Media Balance and Well-being Toolkit
To support students in developing an internal sense of "media balance", FCPS is providing guidance to families.
This Media Balance and Well-being Guide provides key points, guiding questions, and a toolkit of resources to help parents support healthy and balanced technology use in the home.
Anticipate challenges and take proactive action
Key Points for Parents and Guardians to Remember
- Anticipate student challenges and turn them into learning opportunities.
- Model, teach, and mentor students around appropriate technology use.
- Use reflective language that supports student problem solving when challenges arise.
- How is social emotional learning connected to technology use?
- What executive functioning skills might my child need to use technology appropriately?
- Center on the Developing Child: What Is Executive Function? And How Does It Relate to Child Development?
- When I have a concern about a school-related digital learning space, do I work in partnership with my child’s school to resolve issues quickly?
Ensure screen-time is educational.
Key Points for Parents and Guardians to Remember
When using digital media, look for opportunities to teach media literacy and character traits.
When using digital media, consider:
- The content.
- The context (when, where, why, how and with whom).
- The different needs of children in relation to technology and media use.
- The added value of the technology/media use.
- How can I learn more about the digital media my children want to use?
- How can I use digital media to teach my child about character traits such as empathy, ethics, or civic responsibility?
- How does technology provide my child with more control over when and where they can access learning?
- The Aurora Institute: What is Blended Learning?
Use Technology in a Goal-Directed and Purposeful Manner
Key Points for Parents and Guardians to Remember
- Technology use should be intentional with a goal or purpose in mind.
- Using technology to avoid uncomfortable feelings such as boredom impacts our ability to find productive ways to manage feelings.
- Do I support my child in using technology to set goals, plan, organize, and manage their time and projects?
- Resource: Portrait of a Graduate Family Resources
- Resource: Naviance Family Connection
- Florida Center for Instructional Technology: Goal Directed Learning Descriptors
- Do my children engage in purposeful digital creation, communication, and collaboration?
- Do I help my child identify productive strategies for dealing with uncomfortable feelings?
- Common Sense Media Video: 6 Ways to Help Your Kid Stop Multi-tasking During Homework
- Child Mind Institute:
- Common Sense Media Video: 6 Ways to Help Your Kid Stop Multi-tasking During Homework
Balance Online and Offline Learning Experiences and Materials
Key Points for Parents and Guardians to Remember
- Face to face and digital communication and collaboration are both necessary and need direct instruction, practice, monitoring, and mentoring.
- Children need opportunities to use a variety of materials for learning.
- Be mindful of the volume of digital media consumption.
- Do I actively prepare my child for online social interactions?
- Do my children have opportunities to use a variety of resources in different formats? (print, video, text, audio, simulations, arts and crafts, sports equipment, musical instruments)
- Does my child engage in a healthy balance of online and face to face activities?
- Google: Digital Wellbeing
- Apple:
- Healthy Children Tool:
- Create a Family Media Plan - plot a 24 hr day to help visualize how time is spent.
- Cree su plan para el consumo mediático
- American Academy of Pediatrics: Media Use Recommendations
- Common Sense Media: Device Free Dinner
- The Family Dinner Project: Conversation Starters
Prioritize active use of technology for creation, critical thinking, and collaboration.
Key Points for Parents and Guardians to Remember
- Favor activities that use technology for creation, communication, research, modeling and data analysis
- Promote active engagement where students are involved in critical thinking, collaboration, problem solving, and expressing
- Too much passive use of technology correlates with increased depression, anxiety and attention issues.
- Do I favor and foster opportunities for my children to actively plan, organize, create, and collaborate with peers using technology?
- Do my children actively use technology for activities such as coding, simulations or to research topics?
- FCPS Library Resources
- FCPS Coding Resources
- University of Colorado Boulder: PhET Interactive Math Simulations
- Am I mindful of the amount of time my children spend passively receiving information from technology?
- Florida Center for Instructional Technology: Active Learning Descriptors
- FCPS: Portrait of a Graduate Family Resources
- FCPS: Naviance Family Connection
Use high quality, age appropriate, and FCPS approved educational resources
Key Points for Parents and Guardians to Remember
- Use digital tools and other media that are an appropriate match for a child's needs, abilities, interests, and developmental stage.
- FCPS students have access to a library of approved tools and digital resources in the FCPS Digital Ecosystem.
- Do I teach my children how to select high quality digital resources that match their learning needs and interests?
- Do I help my children learn media and information literacy skills?
- Common Sense Media: What is Media Literacy and Why is it Important?
- Do I engage with my child’s school to learn about the digital resources available through FCPS?
- FCPS Library Catalog
- FCPS Library Databases
- FCPS Technology Resources
- Common Sense Media Reviews
- Entertainment Software Ratings Board: Video Game and App Reviews
Use routines to develop healthy habits for technology use.
Key Points for Parents and Guardians to Remember
- Technology can impact your health, much like nutrition, sleep and exercise.
- Use strategies to protect your eyes and prevent eye strain.
- Maintain good posture and body positioning when using a device.
- Become educated about potential negative effects of excessive screen time in terms of social, emotional, and neurobiological effects and methods to prevent them.
- Do I teach my children strategies for monitoring their body, mind, and eyes while they are using technology?
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Eye Health
- American Academy of Ophthalmology: Computers, Digital Devices and Eye Strain
- Ask the Experts: Eyes on Screens: Maintaining your Kids’ Ocular Health in a Digital World (YouTube)
- The Cooper Institute: The Impact of Virtual Learning on Children’s Vision
- Ergonomics and Posture
- Mayo Clinic: 9 Tips for a Healthy Ergonomic Workstation (YouTube)
- Ivy Rehab: Tech Neck - How Technology is Affecting your Posture
- University of Pittsburgh: Ergonomic Tips for Computer Users
- Environment
- Cleveland Clinic: How to Set Up a Comfortable Virtual Learning Workspace for Kids (YouTube)
- How to Create an Ergonomic Space for Your Child’s Virtual Learning Experience
- Better Health Channel: The Danger of Sitting: Why Sitting is the New Smoking
- Movement and Activity
- Take 1-2 minutes to move for every 15-20 minutes of sitting to promote blood flow and improve alertness and engagement.
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- Do I have routines and expectations for technology use that consider my child’s sleep, nutrition and exercise needs?
- Routine: Stop device use 60-90 minutes before bedtime
- Routine: Charge devices outside of the bedroom
- Routine: No phones at dinner
- Encourage frequent blinking.
- Increase text size or screen size as needed to reduce eye strain.
- Encourage your child to spend at least an hour outside every day to get natural light and multi-distance focal points to prevent onset and progression of nearsightedness.
- Do I teach my children self-regulation strategies and social emotional skills that will support safe and healthy choices when interacting in online spaces?
- Do I refrain from texting while driving to model what I expect of my child?
- Federal Communications Commission
Create and Consistently Follow Expectations for Technology Use
Key Points for Parents and Guardians to Remember
Create and consistently follow home expectations that address:
- What a caring and culturally responsive environment looks and sounds like.
- When, where, and what technology can be used and under what conditions.
- Care and maintenance of equipment.
- Do I model and foster a caring and inclusive culture when using digital tools and services?
- Teaching Tolerance: Topics and Resources
- Have I established expectations and consequences for technology use at home?
- Do I follow through with agreed upon consequences when expectations are not followed?
- Do I revisit expectations and consider a gradual release of control as my children show readiness and responsibility?
Actively Monitor and Mediate Technology Use
Key Points for Parents and Guardians to Remember
- Monitor your own digital footprint.
- Monitor and mediate children’s interactions in digital environments.
- Help children understand, interpret, and analyze what they see, hear and experience online.
- Model and teach self-regulation strategies for managing challenges when online.
- How can I arrange device use at home to best monitor my children’s use of technology?
- Do I monitor the collaborative online spaces used by my children?
- Do I help my children process the content, contact, and conduct they encounter online?
- Do I support my children in learning and applying self-regulation strategies when using technology?