Get Started On Parenting In The Age Of Attention Snatchers: A Step-by-Step Guide To Balancing Your Childs Use Of Technology Brought To You By Lucy Jo Palladino Presented As Paper Edition

was an interesting and very challenging way to live, I am not sure I could do this and certainly the struggle all teachers have in the classroom would deny any student could either, Very brave. Very wise. Worth reading for those of us more aware and determined to live as a family not dominated by technology, Buy this book!


Okay, if you don't have kids, work with them, or care for them, you can probably skip this one,

But, if you have children living with you or you work with children, then you need to read this book, Technology, gaming, and social media are here and we can't realistically avoid them, But it's hard to know the benefits and pitfalls and if it's hard for adults, imagine the difficulty for children, and that includes teens, whose brains are quite literally still developing.



This book is not my usual fare for the blog but I saw it at NetGalley and had to have it, I hoped that, despite its emphasis on the family, I would find it useful as a teacher, Happily, I did.


What I loved:


The advice and information is firmly grounded in science and research, Numerous studies are cited as are YouTube videos apropos, no but we also get anecdotes from the author's work with children of all ages as well as visits to classrooms.



Palladino, the author, has a calm, sane, reasonable approach, There's no 'the sky is falling' nonsense, She accepts that computers, gaming, social media, etc, are here and it's the job of adults to help children learn how to manage their time and to make responsible decisions concerning technology,


I learned, a lot, Any book that teaches me something is a good one and this had a lot, The information about voluntary and involuntary attention alone was a mix of new and familiar, Add in the information about how computers affect the brain and its development and I have a lot to think about,


The advice and suggestions, while definitely aimed at families as the title says, are easily adaptable to classrooms, camps, and other environments where children of all ages spend time.



She respects the children, That alone is huge. Too many of the books I read, aimed at parents, show a distinct lack of respect for children, They try to 'fix' the child or address the child's issues only from the parental perspective, Palladino neatly navigates the tricky balance between the child's needs and the family's needs, While most of the advice given is to help the child, some of the advice she presents is aimed at the parents, to help them cope,


This is related to number one, Palladino clearly understands child development and it underpins her advice, Suggestions given are not one size fits all but each one is broken down by age, how to make it applicable and relevant to the different ages and stages.



A nice bonus for me is that I can count reading this book towards my required annual training for my teaching certificate, :


A few minor complaints:


A few statements and examples lacked context, For instance, she talks about a father trying to engage his son in interests other than gaming but disregards, initially, the son's interest in drumming, He, the father, stated that he'd noticed his son tapping along to music but thought it was a nervous habit, That confused the heck out of me because tapping along to music is both normal and common, Palladino provided no context as to why the father though this was abnormal behavior, I read it and thought the problem lay with the father and not the son context was seriously needed,


Occasionally the text was dry but that had more to do with the science than Palladino's style, Overall, her style was easy, clear, and witty,


Verdict:


Buy it, read it, use it, I'm encouraging my school to buy this book and use it, I think it would not only be educational for the other staff but a good foundation for developing an official technology policy, If you're a parent, teacher, guidance counselor, etc, I can not recommend this book enough,


Give clear and simple instructions

Do not play with your iphone when you are with your child

Practice active listening your child

Teach them how to concentrate Voluntary action

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Method: Do physical activity with them, Sports are the best type of voluntary action

,Method: While they are working, stay with them and work as well, If they see you working, they also will understand that they need to work and do not let the attention snatchers

AAP recommendshours of entertainment media per day

watch Tv with your kids to tell them the content and go online with them.
Watch some YouTube videos with them

popular video game: just dance, mario kart

choose outdoor holidays and vacations

celebrate success and appreciate your child's efforts Well worth a read to understand the difference between voluntary purposeful, e.
g. working on an assignment and involuntary aimless, e, g. watching TV attention, and how that impacts on childrens learning, The tone of writing is informative without being judgemental and there are some handy tips for helping kids learn to use screen time mindfully and effectively rather than obsessively.
There are no instant fixes but the framework is set out logically to guide parents through from the toddler stage to teens, Ive started using some of the simpler suggestions, like installing a time locking app on our iPad, and can see the value in longerterm planning for things like avoiding having screens in the kids bedrooms.


I did think there was perhaps a touch too much reliance on the model of the marshmallow test, in the context of kids being able to resist an immediate smaller reward in favour of receiving a larger reward later on.
A key finding was that there was a positive correlation between being able to resist for longer and better achievement in school in the long term, However, if you go beyond this initial study to resist replications of the classic experiment its been shown there are mitigating factors like the familys socioeconomic status SES that also need to be taken into account.
A child from a family with a low SES may not always have enough food so on a test like the marshmallow experiment theyre set up to fail because food is a scarce resource they dont know they can count on, and so theyll obviously take the immediate reward.
Then projecting to the future kids from families with a low SES often have greater barriers to accessing education, so their longterm school achievement will be lower than that of kids from highincome families who know they can rely on food always being available, so are less tempted by immediate rewards.
Some context about this would have been useful given the heavy reliance on this framework in the book, Foarte informativa. Probabil informatiile nu ar trebui luate literalmente dar cu siguranta contine sfaturi utile si indeamna la o abordare destinsa si decenta, جميل جدا يجعلنا نتفهم إدمان أطفالنا وإدماننا نحن على الأجهزة الذكية
ويسلحنا بالطرق اللازمة لتقنين استخدامها بذكاء وطرق التعامل مع الأولاد

شرحت هذا الكتاب في حلقات باليوتيوب باللغة العربية بعنوان
"التربية في زمن سارقي الانتباه"
قناتي Duaa AlDrees Lucy Jo Palladino's book, Parenting in the Age of Attention Snatchers: A StepbyStep Guide to Balancing Your Child's Use of Technology is a timely contribution to parenting in thest Century.
An update version of the classical Marshmallow Experiment, the technology devices of today are magnets to the Involuntary Attention of kids and teens and adults,

Palladino complements the traditional research about willpower with modern results in neuroscience, The limbic primitive system arm wrestling with the modern man's prefrontal cortex that develops during puberty and adolescence,

As a parent struggling with two kids of this age Palladino's work seems like a great tool yet to put into practice, It gives perspective and ideas on how to help the children learn how to get the advantage of technology while they learn to self control, to use their Voluntary Attention.
As Palladino says "Your child's ability to use an off button is quite possibly the most important technological competency she can learn",

For parents the book has two gifts, First it emphasizes the importance of the relationship between parents and children, Nothing is more important than a good relationship among them and many times our effort to reduce the abuse of electronics ends up deteriorating the relationship, Second it puts the finger on the responsibility of the parents, Often we feel offended by the responses from our kids without acknowledging our contribution to the problem, Beginning with using enannies to giving a bad example with our own habits and not being able to separate the action from the agent,

The seven step guide begins with an parent autoevaluation and as it goes helps us focus on priorities, changes of midsets, challenges, and results, Even though Palladino takes the parent back in the arena, it reduces the stress of the job by clearing expectations and giving tools to kindly cope with the frustration of setbacks while patiently celebrate the results.


As adults we have a great deal to offer our kids, Since our mental abilities are fully developed Palladino suggest for instance asking the right questions and providing the metacognition necessary to understand the big picture and long term implications of our actions.


Additional resources like the American Academy of Pediatrics Media Life Plan recommendations and references to more in depth studies enhance the toolkit provided by the book.


Technology is part of our lives, having the tools to focus and use them wisely is a challenge for all, but specially for kids who are learning to use their prefrontal cortex.
In the past attention snatchers were less exuberant but the plain mindwondering has always existed, Our evolutionary drag is a challenge for modern world, and electronics are just a new struggle field, Parenting in the Age of Attention Snatchers is a workbook to help our kids be successful adults and us happy parents,
This book was really useful, Palladino starts by differentiating between involuntary attention and voluntary attention:

Involuntary attention is captured by strong sensory stimuli, passive, and receptive, Because it originates in the brain stem amp sensory cortex, it's also known as “bottomup” attention, Were used to using this pathway, Its easy "the path of least resistance" and its kept our species alive,

Voluntary attention, on the other hand, is intentional and takes active effort, It originates in the prefrontal cortex and so is known as "topdown attention" or "cognitive control, " Initiating the executive functions requires this kind of effortful attention,

During most tasks, the two types of attention work together, although most screen time captures kids' attention INvoluntarily, Palladino recommends helping kids to develop an awareness of when theyre using each kind of attention, Practicing voluntary attention, she notes, can strengthen the PFC, If kids are only ever using involuntary attention, their capacity to focus on less stimulating activities can diminishor more accurately, never develop properly in the first place.


Some interesting specifics:
Reading is EXTREMELY important in allowing kids to form “deep reading” brains rather than just “quick scanning” brains,
“The biggest influence on how much kids read is how much their parents read, Nothing else has as much impact, not even household income, ”
Using voluntary attention requires the right amount of stimulus, You need a little to get started, but if you have too much, then you lose the ability to concentrate, Not getting started on homework may actually mean a kid is overstimulatedfor example, she may not know how to start or be afraid of failing,
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “, . . studies have shown that excessive media use can lead to attention problems Children and teens should engage with entertainment media for no more than one to two hours per day, and that should be highquality content.
”
Habitual gaming has been linked with low performance in school, but its only a correlation at this point causation hasnt been proven, In kids who already have ADHD, more than an hour of gaming per day can worsen symptoms significantly,

Palladino doesn't dispute that "screen time" of various kinds can be beneficial for children, She does suggest determining, as a parent, if a child's media use is interfering with physical exercise or homework, or if it might be causing him to lose patience for activities with less sensory stimulation.


Among other recommendations, Palladino suggests
gaming with your child and acting as a sort of media mentor
instituting a family mediause plan
instituting a media curfew and media "holidays"

I own this book and would be happy to lend locally.
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