We are some of the most powerful voices in our children’s lives, and we can help them discern what is accurate information versus misinformation or disinformation. Here are a few tips you can offer when coaching your kiddo on media literacy.

Spring is the perfect time for a clean start. And don’t worry, you can keep the feather duster in the closet for this one. Today, we’re sharing five ways to practice spring cleaning your digital world.

START Co-founder and Executive Director Tracy Foster was recently asked to participate in an expert panel for COSMO, a ground-breaking technology company that designs and builds innovative tech solutions to help keep kids safe and families connected. We love their COSMO JrTech 2 Smartwatch for a child’s first device.

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.

Max Stossel is the Youth + Education Advisor for The Center for Humane Technology—the organization behind Netflix’s documentary, The Social Dilemma. In this conversation, we get to pick his brain about how to talk to our kids about the “secret sauce” tech companies build into devices and apps to keep us hooked on our screens.

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.

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.

It’s spring! Time to clean out the garage, organize the closets, open up our windows and sweep out winter’s dust. But for many of us, clutter isn’t just found in the closets of our homes– it also gathers in the corners of our phones. So, just like tidying-expert Marie Kondo suggests getting rid of things that don’t spark joy, consider what a good old fashioned spring cleaning might do for your digital life and mental health.