Brooke Romney is a writer, speaker and leader of an online community who helps moms of teens and tweens create meaningful, healthy and enjoyable relationships with their children through practical application, education and community. Her goal is for every family to feel confident and connected. The mother of four boys ages tween to adult, Brooke knows parenting perfection isn’t real and takes an honest and hopeful approach with her audience. Her best-selling book “52 Modern Manners for Today’s Teens” (Volumes 1 & 2) provides weekly tips to help parents and teens navigate the complexities of today’s world. The follow-up, 52 Modern Manners for Kids, will feature tips for kids and tweens aged four to 12 and is set to release this August. Brooke and her family live in Utah.
Key Takeaways
- Take Baby Steps: Handing your child a smartphone right off the bat (and at a young age) can cause a lot of issues. Start by sharing your phone. Talk about what apps they can and can’t use. Look at your screen time reports and adjust.
- Start with a media that you can watch together like YouTube to teach them about parameters and how to manage inappropriate online behavior.
- Model Social Media and Phone Use For Your Children: Show your kids what you're doing on your phone, whether it’s sending emails for work, arranging carpool or ordering groceries; parents can show the value of technology as well as the consequences.
- Talk safety and media literacy: Help your children understand how algorithms work. Teach them to be mindful of what they are encouraging in their feed and how that will affect their mental well-being. Help them understand how to spot misinformation and harmful rhetoric.
- Although your teen may be tech savvy, they do not have the emotional maturity of an adult. It’s ok if they get in over their head with social media to have them take a break from it.
- It is not you verses your teen when it comes to their phone. You are working together to find solutions and help them use their phone as a tool to live their best life.
- As parents, it’s important to create a working relationship to continue to talk with your teen about social media, what they’re experiencing, and how you can help.
- Let your teen know that if they are feeling unsafe or out-of-control with social media, they can come to you for help without judgement or consequences.
