Introducing Season 6: Tech, Tots, & Littles // Hillary Wilkinson, M Ed

Show Transcript

Happy New Year!! It’s the start of a new year and the perfect time to review habits that we may want to add, take away or prune a bit depending on the ages and stages of kids in your house OR the particular challenges you find yourself wanting to take a look at.

Interestingly - in my social media feeds I have noticed this year a lack of “New Year New Me” type posts.  It may be because it’s not yet the new year-  I’m currently recording on Dec. 30 so these posts might be coming next week and I just haven’t received them yet - or - could it be that the past several years have us feeling cautionary about planning anything?  I know in my house it seems like we don’t believe anything is going to happen until we are actually in process.  We maintain this sort of guarded optimism that things will work out but often - even still- we are needing to reschedule due to Covid, flu or other things outside our control.  The act of planning has sometimes felt like an exercise in futility.   We can only take so much until apathy takes over - and that’s not a great feeling.

So - to quote Brene Brown - let’s live daringly.

 Let’s plan for success. Let’s know that the amount of energy we put into something is directly reflective of the amount that we care about it and honestly - the amount of care we should all be taking towards upholding our mental health and connection with others should be huge.  Science and experience has shown us that the rates of connection we have with others are critical to battling loneliness and depression.  If you are someone who doesn’t find this connection to come easily thru human interaction I have great news:  pets count.  There’s a reason animal adoptions soared during the pandemic.  The oxytocin boost you get from hugging your dog or cuddling with your cat is real.  If you haven’t had a chance to listen about the human/animal connection and the neurotransmitters we share - do yourself a favor and go all the way back to Season 1, Episode 4 with veterinarian Dr. James F. Peddie. You’ll enjoy his stories of exotic animals and learn  about how the neurotransmitters that big tech uses to keep us engaged play out in the animal kingdom. 

We all kind of trend towards people with who we identify or relate to socially -it’s the nature of being human. It’s no mystery that the majority of my close friends are educators or people who work with kids.  What’s funny is I didn’t realize this about myself until my kids pointed out to me the number of kindergarten teachers in my inner circles!!

…this actually worked out pretty nicely when putting together this Season’s focus which is: Tech, Tots and Littles - much of my anecdotal research has been done over coffee or on the phone late at night.

 Now, even if you don't have littles in your family, the resources, tips, and techniques are really great at applying across all ages. 

I also have episodes this season for families with kids of all ages. So while, although the overall season has a theme of “Tech, Tots, and Littles”, not every episode is specific to the theme.  If you want to to get a preview each week with what to expect - try Following us on Instagram or Facebook at Healthy Screen Habits 

Our social media posts reflect what's happening in that week's episode. 

We have a great tool if you are looking for episodes on a specific topic : Podcast Playlists.

 Use these if you are interested in listening to a certain topic such as “ cyber bullying- or mental health and technology or even specific issues like pornography and how to talk about it,  or  social media use  or tweens, teens, and tech,  please go check out our podcast playlists. I’m really proud of the work we put into creating this library of all episodes. You can find whole playlists of episodes devoted to specific topics…. by going to healthy screen habits.org. Click on the podcast button to get the drop down menu and then click on episodes by topic.

I’m really looking forward to talking all about Tech, Tots, and Littles with some of the best experts in the country - it’s critical we spend time learning and advocating for those who can not speak for themselves …..yet.