← Healthy Screen Habits Podcast
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This is the perfect time to let friends and family know that your house is looking forward to receiving analog toys. That is toys that don't make noise, don't flashlights, or generally require batteries. Welcome to the Healthy Screen Habits Podcast. I'm Hillary Wilkinson. Whether you're starting your parenting journey with a newborn or looking to connect with your teen on technology, let's learn some new Healthy Screen Habits together. It's the bonus holiday wrap up episode. If you're getting this episode in your feed today, it's most likely because you are a dedicated listener who subscribes to the Healthy Screen Habits podcast. I am infinitely grateful for you. I am so grateful for every single download. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Truly. You have no idea. With all of your help, our podcast has been recognized as one of the leading voices in digital wellness. None of this would have been possible without you. Our mission of educating and empowering families to create their healthiest screen habits is only possible through the amplification of the work of researchers, parents, teachers and thought leaders that are doing the hard work. That's you. You are a thought leader. If you are here, you are on the bleeding edge of digital wellness and intentional parenting. I am on a constant search for new material and voices in this arena. If you think that the work that you or someone you know is doing could benefit from being feature on Healthy Screen Habits, please reach out and get in touch. We are continually building our network and would love to help you extend your reach. Now we are headed into the wonderful, messy, chaotic and enjoyable time of year known as the holiday season. If you followed Healthy Screen Habits for any amount of time, you know that all four founding members are moms. We have 14 kids between the four of us, so it will come as no surprise that this time of year we find it best to heed our own advice, live life intentionally and take a little break from the weekly podcast publication to spend this time focusing on our families. We truly walk our talk when we do this so the coming months have a fair amount of gift giving and receiving surrounding various holidays. Don't miss this opportunity to go public with your Healthy Screen habits and tech Intentional Parenting this is the perfect time to let friends and family know that your house is looking forward to receiving analog toys. That is toys that don't make noise, don't flashlights, or generally require batteries. This is the perfect season to reset your entertainment base for kids. You can create themed family gifting ideas by letting aunts, uncles, grandparents know that your child is maybe getting a toy kitchen and any Items that they think of to contribute to cooking up imaginary play would be wonderful. Or maybe you ask them for items to contribute to sports of all sorts. Or you could create create a sleepover at Cousins bag with special PJs from one person. Another person might add a sleeping bag or a toiletry kit. If you have artistic kiddos, there is a never ending need for art supplies. The idea here is to create opportunities for kids to exercise mentally, socially and physically. We are looking to get creativity going, create connections and make memories. If you are looking for toy ideas, there are many lists online that have great ideas for analog toys. You can use these lists by printing them out for your kids, give them a marker and have them circle the ones they hope to see under the tree. Or on your special day of gift giving. So you're kind of recreating that old Sears catalog experience of yesteryear. So you're going to take a picture of the circled items and send send that to the friends and family that are looking to buy something that will be well received. So with this pre approved list, everyone wins. Kids are excited to see something they picked out. You're okay with anything on that list. And gift givers get the feel good boost when they see your child's excitement. Win, win win. If you do letters to Santa. A great tip I heard was from my favorite veteran preschool teacher, Influen Sir. You can check her out on Instagram at brunch with Babs. The tip is to limit the list to four items. You give them the guidance to ask for something you want, something you need, something to wear and something to read. Older kids may be beyond this. The only thing that they might be relentlessly asking for is a phone. We do not recommend gifting phones. It sets a bad precedent for both gift giving and ownership. When you give your child a phone is a gift, it sends a mixed message. This is yours, but I control it. So you I mean if you give a gift of a phone, you either opt to throw caution to the wind, you gift them a new phone cart blanche and get deal with the fallout that will happen. It's not if it will happen when they spend too much time on it, get a crash course in pornography, deal with social media fallout, etc. I can go on, but I won't or it comes with so many strings attached as far as what's allowed, what's not allowed, etiquette, monitoring, filtering, etc. That what starts off as something exciting for your child becomes this point of resentment because you gave it to them. It's theirs, so save yourself a headache. Be intentional with phones. Introduce them as tools, not toys. Do not give a phone as a present. If you want something phone adjacent, consider gifting a phone case or headphones or something along those lines. So it will build the anticipation of getting a phone. But the phone is not the gift. Let's talk about some fun ways to incorporate technology into your holidays. My first one of like our go tos at our house is create a holiday music playlist. You have each member of the family contribute their favorite songs of the season. This has been such a hit in my house that my kids even do this with their friends. And it is very funny to hear what constitutes as holiday music to teenage boys. So I highly recommend it. You will enjoy it. Another thing is most towns have neighborhoods that have extra good light displays. You can usually find these on Facebook or the nextdoor app, or even some city websites will like advertise specific neighborhoods that are good to, you know, go go light viewing. So have your kids look up some of these and map out a route. If their mapping skills take you on a totally different direction than intended, call it an adventure, share a laugh, move on. Remember, this is how memories get made. Some of our worst camping trips are the ones that live on in infamy and get revisited in storytelling. So whatever adventure awaits, we remember that's your actual objective for the night. If you get to see some pretty holiday lights along the way, so be it. Okay. Another one is kids are awesome photographers. Their perspective brings really unique views to the world. So tell everyone to take between five and ten holiday themed pics. Put them all together for a slideshow that you guys get to enjoy together. And my last fun way to incorporate tech into your holidays is. I mean, can it even be called December? If you don't have at least one family movie night, make it extra snuggly, bring in the blankets, the fun snacks, watch a movie together and really use this as an opportunity to connect with. When you do this, you show your kids you're making them a priority. They know that they matter. It boosts self image, floods your kids with some oxytocin. Plus, I mean it's just fun. We don't have to get into all the science of it. It's just fun. If you are interested in listening to a certain topic or a past episode, please go check out our podcast playlists. This is sort of a library of all episodes. We've organized episodes into categories so you can easily find or reference what you're looking for you. Find the podcast playlist by going to Healthy Screen habits.org click on the podcast button and scroll down but most most importantly, from all of us at Healthy Screen Habits, we really wish you a happy and healthy holiday season. Thank you so much for your continued support and and we will see you in January. For more information, you can find us on Instagram and Facebook at Healthy Screen Habits. Make sure to Visit our website healthyscreenhabits.org where you can subscribe to the show and Apple Podcasts or via RSS so you'll never miss an episode. It's free, it's fun, and you get a healthy new screen habit each week while you're at it. If you found value in this show, we'd appreciate you giving us a quick rating. It really does help other people find us and spread the word of Healthy Screen Habits. Or if you'd simply like to tell a friend, we'd love that too. I so appreciate you spending your time with me this week, and I look forward to learning more Healthy Habits together. Sam.