Live your family's best digital life!

Introducing Season 1 of the Healthy Screen Habits Podcast. During this episode, Hillary Wilkinson tells you what's to come while exploring the healthiest ways to keep your digital use intentional.

Join us each week as we talk to experts in the fields of psychology, education, media use, and more!

Each episode includes a healthy screen habit to implement in your own home.

Show Transcript

Welcome to the Healthy Screen Habits Podcast. We're the first generation, to parent, while balancing screens. Each episode features insights, tips, and takeaways to help establish safe, mindful habits while living your family's healthiest digital life. Whether you're starting your parenting journey with a newborn or looking to connect with your teen on technology.

This is the podcast for you.

Welcome. This is Season One of the Healthy Screen Habits Podcast, a place where we take a deep dive into technology, how we use it within our families, and explore the healthiest ways to keep screen usage intentional. I'm Hillary Wilkinson. A wife, mom, educator, and lifelong learner. I'm also your host.

This is the pilot episode of the healthy screen habits podcast. In podcasting land what that means is this is an abbreviated look at what's to come-- a punctuation mark to put on your calendar. So you can look forward to episodes as they drop. You do that by hitting the subscribe button. 

This is our story of origination, our mission at healthy screen habits, and what to expect in the coming season. Healthy Screen Habits started as a passion project. We were a group of parents with varying professional backgrounds. We slowly realized all of our conversations surrounding child-rearing were starting to have the same nucleus. 

Screen time.

 We were in love with the ways technology connected our families over long distances. But not really sure how we felt about all the hours that we could get consumed. We loved the exposure our kids can have at their fingertips to educational shows, virtual museum tours, zoo exhibits, et cetera. 

But we were afraid of the exposure to inappropriate material that we also heard was running rampant online. We were curious about the effects technology was having on our children, our relationships, and our brains. As we began having more and more conversations surrounding the topic of technology. We decided to create a nonprofit organization that could pool our various talents, educational backgrounds, and resources. In 2018, we filed for our official 501 (c)3 status. And the rest, as they say, is history. 

Now healthy screen habits is a nonprofit organization committed to educating and empowering families to create healthy habits for screen use. We do this through raising awareness, providing tools, and creating change. We present at schools, organizations, and conferences. We provide handouts, tools, and templates and act as a resource for parents who are looking to gain more knowledge about technology's influence on the human condition. 

We believe that each family should decide for themselves how to best use technology in their lives. And we think the best way to do this is by going straight to the source. After being a guest on a variety of podcasts, I have become even more aware of the wealth of knowledge out there. There are amazing experts in all areas of technology and parenting that have information and ideas that are truly worth sharing. 

On our website, www.HealthyScreenHabits.org we answer questions. Everyone wants to know what age should I give my child a smartphone and how much screen time should I allow each day? What are the best filters to use on all my family's devices? We offer free downloadable tools and templates that allow you to design your family's best tech plan.

On our social media accounts, which are Instagram and Facebook @healthyscreenhabits. We cover relevant articles and social trends. We also do weekly bits such as Mom Tip Mondays and Words on Wednesday that offer helpful hacks on your own devices, as well as vocabulary translations to help you understand the world of tech slang and communicate better with your team. 

Our YouTube channel has a playlist of tech tips and videos that you can employ in gathering your own information, getting the best tech practices for your family. This podcast takes all of that information and acts as a springboard for what you want to know. I will be going straight to the experts with you and asking the questions that we all want to know. 

Each week we are going to talk with social workers, pediatricians, educators, and more. I want to speak to people who are on the front lines of mental health issues with our children and discuss the ways in which social media gaming and online interactions may or may not be contributing to the growing trends that we see of anxiety, depression, and suicide ideation. 

It's not all going to be pretty. But it's not all going to be bad news either. And each week you'll get a tip or takeaway that you can actively employ in your own home to create your best, healthiest screen habits for your family. We understand that we are the first generation of families navigating the waters of parenting in a digital age.

We also know that we're the last generation of parents that will be able to remember “The Before”. Before tech became ubiquitous and before smartphones entered every pocket. We are the ones that remember hanging out in coffee shops. And long hours of talking on the phone and the boredom of a summer afternoon. 

We want to understand what happens to the fabric of our families and our relationships when we start injecting technology into the threads of our lives. 

I cannot wait to get started. Join me next week, as we look deeply into healthy screen habits. If you haven't hit the subscribe button now, now would be a good time. 

This gets to be very important later on. You won't want to miss a single session or expert in what we're talking about.