Helping Kids Navigate the Digital Landscape

Janelle Peregoy shares helpful resources for parents who want to limit their kids' and teens' use of smartphones and other connected devices.

Dring. Dring!

Despite having our Tin Can (Wi-Fi enabled landline for kids) for months, its high-pitched ring still transports me back to 1998. My incoming 4th and 2nd graders do not spend mindless hours talking while twisting the vintage cord. They do, however, call their neighborhood friends for approximately 20 seconds to see if they’ll scooter with them.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently updated its guidance to help support children, adolescents and parents as they navigate a complex digital ecosystem (social media, AI, online gaming, podcasts, digital assistants and more). Business models ensure that algorithms reinforce compulsive use while generating even more data about children’s preferences. The relationship that some children and teens cultivate with screens may lead to real-world harm.

In early childhood, frequent screen use correlates with delays in language, cognition, and development of social skills. It reduces the opportunity for reading with loved ones, physical movement, and exploration. In school-aged children, misuse of digital devices correlates to unhealthy sleep, lower academic performance, reduced attention span, limited exercise, and risk for weight gain.

Teens may be exposed to inappropriate content that promotes self-harm, eating disorders, violence, or other dangerous behaviors. Negative effects may also include sleep loss, increased peer pressure, reduced exercise, and less time spent with family and friends.

At our Celebrating Your Love Retreat for couples preparing for marriage, current parents and future parents frequently raise concerns about these digital minefields. Parents and educators are savvier than ever about the perils of screens and social media use.

How Parents Can Help

The AAP guidance is balanced. It acknowledges that technology can offer positive outlets, especially in areas such as education, creativity, and long-distance social connection. Parents must take an active and engaged role in supervising digital use and ensuring that household technology is used appropriately.

Young children (0-5 years)

Real-world interaction is the most effective way for young children to learn.

• Encourage free play and outdoor activity because movement is critical for physical development.
• Find child-centered media content that promotes faith, learning, and social-emotional skills. Guillermo & Will (Family Theater Productions) are bilingual puppet friends who share silly antics, adventures and a biblical worldview.
• Healthy sleep habits begin early. Create routines (bath/showers, stories/books, family prayer, and cuddling, for example) that naturally relax children before bedtime.
• Watch media with children whenever possible. Use parental controls on all devices.
  
  

School-aged kids (6-12 years)

Prioritize balance. Screens should not detract from family time, academics or exercise.

• Delay personal tablets. Shared devices make it easier for parental content monitoring.
• Encourage new hobbies and activities. This is an ideal age to explore sports, music, art/crafts, nature and other new interests!
• Create locations (bedrooms, bathrooms, and other private spaces) and scheduled activities (meals and family nights, for example) that are intentionally screen free.
• Help kids build digital literacy: ad recognition, privacy protection, appropriate use of AI, health screen use, and more.
• Find like-minded parents who share similar concerns about smartphones. Wait until 8th pledges are increasingly common among parents and schools.

Teens (13+)

Mental health is a significant priority when considering screen use.

• Be vigilant about detecting changes in their teens’ conduct including shifting sleep patterns, irritability, withdrawal from family & activities or secretive behavior.
• Consider a teen’s maturity and sense of responsibility if allowing for a teen’s first smartphone. Use privacy settings and/or purchase a “dumb phone” with talk & text only features.
• Invoke “digital detox” vacations and outings for the whole family!
• Communicate openly and encourage non-judgmental dialogue. Ask to see teens’ social media accounts and favorite memes or videos. The more parents can share in their teens’ digital landscape, the easier it becomes to guide them in their choices.
  
  

Resources for Parents

• Parents should model appropriate relationships with their own screens. Discern if there are areas of growth.
• Create a family media plan.
• Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, focuses on our shared humanity in relationship to these greater concerns. Catholic parents should reflect on it.
• Book recommendations include The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt and 10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World by Jean M. Twenge, PhD.
• Catholic educators can utilize The Catholic Companion Framework, which offers a model for guiding technology integration through a Catholic lens.
  
  

Parents are their children’s first teachers and should model a healthy balance with screens. Discern whether adjustments need to be made. Then, enjoy some quality, screen-free time with family!

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Copyright 2026 Janelle Peregoy
Images: Canva