Children, Technology Addiction, Parenting and the Future

More than a third of kids under age 2 have used a smartphone or tablet and three quarters of children age 8 and under live in a home with at least one such mobile device. Technology is changing the nature of childhood. Children now rely on technology for the majority of their play, grossly limiting challenges to their creativity and imaginations, as well as limiting necessary challenges to their bodies to achieve optimal sensory and motor development. Worse yet, when parents try to stop or control screen time, children react with defiance, disobedience, and in some cases, violence. Based on Dr. Young’s decades of research and practice, this course explores the new concern of technology addiction among children and adolescents. She shares her standardized “3-6-9-12 Parenting Guidelines” to integrate technology at home at each child’s age, the new IMPROVE Tool, an acronym for assessing children potentially addicted to technology, and her Parent-Child Internet Addiction Index that is used nationally.

This Introductory course provides five audios (transcripts provided for audios). Audios address diagnosis, risk factors, and treatment of technology addiction, Internet Gaming Addiction, and teen Internet gambling. Articles also examine the harmful impact of online use on developing brains that creates attention deficit problems and increased distractibility and alarming reports on how tech use impairs a child’s reading skills, social development, and increases the risk for obesity due to the lack of movement and physical play. Additional resources and references are provided for further study, but they are not part of the course.