). Dr. Dunckley has found that everyday use of interactive screen devices — such as computers, video games, smartphones, and tablets — can easily overstimulate a child’s nervous system, triggering a variety of stubborn symptoms. In contrast, she’s discovered that a strict, extended electronic fast single-handedly improves mood, focus, sleep, and behavior, regardless of the child’s diagnosis. It also reduces the need for medication and renders other treatments more effective. Offered now in this book, this simple intervention can produce a life-changing shift in brain function and help your child get back on track — all without cost or medication. While no one in today’s connected world can completely shun electronic stimuli, Dr. Dunckley provides hope for parents who feel that their child has been misdiagnosed or inappropriately medicated, by presenting an alternative explanation for their child’s difficulties and a concrete plan for treating them.